WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid keeps a copy of the Book of Mormon in his office just off the chamber floor on Capitol Hill. There's a second copy handy to give away to someone in need of spiritual guidance.
"I've had more than that," says the Nevada Democrat, pulling the extra edition from his desk drawer. "I have one left."
Reid is very active in his church, say fellow members in the Washington area. But that may come as a shock to some Mormon critics who contend that the Senate leader's political stands put him at odds with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The latest round of religiously charged criticism came after Reid told gay rights groups in a private meeting that the LDS Church's efforts to back the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in California was a waste of resources and hurt the faith's missionary efforts.
Utah Republican Party Chairman Dave Hansen posted a news story on that subject on his Facebook page, prompting several conservatives to challenge Reid's Mormon credentials.
Conservative activist and Utah blogger Holly Richardson said she found Reid's comments disconcerting and doesn't see how Reid's leftist political beliefs can align with the LDS Church.
"I just don't get how his politics translate to somebody who has LDS beliefs," Richardson says. "He's an embarrassment to me as a Mormon."
Reid, who in 2007 became the highest ranking elected Mormon in the church's history, says he has faced this attitude for years. And he's not offended.
"I think some of the most un-Christian-like letters, phone calls, contacts I've had were from members of the (LDS) church, saying some of the most mean things that are not in the realm of our church doctrine or certainly Christianity," Reid said last week during an interview in his office.
Reid converted to Mormonism his senior year in college and attends church just outside the District of Columbia when in Washington or in Boulder City when in Nevada.
He recalls a time when his grandchildren were trick-or-treating at a local LDS ward event and came upon a poster featuring a picture of the Devil and Reid, and the question "Can you tell the difference?"
When asked how he deals with the criticism, Reid says, "I try not to let people who do not represent the teachings that I have learned interfere with my basic beliefs."
Reid isn't the first and likely not the last political leader to face fire for personal religious beliefs.
An anti-abortion Catholic group earlier this year called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be ousted from the faith for her pro-abortion rights stand. A few Catholic bishops said during the 2004 presidential campaign that they would refuse Democratic Sen. John Kerry communion for his position on abortion.
Some questioned whether GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, would be too influenced by the LDS church were he elected to the White House last year.
"Having Mormons criticize Harry Reid, Catholics criticize Nancy Pelosi -- George W. Bush got criticism from Methodists -- it's not an uncommon experience at all," says John Green, senior researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
"It is a very tough spot that Sen. Reid is in," Green says. "It ought to be tough enough to represent Nevada (and be majority leader) without the religion angle and the religion angle just makes that much tougher."
Washington lobbyist William Nixon, who is also the church's Arlington Stake president, says Reid is in politics' most precarious position.
"Serving as a majority leader in either party is always difficult for politicians," says Nixon, Republican. "You need to be the spear carrier for your party even on issues that are in the extremities and that often is at odds with what's good politics at home or even how you may worship personally."
The LDS Church declined comment for this story but pointed to its statement on relationships with government.
It says that elected officials who are LDS make their own decisions "and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated church position."
And the church has made efforts in the past to dispel the notion that it sides with conservative politics. In 1998, church General Authority Marlin Jensen stressed that good Mormons can also be good Democrats. The late James E. Faust, a Democrat and then a member of the First Presidency, the church's top governing body, said it was in the church's best interest to have a two-party system.
Still, Mormon faithful remain overwhelmingly conservative. A survey released in July by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life showed that 65 percent of Mormons aligned themselves with the Republican Party or leaned that way, while 22 percent sided with the Democratic Party.
There are 14 members of the LDS Church in Congress. Ten are Republicans and four are Democrats.
But even some of the well-known Republican elected Mormons defend Reid as a faithful church member.
"He has the right to voice his opinions but I would under no circumstances challenge Harry's credentials as a member of the church," says Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.
Bennett's Utah Senate colleague, Orrin Hatch, says it's not fair for fellow Mormons to disparage Reid as anything but a devout Mormon. Hatch says he didn't agree with Reid's statement on the gay marriage ballot question but said he's entitled to speak it.
"I can personally tell you that Harry is a good member of the LDS faith and he was expressing a personal opinion that his side feels very deeply about," Hatch says.
Reid says church leaders have never complained about his political statements.
E-mail reporter Thomas Burr at tburr(at)sltrib.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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Interesting
It's always been interesting to me how hypocritical some people of faith can be. James E. Faust was a democrat and the church even released a statement condemning the overwhelming Republicanism in the church, yet idiotic members can't get past their own biases.
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