Liberal Disconnect on Religion

The September 1st edition of MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry show provided yet another example of where liberal religious perspectives on faith are just as ridiculous, biased, and ill informed as conservatives. On a segment focused on Romney's Religious beliefs within the first minute or so Harris-Perry contradicted herself,

“[45 seconds] I do think certain things are off limits, making fun of magic under wear or odd beliefs.  I mean religion is quirky so lets put that aside … [1:05 seconds] and ultimately how his religious beliefs might influence how he wants to govern…” Huh? So, it's not okay to talk about the individual beliefs that some might find silly within the official doctrine of a given faith but you can talk about the that faith in the broadest terms possible? How does that work? What kind of meaningful analysis can you do with no details? I also find the use of "quirky" to be  a bit cowardly. There are plenty of aspects of religion that are intolerant, ignorant, authoritarian, and destructive. Shrug that off as "quirky" is, quite frankly, a despicable self-serving dodge.

She goes on to further show how truly disconnected this perspective is. She talks about the fact that official doctrine of the Mormon church, or as they prefer Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, endorsed racism right up into the early 1980s without mentioning the origins of that doctrine. It stems from passages within the Book of Mormon. It claims that the dark skin of some was to set them apart as defiant of scriptural revelation and therefore evil. Their holy book sanctions racism. The manner in which those revelations were made would be comical if they did not have such horrible effects. Most rational people should view the creation of the Book of Mormon itself as "silly" yet the faith is built on it. How is that not relevant?