Melissa Harris-Perry Explores Misconceptions About Mormon Religion With Mormon Panelists

Just as Barack Obama reached historic levels four years ago as the first African-American presidential nominee of a major political party, Mitt Romney has now reached that peak as the first-ever Mormon. And yet, in a poll this January only 56 percent of voters said the country is ready for a Mormon president. On her MSNBC show today, Melissa Harris-Perry dug into the specifics of Mormon beliefs and the religion’s ties to American exceptionalism.

RELATED: Bill Maher: We Need To ‘Get Over’ The Idea Of American Exceptionalism

Perry honed in on the idea that the Mormon faith is very much America-centric, noting that it goes beyond that by designating the United States as a holy place. There are six million Mormons living in the United States, and yet only half of all non-Mormon Americans know anything about the faith.

The panelists all agreed that there are a great many misconceptions about Mormonism, and not only that, but some people have a tendency to hone in on the “weird” parts of the religion and highlight them as

if to discredit them. Dorian Warren, an African-American Mormon, argued that popular culture and common perceptions of “myths” about the religion are why many people don’t understand what Mormonism really is.

Perry made the point that any religious text might come off as strange if read and interpreted literally, so singling out Mormons for this would be unfair. Brigham Young University professor J. Spencer Fluhman said that on the whole, religious people in the United States don’t really have that big of an interest in learning about the faiths of others. Joanna Brooks added that the Mormon stories are not being told to the public by Mormons, and so that’s another way people could be getting misconceptions about Mormon beliefs.

Watch the video below, courtesy of MSNBC:

Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac