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SALT LAKE CITY — Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has taken a lot of heat during the campaign cycle for being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sen. Orrin Hatch commented Tuesday that President Barack Obama will likely "throw" Romney's religion into his campaign tactics.
And while the criticism of Romney's faith has been a topic of conversation over the last four years, few have attacked Mormonism as much as MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, who on Tuesday called Mormonism an "invented religion."
O'Donnell criticized the church, making inaccurate claims about the church's founding and attacked Romney for believing in Mormonism.
"Mormonism was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it," O'Donnell said on his MSNBC show. "Forty-eight wives later, Joseph Smith's lifestyle was completely sanctified in the religion he invented to go with it. Which Mitt Romney says he believes."
Mormonism was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it.
–Lawrence O'Donnell
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly responded by questioning O'Donnell's "smear" comments, saying if O'Donnell had done the same about Islam or another religion, he would have been immediately fired.
However, Tuesday's rant was not the first time O'Donnell has made comments about Romney and the Mormon church. In 2009, O'Donnell wrote in the Huffington Post:
"The more you know about Romney's religion, the more you want to ask him questions about it. Your religion was founded by an alcoholic criminal named Joseph Smith who committed bank fraud and claimed God told him polygamy was cool after his first wife caught him having an affair with the maid and who then went on to have 33 wives, and you really believe every word that he said and wrote?"
O'Donnell continued: "The Mormon thing has done a fine job of diverting attention from the flip-flopping. Romney knows he can use the Mormon thing whenever he wants without fear of getting trapped in an uncomfortable question."
Following Romney's 2007 speech about being a Mormon, O'Donnell said: "This was the worst political speech of my lifetime. Because this man stood there and said to you ‘this is the faith of my fathers.' And you, and none of these commentators who liked this speech realized that the faith of his fathers is a racist faith. As of 1978 it was an officially racist faith, and for politcal convenience in 1978 it switched."
