Description The Oakland California Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Photo: wiki commons.

No, this post isn’t about Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. It’s about a media group which fancies itself a champion of diversity, a defender of religious, ethnic, and racial minorities and slayer of all bigotries, yet will sell out such ‘principled’ journalism if a particular target is not to their liking.

An official Guardian editorial, US Republican convention: an ocean of difference, August 27th, launches a predictable rhetorical assault on Mitt Romney’s Republican Party on the eve of the GOP convention, but also goes a bit further.

In the context of warning that the U.S. – and indeed the world – is going to hell in a hand-basket if Romney emerges victorious in the November election, there is this paragraph:

“Going into their 2012 convention, the Republicans are a party in which there is no significant internal division over the claim that taxes must be slashed, that all government programmes other than defence must be cut, that the government economic stimulus should be undone, the federal pension system privatised, the federal healthcare insurance law abolished, that climate change is a hoax, that a high wall should be built along America’s southern border, that abortion in all but the tiniest exceptions should be a crime, that gun control laws are a threat to freedom, that civil partnerships and gay marriage should be outlawed, that Iran’s nuclear programme should be destroyed and more Jewish settlements encouraged in the occupied Palestinian territories. Oh, and a lot of them still think Mr Obama isn’t really an American too, while Mr Romney is a member of a church that believes Jesus travelled to America.”

The contempt for Romney’s faith, as well as the unwashed Americans who may dare consider voting for him, drips off the page.

I guess we can conclude that mocking the doctrines of a tiny religion – Mormons claims about 14 million adherents worldwide – is now within the realm of acceptable discourse at the Guardian.

Moreover, you don’t need to be even remotely sympathetic to the Republican candidate to be outraged by such audacious hypocrisy.  The world’s leading liberal voice, which is continually at pains to show respect towards certain faith traditions, when faced with an unsympathetic political figure, engages in an adolescent rhetorical swipe akin to schoolyard teasing.

But, heck, while were at it. Two can play their game.

Oh, and Guardianistas should know they read a paper whose associate editor is a unrepentant Stalinist.

But, wait, you say.  Is it not unfair to impugn the character and integrity of the entire Guardian Media Group simply because one of their senior editors belonged to a secular totalitarian mass murdering cult?

Yeah, well imagine how Mormons – adherents to a benign, peaceful faith whose history is free from the brutality of glorious revolutions – must feel!