Evangelical blogger Hugh Hewitt, a law professor at Chapman University and a noted conservative blogger, had this to say recently to a group of evangelical theologians as reported in the Associated Baptist Press:

He cautioned against disparaging or inappropriate comments about Romney's faith. Every theological or philosophical argument evangelicals use against a Mormon candidate or Mormon theology will eventually be used against evangelicals, he said.

"Many in this room in the next year to year-and-a-half will be asked by students and the media, 'What do you think about Mitt Romney?'" he said, adding that once "secular absolutists" get them to talk about theology, they open themselves to attack. "If we begin to ask Mitt Romney about which [Morman] practices and doctrines he subscribes to, it cannot be capped. It will not be stopped."

According to Hewitt, most people have three main objections to Romney's presence, should he win the election: that Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City will control the White House, that a Mormon president will energize Mormon missionaries around the globe, and that it's "irrational" to be a Mormon.

All three concerns, Hewitt said, are unfounded. And if people see evangelicals bashing Mormons for their unique beliefs, the thinking goes, secular leaders will turn their own argument against evangelicals seeking the presidency.

"They do not want us in politics and in the public square because they believe us widely to be irrational," he said. "It would be tragic to me that in the course of rushing off to do battle with Mormon theology, you attract our common opponent," the secular absolutists.

Hewitt knows his history. Legal historian Sarah Barringer Gordon noted the eventual ramifications to Evangelical Protestantism the last time they attacked the LDS Church en masse--the antipolygamy period of the late 19th century--in her book, "The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America" (p. 233):

"In the twentieth century, however, secular rationality and disestablishment undermined many of the constitutional principles antipolygamists believed in and fought for. The distinction in constitutional law between "belief" and "action," once so useful in the prosecution of polygamists, was turned against believing Protestants in the twentieth century. The Word was buffeted: school prayer and Bible reading have formally been excised from public education; questions of the origins of human life challenge the "literal" truth of Genesis and have profoundly affected public education. Abortion, parochial school funding, and many more questions divide twenty-first century Christians. Marriage, now, is impermanent everywhere as a matter of law. "Consent" divorce is the rule. Sunday closing laws are a distant memory. "Unlawful cohabitation" laws are unenforced. Blasphemy is no longer prosecuted. Same-sex commitment ceremonies are performed by Christian clergy...Frequently, conservative Christians find their faith exists in tension with the secular rationality tht looked like a safe harbor in the nineteenth century. Many find themselves agreeing with Mormons more often than they disagree, especially on questions of "family values."