Forum Post: Avenging Angels -- extralegal vigilantes -- was Mitt Romney inducted to this group ?
Posted 12 years ago on May 14, 2012, 10:14 p.m. EST by OccNoVi
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Was Mitt Romney chosen as a teenager to be an LDS community Avenging Angel ?
AVENGING ANGEL - a traditional Mormon title for their community enforcer and code setter. Mitt Romney gathered up a group of his friends and attacked a gay classmate, John Lauber, at Cranbrook School. Reportedly he told these friends including Matthew Friedman that “He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” for an effeminate hair cut.
This performance by Romney is exactly in keeping with the description of Avenging Angel roles in Mark Twain's book "Roughing It." The original human model for these community vigilantes is the individual depicted in this statue, Orrin Porter Rockwell (1813 or 1815 - 1878.)
Such men had life-and-death powers over transgressors in the Old West. They beat people up and killed more than a few. The modern LDS glorifies Mr. Rockwell as you can see from this statue in Lehi, Utah. Mr. Romney was raised in a house that surely asserted this tradition of extralegal values-based violence against outsiders and nonconformists.
Teenager Romney needed a gang to go attack Lauber. That was never a requirement for Ol' Port.
And lying about such a matter 47 years later seems to be 200 proof cowardice. But word comes in that Avenging Angels now take an oath of secrecy - another change from the 19th Century.
The attack on John Lauber was high risk behavior. He could have been expelled from Cranbrook School.
Did Romney believe by 1965 that his status as an Avenging Angel in training within his community demanded this action ?
Here's Doonesbury today:
http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/932712c081cb012f2fe000163e41dd5b
My, my.
"What the South needs now, is an avenging angel." -- John Wilkes Booth, April 14th, 1865
Booth admired the Mormons for escaping his enemies. But there is no connection to suggest that he had first-hand contact with Saints. His plot had no connection with LDS.
Here's from wiki:
-- "The Danites were a fraternal organization founded by Latter Day Saint members in June 1838, in the town of Far West in Caldwell County, Missouri. During their period of organization in Missouri, the Danites operated as a vigilante group and took a central role in the events of the 1838 Mormon War. Whether or not the Danites existed in the years after the 1847 arrival of the LDS in Utah is still debated. However, they remained an important part of Mormon and non-Mormon folklore, polemics, and propaganda for the remainder of the 19th century, waning in ideological prominence after Utah gained statehood."
Easy enough for the Danite movement to be revived. America's anti-communist organizations, particularly, went head over heals for survivalist and vigilante-based social networks.
-- Mormon literature suggests that today's Council of Fifty is composed of men who have this title, Avenging Angel. Seems there are more Angels by far than the older Council members. It's still a relatively small group.