I'm 77 years old, have known and loved Mormons since I was 12 years old growing up in L.A. The girl I married was a Mormon-in-training when we met. She was 17 and I was 19 when we married and that lasted for more than 55 years until her passing in 2010. I have lifelong Mormon friends and that has kept me studying Mormonism for life.

Many Mormons do not know the full doctrine of the fully-Temple certified Mormon, but all I know are fine people who do good works. It is easy to love them, but my heart goes out to them as they are not Christians.

The Christian faith, in all its versions, is a monotheistic religion, sharing the same God with Judaism. The god of the Mormons was once a man who became god, was and is married to a woman, had many children with her, their firstborn being Jesus. But this man became god because he followed all the tenets of Mormonism on another world that also had a god like him, who came before him. And that god is one of many who followed the same process. By their own teachings, Mormonism is polytheistic. It has many gods and Mormons can attain Celestial Heaven and eventually become gods as well.

The God of Christianity and Judaism is a spirit who always was, is, and will always be. He was never a man. The Christian godhead is God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit... the difficult to understand of the Trinity. There is no "mother" in the godhead.

Since the LDS church has Jesus Christ in their name, they can well claim to be Christians, but not fairly claim to be of same Christian faith that prevailed from about 33 AD until today. Joseph Smith's creation of Mormonism in the mid-1800s does not qualify.

Please read this in the love I have for Mormons, especially the kids on bikes that I meet and encourage to read the Bible only and get the message that God so clearly implanted there.

However, in the presidential race we will see this year, if Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate, I will vote for him without hesitation. Our country needs to "change" from where Obama has led us and any of the Republican candidates will be an improvement.

VERN WESTGATE

Coeur d'Alene