Coffee Cups in Hell

[Gerald]

The Republican Mormons Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman may run for president, braving more questions about whether they wear the sacred undergarment and more resistance from evangelicals who consider Mormonism an affront to Christianity.

TLC just renewed its hit “Sister Wives,” and HBO’s popular “Big Love” just had its big finale.

On Thursday, “The Book of Mormon,” by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the scatological scamps who created “South Park,” and Robert Lopez, who co-created “Avenue Q,” opened on Broadway in a confetti burst of profanity, blasphemy, hilarity and rapturous reviews. Stone called the musical “an atheist love letter to religion.”

Aside from impersonating Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow at the 2000 Oscars, Stone and Parker are known for mercilessly mocking religion, celebrity, phonies and Snooki in their cartoon world with the four potty-mouthed fourth-grade boys from Colorado.

They pushed the limits at Comedy Central when they put the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit. But as Terry Teachout wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Making fun of Mormons in front of a Broadway crowd is like shooting trout in a demitasse cup. ... If the title of this show were ‘The Quran,’ it wouldn’t have opened.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/op...me&ref=general

Note: March 26, 2011