The Top 10 Everything of 2008

2. Never Count the Mormons Out

It looked like a bad year for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: in April police removed 400 children from he ranch of a small, breakaway and still polygamous "fundamentalist" tLatter-day Saints sect, resulting in some popular confusion when media reports did not make clear that the mainstream church had foresworn the taking of multiple wives in the 19th century. Then Mitt Romney tanked in the Republican primaries, at least partly due to the ambivalence of Mormon-shy evangelical leaders. But in a stunning show of discipline and unity, California Mormons heeded a plea by their church's President and Prophet Thomas Monson to support California's Proposition 8 against gay marriage. Making up less than 3% of the state's electorate, they nevertheless donated roughly half the funds for the pro-8 alliance. It prevailed and the Latter Day Saints regained some of their conservative mojo.

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