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"    TAMPA, Fla. Mormons are Christians, aren&amp;#039;t they? After all, they have the Mormon Tabernacle Chorus. Not only does the Chorus do a mean Hallelujah, but Ronald Reagan said they were America&amp;#039;s Chorus. They have good-looking children with excellent teeth. They are pretty much over that extra-wives thing. Still, there is one small nagging question in the back of more than one delegate&amp;#039;s mind at the convention here \u2014 a question most are too polite to ask, a question that follows them right into the voting booth: What is it with that Mormon underwear? It&amp;#039;s a question Ruben Israel and his band of brothers at Bible Believers \u2014 &amp;quot;Preaching at big events for over two decades&amp;quot; \u2014 are only too happy to answer. Brother Ruben et al have brought a genuine article of Mormon underwear all the way from Los Angeles so that delegates may personally examine the offending garment in the halls of the RNC.  &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ll put on silky underwear when you put this man in office,&amp;quot; Brother Ruben calls out like a sideshow barker. &amp;quot;Why don&amp;#039;t you feel this stuff? This is real Mormon hooley underwear!&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s not like Romney is &amp;quot;some wacko-Methodist,&amp;quot; he explains, offering the underwear for inspection. It&amp;#039;s a thin, off-white garment of some sort of synthetic fabric, with a few small embroidered designs and several large holes. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s actually a female,&amp;quot; Ruben says with only the slightest trace of apology, as if he&amp;#039;s just up-ended the wrong hamster. And indeed there is a small bit of lace trim set into an edge of the garment. To members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, temple garments are sacred, worn under clothing to serve as constant reminders of the covenants made in temple ceremonies and of their personal relationship to God. They are not shown to outsiders, although occasionally individuals who have left the church show them in an act of defiance or disparagement. Brother Ruben says he gets his temple garments \u2014 and he has more than one \u2014 from Mormon apostates. The holes in this one were made, he says, when Mormons tried to rip the garment from his hands. There are, no doubt, those in the crowd who would like to get a better look at that Mormon underwear. But how would they explain it if spotted by someone they know? What if, God forbid and perish the thought, they were captured by a television camera or a photographer from the hometown paper? And so the delegates and visitors stand, affecting an attitude of both disinterest and Good Public Citizenship, hoping to get a closer look.  Karen Granville has no such worries. Karen Granville is not so much interested in the Mormon underwear as she is irritated by the fact that Brother Ruben and his compatriots are taking up her good American air. Granville is a retired nursing assistant from Daytona Beach and she&amp;#039;s come to Tampa at the request of her forty-something son, Kirk, who is taking a college course in photography. Kirk, who was born with spinal bifida and uses a wheelchair to get around, thought that in Tampa he&amp;#039;d get some good shots for his class. Granville eyes the Bible Believer display, its banners railing against Sin and Homo Sex, with suspicion. &amp;quot;Who are you kidding?&amp;quot; she demands. &amp;quot;When you die, you are going to be looking up through the dirt on your eyes, just like I am!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Woman!&amp;quot; thunders Brother Rueben in response. &amp;quot;You will live the Red Flame!&amp;quot; Now there are three things Brother Reuben doesn&amp;#039;t know about Karen Grandville. First, she is the daughter of the late Yvette Cormier, a longtime political operative in Maine. Known fondly as &amp;quot;Mrs. Democrat,&amp;quot; Cormier once filed a grievance with the state Democratic party after observing, during a tie-breaking vote at a local caucus, &amp;quot;Some people are holding up both hands.&amp;quot; Second, back in January, Granville was up at three in the morning, watching television, when she heard someone trying to vault her fence. The intruder was a carjacker being chased by police, and Granville used her .38 Special revolver to hold him until the cops got cuffs on him. Some details of the event remain unclear \u2014 was Granville watching Rio Bravo or the The Real Housewives or Watch What Happens Live when she first heard the intruder? \u2014 but one suspects Brother Ruben is not one to get hung up on the details. Third, Granville is skilled at what might be best described as the Granny Ass-Shaking Chicken Dance, wherein wings are wildly flapped and a senior posterior is shaken in the general direction of face of the offending individual. Once a rhythm ins established, colorful un-Granny-like expletives are thrown over the shoulder. Brother Ruben is only momentarily fazed after an &amp;quot;asshole&amp;quot; clips his left ear: &amp;quot;In my day, we didn&amp;#039;t let women carry on out like this in public. You need to clean up your mouth and go back to the trailer park!&amp;quot; Kirk Granville is his Momma&amp;#039;s son. And he don&amp;#039;t sit still for any Your-Momma-ing, even if the accuser has cut him out of the conversation and is addressing his Momma directly. He rises from his wheelchair, and takes one deliberate step forward. He is a large man, with orthopedic shoes that look like, if a leg could lift them, they could deliver a quite satisfactory kick to a face. He takes another step. One half-expects the recognition of a bona fide miracle right here, and maybe a few cries of Hallelujah in appreciation of Ronald Reagan and America&amp;#039;s choir. No such luck. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re legs are weak before God!&amp;quot; warns another of the Brothers.  Kirk takes still another step forward, and then another, and then another. He stops, and stands there for one long moment, staring down the Brothers. And then, suddenly, God has had enough. The skies open, and it pours. Bystanders scatter. Granville and her re-seated son retreat to the shelter of a bank awning. Brother Reuben stands there in the rain, holding the temple garment. A banner proclaiming HELL IS FULL OF BOTH PAGAN AND RELIGIOUS holds little shelter from the storm.  FOLLOW MORE LIVE COVERAGE FROM TAMPA ALL WEEK LONG RIGHT HERE AND WITH @ESQPOLITICS ON TWITTER &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a15568/mitt-romney-mormon-underwear-12188879/>