So we may yet have a Mormon, Senator Mitt Romney, as the Republican contender for the White House.
Forty or so years ago this would have led to a perceived clash of loyalties: 'Who runs America?' — remember the fuss about John F. Kennedy's Catholicism? But now, due no doubt to the declining impact of religion generally, the senator's membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been the least of his troubles.
Not quite all Americans regard the issue as of no concern. Conservative evangelicals — those on the far right of the religious right — see the LDS church as a hotchpotch of heresies, based largely on private revelation, and therefore offensive to biblical Christianity. More liberal elements see it as a phantasm of fairytales; essentially harmless, almost entertaining, with an appeal to history as the first (and only?) native born American religion.
On the 'plus' side is the Mormons' patriotism, defence of family values, and promotion of health and fitness. In Salt Lake City, when I was there as a guest of Mormon leaders, the officials who welcomed me were waxing lyrical about the Australian 'Norm, the couch potato' TV adverts, which they were hoping to import.
On a leg of the journey I found myself next to a businessman who was regarded as the city's Jewish community leader. 'I live in the only place where Jews are Gentiles and Gentiles are Jews,' he quipped.
My week as a guest of the LDS could not have been better timed. The movement's world leader, who is also 'Prophet, Seer and Revelator', had just decreed 'by revelation' that black Americans could henceforth be accepted as full members. It was an interesting end to a long simmering controversy.
I spoke to some of those affected, who shed tears of joy. One of them told me he would have remained content, if fate and the church had thus decided, to remain on the outside looking in. A few days later I had a personal audience with President Spencer Kimball. I remember thinking: 'This puts papal infallibility in the shade.'
During my first few days in this fair city I was struck by the cleanliness of the streets, polite behaviour of the inhabitants, the pretty girls with their 1950s style gingham dresses. Rather like a science fiction film. After a while I was so brainwashed that I noticed how scruffy were the outsiders as they stepped out of