The Bible Belt Blogger (Frank Lockwood) has the story:

DES MOINES, Iowa — Forty years ago, while Mitt Romney served as a missionary in France, black men were not allowed to set foot in a Mormon temple.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints barred black men from the priesthood, which is conferred on virtually all faithful white Mormon men and boys ages 12 and up.

As a result, blacks were not allowed to become missionaries, to distribute the Lord’s Supper, to have their marriages “sealed for time and eternity” or to serve as elders, bishops, apostles and prophets.

It abandoned those policies in 1978, but not the scriptures that undergirded them. Its teachings will likely become a thorny campaign issue if former Massachusetts Gov. Romney becomes the Republican presidential nominee, Mormon America author Richard Ostling predicted this week.

“I think it’s going to be used in some way by the Democrats, whether it’s a full-force public argument or whether it’s a whispering campaign or whether it’s something in between,” said Ostling, a former Time magazine and Associated Press religion writer. “I have to believe the Clinton apparatus has a bulging file on Mormon racial history.”

A Democratic National Committee spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

The church’s racial doctrines could alienate core Democratic constituencies, in addition to some conservative Catholics and evangelicals, Ostling said.

Passages in the Book of Mormon say dark skin is a sign of divine disfavor and a punishment from God. The church’s sacred writings describe mixed-race offspring as accursed and portray dark-skinned American Indians, for example, as “loathsome” and “an idle people full of mischief.”

Mormons believe that these passages are the word of God, as sacred as the Bible itself.

Good Mormons do not believe the ban on blacks was immoral, Brigham Young University religion professor Robert Millet said, adding, “It isn’t something we’re ashamed of. It isn’t something we feel was inappropriate.”

Mormons, Millet said, believe they were obeying God by barring blacks. Precisely why God wanted the church to discriminate is not clear, he said.

“We’re a forward-looking church, and we don’t look back around that period. We look forward,” Millet added.

Read Frank Lockwood’s full story here.