If they are, the Wall Street Journal isn’t reporting it. In the wake of Mitt Romney’s withdrawal from the presidential campaign, today’s Journal front page unintentionally sheds harsh light on a stubborn RTD (religiously-transmitted disease) in the American body politic.

The headline, “Mormons Dismayed by Harsh Spotlight,” begins a nearly full-page article — complete with a bad-hair photo of Joseph Smith — on the anti-Mormon bigotry in the U.S. and its effect on the presidential campaign. As reports often do, this one says more about the reporter and the mores of her community than about the ostensible subject of the story.

The headline itself is remarkable: “Mormons Dismayed.” Why only Mormons? If — as Peter Hart’s polling suggests — 50% of Americans are bigoted troglodytes, shouldn’t at least a few non-Mormons feel a sense of unease? Darwinians take note: If you want to find the missing link, New York Times exit polls suggest that a few weeks in rural (redundant?) Arkansas or Iowa should be all you need to bag one.

Digging beneath the headline, we find lots of Mormons — surprised, dismayed, outraged or amused — by the bad behavior of their fellow Americans. What’s missing? The article reports not a hint that any non-Mormon American feels the slightest bit of concern or embarrassment that in this “one nation under God” one group of loyal, productive Americans should be treated so disgracefully.

Also worth a look is a time line appended to the article. It notes how “Mormons were implicated” in the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre but that, in 1844, Joseph Smith was “assassinated by a mob.” That’s all it was. Just a miscellaneous “mob.” What the author omits — from her story about anti-Mormon bigotry — is that Smith was assassinated primarily because of his religion by an organized gang of pro-slavery Protestants aided and abetted by a weak-kneed Governor of Illinois and emboldened by defamatory statements made in the press.

But the pièce de résistance is the story of John McLaughlin & the McLaughlin group who — unless they change their tune — will go down in history as partners in bigotry with the likes of Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri. Boggs, in 1838, ordered the Missouri State Militia to “exterminate” the Mormons. Here’s the Wall Street Journal excerpt:

Mormon fury boiled over after [Lawrence O’Donnell Jr.’s] appearance on the “McLaughlin Group,” when he called Joseph Smith a pro-slavery criminal and rapist. . . .

O’Donnell’s assertions here were baseless lies. Smith was never a rapist. If O’Donnell had said this during Smith’s life, Smith could have sued for defamation. But O’Donnell is too much of a coward to say things like this to men who can respond. As to slavery, in a previous post I proved conclusively that Joseph Smith was a champion of abolition and civil rights — far ahead of his time. In fact, one reason Smith was assassinated is that he loudly opposed slavery in a place and time where such opposition was heresy. He was centuries ahead of O’Donnell whose words reveal O’Donnell himself to be what he pretends to hate — a naked bigot, locked in a bygone age.

Back to McLaughlin:

Mormons called on the “McLaughlin Group” to take action against Mr. O’Donnell. Host John McLaughlin decided that Mr. O’Donnell, who appeared seven times last year, will be kept off the air for now, says Allison Butler, the show’s managing director. Any apology to Mormons must come from him, Ms. Butler says. (emphasis added)

Really? What if O’Donnell had said that Martin Luther King was a rapist or that Anne Frank was a whore? Would John McLaughlin or Allison Butler just say, “Ah, if you have a beef, go talk with O’Donnell”? Not likely. O’Donnell would be looking for work right now.

What should America and the Mormons take from all of this? One clear conclusion is that for Mormons, just smiling and waving at the defamation doesn’t work. The quote of the day is from Elder M. Russell Ballard: “People were haranguing us on the Internet. I just felt we needed to unleash our own people.” High time.