As I began writing this at 7:02 a.m. Pacific time, no one knew who John McCain's vice presidential pick will be. The official announcement will be at 9:00 a.m. (noon Eastern time) in Dayton, Ohio.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was rumored to be somewhere in Ohio, and the McCain campaign has just confirmed that she is his choice.

Mitt Romney had a reception for major donors last night in West Los Angeles. He told the crowd, “I honestly don't know, and that should tell you everything you need to know.”

It appears that until right now, no one but a few John McCain insiders knew who the pick would be. If Senator McCain's goal was to create suspense and draw attention away from Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech in Denver last night, he sure seems to have succeeded.

Others will have much to say about Sarah Palin as the choice. Personally, I like her.

But right now my mind is reflecting on the whole Mitt Romney for President drama, from the perspective of a Latter-day Saint who has been following the drama, from the perspective of our faith and how it is perceived in the United States, for the last 27 months. It's all there at Article VI Blog.

The question that has been rolling around in my head this week is, Where are the denunciations?

In other words, as outrageous things have been said about Governor Romney's active, committed membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what has truly struck me is that no national leader seems to have come forward and denounced what is undeniably religious bigotry.

I hate to play the victim card. It is not something we Mormons do. We are not victims. Our church is now the fourth-largest denomination in the United States , and we are not going away anytime soon.

Even so, it is simply remarkable that statements may be made about our faith and its members that would not be tolerated about any other faith. Back in September 2006, for example, a McCain supporter in South Carolina named Cyndi Mosteller confronted Governor Romney and manufactured a news media story::

To me, Ms. Mosteller's stunt was not the story; the deafening silence from John McCain was. The Senator never disavowed Cyndi Mosteller's comments.

Another example: Joel Belz is the editor of World Magazine, perhaps the most widely-read Evangelical publication. Mr. Belz wrote an astonishing World piece, “Trifling with the truth,” in which he argued that Mitt Romney's changes in position on some major issues (“flip-flops”) were easy to understand, because Mormonism is a faith that, well, doesn't tell the truth:

If you're like me, those paragraphs alternately enrage you and shock you.

But again, I've never seen anyone denounce them.

Speaking of outrageous statements about Mitt Romney's Mormonism, Mike Huckabee got into lots of trouble for asking a New York Times reporter, “Don't Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers?” A couple of days ago Huckabee appeared on Rush Limbaugh's show, and this exchange occurred:

Once again: That's fine, as far as it goes, but what about the comments on Huckabee's own web site (which were not removed) referring to Mitt Romney as "Mormon garbage?" I wonder if comments calling Senator Joseph Lieberman a "sneaky Jew" would have been left on the site.

And that is what interests me: the absence of denunciation or disavowal. Governor Huckabee seems to have always put on the most innocent of airs about his own comments, but he has never been able to bring himself to say anything at all about the ugly comments of his supporters, much less denounce or disavow them. This seems to me undeniable.

It continues to amaze me that in the United States of America the general response to such repulsive speech has been silence, which I think is born of outright cowardice.

But now we will move on. Mitt Romney will enthusiastically support the McCain-Palin ticket. Personally, I will too. I will always be proud of the way Governor Romney represented our faith in the most difficult of public arenas. He is the most decent, intelligent, and kind man I have ever seen run for any office anywhere, I wish him the nothing but blessing and great things in the future. I hope he has a chance to serve our nation in some significant manner.

Meanwhile, we Mormons need to be glad we had such a fine person reflecting our highest aspirations for family and public service. We all owe a debt to the Romneys for what they have done. And we all need to shake off the feelings of anger and disappointment and surprise over the less attractive side of America we saw during the campaign. I'm convinced those indefensible attitudes and statements come from a very small segment of America . I hope we will all simply soldier on, living our religion and serving. Opposition may always be there, but . . . so will the Latter-day Saints.

Lowell C. Brown is co-author of Article VI Blog, http://www.article6blog.com, which is devoted to discussion and analysis of the religious issues surrounding the 2008 presidential election. Lowell is also a Los Angeles-based attorney who is a partner in Arent Fox LLP, where he practices corporate health law for institutional health care providers. He describes himself as an active, committed, convinced Mormon and has served in a number of callings in the Church, his favorite of which was Scoutmaster. The views expressed here are Lowell's own.