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Washington • Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman on Monday called a Texas pastor a "moron" for his comments denigrating the Mormon faith as a cult and urged rival Rick Perry to disavow the rhetoric from the man who introduced the Texas governor at a Washington forum this past weekend.
Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress welcomed Perry onto the stage at the Values Voters Summit as a "born-again Christian" and later told reporters that Mormonism isn't a Christian faith and falls into a cult category.
The remarks were seen as a slam against the presumed GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, who is Mormon.
Huntsman, a former Utah governor and also a Mormon, told CNN it was unfortunate that Jeffress' comments were driving the conversation about the presidential race instead of letting the candidates focus on more important issues.
"The fact that, you know, some moron can stand up and make a comment like that — first of all it's outrageous," Huntsman said. "Second of all, the fact that we are spending so much time discussing it makes it even worse."
Pressed by host Wolf Blitzer on the reaction from other GOP contenders — who mostly sidestepped the controversy — Huntsman said religion should be off the table, and White House hopefuls should hold their surrogates to that.
"This kind of talk, I think, has no home in American politics these days," Huntsman said. "Anyone who is associated with someone willing to make those comments ought to stand up, distance themselves in very bold language and that hasn't been done. And Rick ought to stand up and do that."
Asked by reporters last weekend whether he thought Mormonism was a cult, Perry said, "no," but did not comment further.
Perry's campaign did not return a request for comment on Huntsman's demand.
Jeffress' church also did not return a request for comment, though he defended his criticism of the Utah-based LDS faith on MSNBC's "Hardball," saying that his comments are "not fanatical."
He clarified that he didn't mean Mormons are part of what people think of as a dangerous cult but a theological cult and outside mainstream Christianity.
"I believe Mormons are good people," Jeffress said, "… but I don't believe they are Christians."
Huntsman's comments come on the third day of controversy over Jeffress' remarks at the annual conservative gathering.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, earlier told MSNBC that he also does not believe that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are Christians. He said it was a fourth type of Abrahamic religion, in addition to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
But Land, who advised Romney to give a speech on his Mormon faith in the 2008 race, said there was no religious test for office and that Americans shouldn't just vote for someone who is an evangelical Protestant.
"We're not looking for somebody who wants a church membership," Land said.