Many important questions remain to be answered as we head into the 2012 presidential election. Can President Obama regain the trust of the American people? Is there a dark horse candidate who has yet to announce his or her (you betchya!) candidacy? Does Mitt Romney wear magic underwear?

It’s an important question because former Gov. Romney could be our next president and I believe it’s important for the American people to know if their leader thinks his underwear are magic. (Not in the way President Kennedy or Clinton’s were magic, mind you.)

Romney has not addressed the magic underpants issue publicly. I can understand why. The last thing any presidential candidate wants people talking about is his underwear, with the possible exception of Ron Paul, who would no doubt use it as an excuse to pivot attention towards the economy’s underwear, The Fed.

Let’s assume, just for the heck of it, because this is the Internet so what the hell, that Mitt Romney is a devout Mormon and that he wears Mormon underwear. Well, what does that mean? The question we must first ask is what are Mormon underwear? What do Mormon underwear do? Mr. Committee Chairman, what does Mitt Romney know about Mormon underwear, damn it, and when did he know it?!?

You can read about Mormon underwear (AKA temple garments) all over the Internet. Because I have such a passion for the topic, and wanted a deeper understanding of this very important issue, I interviewed someone who once wore magic underwear.

I invited Brian Dalton on my podcast earlier this year to promote his Web series Mr. Deity. Dalton is a former Mormon. He studied theology, is an expert on religion and is now, he says, as a result of his studies in theology, an atheist. Because I am fascinated by both magic and by underwear, I asked Dalton a series of questions about Mormon underwear. Looking back, some of the questions were silly. But hey, it’s a comedy podcast. If the LDS Church can survive Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s The Book of Mormon, I think it can survive this.

I’ve edited the transcript below. If you ever wondered what Mormon underwear are, I present to you the following (pun intended) brief.

Q-and-A with Brian Dalton
At this point we were about 25 minutes into the show. Sean Kearney, the other guy quoted here, is one of my co-hosts.

Joe Donatelli: What’s with the magic underwear?

Brian Dalton: The magic underwear – think of Adam and Eve’s clothes that God gave them after the fall. There is so much mythology around them that I never clearly understood what they are. They have certain markings on them. Joseph Smith was a mason and stole a lot of the temple ceremony from the masonic lodge. There are some masonic markings over both breasts and the right knee and the stomach. You make those when you go in (the temple) and wear these things. They’re not too far off from the types of things Jews wear to remind themselves of their duties to God. They pretty much wear them all the time and they’re very unattractive. That’s the worst thing I could probably say about them.

JD: Did you have to wear them?

BD: Yes, I did.

JD: Would you wear them in lieu of “normal” underwear every day?

BD: Yeah, it’s like a T-shirt. The pants come down to just below the knee. There is a little marking on the knee about bending the knee to Christ.

JD: What happens when you put on shorts or go to the beach?

BD: You have to have long enough shorts to go. If you’re at the beach and you’re going to be swimming, you can take them off. There are nuts who never take them off. There are people who will shower one half of their body with the other side still on. I don’t know that that’s true, but I certainly heard the stories.

JD: Do women wear magic bras with magic panties?

BD: Generally you wear bras over the underwear. It is just horribly unattractive.

JD: Was there ever a time your magic underwear were dirty and you had to put on regular underwear? Or did you always have an ample supply?

BD: I don’t recall ever being, like, out.

JD: I run out of regular underwear all the time. It would definitely be a concern for me.

Sean Kearney: Where do you buy magic underwear?

BD: There are special Mormon stores. You have to have a temple recommend and show your temple recommend.

JD: What is a temple recommend?

BD: If you’re going to go into one of the big temples – they’re everyday churches, but they’re big temples.

JD: A civilian can’t just walk into one.

BD: No, no, no. You go through an interview and you have to be paying your tithing and be doing X,Y and Z and you can’t be drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes or drinking beer and then they give you your temple recommend and you can go to one of these places and get your stuff. There’s all kinds of special clothing that you wear in the temple as well.

SK: Is it all white?

BD: Not all of it. Almost all of it is. There is a green thing that is usually patterned with leaves that is symbolic of the leaves that Adam and Eve wore. It’s a very symbolic kind of thing that goes on in (the temple). It’s nothing awful. It’s boring as hell. That’s the worst thing you can say about it. You get up and down a lot during a (ceremony). I was in a music group with a partner of mine and we did an album of music and he would always fall asleep and I would have to nudge him back up.

JD: Mitt Romney is running for president and no one has addressed, directly, the quirks of Mormonism in a major interview.

BD: The question I want to ask him is does he believe that God punishes people by darkening their skin? That is a fundamental tenant of Mormonism and the Book of Mormon.

JD: By darkening their skin before they’re born or while they’re alive?

BD: You can be sent down into a dark-skinned body because you were bad in a previous life. Or you become bad here and the Book of Mormon story has people coming here and two brothers are evil and the two brothers who are evil are cursed with the dark skin.

Um, wow
So, I guess, there’s also that, which actually seems like a much bigger story than the magic underwear thing.

Governor?

In any case, it was an enlightening interview. To learn more about Mormonism, atheism, religion and Mr. Deity, check out Second Column episode 174 and our interview with Brian Dalton. It is currently the most-downloaded episode in the history of our show.

And now for a video…
Here is a somewhat-entertaining video I found about magic Mormon underpants from Australian television. It’s good for if you want to see what Mormon underwear actually look like. On an Australian entertainer.

More:

– A website has published what is believed to be the first photo of Mitt Romney’s underwear.

– The bad news: The Florida GOP debate failed to make Romney’s underwear an issue. The good news: USA Today acknowledged Mitt Romney and underwear in the same story.

– Interesting development in the world of Mitt Romney’s underpants. Examiner Liz Brown writes: “Howard Stern says he only needs Mitt Romney to answer one question to find out whether he’s fit to be the next President of the United States–and it’s not about his magic underwear.”

– Americans want to know what’s going on in Mitt Romney’s pants. Specifically, they want to know if the presidential candidate, who is Mormon, wears what non-Mormons often refer to as “magic” underwear. Mitt Romney, it seems you have an underwear problem.

–  Lots to catch up on in the world of Mitt Romney’s underpants, so let’s get right to it. Here’s a roundup of recent magic underpants news.

– The search for answers about Mitt Romney’s underwear has expanded to Twitter, where @AmericaNeedsMR has taken your humble correspondent and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to task for our pursuit of the truth about Mitt Romney’s underpants.

– Maureen Dowd is asking the tough questions! The New York Times columnist used her column to ask Richard Bushman, a Mormon who is a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, about what I believe to be the most important issue in the 2012 election — Mitt Romney’s underpants.

– Here it is. The first official Mitt Romney Magic Underpants Watch—one journalist’s attempt to bring attention to the crucial issue of whether or not the next leader of the free world believes he wears magic underwear.