Per an exclusive at The Daily Beast, Sue Emmett’s great-great-grandfather was Brigham Young, the founder of Salt Lake City, first governor of Utah, and president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) from 1847 until his death in 1877.

As an adult, she started having doubts about “the ethics and veracity of the church’s doctrine and its founders, including Young himself, and she grew increasingly concerned with the way, she says, the church treats women.”

Why bring this up? Well, for one, the guy who is about to become the official Republican nominee for president of the United States is Mormon, and Sue Emmett has a few insights to share about what makes Mitt Romney tick.

Via The Daily Beast:

Emmett has watched Mitt Romney very closely throughout his public life and has strong opinions about what shaped his personality and his character. “Mitt is a product not only of his wealth, but of an organization that gives men power when they are 12 years old,” she says. “That is when boys are ordained with the priesthood. It is a big moment in a Mormon male’s childhood.”

As for what pundits say is Romney’s difficulty connecting with people, Emmett blames it largely on what she calls “the entitled Mormon male syndrome, where the leadership professes compassion and concern but leaves the manifestations of that to the drones. All male leadership is not this way; there are some wonderful men who do their best to exercise their power compassionately, but many do not.”

Emmett says Romney was a bishop, “a position where everyone defers to you. What a bishop says goes. People come to them to receive blessings.” He then became a stake president, she says, which means he presided over several congregations, and at that point bishops deferred to him.

“Mitt has had people defer to him and not challenge him his entire life,” says Emmett. “In the Mormon church if you challenge your priesthood leaders it’s a very bad thing to do, especially for women. As the world can now see, Mitt has a very hard time with being questioned and criticized; he’s had so little of this in his life.“

Ever wonder about Willard’s flip flops about abortion rights? Well, according to Emmett, he got permission from church leaders in Salt Lake to change his position to that of supporting a woman’s right to choose once upon a time. When it suited him politically.

What else does he need permission for?

She also believes he has truth issues, meaning he has difficulty sticking to it, or as I like to call it, lying. This quote from Emmett is rather disturbing: “Some modern apostles actually taught that it is not always the best thing to tell the truth if it interferes with preaching gospel.” She referred to it as “Lying for the Lord.”

So he has permission to lie “for a higher cause.” Got it.

Ken Clark worked as a teacher for the LDS Church Education System for over 25 years and also served as a bishop before leaving the church in 2003. Here’s what he said:

“But what happens is when this becomes a part of your ethical tool kit, you develop a condescending attitude toward people. Like Ann Romney saying ‘you people.’ This idea of lying for the Lord gives you license to place people on an inferior level.”

Explains a lot, doesn’t it?