What I want is to respectfully and civilly (as per the board rules) discuss religious topics in the Religion Forum within the context of religion, not, like the rest of this board, in the context of politics. Politics is often the furthest thing from the minds of most Latter-day Saints. We want politicians and bureaucrats to safeguard our consitutional rights, and stay out of our faces.

I would have to agree.

Mainstream Christianity only tolerates LDS and Jehovah's Witnesses(also), because they aren't a big threat to the attendance of their churches. If LDS and JWs started growing in great numbers, they would wage a spiritual war against them.
Why do you think Mitt Romney is NOT McCain's running mate?

I'll ignore the political opinion that has no factual references attached to it.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fourth largest church in the USA and is one of the fastest growing Christian denominations in the world.

But you are correct, there is a war of words being waged against the Latter-day Saints and some leaders of some denominations are involved in it. At the foundation of much of that is a lucrative publishing industry that produces and distributes huge mounds of misinformation about "Mormons" with no regard to the truth whatsoever, just to their pocket books. Many ministers of religion buy into anti-Mormon media and perhaps sincerely, not realizing that they have been deceived about the Saints, instruct their congregants who then zealously go out and join the fray.

It's sad to me that fellow followers of Jesus Christ would act that way, but although the Lord's Church has and will continue to experience much opposition, this time the prophecies are that it will not fail.

This appears to contradict your defense of Mormon political activism against what you perceive as the threat of "secular" government. Are you now saying that Mormons are apolitical?

How is, for example, the CSC's decision in your face? No Mormon, gay or otherwise, needs to get married if he or she doesn't feel like it. The storm troopers are not going to come in and rewrite your rules for you. You can practice your faith as you always have.

It simply means that people who don't believe as you do will have an option that they didn't have before. If this is somehow an affront to Mormons I would suggest that they need to evangelize more and use the power of persuasion to win people to their way of thinking rather than attempting to use the power of the state to force them to comply with the Mormon will.

You're generalizing about 13,000,000 people scattered all over the world. Some may be more interested in politics than others, but what binds us to each other as a group is our religious beliefs and practices, not politics.

It's not "secular government" that is a threat to Christianity, Americans have lived with and treasured the separation of church and state for centuries, that is one of the key ingredients that has made this nation so great. What is a threat to Christians is when the state intrudes on things that are best left to religion and forces the acceptance of the immoral values and lifestyle choices of minority groups upon an unwilling people.

From my point of view you have reversed what is happening in California. It is the power of the state (embodied in several elitist judges) that is forcing Americans to comply with the will of the judges and favor a tiny minority group. The state has taken nothing away from that minority group. In the view of Christians however, giving that minority group special rights and privileges they have never had before would normalize behavior that Christians consider to be immoral and sinful.

Homosexuals continue to have the option of living together. It is the majority of Americans who believe that the traditional family: father, mother, sons, daughters is the basic unit of society who are having their centuries long beliefs and lifestyle aggressively and forcefully challenged and imposed upon by the state.

http://www.lds.org/pa/display/0,17884,4644-1,00.html

Women play an integral role in the work of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While women are not ordained to the priesthood in the Church and do not therefore officiate in rites such as blessing the sacramental emblems or baptizing, they serve in senior leadership positions and as missionaries and teachers, and they routinely preach from the pulpit and lead congregational prayers in worship services.

Motherhood and the nurturing of children are held in special respect in the Church, and many Mormon women who make this their first priority also achieve prominence in later life in business, education, medicine and other endeavors.

Relief Society

The main organization for women in the Church is the Relief Society, which was founded in 1842. Today the organization includes more than 5.5 million women ages 18 and older in over 170 countries.

Every Sunday the Relief Society holds a one-hour meeting for women as a part of regular Sunday services. The meeting provides religious instruction and helps women teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to their families in their own homes.

Members of Relief Society also help those in need by providing meals, clothing and other necessities. In addition, women participate in a literacy program to help others learn reading and writing skills.

• The Relief Society has a unique program called "visiting teaching" to provide a support network for women in the Church. Each woman is assigned two other women who visit her home each month to give a religious message and offer help if needed.
• “Home, family, and personal enrichment meetings” also provide opportunities for women to meet together outside of Sunday meetings and participate in activities such as book clubs, classes on parenting and homemaking skills, service projects and social events.

The Focus of Our Faith
We know not all that lies ahead of us. We live in a world of uncertainty. For some, there will be great accomplishment. For others, disappointment. For some, much of rejoicing and gladness, good health, and gracious living. For others, perhaps sickness and a measure of sorrow. We do not know. But one thing we do know. Like the Polar Star in the heavens, regardless of what the future holds, there stands the Redeemer of the world, the Son of God, certain and sure as the anchor of our immortal lives. He is the rock of our salvation, our strength, our comfort, the very focus of our faith.

In sunshine and in shadow we look to Him, and He is there to assure and smile upon us.

He is the central focus of our worship. He is the Son of the living God, the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten in the flesh. He is “risen from the dead, … the firstfruits of them that slept” ( 1 Corinthians 15:20). He is the Lord who shall come again “to reign on the earth over his people” (D&C 76:63; see also Micah 4:7; Revelation 11:15).

None so great has ever walked the earth. None other has made a comparable sacrifice or granted a comparable blessing. He is the Savior and the Redeemer of the world. I believe in Him. I declare His divinity without equivocation or compromise. I love Him. I speak the name of Jesus Christ in reverence and wonder. He is our King, our Lord, our Master, the living Christ, who stands on the right hand of His Father. He lives! He lives, resplendent and wonderful, the living Son of the living God.

Gordon B. Hinckley, former President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints



http://jesuschrist.lds.org/SonOfGod/eng/te...of-jesus-christ

Speaking as an ex-mormon (I dropped that shit right after I read the BOM and thought to myself; "that crazy bullshit is what I'm supposed to believe?!") that still lives in Utah, I'd just like to say, your religion disgusts me.


Actually ALL religions disgust me, I just know the mormon church a little better than the rest.

1. This whole board is a political board. Everything on it exists within a political context, including this forum, and this thread.

2. Only hypocrites and tricksters want to divorce politics and religion. Behavior (politics) and values (religion) are inherently joined by ethical and moral mandate, and should be consistent ... otherwise, there is hypocrisy, deception, manipulation, and, ultimately, unrighteous dominion (which, unfortunately, seems to be your barely latent goal).

Translation:

we want politicians and bureaucrats to get all involved in our and others' business when it serves our agenda (i.e. economic, political, social, and religious domination), and then butt out when doing so gets in the way of us having our way and getting what we want.

Conservatives want to have their cake and eat it too.

Doesn't work that way, justamere10. Sorry. As a Latter Day Saint, I think you really should know that ...

Readers:

Please note how justamere10's continued insistence that we, here, in this thread, make no mention at all of politics (despite the obvious fact that this is a political message board) ... but yet makes such proud reference to the activist political involvement of orthodox Mormons, in concert with LDS church authorities, during church services, in chapels, on Sundays, in overtly political causes judged to be worthy of the official coordinated efforts of the entire LDS church!

The sheer arrogance and audacity of the inconsistency and hypocrisy that comes from those like justamere10 on the right side of the equation (taken to whole new heights during the past eight awful years of neoconservative dominance and characterized by Rove/Bush/Cheney "anything goes ... just win, baby!" ethics Gingrich/Foley/Craig moral hypocrisy) really is breathtaking.

This habit of "speaking from both corners of the mouth" is so plainly illustrated in justamere10's example to us of orthodox Mormonism, and so excellently mirrors the deep denial and hypocrisy that I've found so distasteful and repulsive, frankly, as a Mormon myself these past 12 years.

First of all, I think you need to say that many Christians find it immoral, but certainly not all. You can speak for orthodox Mormonism, but I'm not prepared to view you as a spokesperson for the whole of Christianity.

My response would be that if many Christians find it immoral then they probably should no do it. What you have resolutely avoided answering is why what many Christians think should affect non-Chrisitians or those other Christians who see things differently. Why should your theology affect anyone other than yourselves?

No question about the "Attitude" part of CaptainAttitude. Welcome to the board!

justamere10's response begs two terribly important questions:

---

1. What about when religions "[intrude] on things that are best left to [the conscience of each individual]?

---

2. Who, exactly, should get to decide what are and are not "immoral values and lifestyle choices?"

---

justamere10's answers, I wager, are: 1. it's the obligation and mandate of those blessed with the "true" religion to do so, and 2. LDS church authorities should decide.

Ask the same question of a similarly fanatic Wahhabi Muslim suicide bomber, and he'll say "our narrow sliver of Islam should decide."

Ask ANY fundamentalist, and he'll say "I (i.e. my theology) should."

Here, exactly, is revealed the essential totalitarian and I say evil nature of fundamentalism.

And, as usual, justamere10 continues to do us the favor of providing a superb example of this twisted, inverted "me first, screw you" ethos that has SO infected American culture since Reagan's presidency and the rise of the "Christian" right (in my opinion, neither Christian nor right) that nowadays one can hardly avoid dealing with this unadorned, unashamed greed and selfishness on practically a daily basis.

Right on.

And I love the idea that these things are somehow being imposed on Justamere and those who think like he does.

It will change nothing about what they believe, how they worship, and how they live. It will have no effect on heterosexual couples of any backround, married or otherwise. You'd think to listen to him that if Prop 8 fails, Federal troops will be dispatched to Salt Lake to insure that Mormon teaching on this issue gets rewritten. Don't think that's going to happen.

It will impose on him exactly how? It won't. It will offend him. Just as many things about our society probably offend him and are an affront to his brand of religion and which he would deny to everyone if he could.

John Smith gets lost in the woods. Comes out saying God gave him a new book of the Bible but he lost yet can remember it all. Writes it down and starts the Mormon "religion." Does that sum it up?

The same exact argument was made to deny blacks the right to be free and no longer slaves, and to deny them the same right to vote that other Americans had ... because the notion that blacks were not essentially inferior to whites was thinking considered by conservative fundamentalist "Christians" to be "immoral and sinful."

This is delusional.

How in the world do you know that "the majority of Americans" believe that the traditional view of marriage in the U.S. is being "forcefully challenged and imposed upon by the state?"

Please, please, please post a link to the study that establishes this (LOL).

This, in my opinion, is nothing more or less than your own barely concealed desperate totalitarian tendency showing its ugly face again, justamere10.

You've once again done us the courtesy of demonstrating the dishonest way you and fundamentalist like you think and act, preferring to simply issue unsupported, self-justifying statements of fact (like Islamic extremist "Fatwahs") that are not to be challenged because YOU (and only YOU and yours) know the full truth of God, and therefore cannot err, and so deserve to rule.

Kind of. I think it was Joseph Smith. And he did actually possess the tablets for a while and got them translated with the help of some kind of rosetta stone thing I think before he had to give them back to avoid late fees.

jking aside, take a few evenings to read this thread from the beginning if you haven't already. It's truly amazing.

Welcome to the board

Thanks. Reading this entire thing will take some time. I did search the thread however, looking for my question.

Oh gawd, not this again ...

This total, complete, utter hogwash, b.s., garbage, malarky, deliberate misrepresentation, and ridiculous, deceptive lying crap.

justamere10 is trying once again, having learned well his propaganda lesson from Rove/Bush/Cheney (who, apparently, learned how to use the Big Lie from other tyrants.)

Those who are interested in going back to the long and detailed posts I wrote putting the lie to justamere10's repeated, obnoxious, intentionally deceitful claim in this thread that women in the LDS church "serve in senior leadership positions" can refer to post #580 as a start.

Actually, it's "Joseph Smith," and the whole story is much, much more complicated than that. Mormon history is a fascinating subject, with a great many amazing twists, turns, dips, rises, etc.

Early Mormons were Christian socialsts, giving all property to the church which then redistributed it "according to need" to the head of each individual family. Early prophets of the LDS church were stidently anti-corporation, and extremely liberal on a number of social questions (early Mormons were abolitionists and of course polygamists, for example).

Now, of course, a huge majority of active church members and leaders are right wing neoconservatives, the polar opposite (politically) what was in many ways the left-leaning tendency of the church clear into the 1940's, as I recall.

If you've read my posts, you know my opinion about what I see as the roughly equal distribution of good and bad traits possessed by the orthodox LDS church today. As a Mormon for the past 12 years (active till three years ago), I've seen plenty of good and plenty of bad in my church which I feel needs to be brought out into the open.

There is indeed much misunderstanding of BOTH positive and negative elements within LDS church history, culture, and doctrine. This extensive thread is a continuing discussion of these things. We sometimes really "get into it," here.

Good to have you joining in, Sean!

Don't take my word for it: Put "mormon cult" into any search engine and find all the polemic screeds against your so-called "church".

The only people who recognize that LDS is a legitimate part of Christianity are people like me, who have an understanding of Christian and especially American Christian history.

They're all cults; Catholics, Baptists, KKK, etc...

I make no claim to speak for anyone except myself.

Again, in my view you reverse things. Christian theology is not what moved upon those judges to forcibly change the moral order of a society that has existed for hundreds of years. It's not Christians who are trying to force change on other Americans, it's a few elitist judges in California who are doing that. Christians are just exercising their right to profoundly disagree with those judges in ways that our Constitution provides for them to do.

Again, no moderation is apparent on this board, posts continue to be disrespectful and uncivil. Is that representative of the majority of board members, or is it just a few people who apparently don't know how to have a normal conversation on discussion boards?

Does the founder/owner/s of the board realize the extent to which a few board members are allowed to consistently break the rules? Does anyone reading this have a way to bring this to the attention of the founder/s so we can get some moderation and again enjoy this "Ask a Mormon" thread without all the emotional outbursts and personal attacks?

In post 757 you said...


It doesn't sound like you are speaking only for yourself here or even for Mormons but rather are purporting to state the position of Christians in general



Allowing blacks to marry whites was a change. Integrating the military was a change. Allowing Asians to own property in California was a change. Change is of itself neutral. You have to have reasons for calling a change good or bad. You have come up with no reasons for opposing this change other than that it offends your religious sensibilities and flies in the face of your seemly insatiable desire to force people to follow your religious laws. Since we are not yet a theocracy those reasons are not good enough.



I would suggest reporting offending posts to the mods. I'm sure that they'd appreciate the help.

Nobody elected me to speak for them, that should be simple enough to understand, I speak for myself.

I am stating the obvious that most Christians believe in God and in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Although some may deny it, my understanding is that sexual sin (sexual relations other than between a man and woman who are legally married) continues to be contrary to the commandments of God and is thus a sin. That in no way prevents anyone from choosing to engage in immoral activity.

There is no valid reason why Americans living in a free country should be forced by the state to accept change that will benefit nobody except cater to the demands of a tiny noisy minority.

Most Christians consider sexual behavior between people of the same gender to be immoral and sinful. Why should such behavior be forcefully integrated into our society as normal anymore than should polygamy, drugs, or the desires of any number of other minority groups?

I am convinced that the majority of Americans do not want that kind of change. If they did, they'd vote for it!

Huuuhhhh!!!???

You've said over and over again that you speak for Mormons and orthodox Mormonism ... that you (and not I) know what it really is and is not that true Mormons believe and stand for.

That's the entire basis of your presence in this thread! To present "the truth about Mormons." You yourself have said it over and over again.

Then you say that you make "no claim to speak for anyone except yourself." Again ... huuuhhhh!!!???

More "the sky is green and the grass is blue" from those who believe "lying for the Lord" is just fine.

Notice the similarity in tactics between justamere10 and the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration? NOT a coincidence. Cut from the same "ethical" cloth.

And they will have that chance in CA in November.

But still you dodge the question. It affects you how? It harms you how? It changes your life how? It limits the freedom of you and other like-minded Mormons to observe the teachings of your church how?

Nice zinger, Tyo!

Answer: it doesn't limit anyone's freedom – except that freedom is not at all what totalitarians are interested in, quite the opposite. The goal of totalitarians is to control and dominate others, as can be plainly seen from the corner justamere10 has painted himself into, here.

[The silence you hear is justamere10 thinking up a way to once again dodge the question and avoid responsibility for his errant position ...]

He's speaking for himself. Except when he isn't. Up until recently he's at least limited his scope to the Mormon church. And seems to be doing a pretty good job explaining the hard core party line. At least I think he is. And luckily when he strays from that or when the party line doesn't quite reflect reality you nail him. But now he is telling us what Christians think. Starting to cover a lot more ground.

There are MANY sins listed in the Bible....and there are also phrases like "love thy neighbor as thyself". But certain people want to cherrypick from their so-called "Holy" book to justify their hatreds and prejudices.
The Bible is full of contradiction, hypocrisy and bold lies. You can justify almost anything using it.

Evangelical Christians are a minority in the U.S.

So ... you're arguing for the tyranny of the majority of a minority ... against a different minority?

Kind of odd to find an orthodox Mormon arguing AGAINST the right of a minority to establish fully legal and accepted non-traditional family structures, don't you think?

It was, after all, the Mormons who argued FOR such a thing for decade after decade in the 1800's.

Hmmm.

The proposition now on the California Ballot (Prop 8) is headed to almost certain defeat, precisely because your argument is unsound, justamere10:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ga...0,6444457.story

For anyone who hasn’t already figured it out I need to say in the interest of full disclosure that I have a pony in this marriage equality race. It’s the rainbow colored one. But I don’t want this issue to hijack what has been an amazing thread on Mormonism in its various aspects. Since I'm the one who originally brought it into the conversation I feel some responsibility for it. Here was my thinking

We’ve drifted into a discussion of theocracy, religious authoritarianism, and the insertion of religion into electoral politics. Given the nature of hard line orthodox Mormonism in theory and in practice as described approvingly by Justamere10 and quite a bit less so by shoeshoe I think this is entirely appropriate.

The marriage equality issue seems to me to be a good fairly uncomplicated vehicle for illustrating the differences between what is on one side an essentially theocratic vision of the way America ought to be governed and what is on the other a religion-neutral secular vision of the way America ought to be governed. But I hope we can keep marriage equality in perspective as a tool and not the reason for the discussion and if other illustrative vehicles come along lets use them.

Right, there will be a vote and hopefully this time when the people speak arrogant judges who think they have the right to legislate from the bench will not be able to overturn the people's choice.

I am not dodging the question, I did respond, but obviously what I wrote failed to satisfy your craving to justify the dictates of three or four elitist judges who overthrew the will of the people of California and forced the will of the judges upon them. That judicial decision has enormous implications upon the entire country and sets a precedent for other minority groups who practice behavior that is considered deviant today to also get their desires enshrined in law.

I and I expect the vast majority of Americans are of the opinion that overthrowing the basic unit of society, the traditional natural family, would wreak great harm on our nation. Where legal, homosexuals can continue with impunity from the law to engage in deviant sexual activities without the state forcing unwanted change on our nation.

You have not explained how it will negatively affect you. Your marriage. The marriages of your children. You have not explained how it will negatively affect the way you practice your religion. You have said that it will wreak great harm on our nation but you don't specify how. You have asserted that it will overthrow the traditional natural family but you don't specify how. Will heterosexuals suddenly stop marrying, having children, raising families?

You don't say what other "deviant" sexual activities you fear will be enshrined in law or by what standard they are judged deviant. You go on about elitist judges overthrowing the will of the people. And while the role of the courts is a valid topic for discussion it is not germane to the issue of how you or anyone else will be harmed by the judicial ruling in California. Don't tell me you have answered these questions when you haven't.

You people do not have any rights to deny rights to others.

The only reason the rightwing is angry about so-called "activist judges" is that they have NEVER gotten over Brown vs. Board of Education, which overturned segregation.

They've been squealing "states rights" ever since....the state's "right" to uphold people's personal predjudices as the law.

Nailed it, carmenjonze. Very well said.

Congratulations, you just made the losing argument from Loving vs Virginia, 1967, which disbarred individual states from making laws against interracial marriage.

Just switch out "homosexuals" for "miscegenationists". That is the ONLY difference.

The state has no business forcing gays to marry the opposite sex. Don't like same sex marriage? Go marry someone of opposite sex and stfu. Gay marriage is here to stay. There is nothing you can do about it.

Not likely. Propostion 8 is losing by a wide margin, and the margin appears to be widening rather than narrowing:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ga...0,6444457.story

Like ... uh ... I don't know ... Mormons who wanted complete freedom to practice their own "deviant" marriage practices in the mid-late 19th century??


On what basis do you "expect" that?

Here's the data:

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1194

Where's your "vast majority" that fears "great harm" will be done by gay marriage, justamere10?

There IS, however, according to actual data (as opposed to your wishful thinking, only) a clear majority of Americans in OPPOSITION to government prohibition of gay marriage and this majority apparently sees no "great harm" in it at all.

I think you really should get in the habit of citing evidence for your assertions, justamere10 ... otherwise you hurt your own credibility, and turn people off to your message.

Like Gore v. Bush in 2000?

This whole "conservatives are opposed to big government" thing is just a crock.

Republican presidents from Reagan onward gave us 80% of the debt burden that will someday squash our standard of living into third world status. Under Bush, the government expanded like newly baked bread in the oven (warrantless wiretapping and opening of mail and email surveillance, the new Department of "Homeland Security," the Patriot Act, the end of habeas corpus (Military Commissions Act of 2006), etc., etc.)

Conservatives LOVE big government, as long as it is on their side, protecting, enforcing, and otherwise assisting their agenda. It's ONLY when big government does something to reign in the excesses of the conservative agenda or promote a different one, that conservatives think "big government" is a bad idea. Textbook hypocrisy.

justamere10 is such a conservative, and he shows it so well in his "anti-big-government" argument against gay marriage. He's all for highly intrusive laws prohibiting abortion, for government intrusion into our lives in the form of the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping and illegal mail searches, and the right to disappear Americans and others without due process (and then the ability to torture them ... legally), yet somehow he tries to present the front that he thinks government has no business "restricting liberty" and should "get out of peoples' faces."

What a joke!

But it isn't funny. This kind of "do as I say, not as I do" approach to leadership, whether in religion or in politics, is by definition unethical and immoral in the extreme. This precise manner of relating to reality ... i.e. hypocritically lying about it to manipulate and dominate others and to take away their freedom so you yourself can have more freedom ... is just wrong. Period.

I say it's as pure as evil gets.

Having said that, I acknowledge that it is one of the main challenges of my life, as part of the human condition generally, to have to grow past these same hypocritical tendencies myself. It's very, very hard to prioritize actual righteousness over merely being right (self-righteousness), to value truth (which often hurts) over dominance and comfortable falsehood, to put principle over power. None of us is immune from the tendency to get all this mucked up, and cause a lot of damage in the process.

We see this human tendency in justamere10, here, on a regular basis, but the real value, I believe, in seeing and pointing out his clear hypocrisy on a number of issues, is to see our own hypocrisy through his, and then to do something to ameliorate THAT hypocrisy. It's THAT hypocrisy, our own, NOT justamere10's, that we each are responsible for, and the more I or anyone else beats on justamere10 or some external conservative boggyman about how inconsistent they are in this way or that, the more I can avoid my own inconsistencies and ethical/moral failings, and fool myself into thinking I've escaped from the responsibility for my own wrongdoing, or worse, into thinking I haven't committed any.

That's the hardest part ... it's a real bitch, in my experience ... the self-righteousness trap. One may, in fact, BE right ... but to then become self-righteousness only succeeds in mixing gold with garbage.

It is not my intention to defend or further reference the details in the following but because you persist with your demands for my personal motivations, my stand on the issue at hand is based on information such as the following article published by one of the many groups that are fighting to defend the traditional family as the basic unit of society and not allow it to be corrupted by other state-mandated forms of "marriage".

-----
The First Presidency (of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) is advising members that, “Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.” “We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage is legally defined as being between a man and a woman.”

“The Church's teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal."

“Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the creator's plan for his children.

“Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage.”

In California, a marriage protection amendment will be on the ballot in November, following a petition drive where 1.1 million signatures were gathered to make that possible. California has had a marriage protection statute, Prop 22, defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, which was passed by 61% of the voters in 2000. However, four judges overturned the will of 4.5 million California voters recently, when the California Supreme Court overturned Prop 22 and legalized same-sex marriage.

What is disturbing is that unlike Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is confined only to those who are residents of the state, California has no such law. Thus residents of other states, whose marriage laws do not allow genderless marriage can come to California, get their nuptials, and then head home claiming their marriage is legal.

This not only opens the door for legal chaos, but for courts, along with rogue state officials to systematically dismantle state statutes and amendments designed to protect the traditional definition of marriage.

Most recently, New York Governor Paterson ordered state agencies to recognize out-of-state homosexual “marriages” even though New York's Court of Appeals ruled in 2006 that only the union of a man and woman is a legal marriage in the state.

Thus, with this Supreme Court decision, if a marriage amendment does not pass in California this fall, California will be exporting same-sex marriage possibly to every state in the nation.

There are many, even among Latter-day Saints, who do not fully understand the broad implications for our nation and for future generations in letting marriage be redefined. Opponents mask their efforts saying things like, “How would your marriage be affected if your same-sex neighbors were allowed to marry?” This is simplistic and overlooks what a radical experiment this is that will affect thousands of laws and certainly blast religious freedom.

Intentionally Creating Motherless or Fatherless Children

On the most fundamental level, same sex marriage is about adult gratification and tramples the needs of children. Ask a child, “Which is unnecessary, a mother or a father?”

Of course, life isn't perfect and sometimes people become single parents" a spouse dies or parents experience a painful divorce. Although we can't always protect bad things from happening, there is one thing we can do. Never intentionally create motherless or fatherless children.

In 1996, the U.S. Congress made the following findings, "Marriage is the foundation of a successful society," and "marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which promotes the interests of children." Decades of government and social science data prove these statements are true. Yet, never in the history of the world has the institution of marriage been under such aggressive assault legally, legislatively and culturally.

Study after study shows that children fare best in a home with their own mother and father. They have less delinquency, less drug usage, less tendency for suicide, less abuse, less tendency to live in poverty. They have higher grades, more security, more self-confidence. Can we really afford to create conditions where more children may become broken?

If a society where purposely trying to destroy itself, it could nothing more grievous than subvert its basic foundation.

Consider this: If same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land, an entirely new social norm is created. Children will learn in school that sex between members of the same sex or between members of opposite sexes is an equal choice, and those with fragile identities may experiment. We will not even have a word for the union of a man and a woman ��" for the term marriage will have been co-opted to merely mean the union of any two people. And if two people, why not three or more?

If marriage comes to mean everything that anyone defines it to be, it will mean nothing.

Some may argue that marriage is a private matter and redefining it causes no harm to others or society as a whole. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Any law that dilutes the definition and purpose of marriage leads to fewer marriages and more children being born out of wedlock. Sadly, we have already witnessed these alarming trends in Scandinavian countries that legalized same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships more than 10 years ago, and now the out of wedlock birthrate is between 50 to 60 percent (depending on the country).

Family fragmentation is a public issue with public consequences. For example, in April of 2008 the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, along with others, issued a study showing that family fragmentation in the United States is costing taxpayers $112 billion annually.

Blasting Religious Freedom

The California court also went where no U.S. court has gone before and enshrined sexual orientation as a civil right on a par with race. Not even the European Court of Human Rights or the United Nations Human Rights Committee has so ruled.

This means that those who see marriage as the union of husband and wife, and view sexuality as best confined to marriage so defined, are in the exact position as racists under California law , according to marriage expert Maggie Gallagher. Racists are not tolerated and are certainly not given government benefits such as tax-exemptions. This makes the rights of freedom of religion on a collision course with this new-found right of sexual orientation.

“Can a group ��" a church or religious charity ��" that opposes gay marriage keep its tax exemption if gay marriage becomes the law?” Marc Stern, general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, asked. Certainly, if the California court's logic is carried beyond California, tax exemptions and government benefits for religions and their affiliates such as church schools and social service agencies benefits will be affected.

When Massachusetts adopted homosexual marriage, the state left a Boston Catholic adoption service no choice but to shut down or agree to place adopted children with homosexual couples. This is not because the state funded the charity, but only because the charity had to depend on a state license to operate. They were left with a decision, violate their conscience and place children with same-sex couples or shut their doors. After decades of service to the community, the Boston Catholic Adoption service was forced to shut their doors.

After New Jersey passed civil union legislation, the state removed part of the tax-exempt status from a church in Ocean Grove after the church refused, on religious grounds, to offer its gazebo for a civil union service. In Massachusetts, parents lost the right to be notified when their child's public school was going to teach on the topic of homosexuality.

Acts done in the name of freedom have shut down the freedom of the religious.

Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon wrote in 2004, during the same-sex marriage debate in Massachusetts, ''The experience in other countries reveals that once these arrangements become law, there will be no live-and-let-live policy for those who differ. Gay-marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance, and diversity, yet one foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination ... The ax will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don't go along ."

Protecting Marriage Preserves Religious Freedom

Anthony Picarello, president and general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a top law firm that defends all faith groups, says, "The impact [of gay marriage] will be severe and pervasive. This is going to affect every aspect of church-state relations ... the church is surrounded on all sides by the state. The boundaries are usually peaceful, so it's easy sometimes to forget they are there. But because marriage affects just about every area of the law, gay marriage is going to create a point of conflict at every point around the perimeter."

In December 2005, Picarello hosted a conference of noted First Amendment scholars from across the political spectrum to assess the religious freedom implications of legalized same-sex marriage. Some of the scholars supported gay marriage and some opposed it. Picarello says, "All the scholars we got together see a problem; they all see a conflict coming. They differ on how it should be resolved and who should win, but they all see a conflict coming."

Areas of Conflict

Tax-Exemptions and Government Benefits : Religious groups could find themselves suffering along with the Boy Scouts, as access to public facilities is stripped away. Gay-rights lawyers will likely challenge groups' federal tax-exempt status, charging that such an exemption "subsidizes discrimination."

Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy says, "Religious groups that take government funding will almost certainly be required to play by the nondiscrimination rules, but what about groups that, while receiving no government grants, are tax-exempt?

"Can a group ��" a church or religious charity ��" that opposes gay marriage keep its tax exemption if gay marriage becomes the law?" Marc Stern, general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, says "That is the 18 trillion dollar question."

Professional Licenses : Professional licenses might also be denied to psychological clinics, social workers, marriage and family counselors, and others who believe same-sex relationships are "objectively disordered." Would family service providers affiliated with a religion that opposes same-sex marriage have to give marriage counseling to same-sex couples to help them preserve their marriage?

Religious Employers : Suppose a Catholic summer camp refuses to hire or retain employees in same-sex marriages, they could be sued on the basis of "marital status discrimination."

Religious Colleges : Colleges that refuse admission to same-sex couples could face civil lawsuits and loss of accreditation. Marc Stern says that "same-sex marriage will affect religious educational institutions, in at least four ways: admissions, employment, housing, and regulation of clubs."

Public Accommodation Laws : Many legal scholars agree that public accommodation laws can require all commercial enterprises to serve all customers. However, if same sex marriage is legal

Marc Stern asks, "What about religious camps...? Will they be considered by courts to be places of public accommodation, too? Could a religious summer camp operated in strict conformity with religious principles refuse to accept children coming from same-sex marriages? What of a church-affiliated community center, with a gym and a Little League, that offers family programs?"

Thank you Justamere. This is the kind of anwer I can work with.

This is going to be fun, I think. Might take me a while to get my facts and references together though. Hope you'll bear with me.

Just an initial observation though. Seems like you are awfully concerned that marriage equality will result in making it more difficult for you to discriminate against people your religion deems undesirable including children born of same sex marriages. How Christ-like.

I don't understand the double-standard you are defending, justamere10.

Plaase clear this up:

Why is it that non-Mormon (homosexual) marriages that are viewed by many as "deviant and egregiously sinful" are bad, but Mormon (19th century polygamous) marriages that are viewed by many as "deviant and egregiously sinful" are not bad?

everybody knows that if two men in vermont get married, a random married couple in chula vista, ca will get divorced because of it...

makes perfect sense to me

justamere10:

The following article demonstrates that any theocratic movement, of any fundamentalist religion, is, and has always been, so incredible dangerous.

You've written in the past that no Christians or Christian churches could ever be guilty of the kinds of grotesque violence and abject, abhorent religiously motivated persecution and total civil domination warned about by myself and others in this thread.

I'd be interested in your reaction to the following parapraphs, excepted from an article by the widely known and respected Southern Poverty Law Center.

I'd be amazed if, after reading the below, you still held to your stated convictions about the innocuousness of all Christian churches and belief systems.

I honestly can't imagine how, after reading the the following excerpts, you or anyone with a functioning moral compass could continue to hold the dangerous and naive opinion that there are not fascist "Christian" groups just as horrifically dedicated to blasphemous, despicable, violent world domination "in the name of God" by any means necessary as are the Islamofascists that you and other conservatives love to fear:

---

'Arming' for Armageddon

Militant Joel's Army Followers Seek Theocracy

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.

"An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion," Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. "The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel's Army. … Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God's kingdom on earth."

Joel's Army followers, many of them teenagers and young adults who believe they're members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world, are breaking away in droves from mainline Pentecostal churches. Numbering in the tens of thousands, they base their beliefs on an esoteric reading of the second chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joel, in which an avenging swarm of locusts attacks Israel. In their view, the locusts are a metaphor for Joel's Army.

Despite their overt militancy, there's no evidence Joel's Army followers have committed any acts of violence. But critics warn that actual bloodletting may only be a matter of time for a movement that casts itself as God's avenging army.

Those sounding the alarm about Joel's Army are not secular foes of the Christian Right, few of whom are even aware of the movement or how widespread it's become in the past decade. Instead, Joel's Army critics are mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel's Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening.

"The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008," writes The Discernment Research Group, a Christian watchdog group that tracks what they call heresies or cults within Christianity. "One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors."

Both Bentley and Crowder are enormously popular on Elijah's List, an online watering hole for a broad spectrum of Joel's Army enlistees, from lightweight believers who merely share an affection for military rhetoric and pastors who dress in army camouflage (several Joel's Army pastors are addressed by their congregants as "commandant" or "commander") to hardliners who believe the church is called to have an active military role in end-times that have already begun. Elijah's List currently has more than 125,000 subscribers on its electronic mailing list.

Rick Joyner, a pastor whose books, The Harvest and The Call, helped popularize Joel's Army theology by selling more than a million copies each, goes the furthest on Elijah's List in pushing the hardliner approach. In 2006, he posted a sermon called "The Warrior Nation — The New Sound of the Church," in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and called believers "freedom fighters."

"As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces," Joyner wrote. "In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc."

Bentley, who claims to be a supernatural healer, is no less over the top, playing his biker-punk appearance and heavy metal theatrics to the hilt. On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: "I am thinking, 'God, why is the power of God not moving?' And He said, 'It is because you haven't kicked that women in the face.' And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'Kick her in the face … with your biker boot.' I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God."

"There's an Elijah generation that's going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion," Engle continued. "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire."

In some of the most arresting images in "Jesus Camp," a 2006 documentary about the Kids on Fire bible camp in North Dakota, grade school-aged kids dressed in army fatigues wield swords and conduct military field maneuvers. "A lot of people die for God and they're not afraid," one camper told ABC News reporters in a follow-up segment.
"We're kinda being trained to be warriors," added another, "only in a funner way."

Both Christian and secular critics assailed the makers of "Jesus Camp" for referring to the camp's extremist, militant Christianity as "evangelical." There is a name, however, that describes Kids on Fire's agenda, if you're familiar with their theology: Joel's Army. Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the camp, said that a third of the kids at her camp were under 6 years old because they are "more in touch in the supernatural" and proclaimed them to be "soldiers for God's Army." Her camp's blend of end-times militancy and supernaturalism is perfectly emblematic of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents believe their cause is prophesied in the Old Testament chapter titled "An Army of Locusts."

According to Gruen's report, students at the school were taught that they were a "super-race" of the "elected seed" of all the best bloodlines of all generations — foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the "end-time Omega generation."

Though he'd once promoted these doctrines himself, Gruen became convinced that the movement was turning into an end-times cult, marked by what he summarized as "spiritual threats, fears, and warnings of death," "warning followers to beware of other Christians" and exhibiting "a 'super-race' mentality toward the training of their children."

So far, few members of the secular media have taken notice of Joel's Army, even as they report on Protestant dominionists like Pat Robertson or the more outrageous calls for the stoning of gays and lesbians emanating from Reconstructionist circles. There are exceptions, however. On the DailyKos, a well-read, politically liberal blog, a diarist has been blogging for two years about her experiences as a walkaway from a Joel's Army church. She writes under a pseudonym out of fear of physical reprisals.

She may have real cause for concern. As Wimber, the late founder of The Vineyard, put it in one of his most famous and fiery sermons, one that is still frequently cited by Joel's Army followers: "Those in this army will have His kind of power. … Anyone who wants to harm them must die."

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport...cle.jsp?aid=964

theocrats arent dangerous? chistian groups arent dangerous?

christianity doesnt play the war game?

hmm, wonder why Sarah Palin said that our war in Iraq is one that God has sanctioned on our behalf...isnt she a pretty typical christian evangelical?

Addendum:

It's very, very important to note, in the context of this particular thread, that the kind of thinking documented above is the same kind of theocratic, fundamentalist, "anything goes, in the name of God" mindset that resulted in the Mormon church's own horrific atrocity, the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The terrible possibilities made clear in the article above are not just academic for us Mormons, justamere10; they ACTUALLY HAPPENED in our church on (of all dates) September 11, 1857.

And it can happen again.

Tyo, looking forward to your response to this guy's incredible bigotry and that of his dangerous cult.