With Mitt out of the way, it’s back to hating the gays:
While the church’s image suffered badly, the other reason the Mormon church was sitting out last year’s gay marriage debates was so that it would not jeopardize in any way shape or form what was deemed the “Mormon moment”. That was their long-held desire to elect the first Mormon US president, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. That plan went up in smoke after he lost badly to President Obama a year ago.
Now that Romney is not a factor anymore, the Mormon church is back fighting same-sex marriage. We discovered two letters that were read to all Mormon church members in Hawaii as the state was considering whether to legalize same sex marriage. The letters signed by high-ranking Mormon leaders asked church members to give of their “time and means” in order to defeat a bill. […]
Since it took Mormons until 1978 to ordain black priests, we can expect the first temple sealed gay marriage in the year 2034 or so.
MikeJ
“Ordain black priests” sounds like more than it is. IIRC, all adult male members are priests. It took them until 1978 to acknowledge black people had souls.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ:
Well, give them credit. They’re at least more enlightened than the Teahadis.
Patricia Kayden
I guess the Mormon church felt more pressure to change its policy on Blacks than it is feeling to change its policy on gays. Hopefully, by 2034, the Catholic church and Mormons will have evolved on marriage equality and other related issues.
Villago Delenda Est
Totally OT, but Atrios has highlighted excerpts of Krautweasel columns then, and now, on the subject of “up or down” votes vs. filibusters.
As to be expected, what Reid did this year is an affront to the entire span of the history of the Senate, but what Frist did back during the deserting coward years was principled and righteous.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patricia Kayden:
I suppose we can not hope for too much change on the contraception front and sex outside of the approval of the broomstick up the ass church officials.
scav
Pretend nice time time can and should be a two-bladed sword, so it must be again fair to point out how much that divinely inpired angel was lifting text from screeds that refused to believe that Native Americans could be resonsible for all the mounds scattered about. Had to be white folk building that stuff.
Mike in NC
The article shows a photo of Lord and Lady Rmoney attending services at an LDS church in Wolfeboro, NH, where they have a mansion on the lake. We’ve visited Wolfeboro and I’d have a hard time believing there were more than five Mormons within a 50 mile radius of the town outside of members of the Rmoney clan. Either the LDS church is shipping them in from out of state or the Rmoneys just built their very own church within walking distance of their compound.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav:
The whole damn thing is the Scientology of the 19th Century. Fabricated horseshit (not even AUTHENTIC horseshit) from some deluded twit in the burned-over zone of upstate New York.
MattF
@Mike in NC: Too bad. Wolfeboro’s a pretty nice place– I was there for a week many years ago for a summer Gordon conference. What I recall is that all the local automobile license plates had the “AB & CD” format.
Amir Khalid
Ah, the rank hypocrisy of religiosity. The same all over the planet, no matter which religion it is. And absolutely no one is going to make the necessary righteous fuss over it, are they?
aimai
@Villago Delenda Est: But it is fascinating, for that very reason.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
At least Jesus and Mohammed were not designing a faith specifically so they could get laid more often, and with different women.
feebog
From the conclusion of the article:
I would add ditto the catholic church. You want to lobby against abortion or the gays? Register as a lobbyist and pay taxes on your income. All your income.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: Many of the hallmarks of a run of the mill garden cult, leaders sleeping lots of women members including the wives of other members when polygamy was still on the down-low in Nauvoo, whittling and pig-stealing, private militias. . . The anti-am-indian bit is just a bit more obscure.
WereBear
Precisely. The tax statutes were set up when a church took contributions and used them for building upkeep and soup kitchens.
Megawatt TV stations, whole channel tiers, and movie studios are NOT what they are supposed to be buying.
The lobbying thing is outright illegal.
Higgs Boson's Mate
It’s difficult to express the full extent of my regard for a religion whose beliefs are so unaffected by the winds of secular politics.
shortstop
What bugs me the most about Mormon opposition to same-sex marriage is hearing LDS people warn that it will lead to “other abominations” such as polygamy. WTF?! There are currently 30,000-50,000 people living in plural marriages in the U.S. — these numbers come from Brigham Young researchers. I don’t give a damn what truly consenting adults do, but as we all know, these families regularly involve young girls being coerced into marriage, typically with much older men. Less widely discussed: this system is also abusive to young boys. Older polygynous males frequently cast teenage boys out of the closed, insular community before they can become competition for wives, and these kids are left to find their own way in the wider world, apart from everything and everyone they’ve ever known.
Almost all of these polygamists are part of Mormon splinter groups, and the lame response from mainstream Mormons is that they can’t control what their fringe groups do. This is, of course, bullshit. Not only do they feel free to try to control the marriages of non-Mormon LGBT people, but splinter Mormon child-rape and abuse factories would cease to exist if mainstream Mormons in law enforcement and the judiciary would do their jobs. Instead, Mormons very frequently look the other way — all the way up to the Supreme Court of Utah — because they’re more interested in protecting the status and public image of their church than in protecting children. Sound like any other religious institution we know?
geg6
Fuck the Mormons. Their tears are delicious. They spent, literally, years and millions of dollars trying to put a smiley face on their stupid cult. Remember the commercials that used to run about how Mormonism included people from all walks of life and were just like you? And those were just a lead up to try to soften people up for Rmoney’s run. And then that fizzled out. They also spent a boatload of cash on the Prop 8 campaign and legal fight. And then that fizzled, too.
Fuck the Mormons. They are losers.
Lurking Canadian
@Villago Delenda Est: I just can’t get past that part. I mean, there are claims in the foundational beliefs of Christianity that are…to avoid flamewars, let’s say not well supported by the archaeological record. But at least just about everybody agrees that there were actual Jews living under actual Roman occupation in actual Palestine during the first decades of the common era, Jerusalem is a actual place, Pilate was an actual person, and so on.
To have a foundation myth that is completely made up out of whole cloth, where not only the claims are bullshit, but the *scenario* in which the claims occur is bullshit…I just don’t get that at all.
shortstop
@Mike in NC: Looks like a little of both. The Romney clan is a full third of the church’s membership, but the prolifically breeding Marriotts summer in Wolfeboro, too. Bet the place goes dark after Labor Day.
JoyfulA
@shortstop: According to an academic book I edited some years back, the teen boys who are cast out generally have no education beyond home schooling and are helpless in the outside world.
The multiple-wives families beyond the initial nuclear family are on welfare (how else could they be supported?). Oddly, the husbands described were managers of chain stores, particularly auto parts stores. Maybe a higher-up owns franchises?
I found the whole book appalling, although the author seemed sympathetic and inclined to put everything in the best possible light.
Yatsuno
@JoyfulA: One thing Mormons do very well for each other is support other Mormons financially. Since the state doesn’t recognise the secondary spouses, they are considered single mothers and qualify for welfare and Medicaid under most state rules. And wealthy Mormons will delay a hiring decision in their businesses until they can get a well-qualified (read: Temple approved) Mormon male in that slot. But the church helps in both instances. Plus their charity only gives to other Mormons.
Chris
@geg6:
Agreed.
I remember rolling my eyes even more than usual at the South Park episode with the Mormon kid which ends with a borderline after school special with him telling the South Park kids that yeah, maybe Mormonism is silly, but they’re all about being nice and helping people and why you gotta hate? I mean, really? Out of all the groups you make fun of, *those* are the ones you’re going to give a cookie to at the end of the episode?
shortstop
@Yatsuno:
Late in the 2012 presidential campaign, when Romney’s people decided they’d better start humanizing him, we heard a few stories about individuals he’d selflessly helped . Not one of them was a non-Mormon.
Of course, Obummer only helps fellow Muslims, so there’s that. ;)
RepubAnon
For all the talk of peace and love, most religions sooner or later get used by demagogues as a vehicle for power. This typically involves finding some other group to hate – thus drawing members further into the tribe.
the Conster
Is there any question why Mitt is one of the most hated men in Massachusetts? He learned nothing except how to manipulate and fuck everyone over after he gets what he wants, and I’m going to assume that’s what Mormon men are taught. I hope their tears are bitter and I live to hear the lamentation of their elders.
MomSense
What is too often forgotten is that there are liberal religions who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person and whose religious freedom is infringed by not allowing marriage equality. We may be small denominations but we do exist. Religious freedom for us means the ability to recognize and sanctify same-sex marriages.
Higgs Boson's Mate
I soured on the Mormons back in the Eighties. At the time I was a CNC programmer/machinist. A company for which I worked had purchased a new CNC machine and it sent me to the vendor school for the thing. Among the other attendees was a machine shop owner from Wendover, Utah, and his foreman. A few days into the course the shop owner invited me to lunch. He offered me a job with his outfit at very good pay and added a relocation allowance (That last nearly unheard of in the trade). Something made me tell him that my wife was a Latina. He shook his head and told me that “There won’t be anything thing there for you.”
Suffern ACE
@Chris: the South Park comparative religious theology is that all religions are silly, but if one doesn’t adhere to religion, one’s belief system will be some mishmash of unclear pop-cultural ideas based on Oprah, Star Wars and Tolkien, which will be even sillier and quite literally involve shit spewing from the mouths of people.
They fall into “you have to believe something, so it might as well be something that other serious people have spent time thinking about” school of religion.
Eric U.
@Chris: was that to make up for putting on a play that made fun of Mormons? I am not a big fan of the LDS church, but I am against religious discrimination. I thought they went a little too far with that.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@WereBear:
No, it’s not. Endorsing a candidate for office is grounds for losing tax exempt status but lobbying or anything else on a policy issue isn’t. Churches are free to do whatever they want. Really, that’s not surprising when you consider that religions are about morality and morality is often a consideration in policy questions.
And it cuts both ways. My Universalist Church was heavily involved in the campaign to allow same-sex marriage in Minnesota. Should we be prevented from working on causes we believe in because it’s through a church?
Yatsuno
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Honestly? Yes. You can’t have it both ways. Either a church is a place of fellowship and worship or it’s a lobbying organisation. I don’t excuse the political organising just because the church is supposedly on my side. You want to organise at the church grounds that’s one thing, but once the congregation takes an official position on anything political that crosses the line. Churches are not lobbyists. And if a church wants to be a lobbyist, then they can pay taxes like every other lobbyist does.
Amir Khalid
Off-topic. Obama was right: this guy is a jackass.
Woodrowfan
and there are a lot of us in the mainline churches who feel the same way. but a group of Methodist or Presbyterians quietly celebrating the union of some same-sex friends doesn’t attract the same press as the idiots from Westboro Baptist screaming “faggot” at a funeral.
Yatsuno
@Amir Khalid: Dear Kanye:
Shut.
Up.
Right now your biggest claim to fame is knocking up a Kardashian. And any idiot can do that.
Suffern ACE
@Eric U.: in the play, the Mormons come off as more humane than the religious beliefs of the Ugandans. Although their beliefs do not give them much practical ways to deal with the violence of the lives of the locals, the Mormons at least would offer the locals a way out of the violence, so the attempt is worthy. The musical makes fun of individual sheltered Mormons, but the barbs as usual are for those who wouldn’t do anything useful to protect their own purity.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Yatsuno: I absolutely disagree that this is trying to have it both ways. Morality is a core concept of religions. Preventing them from organizing on issues of morality is effectively telling religious organizations, “You can talk about what you want but you can’t actually do anything about your beliefs.” It’s hard to imagine a more blatant violation of church/state separation than having the government flat out neuter religious organizations. You have it backwards.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Further, the idea that secular organizations that lobby must pay taxes is equally false. Planned Parenthood does a lot of lobbying and is also tax exempt. Are you opposed to that, too?
Suzanne
Aaaaaand….. Absolutely no one who knows large numbers of Mormons is surprised.
I really think part of the exclusion of gays in the LDS Church is because it undermines the original goal of Keeping Women Down. If, all of a sudden, you have people marrying, especially two dudes, who are priests, and who aren’t coerced into spawning eight or so of their own bio-kids, it sort of minimizes the Church’s strategy of growth through population growth. Also, it shows that marriage could be between people who just plain like each other. Also, it shows that double-income relationships can work, which might lead to an epidemic of women having more careers and fewer kids. They can’t have that.
Violet
@Suzanne: Agree. The Mormons are all about Keeping Women Down. For sure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: @Yatsuno: and I’m sure Obama will in short time be called upon to “distance” himself from the person he repeatedly mocked in public.
Remember when Monsignor Russert got a bee up his cossack about Harry Belafonte?
Stella B
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Planned Parenthood lobbies with taxable income that is kept separate from the non-taxed income that is used to provide low-cost medical care. If I donate to the lobbying side of PP, I can not deduct that contribution on my taxes, but I can deduct what I give to the medical care side of the organization. They can not legally transfer money between the two groups. I know this because I am on both mailing lists and both telephone lists. I refused to donate to the lobbying side for several years after the Ned Lamont/Joe Lieberman fiasco.
Bob In Portland
It always seemed to me that a God and Jesus who was around 2-3 thousand years ago was more believable. Not that it was more believable believable, just that it was farther away timewise that part of the mental process of belief would be, Well, it was different back then. You know, like how the gods walked the earth. It was just easier to believe.
But to have a religion invented after the cotton gin? Why did God wait till after the steam engine to inform Joe Smith about those plates up in New York State.
Jewish Steel
Maybe we can persuade Dan Savage to rename the point of sexual climax between two (or more!) gay people.
Yatsuno
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
What does that have to churches getting directly involved in politics?
They can do that all they want. But at that point they are no longer a church and should no longer have the religious tax-exempt status. Nowhere did I say churches can’t organise. But why should they get a free pass on taxes?
Now you’re in lolwut territory.
Snarki, child of Loki
@MikeJ: “It took them until 1978 to acknowledge black people had souls.”
Hey, it took them a LONG TIME to redesign their Magic Underwear to…umm..accomodate their new black “members”, so there!
Joseph Nobles
@Jewish Steel: No, no, no! The Mormon moment is the intense feeling of religious guilt after the climax.
Ronnie Pudding
Based on what Yatsuno is saying, many black churches during the Civil Rights movement were breaking the law.
Jewish Steel
@Joseph Nobles: Okay. How about re purposing Golden Plates?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Is it twue what they say that you people are…gifted?
Smiling Mortician
@MikeJ:
I’m sorry. I just find this giggle inducing. I think holiday weekends make me go all 7th grade.
Joseph Nobles
@Jewish Steel: God knows I shouldn’t say this. But since there is no god…
The Mormon moment: the time spent trying to retrieve sexual toys lost in the anus before going to the emergency room. Also known as “looking for the golden plates.”
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: That is all well and good. But tax-exempt status of any organisation is absolutely at the discretion of the government. Nowhere am I saying that churches cannot say what they believe. But once they start lobbying for it, they are taking advantage of a tax position that other lobbying organisations do not have. And that is what I have issue with.
I also think the tax exemption for religions is old legacy bullshit anyway, but that’s a different issue.
Suzanne
@Bob In Portland: The way I’ve always looked at it is thus: Archaeological evidence indicates that there was indeed an important man named Jesus. I don’t have evidence that he was divine. (Although others would say that I don’t have any evidence that he WASN’T divine. Splitting hairs.) Anyway, I can’t believe or disbelieve in things I wasn’t around to see. But what the guy stood for is certainly in line with what I understand to be the best part of human existence. I don’t know if that’s divine or not. But it’s certainly inspiring and what I should clearly dedicate my life to realizing, both for myself and for those around me.
Joseph Smith, OTOH….doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Nothing he said indicates to me that he was anything other than a charlatan. He wasn’t uncommonly dedicated to human truth, or kindness, or anything other than getting underage poontang. Now, of course, everyone has the right to believe in flying pink elephants or whatever they want, and the early Mormons certainly didn’t deserve being driven from their communities and persecuted across the country, but that doesn’t mean that their Church has any humanistic or intellectual value.
Mike G
@shortstop:
There’s a reason polygamists are clustered in Mormon-dominated states like Utah and Arizona — they deliberately non-enforce the law. Try to setup a polygamist compound in, say, Massachussetts or California, and count the days until the local authorities break it up.
JoyfulA
@Yatsuno: According to an old, sick Mormon friend in Utah, everything was all happy-happy when his dual-income family was bringing in the tithes. When he developed a debilitating, eventually terminal illness, it was like “What did you say your name was again?” I have spent hours on the phone long distance trying to deal with Utah social service agencies.
ThalarctosMaritimus
FTFY.
KG
@Suzanne:
I know what you’re trying to say, but, um, if you can’t believe or disbelieve in one instance, why can you disbelieve in another? Or were you there to see Joseph Smith? In which case, what is the secret to your effective immortality?
Gex
@Yatsuno: To me the line was crossed in MN. The Catholic Church can and does have every right to have their teachings on gays and gay marriage. But when Emmer was running against Dayton they sent out 500,000 DVDs on the issue and urged people to vote for a gubernatorial candidate who was right on this issue of morality. That is flat out a massive campaign for a specific gubernatorial candidate.
There’s a difference between talking issues with the laity and hoping it carries over into how they vote. It is another thing to be telling people that they should be voting a certain way. Both the LDS and the RCC crossed that line repeatedly on gay marriage.
ETA: IMO, it has always seemed to me that right wing religion grasped on to marriage equality precisely because it gave them a way to “campaign on issues” as a proxy for campaigning for the GOP.
Felonius Monk
Just remember the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Suzanne
@KG: I don’t believe or disbelieve in Joseph Smith’s experience of something he believed to be divine. But nothing he wrote ever moved me or taught me anything about the human experience (and I’ve read much of the BoM). Besides, of course, that old dudes like to bang young girls. But reading Gawker can teach you that, too.
Patrick
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
In my humble opinion, absolutely. Why should the rest of us have to subsidize a church’s political activities irregardless of political orientation?
I go to church. But I don’t expect my church to get involved in political activities. And I don’t expect other people, who disagree with my church’s political stance to subsidize my church’s political activities if they had any. There are other outlets for my getting involved with politics.
Suzanne
@Felonius Monk: Lots of LDS say that the Mountain Meadows Massacre never happened, and that the federal government concocted it to slander them.
aimai
@efgoldman: Thats garbled, ef. Free speech rights apply to everyone, not just churches. Tax exempt status applies to several different kinds of organizations, including churches. They are totally different things and obey different rules. Individuals do not have the right to lobby the government without registering as lobbyists, and churches don’t have the right to lobby the government or to lobby for particular policies/politicians without risking their tax exempt status. The church has tax exempt status because of one kind of reading of the “establishment” clause but a different kind of reading would (and I hope one day will) eliminate the tax exemption as an unconstitutional form of establishment since it favors certain types of churches over other kinds of churches and favors nominal religious identity over, for example, nominal atheist identity.
KG
@Suzanne: fair enough. Just seemed a weird idea to me, but if you’re talking divinity vs historical accounts, then it makes sense.
Knight of Nothing
I’m probably going to be beat down for this, but speaking as a lapsed Catholic/atheist, I believe Mormons have a much higher capacity for self-correction than my former church. One of my oldest friends is a gay Mormon who has been married for almost 20 years. He went back to Mormonism around seven years ago, and while I admit it was a strain on our friendship, I also have to say he’s happier now. And for the last two years he’s led groups of Mormons in our city’s pride parade. There’s a huge dialog happening in Mormonism about homosexuality, and mistermix’s post highlights only one side of the conversation. Go checkout his blog at youngstranger.blogspot.com if you are curious. My only dog in this fight is my desire that my friend finds what he’s looking for.
Villago Delenda Est
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
“Ma’am, you’re sucking on my arm”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@KG:
I think I see what Suzanne is trying to say, though. Since none of us were around to actually see Jesus or Joseph Smith (or, for that matter, Mohammed or Buddha), all we have to go by is what they’re reported to have said. Jesus is reported to have said a lot about taking care of the poor and being fair to everyone, whereas Joseph Smith is reported to have said a lot about being able to have multiple wives and that white people built the Cahokia Mounds. One set is much more coherent as a collection of moral teachings than the other, which makes it more credible.
Jewish Steel
@Joseph Nobles: Not bad! I’ll sign off on that.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@aimai:
IMO, the problem is that conservative judges have allowed the law to become garbled. As I understand it, religious institutions are allowed to lobby for/against specific pieces of legislation or specific programs, but are not supposed to be able to support a specific candidate for office. A lot of churches have been able to slip through that loophole with a wink and a nod from the courts, and the agencies that would normally crack down on their behavior are cowed because OMG CHRISTIANS ARE BEING OPPRESSED!!1!
The other part of the problem is that national institutions (like the Roman Catholic Church) are being allowed to interfere in local elections. It would be one thing if it was only, say, the Archdiocese of Minneapolis that was issuing proclamations about specific initiatives on the ballot in Minnesota, but when they’re sending out 500K DVDs to parishioners, they’re obviously getting resources from outside that one specific archdiocese.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Purple states are getting purpler because of churches. In the south, much of the strength of the Democratic party is in black churches. Obama would not have won NC without churches.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@MikeJ:
But as I understand it (and I am not a Protestant, so maybe I’m confused), those black churches do not have a centralized, national organization that they all send money to that is equivalent to the Roman Catholic Church or the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). They don’t have a hierarchy that dictates to them what they will preach every Sunday. Pastors and ministers within, say, South Carolina will get together to discuss things and coordinate actions, but that’s not the same as having the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops dictate that Catholic churches in Minnesota tell their parishioners to vote against gay marriage and provide money for ads to fight against it.
Knight of Nothing
My friend actually has quite a different take on those Hawaii letters than the article to which dpm linked.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@MikeJ:
Also, too, I’m coming from a California perspective, where the combined power of the Catholic and Mormon churches led us to simultaneously ban gay marriage and elect Barack Obama in the same year (2008). So the massive financial resources of those two institutions allowed a split that you might not otherwise have seen in our mostly blue state.
Woodrowfan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): that depends on the church. Some are part of a larger denomination, many are not. some of the independent ones are pretty big and rich on their own.
Origuy
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
That’s true of a lot of them, but at least two have national organizations, the African Methodist Episcopal and AME Zion Churches. I couldn’t find anything to conclude that the national organizations took a stand on Prop 8 one way or another.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Knight of Nothing: There is a branch of the LDS that is slightly liberal, The Community of Christ, formally known as the Reorganized Church of the LDS. they have made some headway in the issue. One thing to remember, the LDS thought they could join with the Evangelicals on the issue, thus making it easier for the Mittster, but with branches of the Evangelical Churches refusing to support the Mittster, including a public revolt at Liberty University where he spoke. The LDS walked out with a black eye, and damage to their reputation i.e. church growth . I suspect they will slink quietly on the issue until it somehow benefits their treasury.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Origuy: Black churches don’t look at certain issues with a Christian eye but how it affects their whole community, 2012 saw many Black Churches split away from th White Evangelical churches because the White Evangelicals supported politicians who were behind voter suppression as well as cuts to the inner cities and other social programs. Black Preachers may rail against same sex marriage, but they will not throw the baby out with the bath water, when it comes to their communities. Especially when the other side supports the Republicans who stand for bringing back Jim Crow.
Gene108
@Yatsuno:
In a representative democracy every citizen (and non-citizens for a good cause) has the right to lobby their elected leaders over important matters of the day.
There should be no inherent tax consequence for a citizen or group of citizens to perform a civic duty.
Paid lobbyists are earning income from their profession so their tax treatment is different.
Lobbying can be done without wanting to earn a living from it, which is where I believe most religious groups fall, so no reason to change tax treatment.
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: Though I’m not so sure about Mohammed….
There have been charismatic leaders who weren’t all about getting laid with 100s of zombie followers, but they were rare. (All the examples I can think of were leading resistance movements against a suppressive dominant social order.) More typical are the Sai Baba’s or the Ram Dass’ or the Brigham Youngs or even the Ayn Rand’s (hey, she didn’t jump in as many beds as the others, but it was a small cult, okay??), and then there’s the ones who control others by proxy with forced marriages such as Rev Moon, Mary Baker Eddie, and various Hindu cults. Not to mention the cults of one in extreme patriarchal Xtian cults in the US who practice forced marriage of young daughters.
Er, I think this rant is getting away from me. In conclusion, people suck.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: True that. Mormons from the BY era were about keeping women down even by admittedly pretty warped 19th century standards.
What some people have trouble believing–or don’t want to know (see: nutty Quiverfuls and other patriarchal cults)–is that the average latter half of 19th century American woman married at 19, was on average better educated than her husband, who had quit education to work, and chose who she married. OTOH, she couldn’t vote, was restricted in property arrangements, and her husband could utterly ruin her and her family without hope of recourse.
Another Holocene Human
@Suzanne: There’s way more evidence, archeological and otherwise, that Joseph Smith existed than Jesus Christ.
The god claims are a separate issue.
I know that some TV channels and print publications derive significant revenue putting on pious fraud specials about supposed archeological evidence of Jebus but it’s a put-on. And the most proximate textual evidence indicates that the Jesus narratives in the Gospels are yet more pious fraud. As for Jesus’ teachings, there’s controversy as to which Jewish countercultural religious movement they originated from. Gnostics? Essenes? Perhaps we’ll never know.
Sorry.
Another Holocene Human
@Knight of Nothing: Thanks for that. Your account re: your friend better matches my impression of what was going on in the Morg lately than the OP.
AxelFoley
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Bingo.
Suzanne
@Another Holocene Human: I don’t doubt that Joseph Smith existed. I’m actually 100% convinced that he existed. I am less convinced that he had a divine experience, though. Or that he had anything to say that illuminates the human condition or deepens my existence in any way.
Here’s the crux of the issue at least for me. I don’t believe that the Bible is any sort of factual account. I think it, along with some of the other sacred texts, have a great deal of wonderful things to teach. Whether or not those things are factually true or if they are allegory and metaphor isn’t the point, in my view. If they teach a compassionate and moral/ethical worldview, then I can say that I “believe in them”. The Book of Mormon, and yes, I have read it, doesn’t have anything like that. It has convinced me of nothing but bad writing and really boring sexual hang ups. At least Fifty Shades of Grey is intended to be erotica rather than the basis for a pretty successful Ponzi scheme.
slippy
I’d like to weigh in here, briefly, as a native of Utah, and descendent of ex-Mormons.
Fuckin-A am I glad I never got sucked into that crazy, hateful stupid shit. I knew very little about Mormonism growing up. I guess my Dad didn’t know much either (grand-dad was a “jack” Mormon, meaning he smoked and drank and doesn’t sound like he went to church).
When I started reading what the Mormons really believed I was shocked that anyone, ever, would fall for that utter fucking bullshit.
slippy
@Gene108:
Hey, Gene, you couldn’t be more wrong. There should be NO SPECIAL ADVANTAGE to just saying you’re a religious organization, with regards to taxes. That money is income.
I’m all for abolishing the entire notion of tax-exempt status for any organization, period. If you make money, pay your fucking dues.