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Mormon Soprano traces the origins of “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.”
Taking a page from Disney’s DVD Vault or something, four retired merit badges are being brought back from the dust for this year only to celebrate 100 years of Scouting.
Too bad they changed the Stalker merit badge to boring old “Tracking.”
Very scary: “Traditional Marriage.”
Alternatively, “Confirmed: The Bloggernacle is in no way a reflection of what most Mormons think politically.”
Gallup has released a survey confirming the sharp conservative leanings of Mormons.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, are the most conservative major religious group in the country, with 59% identifying as conservative, 31% as moderate, and 8% as liberal.
Not too surprising but here are some interesting tidbits:
- “The data show that these lapsed Mormons are substantially different in ideology from their fellow Mormons who remain active in the church (as defined by attendance at church services). In fact, lapsed Mormons are essentially no different from all other non-Mormons in terms of their basic ideology.”
- Contrary to what I have assumed, Mormons seem to be generally of the same political stripe, whether they live in Utah or not. “The percentage of Mormons living in Utah who are conservative is little different from the conservative percentage among Mormons living elsewhere in the United States.”
These first point reiterates that indeed greater religious intensity suggests political conservatism. When church attendance and likelihood to marry are the biggest prognosticators of political affiliation, Mormons can’t help but be conservative.
(But don’t worry liberals, no one’s saying you can’t be a faithful member just because you aren’t on the big red bandwagon. Be a proud part of the 8%. Seriously, no sarcasm here.)
I believe most of the “separation of church and state” rhetoric is overblown and unfounded (private presidential letters do not make good Constitutional doctrine). But for a church’s sake, it’s generally a good idea to keep the state off at an arm’s distance.
With that in mind, I’ll go out on a limb and say that this is not the best way to start a campaign.
Idaho gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell will be mixing what he calls doctrines from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into his gubernatorial campaign in a series of meetings slated for LDS elders only.
In January, Rammell will kick off a series of special meetings targeted specifically at “faithful priesthood-holders of the LDS Church” to discuss the so-called “White Horse” prophecy.
I’m not sure why a gubernatorial candidate wants to kick off his campaign by discussing a highly disputed prophecy when his own church doesn’t. While Idaho’s LDS population is a sizable 24%, isn’t he just asking to tick off that remaining 76%? I’m all for protecting the Constitution, but making a parochial appeal using folk doctrine does not make a winning campaign nor does it put the Church in the best light. (Here’s a copy of his flier, via Article 6 Blog.)
Bonus: Last week, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the city’s same-sex marriage legislation in a church! I thought government recognition of same-sex marriage had nothing to do with churches and whether they did the same. Oh well.
The top 10 Religion Stories of 2009, including an uptick in church-state policy issues.
5. Mormons in California come under attack from some supporters of gay rights because of their lobbying efforts in the November 2008 election on behalf of Prop. 8, which outlawed gay marriage. Later in the year, Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire approve gay marriage, but it is overturned by voters in Maine.
Jimmy Stewart doesn’t make me cry. He’s just mandatory Christmas viewing (sniff).
Stephen Covey, e-book pioneer.
Stephen R. Covey, one of the most successful business authors of the last two decades, has moved e-book rights to two of his best-selling books from his print publisher, Simon & Schuster, a division of the CBS Corporation, to a digital publisher that will sell the e-books to Amazon.com for one year . . .
The move promises to raise the already high anxiety level among publishers about the economics of digital publishing and could offer authors a way to earn more profits from their works than they do under the traditional system.
If it wasn’t for the great health care debate of ‘09, I bet Romney would be the GOP frontrunner for 2012 (however dubious a title that may be in 2009). But since we have been debating health care “reform”, it’s inevitable to look at what Massachusetts did a few years ago under then-Gov. Romney.
So now, if Obamacare passes, Romney will be left telling angry primary voters that the only real difference between the two plans is that he implemented his policies at the state level, while Obama did it through the federal government. Sure, it’s clearly worse if the federal government is implementing bad policies, but it’s hard to see how such an argument would pass muster with anybody but those who are already ardent Romney supporters. It’s sort of like saying, “As governor, I raised state income taxes, but the thought of raising federal income taxes — that’s an outrage!”
A Romney spokesman counters:
There are some similarities. For instance, the concept of the “exchange” where people can shop for affordable health plans was pioneered in Massachachusetts. But Mitt’s Romney’s health care reforms are different in several important respects. First, the bill signed by Governor Romney did not raise taxes. Second, its focus was on strengthening the private insurance market, and I don’t think anyone believes that Democrats have given up on their dream of a public option. And finally, Governor Romney believes states should be free to come up with their own approach instead of having Washington create a “one-size-fits-all” solution for the entire country.
I think Romney gets unfairly blamed for some aspects that were done by the legislature or his successor. But when its become known as RomneyCare, that’s how politics rolls.
Regardless how HCR ends in Congress, it’s a debate that’s going to stick around for quite a while.
Videos like this must keep the Church’s PR office up at night: A Song for the Mormons.
[via BCC's sideblog]
Gallup takes another look at how religious intensity correlates with party identification and not much has changed.
Thus, Republicans are in the plurality among highly religious Americans. For each of the other three groups, Democrats are equal with or higher in number than Republicans. The Democratic edge expands as religiosity decreases. Among the not-religious group, Democrats have a 30-point edge over Republicans.
Ethnicity, however, adds a significant wrinkle, where this trend applies the strongest to non-hispanic whites and the least to African-Americans.
The pattern is quite different among whites. Identification with the Republican Party overwhelms identification with the Democratic Party by more than a 2-to-1 margin among highly religious whites, and by a still-substantial margin among those who are religious. Exactly the opposite pattern obtains among whites who are not religious, with a 2-to-1 margin in favor of Democratic versus Republican identification.
Maybe Mormons aren’t the freakishly conservative outliers they sometimes appear to be. Perhaps it’s more of a reflection of their religious activity and demographics.
Keepapitchinin looks at the history of the three-fold mission of the Church. It goes back much longer than I thought.
Picking up on an earlier post, the SL Trib confirms that caring for the poor as a “new emphasis” for Church
The LDS Church is adding “to care for the poor and needy” to its longstanding “threefold mission,” which is to preach the LDS gospel, purify members’ lives and provide saving ordinances such as baptism to those who have died . . .
The new group of phrases will be described as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ “purposes,” rather than missions, and will be spelled out in the next edition of the LDS Church Handbook of Instructions , due out next year, church spokesman Scott Trotter confirmed this week.
“Caring for the poor and needy,” Trotter said, “has always been a basic tenet of the [LDS] Church.”
Exactly. But could this also be a smart move to publicly establish the Church as the unequivocal force for good it has always been?
It seems that a good percentage of the Church’s Newsroom press releases are about various welfare and charity projects the Church contributes to. And on a smaller level, stakes and wards do all kinds of charitable activities that never get mentioned.
And yet, as is the nature of news, they get scant attention. Instead, the Church only seems to merit headlines when it takes the relatively infrequent political stand. I would hazard a guess that over half of the national news mentions the Church has received this year are from last year’s Proposition 8 involvement.
The Church and its members have always had caring for the poor and the needy as a focus (Heck last night, our Young Men and Women went Christmas caroling (on a very cold Utah night) collecting coats and clothes for the poor – even before this all becomes “official” in the handbook). So it’s nice to see this important principle gain greater recognition, but it’s not new.
UPDATE: Thanks to KSL for the link too. The original post is here.
Sen. Reid sounds a little desperate for a guy who’s in charge of the Senate. Maybe just frustrated.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
UPDATE: Added video.
Do those bothered by Elder Oaks’ comparison in October feel the same about Sen. Reid? Elder Oaks merely said that Prop 8 Supporters faced voter intimidation as did those in the Civil Rights era. He didn’t suggest that Prop 8 opponents were like Jim Crow apologists, or in Reid’s case that Republicans are like slavery apologists.
Bishop Edgley strikes again. Tonight was the adult session of our stake conference, with Bishop Edgley presiding. As happened with Scott’s stake, Bishop Edgley requested that everyone be prepared to give a talk just in case they were called upon. I dodged the bullet tonight but we’ll see about tomorrow.
What was interesting was that at the end of tonight’s meeting, our stake president prodded Bishop Edgley to share with us that a new Church Handbook would be coming out soon (seems fairly quick since the last one) with a revision to the three-fold mission of the Church. He said they would no longer be called “missions” but “the purpose of the Church.” Most importantly, a fourth prong would be added, “to care for the poor and needy.”
I thought that was pretty exciting. Perhaps FPR was onto something.
Yes, the Church, its members, and especially its leaders get guff for looking too corporate and dressing plainly. But the next time you complain about wearing a white shirt or some Molly-Mormon dress, please consider the alternative.
KSL News: Mormon church issues statement in support of gay-rights ordinances.
At Tuesday night’s Salt Lake City Council meeting, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement showing it’s support of the city’s proposed non-discrimination regulations . . .
Tuesday’s statement to the city council comes in response to public comment on two proposed anti-discrimination ordinances that would enact two new chapters in the Salt Lake City Code.
The ordinances, one dealing with employment, the other with housing, stem from a report released in July by Mayor Becker and the City’s Human Rights Commission, which found a number of discrimination cases throughout Salt Lake.
Finally the truth comes out. According to a survey called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Utah scores as the happiest state in the Union. Interestingly, the survey’s takeaway is that the happiest states have residents that are wealthier, better educated and more tolerant residents on average. I’m sure some will quibble with that as a description of Utah but it sounds right to me.
What will be curious is if this survey will prompt a review of the “root causes” of such happiness. Just two years ago, Utah was declared the most depressed state which led to a debate whether a locally predominant culture was responsible. Perhaps said culture will now get some of the credit for producing such happiness.
Or perhaps, Utahns are in denial about their depression and just claim to be happy, throwing off the survey takers (Hawaii and Wyoming round out the top three? What a trio). Or possibly, surveys and studies don’t make much more than good headlines.
ABC 4 News: “LDS Church reportedly set to reach out to gay community”
Numerous sources are now telling ABC 4 that the LDS Church is poised to extend an olive branch of sorts to the gay community.
These sources say the Church is expected to – both through spoken and written statements – to offer its support for proposed Salt Lake City ordinances extending protection to gays in the areas of employment and housing.
Reportedly, the Church has been in quiet discussion with members of Utah’s gay community.
Temple Study: Temple Construction Costs Vs. Humanitarian Aid?
As a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy™, I am obligated to sniff out media bias wherever it may lie.
This finely-honed skill helped in my assertion that the Associated Press’ coverage of Elder Oak’s talk was in large part to blame for the civil-rights analogy kerfuffle this week. In anticipation of his talk, Elder Oaks gave the A.P. an interview and his talk’s text to accompany its coverage of his address. With his cooperation and a despite a very substantive talk, the A.P. reporter framed a news story based on one sentence aiming for maximal controversy. And it worked.
The A.P.’s coverage is not too surprising. I’ve long thought it covered the Church unfairly, (recent egregious example). But this week, it has also been interesting to see the local Utah media reaction behind the scenes.
The City Weekly jumped on the Deseret News for not covering the civil-rights analogy issue as did all the other news outlets who followed the A.P.’s lead. In its view (and by way of Twitter, the view of other area reporters), if the D.N. didn’t follow the A.P.’s lead, it wasn’t being fair and balanced. So much for original reporting.
Most remarkable was another post at the City Weekly about an executive news producer at the local Salt Lake Fox affiliate, Fox 13 who violated the Church’s embargo with a tweet. Perhaps not a big deal but her blog about her phone call with the Church’s Public Affairs office and her feelings towards the Church as a former member and its involvement in Proposition 8 is quite an eye opener (to read a sanitized version just read the Weekly’s version, there you can click through to read the very crude and psychodrama-rich original if you dare, but beware). Quite astonishing to realize that this is someone who deals with and reports on the Church as a journalist.
Fox 13 news doesn’t strike me as biased, or anti-LDS. I do think that it did stoke up the controversy a bit online by tweeting up the story over and over and over and over and over and over again (and no, Elder Oaks did not claim that “Mormon backlash after Prop. 8 [was] similar to treatment of Southern blacks”). But the controversy probably sent them pretty good traffic.
As for their news producer, it’s nice to see news folk let it all hang out and not pretend that they are impassive robots unburdened by the silly squabbles the rest of us mere mortals deal with. Perhaps in such a small news operation she can’t recuse herself from stories when she loathes the subjects she covers. But for her own mental health it might be for the best.
As for the City Weekly, its interesting to read some of the local inside baseball of the journalism scene. But after reading its own coverage and the tweets from other reporters, its laughable to single out the Deseret News as unbalanced. And soliciting for more LDS Public Affair horror stories to confirm your own biases? That’s not high-minded journalism, it’s called blogging. Join the club.
Even more see, “Dallin H. Oaks: Calling for fair reading, fair thinking, fair commentary“
Newsroom commentary: “The Mormon Ethic of Civility”
So many of the habits and conventions of modern culture — ubiquitous media, anonymous and unsourced online participation, politicization of the routine, fractured community and family life — undermine the virtues and manners that make peaceful coexistence in a pluralist society possible. The fabric of civil society tears when stretched thin by its extremities. Civility, then, becomes the measure of our collective and individual character as citizens of a democracy.
LDS and Mormon Blogs
- Mt. Pleasant Pioneer Relic Home
- Archaiologia
- Nauvoo History and Other Things
- Warfare and the Book of Mormon
- Mormon Church History
- Amateur Mormon Historian
- Nothing Wavering
- 1 LDS Mom
- Finck Philosophies
- Store House of Faith
- Healthy Families, Warm Hearts
- Variety is the Spice of Life
- Prepare For Peace
- Butterscotch Pieces of Me
- Carli and the Clan
- LauraScoop
- The Mormon Worker
- From Where I Sit
- Being is Somethingness
- United Families International Blog
Affiliates
