When the Mormons come to your door

[cos]

Apparently some Mormons stopped by my house last week, when I wasn't home, so I heard about it from Valerie later. She was not aware that the Mormon church funded California's proposition 8, donating the bulk of the money to run ads in the final weeks; it's quite likely that it would not have passed without their help.

If I were home when they came, I would have asked about it. I don't necessarily presume that young canvassers agree with their church, but it played such a pivotal role in passing the gay marriage ban, and here they are canvassing for converts, so they're at least acting in support of it. Mormon canvassers are, as far as I can tell, always polite, so I'd be polite. I'd also make it clear that I believe their church is a terrible influence on the world and I actively advise my friends to avoid it.

If Mormons come to your door, remember to ask them about prop 8? I'm curious to hear what they say.

Comments

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

I agree. But having made the change for what were political reasons, they had to justify it to themselves and their congregations as having been done for religious reasons. That has made them all the more emphatic in their revised orthodoxy. Given that this revision was about a century ago, I think it's quite misleading and ultimately counterproductive to imply that current LDS's association with polygamy requires them to take certain positions on other issues.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

But afterlife polygyny is still doctrine - if you are male, your spouse dies, and you remarry, you will have two wives when you are in heaven. How does that fit into the larger picture?

[satyrgrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I completely agree. I just also think it is counterproductive to imply, as no one here seems to but people often do, that LDS eliminated polygamy from its doctrine because church leaders saw the error of their misogynistic ways, because God told them to, or some similarly high-minded reason.