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

[randomorbit.livejournal.com]

They'll say that a marriage is between a man and one or more women. That homosexuality is an abomination, and an affront to god, but polygamy is alright as long as it's patriarchal. In the Mormon church if you go against church doctrine you're excommunicated. If you're gay, you're not saved.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Your first sentence is correct. Your second sentence, however, does not take into account that the Mormons who practice polygamy are very very old school, not modern Mormons, and very rare.

I would phrase inquiries more along the lines of "Is it standard practice of the Mormon church to knowingly deceive people to try to get them not to sin?"

ie, along the lines of taking away the free will that G-d gave us, by lying.

(Also I might ask about the other cleanliness laws; so far as I know, the reasons Christians can eat pork is because when Jesus came the first time 'round he said "all those cleanliness laws in Leviticus? Forget 'em!" and I wonder if the homosexuality thing is one of those.)

[dscheuring.livejournal.com]

The prohibition against homosexuality is explicitly restated by "Paul" in the epistles. The Leviticus and the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah are more frequently quoted, but Paul is the real reason why christians think that their god hates the gays.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Actually, modern-day LDS is vehemently anti-polygamy, in order to live down their past and dissociate themselves from their recalcitrant distant cousins.

[satyrgrl.livejournal.com]

Of course, it is worth noting that banning polygamy was a condition of Utah's entrance into the Union, and likely it would still be practiced today had that not been the case.

[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.

[cos]

So maybe it's like that "my ancestors came to this country legally, and now these new people want to break the rules!" attitude? (ignoring for a moment that fact that there was no way to immigrate illegally in earlier centuries; allowing polygamy was a way for a state to fail to be admitted)

[ron_newman]

When the Mormons first settled Utah, wasn't it still part of Mexico? I think their settlement predates the Cession by a couple of years.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Sort of, and months rather than years. From Wikipedia's page on Utah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah):

Brigham Young and the first band of Mormon pioneers came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. Over the next 22 years, more than 70,000 pioneers crossed the plains and settled in Utah...

In 1847 when the first pioneers arrived, Utah was still Mexican territory. As a consequence of the Mexican-American War, the land became the territory of the United States upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10.

The war started in 1846, so the first Mormon settlers were actually crossing the border of enemy nations. Except neither country was actively administering the area, nor contesting it militarily.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who is mormon. It may be relevant that he does not live in the US. He is confused why his church took this political stance, as he says usually they stay out of political issues and he perceives the distinction between religious and civil marriage. So, he thinks that religious marriage is between a man and a woman, but there is no reason that civil marriage should be denied to people of the same sex.

Obviously, he's in the minority in the Mormon church, but he hasn't been excommunicated.

It's really hard to find a group of people who are all bad. There will generally be some exceptions floating around.