LDS II: The Mormons

[Slowvehicle]

https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng

Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.

Is that CJCLDS for, "We were wrong?"

Institutionalized racism was not " 'god's' will", and yet was practiced and is still defended.

Makes one wonder about other institutionalized CJCLDS prejudices...

 

[Cat Tale]

Before the women's lib movement, most women were homemakers; i.e., they didn't work outside the home. Men were the breadwinners, and the jobs they did to win "bread" typically required that they wear pants--coal miners, lumberjacks, longshoremen, fire fighters, construction workers, soldiers, roofers, carpenters, mechanics, etc. Thus the expression "He wears the pants in the family" was not necessarily, as you suppose, a pejorative directed at women.

The common expression is not "he wears the pants," but "she wears the pants." It was meant as a way of emasculating the man. The expression "she wears the pants (trousers, in the 19th and early 20th century), is metaphorical for the person who has the masculine, dominant role. Why would one have to say, in a literal sense, "he wears the pants." Wouldn't that be redundant in stating the obvious? Of course it may be less obvious if he married a strong-minded woman and people wondered who "wears the pants" in their home?

And while it is true that men worked outside the home doing jobs that typically required that they wear pants, the same could be said about his wife. She would have to stoke the fire, and cook over a hearth which exposed her skirts (thus her, too) to grave dangers. Our female ancestors who crossed the plains could have done such in much more comfort wearing trousers, but they wore dresses. The ladies who worked in munition factories during the Civil War, didn't wear trousers, nor did the ladies who worked the plow, jobs that needed done but the shortage of men either killed or off to war left the women to do men's work -- in dresses. So I don't think "who wore the pants in the family" really had anything to do with one having to work outside the home.

 

[Cat Tale]

Finally, my response to Halleyscomet. Polygamy.

BTW, I promised Halleyscomet that I'd look into this, and said I'd be back with an answer in a month or two. Well... here's my response. This was in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Dec. 18, 1904, but the interview was in Salt Lake City, Dec. 17, and the top of the article said, "Special to the Inquirer." The entire article is in genealogybank.com (a subscription site).

From what I can gather, the LDS church did issue such denials during the time period when there were a lot of legal headaches around polygamy, but the modern church no longer denies it as part of their past. Is this a correct description of the situation?

From what I can gather, I've not found evidence that the LDS Utah church denied ever practicing polygamy in the 19th century, the Reorganized CoJCoLDS did. There was a time in the very late 19th and very early 20th centuries when the LDS UT church refused to teach it, but as Professor Joshua Paul, of LDS University put it on Dec. 17, 1904,

"All good Mormons believe in the divinity of polygamy, but we are forbidden to teach it at this time."

"I have not delivered a specific lecture on this subject," said he. "It is positively forbidden by the church authorities at this time, because of the agitation in this country and because the laws of the land forbid the practice of polygamy.

If that's what you were thinking of, it's not a denial that they ever practiced it, but what Prof. Paul said is that they were not teaching it at the time. And yes, there were a lot of legal headaches around polygamy at that time.

 

[joobz]

Re. "negative health consequences," you might reflect on the following:

"Lesbians are two times more likely to attempt suicide than straight women.
....

Do you think it likely that the suicide rate is that high because they live in a society that chooses to claim insanely stupid things like:
They are an abomination or that accepting their life style is a sign we are in the last days black will be white and white will be black?

 

[Olowkow]

Re. "negative health consequences," you might reflect on the following:

"Lesbians are two times more likely to attempt suicide than straight women.

"Attempts by gay and lesbian youth account for up to 30% of all completed suicides.

"Gay teens are three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.

"Gay youth are four times more likely to make a suicide attempt requiring medical attention.

"Gay men are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers."

Source: Fierce Goodbye: Living in the Shadow of Suicide by Gwendolyn Carr (co-author). The book is part of the Trevor Project, whose mission statement says it is "the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning young people ages 13-24."
http://www.fiercegoodbye.com/?S=2

Because this thread is being moderated, I am unable to determine if the link works. If it doesn't, enter the title of the book into your search engine.

There are many heart wrenching reasons why gays of all ages become suicide statistics. Your subtle implication, apologies if I misunderstand, is that "gayness" somehow entails self destructive tendencies. You might want to put yourself in the mind experiment of imagining yourself humiliated by your peers, rejected by your church, fired from your job, and beaten by bigoted fools--all because of whom you love and want to embrace.

A gay activist by the name of Dan Savage and his husband were saddened by these statistics among the young and have attempted to do something about it. It's called the "It gets better project." Just watch some of the videos, and maybe you will begin to understand the real nature of the problem.

Dan Savage has taught me a lot about the plight and nature of the problems of the LGBT members of our society. I feel I am better for having listened to his perspective for many years. I recommend giving it a try for anyone who sincerely wants to understand what is going on with real people who happen to be gay or bi.

By the way, your post failed to include a few other very sad statistics in that link that are just as real and no less tragic and which I feel render moot your supposed point.

Suicide Among the Elderly (for more statistics see Suicide and the Elderly)

• Suicide rates increase with age and are highest among age 65 and older.
• Men account for 81 percent of suicides in that age group.
• Suicide rates are highest for those who are divorced or widowed.

Suicide Among the Young

• Among persons age 15 to 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death, behind accident and homicide.
• Persons under age 25 account for approximately 16 percent of all suicides.
• People living in a household where a firearm is kept are almost 5 times more likely to die by suicide than people who live in gun-free homes.
• Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college age youth, as well as for ages 15 to 19 in many states.
• NHSDA Report / SAMHSA (U.S. Dept of Health) - In 2000, over three million youth seriously considered suicide in the U.S. and of that number over one million attempted suicide. That equates to over 2700 attempts each day by young people between the ages of 12-17. This averages almost 2 attempts each minute.

At some point I think those who are viscerally opposed to gay marriage and decry the touted "gay lifestyle" should be honest and give up on the pseudo-scientific arguments and just admit that they were told as a child that it's wrong to be gay, because their parents said God said so, and in older age they have merely never been able to get over it.

 

[bruto]

Inasmuch (quoting you, above) ". . . it's unlikely any of the new parents will take up the task," what is your point?



.

I'll try this again with more moderate language. If you will reread the entire sentence from which you extracted the quote above, it should be clear that my point is that new parents who adopt children are unlikely to nurse them, orientation notwithstanding. Men of course cannot, and I think it is at least difficult for women who have not borne a child. Quite apart from that, the statistics I've seen suggest that of overall adoptions, a relatively small percentage occur at nursing age anyway.

I do not think my original meaning was unclear, but the whole sentence was not intended to suggest that natural mothers, which lesbian women are quite capable of being, would not be in as good a position to nurse their children as any other mothers.

ON quite another subject, although of course one cannot edit in a moderated forum, if you are concerned about the possibility of a link not working properly, use the "preview post" button before submitting your reply. Your link, if it's valid, should show as a link here. If your browser allows tabs, open the link in a new tab, so as not to mess up your posting page. If it opens there, you know it will work. I just tried it to make sure. Post preview works in this forum, and links can be opened from within a previewed post.

 

[Pup]

Re. "negative health consequences," you might reflect on the following:

"Lesbians are two times more likely to attempt suicide than straight women.

"Attempts by gay and lesbian youth account for up to 30% of all completed suicides.

"Gay teens are three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.

"Gay youth are four times more likely to make a suicide attempt requiring medical attention.

"Gay men are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers."

Good statistics to reflect on, indeed.

If those statistics were presented to someone who had condemned homosexuality in the past, I'd hope their reaction would be: wow, I had no idea gay people were taking what we were saying so hard. Maybe I should be kinder and more accepting.

It would be a shame if the reaction was: See? More evidence that I was right to condemn homosexuality.

 

[halleyscomet]

From what I can gather, I've not found evidence that the LDS Utah church denied ever practicing polygamy in the 19th century, the Reorganized CoJCoLDS did.

Thank you very much for your research and clarification. I can understand the LDS church not teaching that part of their history for a time. I was raised Lutheran and everyone sort of skimmed over Martin Luther's Ming-boggling anti-Semitic writings. I was certainly never taught how Hitler basically cribbed most of his program for attacking Jews from Martin Luther. It wasn't denied, but it wasn't paraded or depicted in a tapestry either.

 

[halleyscomet]

Re. "negative health consequences," you might reflect on the following:

"Lesbians are two times more likely to attempt suicide than straight women.

"Attempts by gay and lesbian youth account for up to 30% of all completed suicides.

"Gay teens are three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.

"Gay youth are four times more likely to make a suicide attempt requiring medical attention.

"Gay men are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers."

Source: Fierce Goodbye: Living in the Shadow of Suicide by Gwendolyn Carr (co-author). The book is part of the Trevor Project, whose mission statement says it is "the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning young people ages 13-24."
http://www.fiercegoodbye.com/?S=2

These are the behaviors typical of a marginalized population. Legalizing gay marriage would be a step towards removing the stigma over being gay, which in turn will reduce the cultural pressures that lead to higher suicide rates. This has already been discussed in this thread.

Are you not seeing the same pattern I am?

Every "evidence" you've raised points to social issues that would be reduced by legalizing gay marriage. You are, yet again, pointing to social illness as a reason not to administer medicine shown to be effective.

Because this thread is being moderated, I am unable to determine if the link works. If it doesn't, enter the title of the book into your search engine.

You must be using the "Quick Reply" dialog. You can get the regular post editor by clicking the "Go Advanced" button. This will give you the "Preview Post" and other editing options you normally get.

 

[halleyscomet]

Seriously? I never heard of it till it was brought up on this thread (well, the LDS thread). I was shocked to see that anyone would consider wearing pants to Church a big deal, as it's been done over the last 25+ years. It's pretty much typical, everyday, commonplace in the eastern US.

The East Coast tends to be more liberal in a lot of ways. I wonder if this is an example of cultural variance between Utah and the East Coast, or an example of a media manufactured "controversy."

Any Utah residents with LDS experience care to weigh in?

It is my ward's policy, and that of all the wards I've been in and/or visited, that it's far better to have a person in attendance than to turn them away, or make them feel uncomfortable, simply for the clothes they're wearing.

One of the churches I attended in my youth showed Sunday School classes a badly acted but sincere video depicting a girl not going to church because she had no "good" cloths, only to be convinced to go by a man who was attending dressed as a clown. Given the fact that Jesus hung out with fishermen and prostitutes, I think he'd approve of your wards' policy on attire.

The "big deal" of which you speak involves wearing pants to church.
The links you provide make that clear. Perhaps you were not aware that the Church has a dress code.

Wear Pants to Church Day

Mormon Women Set Out to Take a Stand, in Pants

Mormon Women Wear Pants To Church, Get Threatened

As Cat pointed out in her post, women are not forbidden from wearing pants to church by the LDS hierarchy.

My point stands. Women are being threatened over wearing clothing that is still respectful, to a place that should be accepting of EVERYONE regardless of their clothing. Are you really so obsessed with appearance that you'd condone people being threatened for going to church just because they don't look "nice" enough for your proclivities?

Mark Twain tackled this issue handily in his very short essay "About Smells." In the essay he responds to Rev. T. De Witt Talmage's objection to the commoners attending church beside the societal upper crust.

In a recent issue of the "Independent," the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, of Brooklyn, has the following utterance on the subject of "Smells":

I have a good Christian friend who, if he sat in the front pew in church, and a working man should enter the door at the other end, would smell him instantly. My friend is not to blame for the sensitiveness of his nose, any more than you would flog a pointer for being keener on the scent than a stupid watch dog. The fact is, if you, had all the churches free, by reason of the mixing up of the common people with the uncommon, you would keep one-half of Christendom sick at their stomach. If you are going to kill the church thus with bad smells, I will have nothing to do with this work of evangelization.

Twain goes on to eviscerate Talmage under the guise of lamenting the fact that he will not be gracing Heaven with his presence due to all those pesky, ill-dressed, shabby saints. The message is very clear. Anyone moaning about how people dress, or even smell, in church are thumbing their nose not at the people they deem shabby, but at Christ himself. Condoning threats against women who dare wear pants to church is no different than telling Christ you won't follow him unless he casts off those uncouth, fishy smelling men from Galilee.

If the subject of these remarks had been chosen among the original Twelve Apostles, he would not have associated with the rest, because he could not have stood the fishy smell of some of his comrades who came from around the Sea of Galilee. He would have resigned his commission with some such remark as he makes in the extract quoted above: "Master, if thou art going to kill the church thus with bad smells, I will have nothing to do with this work of evangelization." He is a disciple, and makes that remark to the Master; the only difference is, that he makes it in the nineteenth instead of the first century.

 

[Foster Zygote]

So the list of people who should not be allowed to marry or adopt includes gays, heterosexuals who can't have children, the poor, and now, women who can't breast feed.

 

[desertgal]

Breastfeeding creates a bond between mother and infant that is not achievable in any other way.

No. I'm sorry, but that is simply incorrect, not that you will acknowledge it. The bond comes from the contact between mother and child created by cradling the baby, not the breastfeeding itself. So women who don't breastfeed, and men, still establish that bond.

Not quite correct. Before the women's lib movement, most women were homemakers; i.e., they didn't work outside the home. Men were the breadwinners, and the jobs they did to win "bread" typically required that they wear pants--coal miners, lumberjacks, longshoremen, fire fighters, construction workers, soldiers, roofers, carpenters, mechanics, etc. Thus the expression "He wears the pants in the family" was not necessarily, as you suppose, a pejorative directed at women.

What are you talking about? The popular term has always been, "SHE wears the pants in the family" or "Well, you know who wears the pants in that family", meant to convey that the female has plays a dominant role or has a domineering personalty.

*Ninjaed by Cat Tale, who said it much better.

 

[skyrider44]

Everything creates a bond between a parent and a child that is not achievable in any other way. Yesterday, I played Skylanders with my son. There is nothing that will ever duplicate whatever neural impression that made on him, not even playing Skylanders with me again today.

I respectfully disagree. Breastfeeding fulfills the hunger impulse while feeling physically close to the mother.

 

[skyrider44]

So women who don't breast feed are unfortunate? Should we still consider them citizens? Should they be allowed to marry?

The underlined questions in your post are not rational; hence, I cannot take them seriously.

So women who don't breastfeed will never be bonded to their children to the same extent as women who don't [do?]

That is your statement, not mine. I do think it's an issue that merits study.

WHy not? it is as rational as your breastfeeding argument to place women's role to be the nurturer of the family. If you think it is a stupid argument, what does it say about your own?

What I said was that breastfeeding creates a bond between infant and mother.
You continue to twist the meaning of my words.

Yes. A woman who wore pants was considered a woman who didn't know her place. I have no clue how you can't think of this as anything BUT perjorative.

In my previous post I referred to your tendency to make sweeping generalizations. You repeat that practice here. Who "considered a woman [who wore pants as someone] who didn't know her place"? The thousands of women who helped to build airplanes during WWII wore pants. The Defense Department and the men who worked with the women certainly didn't consider them out of place (to cite just one example).

NO you didn't say that. WHat you SAID was that there would be gender role confusion issues in children of gay parents.

I cited one or more studies suggesting gender role confusion could be an outcome. Please be accurate.

I claim that this is only true if one believes there would be gender role confusion in children from moms who wear pants.

You're entitled to claim whatever you like.

This is bigotry in it's purest form.

It seems inevitable that there comes a point in a discussion when one participant resorts to character assassination and name-calling.

Truth comes out eventually. And now you demonstrate exactly why your entire attempt to use science to argue against gay marriage crashed and burned.

I have done nothing of the sort. BTW, even if what you say were true, do you rule out the use of science in a discussion about gay marriage?

You weren't interested in finding the truth. Only in supporting your bigoted world view.

Once again, you resort to character assassination.

Blame your moral compass.

Still more character assassination.

I'll leave it for you to figure out how this statement effectively invalidates your religion, or really, religion in general.

Thank you.

 

[skyrider44]

I'll try this again with more moderate language. If you will reread the entire sentence from which you extracted the quote above, it should be clear that my point is that new parents who adopt children are unlikely to nurse them, orientation notwithstanding.

Doesn't it depend on the age at which the child is adopted?

Men of course cannot, and I think it is at least difficult for women who have not borne a child.

It may be difficult for some women but not for others. I'm not sure you can make an overarching statement.

Quite apart from that, the statistics I've seen suggest that of overall adoptions, a relatively small percentage occur at nursing age anyway.

That's probably correct.

I do not think my original meaning was unclear, but the whole sentence was not intended to suggest that natural mothers, which lesbian women are quite capable of being, would not be in as good a position to nurse their children as any other mothers.

I don't disagree.

ON quite another subject, although of course one cannot edit in a moderated forum, if you are concerned about the possibility of a link not working properly, use the "preview post" button before submitting your reply. Your link, if it's valid, should show as a link here. If your browser allows tabs, open the link in a new tab, so as not to mess up your posting page. If it opens there, you know it will work. I just tried it to make sure. Post preview works in this forum, and links can be opened from within a previewed post.

I appreciate your thoughtful counsel. In some cases in the past when I have used the "preview post" button, I have lost the entire post, after being instructed to reload the page, a process that hasn't worked for me.

 

[skyrider44]

There are many heart wrenching reasons why gays of all ages become suicide statistics. Your subtle implication, apologies if I misunderstand, is that "gayness" somehow entails self destructive tendencies.

I don't know if that's what the figures indicate. I made no effort to explain them; I simply presented them from a source I assume most LGBT individuals would consider credible.

You might want to put yourself in the mind experiment of imagining yourself humiliated by your peers, rejected by your church, fired from your job, and beaten by bigoted fools--all because of whom you love and want to embrace.

Please know that I take no joy--absolutely none--in the fact that gay people have a very high suicide rate. Indeed, that circumstance saddens me. I sincerely wish something could be done about it, and I commend Mr. Savage for his efforts.

A gay activist by the name of Dan Savage and his husband were saddened by these statistics among the young and have attempted to do something about it. It's called the "It gets better project." Just watch some of the videos, and maybe you will begin to understand the real nature of the problem.

Dan Savage

has taught me a lot about the plight and nature of the problems of the LGBT members of our society. I feel I am better for having listened to his perspective for many years. I recommend giving it a try for anyone who sincerely wants to understand what is going on with real people who happen to be gay or bi.

I understand more about the problem than perhaps you realize.

By the way, your post failed to include a few other very sad statistics in that link that are just as real and no less tragic and which I feel render moot your supposed point.

Of course they are tragic, but you have changed the parameters. The statistics you list do not apply (as near as I can tell) to LGBT individuals. How, then, is my point rendered moot?

At some point I think those who are viscerally opposed to gay marriage and decry the touted "gay lifestyle" should be honest and give up on the pseudo-scientific arguments and just admit that they were told as a child that it's wrong to be gay, because their parents said God said so, and in older age they have merely never been able to get over it.

Forgive me, but I think your scenario is oversimplification in the extreme. I am confident it will not stand up to any serious scholarly examination.

 

[Loss Leader]

Doesn't it depend on the age at which the child is adopted?

Good lord, man, of course it doesn't. Pregnancy creates an entire cascade of hormonal reactions that aid the mother in producing milk. The suckling of a baby keeps such hormone production up. Women who have not been pregnant don't have such advantages. They may need to simulate breastfeeding before the prospective adopted child is born and some opt for hormone therapy. Even then, producing enough milk to nourish the child is a challenging goal (and one that most sources say that adoptive mothers shouldn't even aspire to).

And, again, you're ignoring the 50% of gay couples for which having children by birth and breastfeeding are not a problem. You're also ignoring all of the couples who don't want children. You're also ignoring the fact that, while breastfeading may help create a closeness between mother and child, there are lots of other ways to bond with a child.

I never breastfed my children because, well, I'm a guy. Yet somehow, we formed a loving relationship. How did we do that?

 

[skyrider44]

The common expression is not "he wears the pants," but "she wears the pants." It was meant as a way of emasculating the man. The expression "she wears the pants (trousers, in the 19th and early 20th century), is metaphorical for the person who has the masculine, dominant role. Why would one have to say, in a literal sense, "he wears the pants." Wouldn't that be redundant in stating the obvious? Of course it may be less obvious if he married a strong-minded woman and people wondered who "wears the pants" in their home?

And while it is true that men worked outside the home doing jobs that typically required that they wear pants, the same could be said about his wife. She would have to stoke the fire, and cook over a hearth which exposed her skirts (thus her, too) to grave dangers. Our female ancestors who crossed the plains could have done such in much more comfort wearing trousers, but they wore dresses. The ladies who worked in munition factories during the Civil War, didn't wear trousers, nor did the ladies who worked the plow, jobs that needed done but the shortage of men either killed or off to war left the women to do men's work -- in dresses. So I don't think "who wore the pants in the family" really had anything to do with one having to work outside the home.

Excellent, insightful post!

 

[skyrider44]

So the list of people who should not be allowed to marry or adopt includes gays, heterosexuals who can't have children, the poor, and now, women who can't breast feed.

You make a quintessential strawman statement.

 

[skyrider44]

I haven't done a comparative analysis. I've simply noted that the sources you cite distort the truth in order to support their arguments. (And that you have cited numerous sources without even bothering to read them thoroughly enough to know that they don't support your position.)

Because SS marriage and issues related to it are complex, some of the studies I have cited present a balanced view. You appear to believe that your position is clear cut and one-sided. It isn't.

By your own admission, you haven't cited any studies in support of your position. Thus, it appears the rationale for your argument resides in sources you believe are 100% biased. I find that less than convincing.

I'll tell you what I do know: The sources you cite in support of your argument have repeatedly been shown to distort and misrepresent the truth in order to support their position that same-sex marriage is harmful. I also know that you have engaged in double standards in order to do the same.

Your statement reminds me of the tobacco industry's staunch denial that smoking causes lung cancer. I'm not saying that same-sex marriage would have a comparable negative effect. Rather, I'm saying that there are credible studies that, at a minimum, call into question the advisability of making SS marriage a societal norm, and they are not prejudicial. You may want to reconsider your wholesale dismissal of those studies, not only because they have merit, but the "playing the victim" card is getting a bit frayed at the edges.