Posted on 10/16/2007 10:36:59 AM PDT by esryle
PROVO - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Brigham Young University students Tuesday that it is possible to be a good Mormon and a Democrat. "My faith and political beliefs are deeply intertwined. I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it," he told a gathering of more than 4,000 at the Marriott Center. But Nevada's senior senator says he also hopes votes for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney are "determined by his political stands, and not his religion." Reid said people often question how he can be a Democrat and a Mormon, but called the social responsibility Democrats espouse a good fit with the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He questioned the guidance of some LDS Church leaders, though. In remarks to the media following his address, Reid said that, "In the past years we've had some very prominent members of the church, like Ezra Taft Benson, who are really right-wing people. "Members of the church are obedient and followers in the true sense of the word, but these people have taken members of the church down the path that is the wrong path," he said. However, Reid says he doesn't have to answer to those who question his faith in the LDS Church. "I have to go get my [temple] recommend, and they're not present," he quipped. Reid didn't convert to the LDS Church until he became an adult, after he married his wife, Landra, both of whom were 19 at the time. Before joining the church, he said the figure he came closest to worshipping was President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A pillowcase with the quote "We can, we will, we must" stitched on it hung in his living room growing up in Searchlight, Nev., in a house with no indoor plumbing. "He fought for the workers of America," Reid said. "President Roosevelt is the basis of my political direction." Reid praised workers' unions, condemned the thought that free enterprise alone can solve global warming and spoke out strongly against the war in Iraq. "I say the invasion of Iraq was the worst foreign policy blunder in our country's history," he said, to loud applause from many in attendance. "I say our diplomatic army should be larger than our military army." Reid said afterward that the reaction did not surprise him because many Americans oppose the war, including BYU students. Although Reid is a Democrat, he says he is adamantly anti-abortion, and instead of voting for abortion bills, he votes for family-planning measures such as federal health insurance programs covering contraceptives, he said. Katherine Winters, a graduate student in civil engineering, said she was happy to get beyond the typical sound bites and begin to know Reid "as a person." She said she originally registered as a Republican when she turned 18 because her parents were Republicans. But lately she's been rethinking her political stand. "Recently there's so much that the Democratic Party has embraced; there is so much good that those social causes have done," she said. "I don't think you can call yourself a true Christian without caring for the poor."
The problem with this line of thinking should be self evident. The gov't is neither the proper, or best way, to fulfill our obligation toward social responsibility. That is a role for private charity, not for the gov't. Coercive philanthropy is destructive for the giver and the receiver. If this point is lost on you, read, or re-read, "A Christmas Carol".
I've often thought that such "liberals" ended up in the wrong place. They should all be working for private charities.
You probably can't.
I would encourage this woman to care for the poor as much as she can.
BUT DO IT WITH HER OWN MONEY!!!
Isn't there a verse in the Bible that says woe unto those who call good evil and evil good? Woe unto Reid.
So, the LDS church has gone down the wrong path!
I'm sure if Ann Coulter had said this, the liberal media would be all over her for such a hateful, anti-Mormon statement.
Thank you, Neville Chamberlain!
This is the kind of fuzzy-brained, Bill Clinton, "let's just sue the terrorists, and if we don't have enough evidence, we'll let them keep this Bin Ladin guy" thinking that caused 9/11, because the bad guys thought, thanks to the lawyers and Liberals, that America was a backboneless, cheese-doodle-eating bunch of do-nothing infidels who would never get up off the couch to get the paper, much less go to Godforsaken Afganistan and drop billion pound MOABs on the ARABs. Let these morons get into power in '08, and you will have American blood on American soil.
Listen, Harry: you put twenty-thousand pampered, striped pants diplomats on the beach at Normandy under Nazi machine-gun fire, and let me know how that works out.
I registered as a Republican when I turned 18 and I wouldn’t change to a Rat in a million years.
The future countering our future.
I agree completely with her. The Bible talks about it too. However, I don’t see the dems doing a thing for the poor. They try to entrap them in poverty so that they can never get out on their own. Republicans, by contrast, work on the economy so that more and more people can have their own piece of the pie. And teach them to fish for it, if need be. This only barely scratches the surface, but I see most of what the Republicans stand for help people help themselves and I see most all of what the dems do as further entrapping the poor who are already down far enough.
Christian writings and preaching talks about our own personal responsibility to care for the poor. There is nothing Christian that says we satisfy our moral, Christian obligations by sticking our hands in our neighbor’s pocket to do so. Democraps have managed to misinterpret and rewrite our Constitution and are trying to rewrite the bible too.
Reid: Right-wingers have taken LSD Church members down 'wrong path'
Hey, what happened to that separation of church and state thingy the Dems are always whining about? Now they are better Christians because their Dems. This Harry Reid a serious asshat.
“God has said you will die, but surely you will not die” said Satan...
“Conservatives have taken you down the wrong path.” said Satan...I mean Reid.
Charity out of the barrel of a gun, or threat of jail, isn't very charitable, and certainly isn't very Christian.
The Charities of American love you.
I am voting (not voting) for Romney for his political stances, not his religion. I hope this is all the “common-ground” I ever have with Sen. Harry Reid!..
How can I respect anyone that belongs to a church that would have somebody as stupid as Harry Reid for a member?
(Tongue in cheek, sorta.)
I wouldn’t want to be a Democrat standing before the Throne!
Whether or not the rest of the world believes that presidents of the Church are "Prophets, Seers, and Revelators," it amounts to apostasy for a Church member to declare, referring to then-President Benson and other General Authorities, that "these people have taken members of the church down the path that is the wrong path..."
However, it will be his stake president and not the General leadership of the Church who will decide when and if Reid will face a local Church disciplinary council. Any action, if any, relative to Reid's membership in the Church will be decided by the stake president -- in consultation with his counselors and the twelve members of the stake high council...
Let me correct that for you
“I don’t think you can call yourself a true Christian without demanding the government care for the poor.”
The idea that these entitlement programs are ‘socially good’ just frosts me.
If my recollection of history is correct, when FDR was POTUS, the income tax was on averge 4%. If the Dems can do all their ‘social good’ while taxing at that rate, great. But they can’t. So now we have to have two parents working to carry the burden of their own families and others for whom the Democrats have chosen to do their ‘social good.’
I would love an economist to figure out how, if it can be done now, reducing income tax, and reducing (or preferably eliminating) ‘socially good’ programs, would allow more mothers to stay home to actually raise their own children, thus reducing even the need for half these socially good programs.
My memory is also that pre-LBJ’s ‘Great Society,’ illegitimacy in this country was very low among all ethnic/racial groups. Might removal of the ‘socially good’ programs that fostered illegitimacy instead encourage women to think of getting married rather than having children who will be put on every conceivable ‘socially good’ program?
Could a married mother and father living together possibly raise a child on one modest,low-taxed income without the myriad ‘socially good’ programs?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.