Posted on 03/22/2011 7:45:20 PM PDT by Frantzie
Churches should not be lump in with the secular institutions when Churches are about the business of the Lord
A Principle-Based Approach to ImmigrationPRINT |17 March 2011 — POSTED by Public Affairs Staff
http://newsroom.lds.org/article/a-principle-based-approach-to-immigration
A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune highlighted the fact that the Church’s Presiding Bishop, H. David Burton, attended the signing of a comprehensive set of immigration reform bills passed by the Utah legislature. The article said: “One thing is clear: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has abandoned its claims to neutrality on these bills.”
This needs a clarification.
While the Church does not endorse or oppose specific political parties, candidates or platforms, it has always reserved the right to address, in a nonpartisan way, issues that have significant community or moral consequences. Immigration is such an issue.
Before the 2011 Utah legislative session began, the Church announced its support for the Utah Compact .
Our hope was that lawmakers would find solutions that encompassed principles important to Mormons and other people of goodwill:
•We follow Jesus Christ by loving our neighbors. The Savior taught that the meaning of “neighbor” includes all of God’s children, in all places, at all times.
•We recognize an ever-present need to strengthen families. Families are meant to be together. Forced separation of working parents from their children weakens families and damages society.
•We acknowledge that every nation has the right to enforce its laws and secure its borders. All persons subject to a nation’s laws are accountable for their acts in relation to them.
Our focus during the legislative session was to encourage laws that incorporated these principles. The Church did not dictate what kinds of bills should be proposed. Like many others on Capitol Hill, Church officials voiced their views and trusted the state’s elected officials to do their job.
We consider the comprehensive package passed by lawmakers to be a responsible approach to a very complicated issue.
Bishop Burton was invited, along with other community leaders, to witness the signing of a series of immigration bills by Utah Governor Gary Herbert and to show support for the diligent efforts of lawmakers in this area.
We expect that our country will continue to struggle with this complicated issue, which the federal government will have to address.
Our hope is that good people everywhere will strive for principle-based solutions that balance the rule of law with the need for compassion.
No “clarification” needed or provided.
The mormons influenced [”encouraged”]those politicians and now they can sit back and claim they’re “following the law”. Hypocrites. Your country is being sold out in the name of religion.
More claptrap liberal speak like all the other “churches” who are supporters of amnesty [ILLEGALS] all in the name of filling the pews for the $$$$$$.
The mormons have a $4 BILLION mall they need to pay off and cheap ILLEGAL labor is just the thing to make sure the cost over-runs don’t go any higher.
If the church believes families should be together, then the church should be obeying the laws (AoF) and identify those within their midst and have them ALL self-deport. Obedience to the law right?
As it is, they are doing whatever they can to undermine this country all in the name of religion.
Hypocrites all. And you defend them!
Seems they can be shot on sight.
Churches that ARE businesses SHOULD be "lump in with the secular" and pay taxes!
Oh, LOL..."President" Burton holds the purse strings of the mormon church, the UT legislature is majority mormon, the legislature members are probably mostly businessmen who either directly benefit from church-owned business or from TBMs who believe in keeping the bucks within the "brethren".....and we're supposed to believe it's just "coincidence" that Burton was at the signing?
I have an ocean-front lot for sale in Arizona....(took it in from a mormon on a debt) I'll sell anyone who believes in this coincidence.
The only TRUE statement in that article is “One thing is clear: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has abandoned its claims to neutrality on these bills.”
I guess the LDS church has been doing a bang up business recruiting illegals into their church...much like the RC Church (my church) who list most of the illegals as RC and also want them to be given amnesty...
It happens to all of us but one should try to avoid following the bias and contempt some have for another, so as not to get caught up in their blind ignorance and rage.
The LDS have never called for AMNESTY that is why it is so important to read the clarifiation.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2693109/posts?page=21#21
SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - Utah’s governor on Tuesday signed a package of immigration laws including one that would allow a police crackdown on illegal immigrants similar to Arizona’s attempt last year.
The laws, approved by Utah’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this month, also would attempt to create a guest worker program.
Opponents of the bills rallied last week in downtown Salt Lake City in an effort to prevent their passage. Chanting and carrying signs that read “Don’t Let Utah Become Another Arizona” and “Keep Families Together” the protesters urged lawmakers and the governor to stop the legislation.
“Utah did the right thing. We did the hard thing,” Governor Gary Herbert said in signing the laws, which he called “the Utah solution.”
The United States is struggling with 12 million illegal immigrants, many of them from Latin America, and growing anger among voters about the jobs they take.
U.S. immigration enforcement has shifted over the years, with the Obama administration choosing to crack down on employers rather than illegal workers themselves.
Herbert called on the federal government to follow Utah’s model and enact reform of immigration laws.
But immigration experts said the new Utah laws, except for enforcement, are more show than substance.
“The guest worker stuff is entirely meaningless. It is like a college creating a nuclear free zone. It’s meaningless. A state cannot create a guest worker program,” said Steven Camarota, research director of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies think-tank in Washington.
Analysts also are skeptical the package will influence policy in Washington, where Republicans who favor enforcement-only measures have control of the House of Representatives and a stronger hand in the Senate.
Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said such laws put immigration back in focus.
“But the way forces are balanced in Washington, I don’t think it’s going to have any real effect on pushing through comprehensive immigration reform,” he said.
Legal challenges are expected to a law requiring police to check the immigration status of people stopped for felonies.
That law is similar to one in Arizona that has been the target of a lawsuit by the administration of President Barack Obama.
Herbert hosted an immigration summit last year to lay the foundation for the forthcoming legislative session. The summit brought together religious, business, law enforcement and government leaders to tackle the issue.
“There are those who will say these bills may not be perfect but they are a step in the right direction and they are better than what we had,” he said.
FYI Some here when posting things about LDS has a Goebbels tongune as witness in a few precious post.
Correction
FYI Some here when posting things about LDS has a Goebbels tongue as witness in a few previous post.
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