Why Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons

New York Times ^ | August 18, 2012 | John G Turner

[greyfoxx39]

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.................In a June 1978 letter, the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaimed that “all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color.” Men of African descent could now hold the priesthood....

The revelation may have lifted the ban, but it neither repudiated it nor apologized for it. “It doesn’t make a particle of difference,” proclaimed the Mormon apostle Bruce R. McConkie a few months later, “what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June of this year, 1978.”

McConkie meant such words to encourage Mormons to embrace the new revelation, and he may have solemnly believed that it made the history of the priesthood ban irrelevant. But to many others around the country, statements of former church leaders about “the Negro matter” do, in fact, matter a great deal.

The church would benefit itself and its members — and one member in particular, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — by formally repudiating the priesthood ban and the racist theories that accompanied it.

-SNIP-

The priesthood ban had sweeping ecclesiastical consequences for black Mormons. They could not participate in the sacred ordinances, like the endowment ceremony (which prepares one for the afterlife) and sealings (which formally bind a family together), rites that Smith and Young taught were necessary to obtain celestial glory.

-SNIP-

Most Protestant denominations, however, gradually apologized for their past racism

[ansel12]

Now you want to confuse Martin Luther with 1978 America, Jim Belushi, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, the Village People, and ‘Happy Days’ and ‘Mash’ and and Mitt Romney as a 31 year old Priest, businessman, father of four, son of a Mormon Bishop, and member of a famously devoted Mormon family, teaching racist Mormon doctrine?

You really want to pretend that this is some ancient history, that Mitt Romney as a Missionary, teacher, and Priest, soon to be Bishop and then Stake president, and as a member of perhaps the most dedicated, powerful Mormon families of all, is not to be personally tainted with this?

[greyfoxx39]

Am I to be blamed for the anti-Semetic words and writings of Martin Luther due to my membership in the church that bears his name?

Did you stay silent during the time that Martin Luther was compiling these writings and distributing them? Of course not, you were not alive.

If Mitt had objected to the racist doctrine he could have objected to them before 1978. He didn't.

[Tennessee Nana]

LOL

There dont you feel better now that you managed to root out aq premise on which to satisfy your own excuse for supportin gthe liberal Willard ???

I warn you that Obama knows about your boy Wee Willie and you pretend I am aware of this because I support Obama...

Kid major fail...

If I with no funds and a bit of research can find out a little bit of your boy Wee willies sordid past what do you think Obama will be able to do with his connections and his healthy purse and the last 5 years to accomplish it ???

Is that your fear ?? that Obama knows more about Willard than I do...

Well he does Im sure...

The fact that Willard was a grown man of 32 and married with several children and had been a member of a white supremist religion that openly practiced racism will not have escaped hime ...

You can abuse me till the cows come home but it wont change anything...

we warned you for 5 years that Willard was spoiled goods but NOOOOOOOOO you have to elect himn as the GOP-e candidate and then demand we all treat him like the second coming...

Not even a nice try RomneyBot...

[greyfoxx39]

are you talking about the victimhood that Michele Obama and her hubby have claimed to have experienced as they take their vacations to expensive resorts at taxpayer expense, and wear very very exclusive designer labels, and hobnob with the rich and famous in Hollywood? it’s that very victimhood that has gotten them into the whitehouse.

WHOA! Michelle and part of Obama come from a line that WERE indeed victims for hundreds of years...that is NOT true of mormons.

they take their vacations to expensive resorts at taxpayer expense, and wear very very exclusive designer labels, and hobnob with the rich and famous in Hollywood?...and you're saying that the Romneys do not? They certainly hobnob with the rich, if not the Hollywood famous...yet.

[greyfoxx39]

What say you of all the Catholic, Baptist, Pentacostal and other women who have no more access to their preisthood than the LDS women?

What other church has a priesthood except Catholicism? I know that a lot of Christian churches have women elders, deacons and pastors.

[Tennessee Nana]

Do you have a date on that march with Dr Martin Luther King ???

and do you have a source for your allegation ???

[ansel12]

See where this is going? Governor Romney was not a “mover & shaker” in Mormonism prior to 1968, he was raised in that faith. Mr. Obama joined Jeremiah Wright’s UCC Black Liberation Theology church of his own free will as an adult and brought his fiance with him after they were engaged, as well as being married there and baptizing his children there, as well. See the difference?

Only Mitt has had the power and position of a Holy Bishop, and the power to Excommunicate, and has sought the permission of his Holy Prophet before running for president.

Mitt Romney is truly a "mover and shaker" in his cult, the highest "mover and shaker" that America has ever seen running for President.

Ann Romney's parents were not even 'pure' enough to witness her wedding to Mitt Romney, or to even enter the building, they were were forced to wait outside.

[kanawa]

Care to point out the conservative Canadians you are talking about?

While there may be some Canadian 'conservatives' who would walk hand-in hand with the NYT in this matter I am not aware of them.

And what that has to do with the US election?

The 'that' you posit has little to do with it.
The 'that' of the NYT attacking Romney as racist juxtaposed with 'conservatives' doing the same
has everything to do with the US election.

As I said, I had every expectation that the left
would attempt to paint Romney as a racist member of a racist church,
I am only taken aback by the zeal of some 'conservatives' in joining the attack.

But as you infer, my opinion counts for little.

[greyfoxx39]

Would your interest be as high if he were say...Baptist?

[ansel12]

It is clear that you are ignoring the facts that are being posted about the actual reality of his religion and his participation as a leader and teacher within it.

Mitt Romney is not some guy who merely went to church and sat with the rest of the audience, Mitt could excommunicate you.

[kcvl]

This from the mostly, if not all, white New York Times?

[ansel12]

Bishop George Romney as a politician made that march, as he watched black Mormons being sent into the draft, being inelegiable for the church issued deferment that became of such importance to his son.

*””Though not specifically invited, Romney June 29, 1963, joined an anti-segregation march through the fashionable Grosse Point suburb of Detroit, saying “there is an excessive amount of discrimination in housing. ...””

A couple of years later, George Romney was calling in thousands of Paratroopers from the Airborne Divisions, to help him with those people of Detroit.

[Not A Snowbird]

I don’t care whether a particular religion has a racist past. I only care how Mitt himself has behaved. Unless you can prove to me that he is racist (based on something other than being Mormon) none of this is relevant.

[af_vet_rr]

No, I was trying to show her the spuriousness of her weak argument. Am I to be blamed for the anti-Semetic words and writings of Martin Luther due to my membership in the church that bears his name?

If Martin Luther was alive in the late 1970s and still producing those anti-Semitic words and writings, and you were in your 30s, yes, you would be blamed if you were a follower of his.

Romney wasn't some kid who didn't know better and this wasn't the 1870s, it was the 1970s. It is recent history, and it will be an issue for Romney. It will be brought up for discussion during his debates with Obama. The question writes itself.

And Romney and the Mormons have only themselves to blame. They spent millions on those idiotic "I'm a Mormon" ads, they should have brought this out as well and discussed it, and Romney should have been pushing for this to be resolved.

[PapaBear3625]

I’ll let you in on a little secret smear boy, if the dems keep playing the race card over and over the american people will get very sick of it and it will start showing in the polls against your buddy Obama, that is if it already hasn’t.

I am already tired of it. I don't care any more if somebody is supposedly racist, sexist, or homophobic. I will vote for whoever seems like he would succeed in shrinking government and lowering spending, without any regard to how the candidate feels about blacks, Hispanics, or women.

[kanawa]

Would your interest be as high if he were say...Baptist?

His religion, unless it promotes decapitating, is of no interest to me.
What is of interest to me is the survival of the US as founded.
Where citizens rule over the government, not as the subjects of government
as envisioned by Obama and the left.
Where the individual is sacrosanct and the collective has meaning only as the expression of the will of a free people.

The primaries are over.
Do as you wish... but for America, the world and freedom's sake,
I implore you, don't facilitate Obama having four more years.

[wardaddy]

Most Protestant denominations, however, gradually apologized for their past racism

and who gives a shite....

i could care less

lots bigger issues sitting on our windpipe than who was a racist in the past

I mean really...on a conservative forum?

bleating about past racism?

i'm more worried about who is a racist now...

which means most minorities if we were being honest...as whites lie prostrate getting whipped

I am sick of it...you folks are out to lunch.

God bless Dixie and screw self righteous race baiting freepers

The New York Times?...hide yer head in shame

[2ndDivisionVet]

No known ancestor of Mr. Obama's was ever a slave in the Americas, but his white ancestors owned slaves.

Also, the Romneys presumably pay for their own vacations with money earned by Mitt Romney. Mr. and Mrs. Obama vacation like billionaires on our dime. BIG DIFFERENCE!

[greyfoxx39]

Unless you can prove to me that he is racist (based on something other than being Mormon) none of this is relevant.

The point is not MY proving anything...the point is that the opening gun against mormon racism has been fired by the NYT.

[2ndDivisionVet]

"Ann Romney's parents were not even 'pure' enough to witness her wedding to Mitt Romney, or to even enter the building, they were were forced to wait outside."

And that means what to me? In Jesus time until only very recently, Jewish women were segregated from the men in the synagogue and could only advance so far up into the temple. Make something of that.