Posted on 02/05/2010 5:19:54 PM PST by Colofornian
One day he's dissing gay activists as immoral "buggers" and perhaps the "greatest threat" to the nation. Then, he's embracing anti-discrimination legislation and conceding the "right" gay residents have to job and housing protections.
What swayed state Sen. Chris Buttars?
His church.
In November, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced its support of Salt Lake City's measures safeguarding gay and transgender residents from discrimination.
Suddenly, Buttars, R-West Jordan, and his Mormon colleagues on the right who had vigorously -- and vociferously -- opposed such laws faced a choice: Should they back or buck their church?
This same "follow the prophet" pressure gripped LDS liberals when the Utah-based church came out in favor of California's Proposition 8, defining marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman. For Latter-day Saints, adherence to their prophet's instructions is more than an abstract notion. It is repeated often from the pulpit and written into the Mormon identity.
Roman Catholic lawmakers bump into similar dilemmas when the pope or bishops weigh in on issues from abortion to health care to capital punishment. How much deference, if any, do politicians of faith owe to their ecclesiastical leaders, especially in religions with top-down hierarchies?
Catholics regard their leaders as stand-ins for Christ who speak on moral issues with an undeniable authority. The church's catechism states "the faithful receive with docility the teachings and directives that their pastors give them in different forms."
In today's political universe, that seems increasingly to cut both ways.
"Whenever people claim, 'the church says,' that's a clue that one side [of the debate] is trying to shut down the other," says Alpine resident Charles Randall Paul, a Mormon and president of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy. "It's possible for Mormons to say, 'You're a prophet, but I think you're wrong about this.' "
Like many religious people, Kristine Haglund, an LDS writer in Boston, embraces statements by church leaders "that tend to confirm my prejudices, and [looks] for ways to rationalize, historicize, relativize or contextualize the ones that are challenging."
Still, Haglund, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought , says she takes seriously the idea that the Holy Spirit can help members know when the LDS prophet is speaking for God.
"In the absence of that witness," she says, "I feel that God expects me to exercise my own intellect and the capacity for moral judgment that is a gift to all God's children to arrive at a position that seems reasonable and just."
But that's a complicated, messy process. What if not everyone arrives at the same conclusion?
Latter-day dilemma » At some point in their careers, all Mormon politicians face the prospect that their opinions could diverge from LDS stands on issues such as women's rights, abortion, euthanasia, immigration, same-sex marriage, liquor laws or even what to do with a particular block of downtown Salt Lake City.
"If the church takes a position on a public-policy issue contrary to popular sentiment, as a public official, I have two choices: Either I follow the will of the people and be popular or follow my faith leaders, risking the rejection of the voters," says Stuart Reid, a former Salt Lake City councilman. "When faced with this dilemma, it's my guiding principle that devoted Mormons involved in politics should always choose to follow their faith leaders no matter their own personal views or the political consequences."
Reid, now an Ogden developer who lost a bid for Salt Lake City mayor, says he "held to that principle and experienced the consequences."
For its part, the LDS Church long has said it is politically neutral and, even on those occasions when it takes a stand, members usually are free to follow their conscience without facing church sanctions. Mormon voters, however, may not approve of politicians who seem to either blindly follow or openly disagree with the church.
Utah legislators who are LDS mention the need to balance their respect for Mormon officials with representing the voters who elected them.
"I am a really devout, committed member and believe strongly in the tenets of the religion. I take seriously whatever positions the church takes on a particular issue," says Rep. Ronda Menlove, R-Garland, whose husband is an LDS stake president. "I am also a pragmatist, [so] not all of my votes are driven by what the LDS Church says."
She -- like Sens. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and Curt Bramble, R-Provo -- agrees with the LDS Church's endorsement of the city's anti-discrimination ordinances (also adopted by Salt Lake County), but Menlove is cautious about how broadly to apply them in the state.
Lawmakers reached a tenuous truce last week delaying any action for or against such statutes until next year. The buzz around the Capitol was that some LDS lawmakers were ready to defy their faith's leaders and strike down Salt Lake City's anti-discrimination ordinances even though the church had urged legislators to leave them intact.
"I am concerned about some elements in the Salt Lake City statutes," Hillyard says. "I represent my constituency, and I suspect if the City Council [members] in Logan wanted to do it, they would have."
The longtime Republican senator says if he disagreed with Mormon officials, he would feel comfortable taking a different position.
"I understand," Hillyard says, "they have a perspective not only of Salt Lake City but of Utah and the world that may be different than my constituents'."
LDS legislators also are divided on immigration policies, although their church has urged a "compassionate" approach.
"My constituency has been very adamant in support of legal immigration," Sen. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, says, "and I've been pretty firm with that position. I haven't been influenced by any one religious organization, whether my own or anyone else's."
For his part, Bramble, who grew up Methodist and attended Notre Dame and then Brigham Young University, where he joined the LDS Church, says he never has found himself at odds with his faith.
"The stands they have taken have not been inconsistent with my own personal philosophy," says Bramble, who opposed last year's Common Ground initiative that included housing and employment safeguards for gays but now supports Salt Lake City's statutes. "It's a chicken-or-the-egg question."
Bramble says he decides for himself how to vote.
"Ecclesiastical positions and political positions are not the same thing," he says, referring particularly to the church's views on immigration. "I certainly know the church's position on compassion for all human beings, but I don't think it's appropriate for any church to be in the position of enforcing immigration laws."
Catholic model » There are as many ways of responding to issues as there are Catholics and politicians, but the church has clear moral teachings on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, immigration, health care and social justice. It teaches, for example, that abortion is wrong, that people ought not be involved and that government ought not support it.
What about Catholic politicians, then, who support abortion rights? Are they, to use the faith's vernacular, "wrongfully cooperating with evil"?
Some bishops, including former Utah Bishop William Weigand, now retired in Sacramento, Calif., believe such politicians should not take Communion during Mass.
"As your bishop," he said in a 2003 homily, "I have to say clearly that anyone, politician or otherwise, who thinks it is acceptable for a Catholic to be pro-abortion is in very great error, puts his or her soul at risk and is not in good standing with the church."
Some go further and argue that Catholics who vote for such politicians should be denied Communion.
Notre Dame theologian and legal scholar Cathleen Kaveny opposes such sanctions, which she believes politicize the issues, without considering a politician's motivations. She also points to difficulties facing other public officials.
"Should a district judge quit rather than issue a decision that supports Roe v. Wade? Most Catholics would say no. That's not within his scope," Kaveny says. "When are you allowed to go along with something and when do you have to stop and say, 'I can't do that?' "
The strong emphasis on obedience to authority in Catholicism is matched by an equally strong emphasis upon individual conscience as "the voice of God inside us," explains Mathew Schmalz, a Catholic who teaches Mormon studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. "One's conscience might very well dictate that one has to disobey that teaching in special circumstances. I am required to take [church teaching] seriously and to critically examine my own conscience if I disagree."
As a Catholic, Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City, respects Utah Bishop John Wester on his faith's overall teachings, but disagrees on some public-policy issues.
"I would be strongly in favor of counseling any family member about alternatives to abortion, and I would encourage adoption or foster care that would accommodate for that life," he says. "Yet, legislatively, I don't believe it is appropriate for the government to be overly engaged in that decision-making for individuals. As a matter of public policy, I have defended a woman's right to choose."
Romero also backs capital punishment, while his church opposes it. He does align with the bishops on welcoming and not punishing those coming to America for a better life.
The church has a role relative to "advancing the human condition," Romero says. "Elected officials share that role but also have the additional burden for public safety, knowing who is in our community and that they're behaving well, not committing crimes and that they're not manipulated or abused in a black market."
Romero says he recently met with Wester to discuss upcoming legislation, much as other legislators huddled with LDS officials.
Not all believers are deferential to popes or prophets.
Catholic bishops are free to talk about morality, says Patrick Shea, a Utah attorney and former director of the Bureau of Land Management under President Bill Clinton, "but cannot and should not, in ecclesiastical roles, speak on ethics. That is a secular matter suited for give and take in the marketplace of ideas."
Shea, a Jesuit-trained Catholic, was outraged by the bishops' opposition to health-care reform because they feared government funds would go toward abortions.
"The idea that some nuanced and Machiavellian statements from bishops sitting in Washington would negate the opportunity for 40 million Americans who don't have health insurance is incongruous and, in my judgment, immoral," Shea says. "I am against abortion, but I don't think Roe v. Wade should be set aside. It is the law of the land."
Shea, who doesn't think there has been a good pope since John XXIII died in 1963, says he would take advice from Weigand or from Monsignor Terrence Fitzgerald, the Salt Lake City Diocese's vicar general.
But when the bishops "cross the wall and move from morality to ethics," he says, "they have no greater credibility than the bus driver or the garbage man."
Such civility! LOL
You don’t the difference between top and bottom nor the difference between cream and dross!
_____________________________________________
Now i may be wrong...
But I feel that you are telling me you do know the difference...
Therefore if you do...
Source ???
Bible scripture please...
As a Christian I only read that one book that is the Word of God...
The Holy Bible...
And I’m crying over you and your uncertain future...
its that stay sweet thingy...
on steroids...
:)
You missed the point at any time before Judas Iscariot made his decision he could have choose differently!
One can discern one being a scoundrel but until they act and remain within the boundary all you can do is watch and wait!
from reality?
Actually God was NOT saying it was OK to serve just any old god...
***
Well you dont seem in your practic to have a promblem with it!
____________________________________________
Nor does the Judeo-Christian God...
Only the mormon gods are upset...
and I could care less...
I’m not concerned about Joey Smith and his demons...
Nor of Hinckey and his New Age spirit guide jesus and his other demons...
Not the same Jesus
“There are those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints do not believe in the traditional Christ.
No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak.”
– LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley (LDS Church News, June 20, 1998)
“It is true that many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus Christ than is worshipped by the Mormons.” – LDS publication, Ensign Magazine, May 1977, p. 26
That too
LOL
You missed the point
___________________________________
Kid I havent missed anything...
I have everything that the Christian Jesus of the Bible died to give me...
There is nothing else...
and after 50+ years I can tell you...
there is no need in this life for anything slse...
Salvation, healing, the Peace of Jesus, the infilling and power of the Holy Ghost and these...
Some of the things in the Bible that joey Smith and the mormons were afraid of and cou;ldnt do themselves without Jesus so they ripped them out of the Bible and rewrote etc...
But thank God they are still in there today...
Mar 16:17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
Mar 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Mark 16:17, 18
A disclaimer...
The serpent part is not play with them as Joey Smith taught but not to be afraid of the serpent the devil..
at any time before Judas Iscariot made his decision he could have choose differently!
___________________________________________
You missed the point...
You didnt source what you said...
Source ???
Bible scripture only please...
There is no other valid reference for the Word of God...
One can discern one being a scoundrel
___________________________________________
Yes
Joey Smith was a scoundrel
Ive discerned that one...
40 years ago...
Took me just 6 weeks...
Why in 28 years have you had such a hard timme ???
all you can do is watch and wait!
___________________________________________
I never was a lazy Christian...
Jesus never sat down He said to work while there is yet time yet light yet day...
Im not dead yet...
Once Im dead thats it there is no more...
I’ll be gone on to Heaven where i will be with God for the first time face to face and get to worship Jesus the Lamb og God forever and hang out with my lovely Flying Inman FRiends and other Christians
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Ive just preached myself happy...
I’m excited I could shout..I cant wait...
dont it make you want to SHOUT
Well go ahead then
SHOUT
God loves noise...
Hes not nervous like the mormon gods...
Shout, dance, lift your hands to the Kings of Kings the Lord of Lords.........with a thought He created all. Yet, He still wants a relationship with me with all of us. Thank You Jesus for your Mercy and Grace. I deserve none of it, yet You have supplied all that I need. Thank You.
You are going to eat those word someday and be a mighty embarrassed person for all the ignorant things you have said in meanness soon!
AMEN !!!
:)
That sounds threatening Resty...
And those words cant be from the God of the Bible...
he doesnt talk that way to me..
God only wants good things for me...
All good things come doen from the father to me...
But i have an enemy the devil who goes around to see who he can devoure...
Seems like he is roaring...
Thats OK...
as I told my children...
The devil is just an old toothless lion with bad breathe...
So go away bad breathe...in the name of Jesus...
I am thinking here you have given satan to much credit. I think you’d add adult diapers to that list.
all the ignorant things you have said
_____________________________________________
One thing I’m not is ignorant...
I know all about the evil of mormonism...meat and all...
I was 19 when God exposed the demonic charlatan Joey Smith and his evil home made enslaving religion, mormonism to me...
What a mormon meant for evil back then, my God meant for my good...
my God is mercifrul to me...
I too could have been taken in and manipulated and enslaved by mormonism...
I would not have lived so long and be in good health now and been happy and full of joy if I had joined up with Joey Smith’s religion...
I would have been dead years ago if I had rejected the Christian Jesus and become a mormon...
but my God who loves me and died for me warned me about the deadly cult mormonism and spared me a life of misery..
Praise His Holy name..
The name of Jesus is to be praised forever...
There is nothing i will not do for Jesus for guiding my steps around the pitfall called mormonism...
I saw the evil in action and I was warned to beware...
When He taught me about mormonism and sent me here to warn you and others about the death trap called mormonism and knitted my heart together with the precious men and women of the Living God of the Bible of the wonderful group you thought you were cursing and sidelining by calling the Flying Inmans. My glorious Jesus blessed me and he is not about to stop..
Although the devil (SPIT) has fought me and I’ve beeen called all manner of names and my Jesus has been maligned and the words of God that are in the Bible denied and despised by thre mormons in these threads ...
There will be no end to the power and majesty of the Lord Jesus Chriszt and he cannot be stopped...
and neither can His people the Christians...
For the power of the Holy Ghost that works through me and the other followers of Jesus Christ is more powerful than the arm of flesh that Joey Smith and his followers who call themselves mormons...
And there was a stopping point and an end to Joey Smith but my Jesus lives on and lives forever...
There is no stopping Jesus Christ...
How mighty and full of power and glory forever is the Lamb of God...
Praise be His lovely name, Jesus...
AMEN and AMEN
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