Posted on 12/25/2011 9:37:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Shame. Shame stinging my face and burning across my ribs. That’s what I felt when I first clicked into marginal Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger’s website Top 10 Craziest Mormon Beliefs. And that’s just what Fred Karger wanted.
Karger first took aim at Mormons during and after California’s bitter Proposition 8 campaign. He used the internet to document the extent of LDS involvement in the Yes on 8 campaign, as well as to warn against potential Mormon involvement in other state LGBT equality battles.
But his new site has nothing to do with redressing the damage from Proposition 8. It’s all about using the 2012 presidential campaign to make Mormons feel ashamed just for being Mormons.
The site itself is flat and juvenile. It’s been denounced by the Los Angeles Times. (And it’s already been infiltrated by savvy Mormon folks and their allies.) But it participates in a mode of anti-Mormon mockery shared in by Bill Maher, Maureen Dowd, Harold Bloom, and the late Christhoper Hitchens. It wouldn’t be worth addressing Karger’s site alone, were it not for the fact that—as Mitt Romney puts the Gingrich surge behind him and keeps moving towards the nomination—Mormons are expecting more of the same in the year to come.
Are there racist statements in the Mormon past and polygamist dimensions of the tradition that many Mormons would like to put far, far behind us? Absolutely. Are there esoteric elements of Mormonism? Absolutely. LDS temple ceremonies especially mobilize elements of secrecy that have disappeared from most modern mainstream religious cultures. Are there exotic elements of historical Mormonism? Absolutely. Our ancestors said some things that leave even orthodox Mormons scratching their heads.
Many of the “beliefs” Karger, Maher, and others like them set up for mockery are such headscratchers, while others are fragments and remnants of Mormonism’s nineteenth-century speculative theology.
That speculative theology was what drew many people to Mormonism in the first place. Like other early Mormons, my ancestors joined the Mormon movement to escape lives of misery, toil, death, and boredom. They were working-class spiritual seekers who wanted to know not only that redemption was possible in the next life but that this life and the world around them was alive with spiritual power and meaning. An expansive cosmology, a radical take on the eternal potential of the human soul, a literal view of the gathering of the tribes and other last days phenomena—these have all been part of the Mormon worldview.
During the middle decades of the twentieth century, LDS Church leaders attempted to discipline and systematize Mormon doctrine through a process known as “correlation” that gave contemporary Mormonism most of its curriculum. But vestiges of Mormonism’s richer speculative past are very much alive in our oral tradition. And although most of us know how to sort out the central beliefs and values of Mormonism from its fringe elements, some esoteric and exotic aspects of Mormonism maintain a distinctive familiarity and warmth: they remind us of the originality of this homegrown American faith tradition and its power to inspire imagination and devotion.
Is this something to be ashamed of?
Last week, my friend Lisa (who is gay) suggested, “You should just own the words weird or cult the way gay people have owned the word queer.” I think she’s right. In fact, I hope that everyone can own without shame whatever it is that relieves the misery, toil, death, and boredom of this life and makes it more inspired and more inspiring. I hope that everyone can live without being ashamed of what is not shameful.
In trying to use the 2012 presidential race to make Mormon people feel ashamed about our tradition, Karger is putting shame to the wrong political purposes. Shame directed at those who commit acts of hurt, wrongdoing, and exploitation for their acts of hurt, wrongdoing, and exploitation is an accepted part of the political lexicon. It is a way to hold people accountable. But shame directed at people for the way they believe or love achieves nothing. It feeds no one. It protects no one. It restores no one’s civil rights. It advances no progressive agenda.
May all of us—including Fred Karger—enjoy shame-free holidays and a shame-free 2012.
Attending a university in Utah for 5 years has shown me all I need to know about mormonism. I wouldn’t join it for money, fame, or threats. But everybody’s gotta do their own thing.
I don’t give a fat crap that Romney is a moe, I don’t want him as the R nominee because of his positions on issues.
People that follow an Angel called “Moron-I” are Moronites..
Joseph Smith must’ve been mocking his new followers..
Harry Reid is a Mormon.
Nancy Polosi is a Catholic.
Religious labels mean nothing.
Harry Reid is a Mormon.
Nancy Polosi is a Catholic.
Religious labels mean nothing.
Harry Reid is a Mormon.
Nancy Polosi is a Catholic.
Religious labels mean nothing.
:::::::::::::::
And Obama is a Muslim, by his own admission.
But THAT does mean something with him in the Oval Office.
Mormons and Catholics are not sworn enemies of the Western world and of “infidels”. Muslims are.
So a “religous label” can mean something.
I’ve had a few of them try to “educate” me on history according to the Book of Mormon. Gotta be kidding me, it is the biggest crock ever. They claim they converted all the Indians but any televised footage of Conference that I’ve ever seen before changing the channel is a sea of white people, so I gotta wonder where they all went. And, for all the credit that they take for building the pyramids in Central and South America, they sure build boring temples these days. That learning not only stopped, it took giant strides backwards.
Only if you count Islam as actually being a religion.......
I don’t know what Mormons believe, but I do know that the LDS Church is now 100% behind amnesty for illegal aliens, that they are in opposition to their own precepts in doing so, but that Mormons are not permitted to express disagreement with this traitorous, immoral new mandate from on high.
The article has no substance. It’s like a person pointing to a purse and saying “There’s stuff in there”, but he doesn’t say what.
I had Christmas dinner earlier with a Mormon family. The ham was very good.
Nice folks. Don’t want to kill me. Or you.
Conservatives? The whole group was tonight. One much more than me and that’s saying a lot.
Been around Mormons pretty constantly for awhile. They know I do not want to be one myself. No problem.
Cool. And you lived to tell about it. Only the Amish are more feared.
+1 and they are terrific people to hang out with.
Damn the Amish! /S
They are terrific people as well.
Ding-ding-ding! We have a winnah!
Regards,
I really don’t know much about Mormons except that they’re generally good people, family oriented and who tend to take care of their own.
I also know that they hold some very strange beliefs that very much bring into doubt the ability of any Mormon GOP candidate to achieve the backing of the Evngelical community in this country. IMHO, the Evangelicals will not turn out to vote for a Mitt Romney in the numbers that any other Republican candidate would easily achieve. And the more we learn about these odd beliefs the fewer Evangelical votes we can expect from them next November - if we nominate a Morman candidate.
Obama understands this.
The MSM understands this.
So expect the Dem/MSM Axis of Evil to support Romney until his nomination is assured, suppres any discussion of strange Mormon beliefs until that time and then go “all in” with 24/7 coverage of “What You Need to Know about Mormons” .
If you are a Dem with a disastrous record to run on, that’s not a bad strategy.
I agree that the media will come out with guns a-blazing over Romey’s faith. They can’t stand any true commitment to religious belief.
On the other hand, I think they are hedging their bets by keeping mum on Gingrich’s considerable baggages. If he gets the nomination, expect nonstop coverage of his checkered sexual history.
God's Word is clear. Those who worship Joseph Smith or the Virgin Mary are believing what works for them in this world, not God's truth. They are creating their own eternal fate.
can you name me someone who worships the Virgin Mary?
i have never met anyone who does or heard of anyone who does, yet i read the charge all the time.
Just take the ‘m’ out of ‘Mormon’ and you get the same thing!
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