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!
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.”