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

[greyfoxx39]

This NYT article falsely paints Romney into a blanket group damnation based on a belief of his Church almost 40 years ago.

It is dishonest at best.

And you expected this election to be softball?

[roylene]

know full well that Romney’s family has a history of fighting for Civil Rights

Even that statement has nothing to do with the article, still prove sources to what we fully know.

[roylene]

Not that I can recall, but I can look him up in a search.
Interesting post(s).

[Tennessee Nana]

Just WOW gf

Can ya feel all the love from the RomneyBots towards you ???

arent they wonderful examples of how to treat your neighbor ???

Im taking notes...I want to be just like them...SIGH...

They tell me in abusive posts they are so much better than me too and Im lacking in love blah blah...

I’m looking right now to see if there was ever a post that I sent to you in which I maligned you worse than these betterthanyouness FReeprs are doing...

I know that never was one...

but there would have to be because according to these most worthy individuals Im dirt compared to them...

God loves them better too...

Oh yeah...

[Tennessee Nana]

Mr. Romney sat nodding his head to the racist sermons of Mormon religious leaders for 30 years and the RomneyBots are slinging mud at FReeper greyfoxx39 ???

[greyfoxx39]

you know full well that Romney’s family has a history of fighting for Civil Rights. That was the environment he was raised in.

Please...provide some source links providing this information. I have never seen it.

I HAVE seen this before though.

*************************************

While running for Senate in 1994, Romney said during debate against Sen. Edward Kennedy that he believes "abortion should be safe and legal in this country."

"I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a US Senate candidate," Romney said. During his 2002 campaign for Massachusetts governor, Romney cited his mother again as the inspiration for supporting a women's right to chose, a stance no longer holds.

"She had very strong personal beliefs about what decision she would make for herself and her family, but she also made it clear that a woman should have the right to chose," Romney said in a debate during his gubernatorial run. "I have held that view consistently."

While Lenore Romney did not express full-fledged support for legalizing abortion, which was a felony offense during her 1970 Senate run, she pushed for "more liberal abortion rights" and ''greatly expanded programs of providing adequate family planning services."

ABC News

[greyfoxx39]

The implication of damning all mormons for one belief of the church that ended almost 40 yeas ago.

It is no different than damning all SBCs or Pentecostals for the history of their church on the same subject.

So, post a thread about the SBCs or Pentecostals. Since there isn't presently a candidate for president of either faith, I doubt it will garner much interest.

[vekzen]

You got dat right, foxy man. Jist like Biden say: Romney gonna put us back in chains.

[Tennessee Nana]

His family’s history fighting for Civil rights is more than enough to debunk this.
_______________________________________

Prove it...

The Romneys are Mormon royalty...

They came to the US in the 1830-40s with the Mormon missionaries...

They came here to serve Joseph Smith a racist in his new religion...

George Romney had influence and power with the Mormon leaders but he not once ever admonished the Mormons for their racism..

He remained silent and a full financially supporting member of a white supremist group which excluded black men from full membership long after the Civil Rights Act was signed by Johnson...

and yet you want to claim he was a champion for racial equality ???

George Romney was a bull of a man...nobody told him what to do...

and yet he never spoke out...

[colorcountry]

My information doesn’t come from Left-wing anything, but from my family history of over 150 years in the LDS Church. Every single person in my family including me until I was 45 years old.

AND YES, I WAS a Mormon in 1978 when we finally were told that black people were not under the curse any longer and could therefore hold the very same priesthood that every single 12 year old boy had held from the inception of Mormonism.

Mitt was a leader in that Church before then. It’s gonna come out, and it IS going to hurt him, how much? I don’t know. We’ve been saying that on FR since 2007. Some who call themselves conservative (like you) chose to ignore it. Not my fault - I told the truth - you don’t like it. Tough!

[greyfoxx39]

There was a faith-promoting-rumor (FPR) when I was a member that I heard more than once...regarding a young couple that showed up at the temple for their wedding, and one of the temple "workers" refused them entry because he had a "bad feeling" about them...and lo and behold, it turned out that the man had 1/32nd negro blood!

This was praise-worthy stuff in sacrament meeting. The temple worker saved the temple from "defilement".

This was in the early sixties.

[colorcountry]

Same FPR I heard, and we didn’t even live in the same State.

I’ve got to tell you how uncomfortable my first trip to the LDS temple was. I was a 12 year old girl with just really kinky, frizzy hair. Even though I was blonde I was sure someone was going to think I had black blood and turn me away.

True story!

[kanawa]

And so it begins....

The only surprise being that some ‘conservatives’ are marching side-by-side with the left.

[ansel12]

Thirty four years isn’t almost 40, and Romney was a 31 year old priest and business executive, son of a Bishop and presidential candidate, when God changed his mind on blacks.

What we don’t know is how many black Mormon draftees died in Vietnam?

The Mormon church could issue it’s own draft deferments to white elites of power and privilege, as it did to Mitt Romney, son of a wealthy Governor, BUT NOT ONE SINGLE BLACK MORMON RECEIVED A MORMON DRAFT DEFERMENT.

How many black Mormons were drafted and died in Vietnam, while white Mormons were protected?

[Tennessee Nana]

Theres no record of Willard ever saying in 2007 that he regrets he was an active willing part of racism until 1978...

Nor did he ever apoligize...

Its too late now to have an “I-read-it-in-the-NYT-in-2012-and-I-suddenly-remembered-that-I-was-sorrowful-all-my-life-conversion”

His “when-I-heard-it-on-my-car-radio-in-1978-I-pulled-over-to-the-side-of-the-road-and-cried” junk is so phony...

Yeah he cried alright a 32 year old man...he cried because hbis religion had given in to Jimmy Carters demands and stopped their comfortable racism...

How was it going to effect him personally ???

He who had never had any black friends ???

Nor had gone to school with any or had any for neighbors ???

He was now going to have to interact with blacks and his own religion had betrayed him and forced him into doing something he was going to hate...

His lily white butt was now going to have to sit next to black ones in the pews of the Mormon religious buildings...

He and his lily white family were not going to have their pure white pagan “temples” to themselves...

Black bodies were going to contaminate the holy water of the oxen pools...

Not once had Willard spoken out for equality in his whites only country club religion...

Not once in his 32 years...

That was no cry of relief...

If he did cry it was because he was angry and POed that there goes his religious neighborhood and he couldnt do white flight...

No Romneys spoke out on behalf of blacks up to 1978 but they “sustained and confirmed” the racist doctrines of their chosen religion...

Willard brought this on his own racist butt...

[ansel12]

A very distant past, and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were mere church members.

Mitt Romney is Mormon royalty, he was the equivalent of a Catholic Bishop, Mitt has excommunicated people for weak faith, and Mitt was teaching racism while the rest of us were watching Star Wars, and Jim Belushi in Animal House.

This is current, modern racism, and black Mormons died in Vietnam while white Mormons were protected.

[PghBaldy]

To the NY Times: What’s the cut-off point for past bad acts/beliefs? Will liberals (that is who is mostly against Mormons in an irrational way) ever accept the church is different than before? /rhetorical

[1035rep]

[greyfoxx39]

And so it begins....

The only surprise being that some ‘conservatives’ are marching side-by-side with the left.

Care to point out the conservative Canadians you are talking about? And what that has to do with the US election?

[RaisingCain]

What’s funny about your replies is that you are very invested in a fight between two progressives that doesn’t make a bit of difference for you or the country. On the one side, we have an odious Marxist Liberation Theologist and closet Muslim, and on the other we have a Progressive snake-oil salesman who is a member of a multi-billion dollar religious cult. And you expect the one with the (R) by his name to “save” the country, despite the fact he is a pathological liar just like the other guy you are replacing. It is a tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.