Stirnerian
11th March 2015, 21:44
Sometimes, when I'm feeling down and need a good laugh, I turn to World Net Daily, the news source de jour of middle aged Facebook conservatives everywhere. Occasionally I even find myself in inadvertent agreement with one of their screeds, though not for the reasons they'd like. One such example can be found in today's tract against marriage equality:
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/4-questions-for-supremes-on-same-sex-marriage/
Once they open Pandora’s box, how can they say that polygamy is unconstitutional? The Supreme Court already ruled on that in the 1800s. In fact, Utah, a state founded by Mormons, could not be accepted in the Union until there was the promise that they would not practice polygamy (Reynolds v. United States, 1878).
Lightning can strike down Mozart and Moe Howard alike.
I probably speak for the overwhelming majority of posters here in saying that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is one of the great shitheel institutions of American civilization. The Prophet Joseph Smith was a hoaxer and a huckster; and never do I want to hear an anti-Islamist Mormon cite Muhammad's pedophilia as an argument against that religion. (On the other hand, Mr. Smith did institute one of the earliest experiments in utopian socialism (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Order) in the country before inevitably turning it into a shell game.)
Brigham Young was much worse yet, being responsible for the reprehensible policy of excluding those afflicted with the 'Curse of Ham' - that is, being born black - from the Mormon priesthood, a policy which stood intact until the 1970s. He was also responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, among other fine doings.
On the other hand, it's difficult for me not to think of Mormons as basically being an oppressed class historically - not within the microtheocracy they've carved out in Deseret, of course, but in the broader culture.
There's certainly an argument to be made (and which has been made by more liberal Mormons) that their almost monolithically reactionary politics and fealty to the Republican Party is the result of having internalized a sense of repression. It's very true that the Federal government forced them to abandon their practice of plural marriage at gunpoint. And this was a few decades after having been run out of the. eastern United States, from New York to Illinois, also at gunpoint. Smith and many of his devotees were murdered by angry mobs. Of course this was after he turned Nauvoo, Illinois into his personal autocracy.
It's a complicated subject. I doubt many of us feel anything but disgust for polygamy as they practiced it then. On the other hand, in the most bizarre case of repression making strange bedfellows I can think of, fundamentalist Mormons - that is to say, those disparate, cultish, sometimes sexually abusive groups that still agitate for or actually practice plural marriage - were among the earliest supporters of marriage equality, other than LGBT rights groups, in the nation. (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CDYQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Frepository.law.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2F viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1087%26context%3Dartic les&ei=5qcAVYjZPPXIsASVmoK4Bw&usg=AFQjCNG0t5GD8rmo4zRb-akZcaDYCdiiew&sig2=yqZeEIHUotL1shAyvkUt_g) This of course has nothing to do with any sort of egalitarianism on their part; it's a product of their hope to use gay marriage as a trojan horse for polygamy.
This is getting long and I'm not writing an essay, so let me summarize in the form of a question: should we Communistic heathens feel a scintilla of sympathy for Mormons? After all, the very word 'Mormon' originated among anti-Mormons as an epithet; though they embrace it now, they originally preferred 'Nephite'.
What think you?
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/4-questions-for-supremes-on-same-sex-marriage/
Once they open Pandora’s box, how can they say that polygamy is unconstitutional? The Supreme Court already ruled on that in the 1800s. In fact, Utah, a state founded by Mormons, could not be accepted in the Union until there was the promise that they would not practice polygamy (Reynolds v. United States, 1878).
Lightning can strike down Mozart and Moe Howard alike.
I probably speak for the overwhelming majority of posters here in saying that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is one of the great shitheel institutions of American civilization. The Prophet Joseph Smith was a hoaxer and a huckster; and never do I want to hear an anti-Islamist Mormon cite Muhammad's pedophilia as an argument against that religion. (On the other hand, Mr. Smith did institute one of the earliest experiments in utopian socialism (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Order) in the country before inevitably turning it into a shell game.)
Brigham Young was much worse yet, being responsible for the reprehensible policy of excluding those afflicted with the 'Curse of Ham' - that is, being born black - from the Mormon priesthood, a policy which stood intact until the 1970s. He was also responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, among other fine doings.
On the other hand, it's difficult for me not to think of Mormons as basically being an oppressed class historically - not within the microtheocracy they've carved out in Deseret, of course, but in the broader culture.
There's certainly an argument to be made (and which has been made by more liberal Mormons) that their almost monolithically reactionary politics and fealty to the Republican Party is the result of having internalized a sense of repression. It's very true that the Federal government forced them to abandon their practice of plural marriage at gunpoint. And this was a few decades after having been run out of the. eastern United States, from New York to Illinois, also at gunpoint. Smith and many of his devotees were murdered by angry mobs. Of course this was after he turned Nauvoo, Illinois into his personal autocracy.
It's a complicated subject. I doubt many of us feel anything but disgust for polygamy as they practiced it then. On the other hand, in the most bizarre case of repression making strange bedfellows I can think of, fundamentalist Mormons - that is to say, those disparate, cultish, sometimes sexually abusive groups that still agitate for or actually practice plural marriage - were among the earliest supporters of marriage equality, other than LGBT rights groups, in the nation. (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CDYQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Frepository.law.umich.edu%2Fcgi%2F viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1087%26context%3Dartic les&ei=5qcAVYjZPPXIsASVmoK4Bw&usg=AFQjCNG0t5GD8rmo4zRb-akZcaDYCdiiew&sig2=yqZeEIHUotL1shAyvkUt_g) This of course has nothing to do with any sort of egalitarianism on their part; it's a product of their hope to use gay marriage as a trojan horse for polygamy.
This is getting long and I'm not writing an essay, so let me summarize in the form of a question: should we Communistic heathens feel a scintilla of sympathy for Mormons? After all, the very word 'Mormon' originated among anti-Mormons as an epithet; though they embrace it now, they originally preferred 'Nephite'.
What think you?