What do LDS generally believe about interracial marriage?

[_Chap]

Mormon views on race should not be viewed in a vacuum. Would it have been nice if they had been far better than the surrounding culture? Yes. Were they worse? Probably not.

Would it have been nice if the Restored Church, with unique access to direct revelation by the Holy Ghost, and the only organisation to have the Holy Priesthood, was far better than the surrounding culture?

Well, I would have said it would be a pretty minimum rock-bottom requirement, and that the failure of the Restoration to have that effect might be thought to have a degree of weight as a factor tending to make one doubt whether the Restoration had taken place, whether revelation did actually occur and whether the priesthood was back on earth.

But then I may have impossibly high standards.

Who were the most famous LDS abolitionists (that is, people who devoted a considerable part of their life's work to black emancipation), by the way?

[_antishock8]

Shockingly racist, Mr. Peterson.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Shockingly racist, Mr. Peterson.

What, specifically?

I don't believe that I have a racist bone in my body. And I think my behavior, for those who know me, will bear me out on that.

Would it have been nice if the Restored Church, with unique access to direct revelation by the Holy Ghost, and the only organisation to have the Holy Priesthood, was far better than the surrounding culture?

Well, I would have said it would be a pretty minimum rock-bottom requirement, and that the failure of the Restoration to have that effect might be thought to have a degree of weight as a factor tending to make one doubt whether the Restoration had taken place, whether revelation did actually occur and whether the priesthood was back on earth.

I don't grant your premise that the Restoration has not produced a society that is better in significant ways than the surrounding culture.

That said, I do not believe the human nature is easily malleable, and, not being a certain kind of liberal, I don't anticipate the imminent arrival of Utopia.

Who were the most famous LDS abolitionists (that is, people who devoted a considerable part of their life's work to black emancipation), by the way?

Joseph Smith would be the most famous, I suppose. You probably recall that, like Abraham Lincoln, he proposed the sale of western lands by the government in order to fund the manumission of slaves and their repatriation to Africa.

However, Mormons were generally on the margins of American civilization (literally on the frontier, and in other ways) during the relevant period, and were preoccupied with, among other things, their own survival and with migrations from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois to the Rocky Mountains. So they weren't heavily involved with the abolitionists in the drawing rooms of Boston and such places.

[_TAK]

Joseph Smith would be the most famous, I suppose. You probably recall that, like Abraham Lincoln, he proposed the sale of western lands by the government in order to fund the manumission of slaves and their repatriation to Africa.

One again DCP is being deceptive because he is aware that Jos. Smith at one time was pro slavery and an Anti-Abolitionists. Any reference to Joseph Smith views in 1844 as to slavery were connected to his presidential aspirations and were most likely formed with an eye towards gaining votes in the North.

http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/blackmormon/q38.htm

[_SatanWasSetUp]

Many churches in Brigham Young's time were anti-slavery. Sadly, the Brighamites in Utah were not among them.

[_Daniel Peterson]

One again DCP is being deceptive because he is aware that Jos. Smith at one time was pro slavery and an Anti-Abolitionists.

Once again, TAK is incapable of civil disagreement.

In any event, even granting the truth of his claim (which seems to me somewhat misleading), because Joseph Smith proposed a very reasonable plan for ending slavery without bloodshed, it's not "deceptive" in the slightest to point to Joseph Smith as somebody who advocated an end to slavery.

If somebody described Ronald Reagan as a prominent conservative, would it be reasonable (let alone civil) to accuse that person of being a "deceptive" because, in fact, Ronald Reagan was once, earlier in his life, a New Deal Democrat?

Any reference to Joseph Smith views in 1844 as to slavery were connected to his presidential aspirations and were most likely formed with an eye towards gaining votes in the North.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But that would in no way alter the fact that he publicly proposed and sought an end to slavery. Which was the point, after all.

[_JohnStuartMill]

I know of nothing to suggest that the state of Deseret/Utah, let alone the Church, ever actually enforced a death penalty for white/black marriage, let alone (contrary to Shades's casually false assertion) for interracial marriage generally.

If Utah under Brigham Young never carried out a death penalty for interracial marriage, that could easily be because people took the penalty seriously, and didn't marry interracially for that reason. Your point here is very weak unless you can point to openly interracial couples from the time and area. So, whaddya got?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Many churches in Brigham Young's time were anti-slavery. Sadly, the Brighamites in Utah were not among them.

The small beleaguered Mormon settlement in the Great Basin from 1847 to 1860, preoccupied with its own survival, trying to settle and feed new arrivals, under siege for part of that time by federal troops, almost universally disdained, could have had no discernible impact on the national debate.

[_Daniel Peterson]

If Utah under Brigham Young never carried out a death penalty for interracial marriage, that could easily be because people took the penalty seriously, and didn't marry interracially for that reason. Your point here is very weak unless you can point to openly interracial couples from the time and area.

Coulda maybe perhaps conceivably been for that reason, possibly.

But, in any case, there is no support in the data that I'm aware of for Shades's implicit suggestion that there was an actually enforced death penalty for marriage between a priesthood-holding white male and a black woman.

So, whaddya got?

I've got the central fact that no evidence has been offered at all to support Shades's casual and now undefended principal assertion, which was that capital punishment was the penalty under Brigham Young for interracial marriage, generally.

Everybody here is aware of the fact, I hope, that the term interracial marriage doesn't refer only to marriage between white males and black females, or even between whites and blacks?

[_JohnStuartMill]

I've got the central fact that no evidence has been offered at all to support Shades's casual and now undefended principal assertion, which was that capital punishment was the penalty under Brigham Young for interracial marriage, generally.

Well, there is the fact that the leader of the territory said that the penalty for interracial marriage was death. That alone is pretty good evidence considering that there is a lack of contrary evidence.

Everybody here is aware of the fact, I hope, that the term interracial marriage doesn't refer only to marriage between white males and black females, or even between whites and blacks?

Sure, but "interracial marriage" is a very useful shorthand.