What do LDS generally believe about interracial marriage?

[_JohnStuartMill]

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.

If the point of the rule (as is the point of nearly all rules) is deterrence, then the simplest explanation is that the rule had its intended effect. That a rule is not actually enforced shows nothing about whether it has binding force, unless there exists at least one case that would merit enforcement of the rule.

[Guest]

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.

I don't think this is a fair statement. Obviously, like any other issue the surrounding culture wasn't homogeneous in its views on race. From the 1830's on into the 1970's views on race have ranged from those mirroring modern sensibilities of racial equality to quite vile stuff. The norms of Mormon culture existed within this context, and at various times was better than the norm of its surrounding culture and at times worse. Archie Bunker may have been a product of his time, but that doesn't mean he was no worse than his timeperiod. He was. Moreover, throughout the entire history of the Church there have been enlightened racial views available in the surrounding culture. There have been major social struggles between large bodies of people with more and less reasonable views on race. For a very long time, LDS culture was a factor on the wrong side of those battles. During the civil rights movement era, Mormon culture fared about as well as fundamentalist Christianity did in general and about as well as areas like South Carolina, but against the backdrop of US society as a whole, not so much. And that's not looking at this against other backdrops like Western civilization.

As far as the interracial quote goes, I get the sense that it is a bit dated now relative to the average of Mormon thought. It is a classic example of soft racism, still in the books in black and white, but I don't get the sense that it is as fervently believed as it might have been in 1978 during the "transitional" era.

[_EAllusion]

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.

I know you wouldn't want to suggest their lack of influence is an excuse for not taking the right stand on a defining social issue of the era, so this must be missing the point.

[_JohnStuartMill]

I feel kind of bad for apologists when this issue comes up. I would feel awful if my belief system required that I defend instances of racism.

[_Jaybear]

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.

The morality of slavery was THE one overriding moral issue in those days.

When BY, your prophet of God was asked about the LDS Church's official position on slavery, he said that that slavery was a divine institution.

If those are the lessons on morality taught by someone who claims to be God's prophet to the world, what good is having a Prophet?

Or do you think BY right. Is slavery God's gift to man. Are white men God's chosen seed?

[_antishock8]

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.

Partially. I think, given the premise of a priesthood ban (racism), that it would have been seriously wrong for someone from a priesthood-eligible line (not black) to marry someone from a priesthood-ineligible line (black). I think it wrong to marry out of the Church, too.

No condemnation for the racism, and in context of his statement Mr. Peterson tacitly implies that he agrees with non-blacks not marrying blacks during that era.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Well, there is the fact that the leader of the territory said that the penalty for interracial marriage was death.

No he didn't.

That alone is pretty good evidence considering that there is a lack of contrary evidence.

The leader of the territory, undoubtedly drawing on biblical stories, said that the death penalty for marriage between a white priesthood holder and a black woman was "the law of God." He said nothing about territorial statutes. He didn't say that "the law of God" had been perfectly, wholly, or even largely incorporated into the Utah legal code.

There's a huge leap here, and I see no reason to make it.

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

As this limping and incoherent "discussion" (including your own summary of the issue, above) has shown, it's also an easy entree into equivocation.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I feel kind of bad for apologists when this issue comes up. I would feel awful if my belief system required that I defend instances of racism.

I feel no need to defend racism -- neither Brigham Young's nor Abraham Lincoln's nor anybody else's.

But I admire both Abraham Lincoln and Brigham Young. I think they were great and good men.

[_Daniel Peterson]

The morality of slavery was THE one overriding moral issue in those days.

Not in the Great Basin it wasn't.

Slavery -- indeed, blacks -- scarcely existed there prior to 1860.

If those are the lessons on morality taught by someone who claims to be God's prophet to the world, what good is having a Prophet?

If a book isn't inerrant, what's the point of reading it?

If a man isn't infallible, what's the point of listening to him?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Incidentally, Charles Darwin was, by today's standards, an appalling racist who was interested in eugenics.

His brilliant disciple and cousin, Francis Galton, was very much a eugenicist and, by today's standards, a racist.

Now, I don't think that that demands that we totally reject Darwin and all his works. I don't believe that sharing a common contemporary moral blind spot completely discredits a great person of the past. But it should be a cause for reflection.