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The Supreme Court ruled the Free Exercise clause of the first amendment protects religious groups from discrimination claims. If only this ruling had come out in 1977 the "revelation" on blacks wouldn't have been necessary.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for the first time that federal discrimination laws do not protect church employees who perform religious duties, a major church-state decision that recognizes religious groups’ constitutionally protected right to select their own leaders.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

I don't recall whether there were any government threats against the church prior to the 1978 revelation. I recall the college sports people were pretty upset about it, but the government? Can someone fill me in on this?

Sethbag wrote:I don't recall whether there were any government threats against the church prior to the 1978 revelation. I recall the college sports people were pretty upset about it, but the government? Can someone fill me in on this?

I believe there was a possibility that students at private universities and colleges which discriminated against blacks would be ineligible for federal loans and grants.

Somebody who knows more about the legal history of the Civil Rights Movement than me would have to fill in the details though (or correct me if I'm altogether wrong).

The biggest challenge to the racism in Mormonism according to some is the fact that schools refused to play BYU.

Those who think it was rising political pressure that caused the church to give the priesthood to all worthy males don't know the history of that time. (Best detailed in a book I read years ago, so I might have title and author wrong: "Brother to Brother" by Rendell Mabe. He and a couple others were the first missionaries to Africa, not South Africa.) In any event, people in Ghana (?) and a couple other countries had actually started up what they called Latter Day Saint churches, and were teaching and practicing our religion as close as they could without priesthood administration. This was brought to President Kimball and he sought instruction from God, pleading for the right to ordain Africans to the priesthood. God granted him that privilege, and by a unanimous vote of the General Authorities, it was presented to and passed in Conference. To attribute this to political pressure is like the rooster thinking his crowing makes the sun rise.

The unanimity of the G.A.'s on this issue is a sign of the truth of this religion; any other church would have been ripped in half over this issue. Our church sailed on with nary a bump besides some lower level members walking away.

I see this as paralleling the original Christian church; while Christ was on the earth, He took the gospel only to "the lost sheep of the House of Israel"; "racist", in our politically correct interpretations of the 20th century. It wasn't until after He was resurrected that He instructed Peter to take the gospel to all nations, at about the time Paul was coming into the church, who wound up being the great missionary to the non-Hebrews. Study it closely, and you'll find our church following in the same tracks as the original Christian church; and why not? We are the literal restoration of that church.

Logjam, if you dig a little deeper this had been a simmering issue for at least a couple of decades prior. I am trying to remember where I read this, but David O. McKay had already considered lifting the ban, but apparently couldn't get buy-in from all of the apostles, and so he shelved the idea.

If in your mind you envision nobody at the highest levels of the church thinking about the ban until someone shows Kimball that Africans are running their own Mormon cover churches, I think you're seeing what you want to see.

I'm willing to believe that most of the LDS leadership, by 1978, were good-hearted enough that they were not really racist themselves, and those who probably were (like Mark E. Petersen) were persuaded to go along with this change.

The reason, IMHO, why this thing lasted as long as it did, is that God doesn't really exist, and hence he cannot be revealing his Will to the church leadership. What the church leadership is really doing is A) maintaining the momentum of what past leadership did, B) imagining what this God's will might be given their teachings and scriptures relating to him (they believe he exists, but he's not talking, so they must infer his will).

In order to truly receive a "revelation" to make some dramatic change like reversing a clear precedent like the black priesthood ban, a Mormon Prophet would have to really go out on a limb, because he'd be taking what is essentially his own idea, and claiming God gave it to him. I don't believe the LDS leadership are cynical frauds, therefor, in order to be willing to claim God told him to do it, he'd have to convince himself that God really did want him to do it.

In fact, I think all it would take is for the Prophet and his counselors to call the 12 into the upper room of the temple and lay out their reasoning, making some heart-string-pulling arguments, and bearing their testimony that this is the right thing to do. Pretty soon, strong emotion could be evoked (understandable considering they were contemplating doing the right thing), and once emotion got into it and they all got weepy, that's it, the Spirit has officially confirmed that this is from the Lord. So they all depart convinced that that's what's happened.

Something like that is what I theorize actually happened.

This ruling spoke to employees of religious groups. It was not meant to address discrimination against a whole class of people. However, with a Republican Congress and President that may be addressed in time as well with ultraconservative Justices. It still wouldn't affect the LDS Church because it is now an irretrievably world wide church.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for the first time that federal discrimination laws do not protect church employees who perform religious duties, a major church-state decision that recognizes religious groups’ constitutionally protected right to select their own leaders.

When they say "Employees who perform religious duties", do they mean non paid Mormons who clean their toilets - or the ones who work downtown in the COB programming software to track apostates?