FAIR's new "spin" on the "skin of blackness" in the Book of Mormon

[_Daheshist]

Wow! Talk about mental gymnastics! You're gonna LOVE this one! For 150 years the LDS Church Presidents and Apostles taught that the "skin of blackness" upon all Lamanites (American Indians) was because they were filthy and idolatrous. Now....FAIR has "re-interpreted" the "skin of blackness": On Mormon VOICES they write:

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1. The Book of Mormon passages which reference a “mark” or “curse” are limited to a certain group of people in a certain time and place—namely, a group known as “Lamanites” who were culturally and religiously antagonistic to the “Nephites,” which included the Book of Mormon’s narrators. The passages about a “mark” or “curse” were never considered relevant to the racial Priesthood policy in the 1800s and 1900s.
2.
Though the phrase “skin of blackness” does, to the modern reader, evoke modern categories of race, it is an illogical interpretation to say that the “mark” was an immediate and complete change of skin color. Because we can only read about the event as ancient observers described it according to their understanding, one can’t say for certain by what means the Lamanites were “marked,” or how localized the mark was. The Book of Mormon even notes one instance in which a group of Nephites marked themselves in order to visibly identify themselves as being associated with the Lamanites: “And the Amlicites were distinguished from the Nephites, for they had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites; nevertheless they had not shorn their heads like unto the Lamanites.” (Alma 3:4)
3. Moreover, distinction based on the “mark” was for a specific utilitarian purpose, not an indicator of innate worth. As in the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon faithful were commanded to marry others who upheld a covenant of righteousness with the Lord. The “mark” indicated to believers that a person rejected that covenant, or had been raised in a family and a culture that rejected that covenant, and so was not an appropriate marriage prospect. The “mark” was not a reference to a judgment based on skin color in the way that we today think of as racism, especially given that Lamanite converts were earnestly sought and welcomed by Nephites. Other passages indicate it was hard to tell just by looking who was Lamanite and who was not, and that all categories of “-ites” were eventually forgotten. Therefore, equating Book of Mormon categories with modern racial categories doesn’t make sense.
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Shall we thank Pope Scott Gordon for this, the new self-appointed Mormon "Pope" who is the Sole Interpreter, smarter and more enlightened than all the Brethren before him? Just another example of the MENTAL GYMNASTICS that FAIR goes through daily in order to "splain away" racism in the Book of Mormon and in LDS Church history.