John Dehlin made the following statement about FAIR:
John Dehlin wrote:I think I'm trying to say that associating so closely with Daniel Peterson while he supports tactics like commissioning a hit piece on me might be your biggest issue at this point...for the circles I run in, anyway.
This sends Wiki Wonka into a spirited defense of Peterson & Co., some of which seems to be the result of not stopping to read carefully; and otherwise, arguably, comes from a failure to weigh the significance of accuracy in detail against moral responsibility all that carefully.
Wiki Wonka wrote:1) Dan Peterson did not commission an article to be written about you. He didn't ask for one. He did not seek one out. He simply happened to be the editor of the Review at the time that the article was submitted. That is the truth. You have repeatedly and publicly maligned him on this issue.
LOL!!! Mercy me. Daniel Peterson just happened to be in the area when Greg Smith drove by in his fancy hotrod and gunned down that old lady.
Now, I can give Wonka a break here, because Dehlin is not always as careful in his choice of words as he might be, but Dehlin did not say, it seems to me, that Daniel had personally commissioned the piece, but that Daniel "supported tactics like commissioning a hit piece...," and so forth.
And, really, I think it is fair to say that one of Daniel "Who Me?" Peterson's self-apologetics is that he is not the one writing this stuff; he is simply the guy who oversees its publication. Well, Wonka, that's really the problem. If you give people a venue in which they know they can get attention smearing fellow members of the LDS Church, it is not mysterious what the likely results will be. Is it?
So, is Peterson to be held at all responsible for printing such pieces? I think he is responsible for his editorial decisions. And, frankly, anyone who has read Greg Smith's reviews of other LDS people (Meldrum and Compton) is going to know the tenor and methods of his work. So, Wonka, this is a singularly silly and ineffective defense of Peterson for those who are aware of the facts and are not blinded by loyalty.
Wonka wrote:2) At the time that you emailed him about it, he hadn't even read it yet.
Again, Wonka, who is it that you are trying to convince here? Yourself? Let me see, if I have read Greg Smith's two other pieces, what would I imagine yet a third, this time on Mormon Stories, is going to be about? If the infamous and thoroughly vile "Mormons For Marriage" piece focused inordinately on Laura Compton--and it did--and went so far as to depict her as a Satanically deceived deceiver, what were people to expect of the so-called "Mormon Stories" piece?
Wonka wrote:3) Greg Smith wrote the article on his own initiative. Nobody asked him to write it. He wrote it because he wanted to write it.
And he knew he had an editor who would only be too happy to publish it: Daniel C. Peterson.
Wonka wrote:4) I've read it - the very first version that was sent to the Mormon Studies Review. It is a review of MormonStories.
Just as the Laura Compton hit piece was a "review" of Mormons For Marriage? LOL. Yeah, we know exactly what that was like. Laura Compton figured quite prominently in that piece. I'm afraid this does not wash.
Furthermore, operatives for FAIR had been combing John Dehlin's Facebook feed looking for quotes to stick in a FAIRWiki entry on Mormon Stories and John Dehlin. Trevor Holyoak, I believe, was one of those operatives. These FAIR operatives were looking to take Dehlin quotes out of context to place in the wiki and make John Dehlin look bad.
So, I can't say I really trust FAIR to be, well, fair in the matter of John Dehlin.
And, I hardly think that FAIR has any standing to take John Dehlin to task in his criticism of Daniel Peterson and FAIR. After all, both Daniel Peterson and FAIR would have been only too happy to see John Dehlin misrepresented. I offer the fact that, once caught, the wiki entry was edited to remove the Facebook "intel."
Wonka wrote:5) The article makes no mention of your mission. It never did, in any revision. The conversation you had with Lou Midgley produced a severe misunderstanding regarding what the article was about. I cringed when I listened to the section of your podcast that talked about this, because it was so wrong. How could the situation have been so severely misunderstood?
Um, maybe because Lou Midgley is a confrontational hothead who is famous for shooting his mouth off in unfortunate ways. Uh, gee, Wiki, how can you even begin to take yourself seriously as you type this crap?
But it gets better:
Wonka wrote:Lou Midgley often responds to FAIR "Ask the Apologist" requests. He is often thanked by the questioners for his caring responses. I have seen Lou volunteer to personally visit people that are having difficulties. Just two days ago, I was conversing on Facebook with an old friend that I haven't seen for over 20 years. He told me that he had read an article that Lou wrote, and liked it so much that he called Dr. Midgley at home to talk to him about it (his wife was mortified that he would call Dr. Midgley at home). He said that Lou was very gracious and talked with him for 20 minutes. Yes, he is passionate. The world would be a more boring place without him. That is the Lou Midgley that I know.
So, you are claiming that you do not know the guy who is famous for going on tirades against his enemies in public, heckling people, blowing up in their faces, and accusing them of various things in a very loud voice. Because, yeah, I can agree that he has done some nice things too, but I have a hard time believing that the "Lou Midgley you know" is a completely different version from the one who inappropriately got in John Dehlin's face as he has done to many other people, including an emeritus Seventy.
Nobody who is being honest will deny what I am saying. I can't say I find it very forthright of you to act as though you are amazed at the alleged misunderstanding between Dehlin and Midgley. My guess is that Midgley bears more than half the responsibility for that because he never learned to cool off instead of throwing himself at his opponents in a flood of angry words and wild gesticulations.
Wonka wrote:FAIR will never disassociate itself from Lou Midgley and Dan Peterson.
Famous last words.
Wonka wrote:With regard to FAIR and tone, I have, for several years now, volunteered to fix any issue found in the FAIR Wiki regarding tone. I have made this offer both on this board, and over on MormonDiscussions. And I have made such corrections many times. The offer still stands - If you or anyone else finds something with an objectionable or un-Christlike tone in the FAIR Wiki, I will fix it immediately. If you want to help FAIR, then help us locate and identify un-Christlike tone or phrases in our online works. For that, you would truly have our gratitude.
I guess as long as there is a staff of volunteers at the ready to catch every instance in which an overzealous FAIR volunteer engages in un-Christlike writing on the wiki, we'll be just fine. One wonders, however, why there should be such a need in an avowedly Christian organization like FAIR.
Disappointedly yours,
Kish