What do LDS generally believe about interracial marriage?

[Guest]

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

No he didn't.

Yes, he did. He may not have said that the legal penalty under the secular law of the territory of Utah was death, but he did say that the penalty for miscegenation was death.

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.

That doesn't change the fact that "the law of God" was largely incorporated into the Utah legal code.

Who maintained law and order at the time, by the way? Members of the Nauvoo Legion, under the command of the President of the Church himself? Interracial couples would have had every reason to believe that they been killed. To say that Young's pronouncement, backed up by force, didn't amount to a law is absurd.

[_Jaybear]

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.

Good point. The overriding moral issue of the day in the great basin was polygamy.

Good thing he got that one right, or I would have to question the rationality of anyone who considered BY to be God's prophet.

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?

I am not the one who elevates one book, or one man, above all others.

[_JohnStuartMill]

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.

Darwinists regard Darwin as merely a scientist who made a great discovery. It is consistent for them believe in evolution but to ignore or condemn his thoughts on race relations.

Mormons, on the other hand, regard Brigham Young as a prophet of God, the mouthpiece of Divine Will on this Earth. Either they believe all his pronouncements regarding "the law of God" to be truth, or they believe that Prophets are sometimes wrong regarding the law of God. They're going to have to bite one of those bullets. Which one for you?

[_antishock8]

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.

[_EAllusion]

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.

The respect for Charles Darwin doesn't come from appreciating his moral wisdom, though. He's respected for being an extremely influential and prescient scientific thinker. The respective for Brigham Young, however, is at least in part tied up in his ability to provide moral direction for others. So while pointing out moral blind spots in Darwin does little to change why one ought to care about who he was or what he thought, it does have more meaning when reflecting on Young. And, for what it is worth, Young's views on race while attempting to fulfill his role as a communicator of divine will were much more abhorrent than the secular Darwin's.

[_The Nehor]

So, as recently as 30 years ago the Mormon church was openly discouraging interracial marriage?

I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with skin color and EVERYTHING to do with "culture".

Uh huh.

With the exception of the Priesthood ban, all other interracial marriages were under those conditions. If you read Kimball and others in their entirety instead of culling inflammatory quotes then you'd know that.

[_The Nehor]

Just because one divide is difficult to bridge does not justify adding smaller increments to the divide. :)

And this is why this world will perpetually be at war with itself, because people feel it's too much of an effort to look amongst the "differences" to see just how many similarities are embedded within.

It's really sad that people need to separate themselves based on what language they speak, food they eat, clothes they wear, and music they listen to. Becuase that is what culture is. We're all human, and we all have the same wants and needs. They may be shaped in some ways by our environments, but at the end of the day we all need the same things: love, understanding, acceptance, freedom, unity....

Why is that different because I am black and you are white?

It's a beautiful sentiment but I'm more practical. Yes, such relationships can and do work. I've seen fantastic examples. All I am saying is that you should look at those differences and decide whether they will create problems and take them into consideration. I disagree with the idea that, "Love is all you need" or the sentiment that "diversity is strength". There is strength in unity and nowhere is that more vital then in a marriage.

[_JohnStuartMill]

If it's the culture that's the problem, why not just discourage people from marrying outside their own culture? The race thing is both under- and over-inclusive.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Yes, he did. He may not have said that the legal penalty under the secular law of the territory of Utah was death, but he did say that the penalty for miscegenation was death.

You're equivocating. Even after you've been warned.

Let me again recap, once more, again, once again, yet again, again, another time:

Shades says penalty for interracial marriage under Brigham Young was death.

Peterson asks for evidence.

Shades provides evidence that Brigham Young said that one particular kind of interracial marriage was worthy of death under "the law of God."

Peterson notes that Brigham Young's statement applies to only one particular kind of interracial marriage, not to all interracial marriage (which means that Shades's more general claim remains unsupported), and that it still doesn't represent evidence that the actual penalty for interracial marriage under Brigham Young really was death (which means that it fails to support a plausible reading of Shade's implicit secondary claim).

Shades goes silent. Several other posters equivocate, obfuscate, and seek, consciously or unconsciously, to change the subject. Shades remains silent.

To say that Young's pronouncement, backed up by force, didn't amount to a law is absurd.

I don't believe that answers to historical questions are determined by a priori reasoning or theory. They're answered by empirical evidence.

If you have some, share it.

Incidentally, the speech from which the Brigham Young quotation has been lifted was given on 8 March 1863. Brigham Young had ceased to be governor of Utah territory in 1858. The governor of Utah in 1863 was a non-Mormon federal appointee.

P.S. -- Am I to conclude, from the deafening silence on this point, that everybody agrees that Shades has failed to supply any evidence to support his claim that interracial marriage, as such, was punishable by death under Brigham Young?

[_JohnStuartMill]

You're equivocating. Even after you've been warned.

I will grant your point that Young probably didn't institute a prohibition, backed by force, of black/white intermarriage through secular law. I don't think anybody is really wedded to that point.

I don't believe that answers to historical questions are determined by a priori reasoning or theory. They're answered by empirical evidence.

If you have some, share it.

There were apparently no black/white intermarriages in the area at the time.

Incidentally, the speech from which the Brigham Young quotation has been lifted was given on 8 March 1863. Brigham Young had ceased to be governor of Utah territory in 1858. The governor of Utah in 1863 was a non-Mormon federal appointee.

Do you really think that the governor had more political power than the Prophet? If so, what's your theory for why polygamy was (widely and openly) practiced in the area, illegally, for decades?