Bill Maher and Romney's Mormon Charity

[Guest]

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[Guest]

Jason Bourne,

Your Jewish friend is clearly a kind soul, and I appreciate his sentiment. I just wrote a long response and then erased most of it because it was vitriolic.

So I will just say this. I do have strong feelings against the Church, mainly because
- I don't like being lied to,
- I don't like people asking me for money and refusing to account for how it is spent,
- I don't like people teaching my children and grandchildren demonstrable falsehoods as truth,
- I don't like folks who try to tell me and my wife what is proper (and improper) intimate behavior,
- I don't like the Church talking my three sons into wasting two years of each of their lives at my additional financial expense,
-I don't like them teaching my bright young granddaughters that their role in life is to bring as many "spirits" into the world as they can "afford'.

I don't want to belong to an organization that lied to me and lies to millions of other people every day.

Having been taken for years of time and many hundreds of thousands of dollars by this organization, I trust that you will not be too hard on me for expressing a bit of satisfaction (or even glee) when they are finally called to account, if even in a small way.

[Guest]

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[Guest]

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[Guest]

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[_Jason Bourne]

Jason Bourne,

Your Jewish friend is clearly a kind soul, and I appreciate his sentiment. I just wrote a long response and then erased most of it because it was vitriolic.

So I will just say this. I do have strong feelings against the Church, mainly because
- I don't like being lied to,
- I don't like people asking me for money and refusing to account for how it is spent,
- I don't like people teaching my children and grandchildren demonstrable falsehoods as truth,
- I don't like folks who try to tell me and my wife what is proper (and improper) intimate behavior,
- I don't like the Church talking my three sons into wasting two years of each of their lives at my additional financial expense,
-I don't like them teaching my bright young granddaughters that their role in life is to bring as many "spirits" into the world as they can "afford'.

I don't want to belong to an organization that lied to me and lies to millions of other people every day.

Having been taken for years of time and many hundreds of thousands of dollars by this organization, I trust that you will not be too hard on me for expressing a bit of satisfaction (or even glee) when they are finally called to account, if even in a small way.

Dr W I understand. I really do. I have many of the same feelings really. And I noted that my Jewish friend cannot really understand the anger I, or you perhaps to a greater degree than me, have about such things. So I understand. I struggle with my in between NOM status. At times I want to bolt and other days I am quite ok with where I am at and continuing to participate in the Church.

As for the lies I honestly think the leaders of the LDS Church believe it is what it claims. Still there is too much stealth on many issues, finances being the prime one in my book. I really do understand where you are at. I am not sure why I have not ended up further down that road. Yahoo Bot would say it is just because I am a coward. He may be right.

[_Jason Bourne]

I couldn't agree more, I think that Churches like any big business have a huge lobby and that combined with their ability to organize people makes them formidable to any government. The truth is though that they really should be paying the same tax as any business. They are identical to businesses anyway so why not? Can you imagine what that would do to the deficit?

Thanks,

Hasa Diga Eebowai

The charitable deductions costs the government about $60 billion. Disallowing it entirely would add some revenue but it would not go a long way to eliminating the deficit.

So as I noted to others here, write your congress person and tell them how you feel.

By they way I think they should eliminate the deduction for mortgage interest. That cost $150 billion a year in lost tax revenue. Why should the government subsidize the housing industry?

[_krose]

You mentioned some time ago that the evangelical movement is anti-Mormon. However, until I watched the clips in this episode, I had no idea how absolutely vicious, bigoted, and even crazy their attacks are. I was even more shocked to see clips from some commentators on the left, as I thought they would take a more balanced and enlightened position. I guess there are bigots on both sides of the spectrum.

Sorry, Jason, but I just didn't see any bigotry toward Mormons in the instances that Jon Stewart highlighted in his show last week. As a person whose beloved close relatives are almost all staunch Mormons, I think I would be sensitive to actual bigotry against them. I know my loved ones are wonderful people, as are most of the LDS people I have known, and I heard nothing from any of the people whom Stewart lampooned that contradicted that.

There is a huge difference between criticizing a set of beliefs and judging those who hold those beliefs as being inferior people (which would be actual bigotry). I can believe Mormonism is completely false, that polygamy and the priesthood ban were shameful (and even that Joseph Smith was a self-serving charlatan who made up a religion and manipulated girls into having sex with him), and at the same time hold my mother and siblings in very high esteem. Believing and saying those things wouldn't make me a bigot.

What was most upsetting to me about all of this is that there has been no national outcry against these ridiculous attacks. If people were making the same sorts of public comments about African Americans or Latinos or Jews or Catholics, there would be a thunderous outcry in protest. I do not understand why there is not similar outrage when Latter-Day Saints are attacked so irrationally. At least Stewart is having none of this and I think uses satire very effectively to make an unequivocal and stinging criticism of this religious bigotry.

Let's examine what Stewart pointed out:

1. A conservative preacher said the LDS faith is not real Christianity. That's stupid, but it's not bigotry. It's hardly any different from the description of Christian sects in the First Vision account.

2. A governor opined that Romney will not try to use his family's roots in Mexico to make a connection with Latinos, because it would necessarily bring up the reason the family moved to Mexico. It's just a political fact that Romney wants to avoid the subject of polygamy. There was no criticism of Mormons as people in that conversation. He provided an accurate assessment of the political considerations and calculations involved.

3. Martin Bashir found some LDS scripture verses about how lying was condemned and read them on the air, then concluded that Romney was violating his own beliefs. Again, no criticism of Mormons, and not even any criticism of what Mormons believe. It was silly theatre, but how is that bigotry?

4. Lawrence O'Donnell stated that Joseph Smith came up with his church as a cover for his dalliance with Miss Fanny behind the barn. He got it wrong, of course.

None of these people made any claim that Mormons are inferior people.

What was most upsetting to me about all of this is that there has been no national outcry against these ridiculous attacks. If people were making the same sorts of public comments about African Americans or Latinos or Jews or Catholics, there would be a thunderous outcry in protest.

This part I really don't get. You can't compare criticism of a religion to racism. Sure, a negative stereotype would be similar, if anyone had actually used one. A comment such as "Mormons are lecherous people" would be akin to saying "Latinos are lazy." That would be bigotry. The problem is that nothing remotely like that happened here. No one made any "public comments about" the Mormon people.

An equivalent for Judaism would be something like saying that Abraham started the whole thing as a way to claim a large chunk of land for himself and his posterity, or condemning stoning as a barbaric practice, or pointing out that Netanyahu had violated one of the ten commandments found in his own scriptures. And none of that would be bigotry against Jews.

[Guest]

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[_Hasa Diga Eebowai]

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