Gladys Knight will not vote for Mitt Romney

[Guest]

CFR

This statement on political neutrality seems to do just that....

The Church’s mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, not to elect politicians. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is neutral in matters of party politics. This applies in all of the many nations in which it is established.

The Church does not:

Endorse, promote or oppose political parties, candidates or platforms.

Allow its church buildings, membership lists or other resources to be used for partisan political purposes.

Attempt to direct its members as to which candidate or party they should give their votes to. This policy applies whether or not a candidate for office is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Attempt to direct or dictate to a government leader.

And it's from President Newsroom, so we can call it "official".

Now, let me point out the logically inconsistent, conceptually hazy, and sophistic nature of what you are attempting to do here.

Core to this is the fundamental, key point, that by your own admission, the Church is politically neutral:

This statement on political neutrality seems to do just that....

But, the entire thesis of your posts has been that:

...neither of the two biggest political parties are incompatible with LDS theology.

Now, you can have it one way here, but not both. Either the institutional church is utterly neutral, regarding partisan politics, or it isn't. If the platforms, teachings, philosophy, and policies of both, one, the other, or any party is compatible with the teachings, philosophy, and political implications of LDS doctrine, then the Church is not politically neutral at all but a sponge capable of absorbing virtually anything from both parties.

This, however, is also tantamount to claiming that the church is not only not politically neutral (being a cypher for a potpourri of the politics of both parties) but, by being open to all political theories and policies, has no political relevance at all, nor any means by which its own doctrines can be understood in relation to various political doctrines.

I think the main problem here is that you are confusing the political position of the institutional church with both its doctrines per se, and the political responsibilities and calling of its individual members as Saints living in the world but being not of it. The problem for LDS is not party, but ideology and policy.

Those are very different states of affairs.

[_bcspace]

At this point, however, it may be too late to genuinely disentangle Mormonism from right-wing politics.

It's not a matter of being too late. The Church's doctrine and therefore the Gospel of Christ happens to match the actual conservative viewpoint quite well.

[_Droopy]

Would part of their repentance process be to revoke their Democratic party membership?

It would be to abandon the beliefs, ideology, and policy prescriptions that are inconsistent with and hostile to Church teachings.

It must really piss you off when people like Beastie's parents and Harry Reid are allowed to carry a temple recommend.

He's done nothing (apparently) in his personal life to warrant such action. The wheat and the tares are to grow together until the very end.

Harry Reid is not just a democrat, he is a party leader, and yet every year his Bishop and SP interview him and find him worthy to hold a temple recommend. Perhaps it is the church leaders who are allowing the Democrats to be members in good standing without going through the repentance process who should be disciplined.

What's all this "discipline" flim-flam? There are only a small number of reasons for official church discipline, and I've never said Reid was guilty of any of them.

He is, however, a leftist and a supporter of a leftist party who's core belief system implies and requires the thorough dismantling of the Constitution, the principles of the Declaration, the entire classical liberal project, and the dissolution of the concept of unalienable, individual rights. He, like so many others in his party, is a power and control drunken authoritarian Platonic guardian who's lust for unaccountable control and domination of my and your life is at the center of his very being.

All this is conspicuously hidden beneath a mask of "good works" and "compassion," "fairness" and "social justice," of course.

I'm not his ultimate judge, just a critic. I have no power over him, nor if I did, would I exercise any of it unless he had done something that, according to the laws of the Church, required discipline.

I'm quite content to wait until the Wedding feast to see who has their lamps trimmed and who doesn't. I may be one who doesn't. Hard to say, but my ideals and central values, unlike Reid's, are at least facing me in the right direction.

[_cwald]

Not to derail this thread, but didn't Droopy say he was only came back here to post in regards to the John Dehlin issue?

I know I am new here, but I don't get it.

[_Droopy]

“Mitt Romney is having a terrible impact on how we are perceived,” explained Brigham Young University law student Marshall Thompson, a former intern to Orrin Hatch, an Iraq vet and a faithful Mormon — the type of person, in other words, you’d expect to be part of Romney’s base. “I’m told he’s a very nice person in real life,” Thompson continues, “but he comes across as out-of-touch, materialistic and disingenuous.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/04/27/Mormons ... singleton/

Hmmm. Interesting, because so does Barack Obama, and to a much greater and substantially more hypocritical degree. Thus far, Romney has not engaged in the traditional populist "I understand the plight of the common man" man-of-the-people demagoguery that has been so implausibly indulged in by the likes of Barack Obama, John Kerry, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, and others notable for either never having held a real job or created a single penny of new wealth in their entire lives, and/or for having spent much of their lives destroying the wealth and prosperity of others from upon their government thrones.

Unlike Barack Obama, who is both an utter economic ignoramus and a puritanical anti-capitalist ideologue, Romney has at least a decent grasp of how a free market economy works (and Obama does not like free market economies, and has been working feverishly for nearly four years, with much of his party, to dismantle ours and assist in the dismantling of what remains of such in Europe).

Romney is not a movement conservative, but he's far, far more desirable than The Amateur. The brilliant Mr. Thompson is also obviously not aware that the economic collapse (and hence, civil collapse) of the Untied States and Europe, due to the intransigent pursuit of the very same economic and social policies on both continents, is now nigh.

Ahh yes. The glories and felicity of socialism. We will all suffer miserably, but we will all be suffering equally and together, and in this we can, at least, take comfort in the fact that no one will be allowed to prosper, achieve, or excel unless all prosper, achieve, and excel equally.

There will be no "free riders."

There, don't you feel better now?

[_Rufus]

And now, once again, I must be going...

Where did you get that impression? Search me. I would prefer that they repent and come unto Christ, far from wanting to see anyone such as this out of the Church.

God, why can't Droopy keep his promise to leave and never return?

God: There must needs be opposition in all things. Ye cannot appreciate the Shades and the Kishkumen and the Darth, without having the Droop and the Bcspace.

Thank-you God, I will endure to the end

[_Droopy]

Not to derail this thread, but didn't Droopy say he was only came back here to post in regards to the John Dehlin issue?

I know I am new here, but I don't get it.

And you never will.

Sparky.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Not to derail this thread, but didn't Droopy say he was only came back here to post in regards to the John Dehlin issue?

I know I am new here, but I don't get it.

He can't help it. He suffers from Roget's Palsy, more commonly referred to as Thesaurus Tourette Syndrome.

[_Blixa]

Not to derail this thread, but didn't Droopy say he was only came back here to post in regards to the John Dehlin issue?

I know I am new here, but I don't get it.

He can't help it. He suffers from Roget's Palsy, more commonly referred to as Thesaurus Tourette Syndrome.

Roget's Palsy.

Perfect.

[_DarkHelmet]

It must really piss you off when people like Beastie's parents and Harry Reid are allowed to carry a temple recommend.

He's done nothing (apparently) in his personal life to warrant such action. The wheat and the tares are to grow together until the very end.

So being a democrat does not require repentance now because they will just be burned later? But shouldn't that apply to all the tares? What about the people who continue to break the word of wisdom? Shouldn't they be allowed a temple recommend now and then be burned later?