Ann Romney's testimony

[_TruthPrevails88]

I'd like Romney IF he repented from the "abominable" belief and practice of polygamy and his Satanic Masonic oath he took in the temple and if he became a righteous man. And if he worked towards the restoration of the priesthood for the women who held it in the beginning of the church (along with Blacks like Elijah Abel)....And if he helped to restore the Book of Mormon from its 3,000 plus changes which altered the identity of God in fulfillment of 1 Ne 13 regarding the Great and MOST Abominable Church.
Then I'd like Romney...

The problem is that I detest Obama as a Muslim born in Kenya with a fake birth certificate and sealed up school records (had a foreign student financial aid grant) anti-Christian, white racist Mobster from Chicago...

[_zeezrom]

Great Mitt quote:

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." –Mitt Romney (January 2012)

[_just me]

Great Mitt quote:

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." –Mitt Romney (January 2012)

What the....

[_sock puppet]

Great Mitt quote:

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." –Mitt Romney (January 2012)

"It's nice to be nice to the nice"--Frank Burns, M*A*S*H

[_Kishkumen]

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." –Mitt Romney (January 2012)

"It's nice to be nice to the nice"--Frank Burns, M*A*S*H

Well played, sir. Well played.

[_Drifting]

Great Mitt quote:

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." –Mitt Romney (January 2012)

In all seriousness, how the f*** can any right minded American want this guys finger on the button? He is a public relations disaster and whenever he opens his mouth complete sh**e comes out.

I'm sure he's not a moron but if you were only judging him by what he said in public...

[_palerobber]

Yes, it is relevant, because it has to do with the reasons people object to the location of religious buildings, which is what your comment was about. There are current descendants of the victims of the Mountain Meadows Massacre who have been offended at the way the LDS Church has handled the site where the massacre occurred. These descendants pushed for years until the site was designated a national landmark.

i was only pointing out that you were drawing a false analogy. for Park51 to be analogous to "building a temple at Mountain Meadows" it would have to be some sort of mega-mosque built directly atop Ground Zero, which it's not. if you want to say now that the incongruity of your analogy shouldn't take away from your larger point about whatever (that people can get offended?), that's fine. but that false analogy was the entirety of your original response, so i had no way of knowing you had a larger point.

but here's a better question:
In 1996 a Christian extremist planted a bomb in Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta GA that killed 2 and injured 111. If a mainline Christian group (eight years later) wanted to build a church two or three blocks away from the park, you'd agree that would be a classless move, right?

That's not a better question. That's the same issue with different facts. [...]

in other words, a proper analogy through which to explore the legitimacy of objections to the siting of Park51.

[...] Yes, I can understand if secularists or non-Christians would see that move as at best somewhat oblivious. I myself would not feel that way, but that doesn't mean there is no understandable reason why someone else would.

oh please. no secularist would give any more of a damn about it than you do -- you're stretching to near breaking here.

No, the opposition to an LDS temple in one's neighborhood is not "similar" to the opposition of a mosque near Ground Zero. It's not a matter of whether you agree with people's reasons for feeling the way they do, but why they feel the way they do. Whether right or wrong for feeling the way they do, people opposed to the location of that mosque are not doing so for arbitrary reasons. They are opposed because it seems insensitive to them when the 9/11 attacks were motivated by Muslim extremism. That isn't "similar" to why people don't want an LDS temple by their house. The latter is motivated by concerns about traffic, zoning, property values, and having a great big brightly-lit trophy building right by where you live. "Opposition to a mosque near Ground Zero because Muslim terrorists killed hundreds of people a few blocks away and destroyed an American landmark" is not analogous to "opposition to an LDS temple in my neighborhood because tons of people are going to start driving down my street and this giant trophy building is going to dominate the landscape and will be lit up all night long."

aside from any legitimate zoning concerns, the two cases are "similar" in that religious bigotry played at least some role in the opposition to both projects.

from a 2002 Boston Magazine interview of Mitt Romney:
One particularly blunt affront has left Romney still visibly enraged months after it occurred. His jaw clenches as he tells how he was approached by a local woman after a public meeting between church members and their critics. “One lady, who I'm sure considers herself quite tolerant, came over to me and wanted to know why we just didn't go on back to Utah and build our temple out there,” he recalls.

Romney didn't think the "go back to Utah" crowd ought to have any say on where Boston-area Mormons built their house of worship, but he was not willing to extend that same privilege to Muslims living in lower manhattan. hypocrisy.

[_Darth J]

Yes, it is relevant, because it has to do with the reasons people object to the location of religious buildings, which is what your comment was about. There are current descendants of the victims of the Mountain Meadows Massacre who have been offended at the way the LDS Church has handled the site where the massacre occurred. These descendants pushed for years until the site was designated a national landmark.

i was only pointing out that you were drawing a false analogy. for Park51 to be analogous to "building a temple at Mountain Meadows" it would have to be some sort of mega-mosque built directly atop Ground Zero, which it's not. if you want to say now that the incongruity of your analogy shouldn't take away from your larger point about whatever (that people can get offended?), that's fine. but that false analogy was the entirety of your original response, so i had no way of knowing you had a larger point.

The analogy is not the size of the house of worship. The analogy is the motivation some people have for opposing the location of a particular house of worship. And in LDS practice, temples are in a different place than their name suggests. The "Boston" temple, for example, is not in Boston. A hypothetical "Mountain Meadows Temple" could be located somewhere other than the actual site of the massacre and still follow LDS practice in using that name.

but here's a better question:
In 1996 a Christian extremist planted a bomb in Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta GA that killed 2 and injured 111. If a mainline Christian group (eight years later) wanted to build a church two or three blocks away from the park, you'd agree that would be a classless move, right?

That's not a better question. That's the same issue with different facts. [...]

n other words, a proper analogy through which to explore the legitimacy of objections to the siting of Park51.

No, you are completely missing the point that people might object to the location of a house of worship because murder in the name of that religion was carried out near the site. It doesn't matter how big the building is for people to have that concern. The reason why some people were opposed to the location of a mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero is similar to why descendants of the Fancher party would probably find it to be insensitive if the LDS Church announced "the Mountain Meadows Temple."

[...] Yes, I can understand if secularists or non-Christians would see that move as at best somewhat oblivious. I myself would not feel that way, but that doesn't mean there is no understandable reason why someone else would.

oh please. no secularist would give any more of a damn about it than you do -- you're stretching to near breaking here.

I didn't say a secularist would necessarily feel that way. I said I can understand if they did feel that way. But you don't speak for all secularists, and you don't know whether no secularists might find the association between the church and the bombing to be troubling. What you're saying is that my ability to understand a hypothetical situation is ridiculous based on your speculation about the reaction all secularists would have. And since you are so certain how all secularists react to this hypothetical, you be sure to tell people like Sam Harris that no secularists are leery about the dangers of Christian extremism.

No, the opposition to an LDS temple in one's neighborhood is not "similar" to the opposition of a mosque near Ground Zero. It's not a matter of whether you agree with people's reasons for feeling the way they do, but why they feel the way they do. Whether right or wrong for feeling the way they do, people opposed to the location of that mosque are not doing so for arbitrary reasons. They are opposed because it seems insensitive to them when the 9/11 attacks were motivated by Muslim extremism. That isn't "similar" to why people don't want an LDS temple by their house. The latter is motivated by concerns about traffic, zoning, property values, and having a great big brightly-lit trophy building right by where you live. "Opposition to a mosque near Ground Zero because Muslim terrorists killed hundreds of people a few blocks away and destroyed an American landmark" is not analogous to "opposition to an LDS temple in my neighborhood because tons of people are going to start driving down my street and this giant trophy building is going to dominate the landscape and will be lit up all night long."

aside from any legitimate zoning concerns, the two cases are "similar" in that religious bigotry played at least some role in the opposition to both projects.

Oh, there are some people opposed to both the inaccurately-named "Ground Zero mosque" and the LDS Boston Temple because of religious bigotry. But that's not the general rule, nor the only reason people have for that opposition. There were in fact a couple of lawsuits filed in opposition to the Boston Temple, for the kinds of reasons that I said.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christi ... emple.aspx

But three residents of the surrounding neighborhood filed a lawsuit against the Mormons, asking that the church be taken down.
"It's like having a Wal-Mart built in your neighborhood," said Charles Counselman, one of the three. "I wish it had never been built."
The lawsuit claims the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took advantage of a law that applies lower zoning restrictions to religious groups. So far, the suit has been denied by two federal judges.
The neighbors' lawyer, Michael Peirce, asked the U.S. Supreme Court this month to take up the matter again. "The neighborhood I live in is zoned for single-family, detached residences," Counselman said. "This church is enormous and out of scale with the neighborhood."
Church leaders say that while the structure is large, the size of the crowd attending the temple at any one time isn't.
But Peirce thinks differently.
"You don't build a 200-car parking lot and a building that large if you don't expect to get a lot of people there," he said.

And this is what one of the town selectmen said about opposition to the temple being driven by religious bigotry:

Belmont Selectman Bill Monahan sought to distinguish between locals' opposition to the temple and anti-Mormon feelings. "I think the ugly head of bigotry has shown its face, but I think that's a small minority of people," Monahan said.

They were not successful in their legal challenges to the zoning exemption for religious buildings, but the outcome of their case is not the point. The point is why they filed the lawsuit.

Massachusetts appellate decision on reasonableness of zoning exemption for Boston Temple

1st Circuit opinion on constitutionality of zoning exemption

You be sure to tell me about the people opposing the "Ground Zero mosque" because it's out of scale with the neighborhood and will bring in a lot of unwanted traffic, okay? Or how there's a claimed violation of the Establishment Clause with the "Ground Zero mosque" because New York exempts religious buildings from zoning ordinances? You'll show me that, right?

You know, because people opposed the LDS Boston Temple for the same reasons why people opposed the mosque a few blocks away from where the World Trade Center was.

from a 2002 Boston Magazine interview of Mitt Romney:
One particularly blunt affront has left Romney still visibly enraged months after it occurred. His jaw clenches as he tells how he was approached by a local woman after a public meeting between church members and their critics. “One lady, who I'm sure considers herself quite tolerant, came over to me and wanted to know why we just didn't go on back to Utah and build our temple out there,” he recalls.

Romney didn't think the "go back to Utah" crowd ought to have any say on where Boston-area Mormons built their house of worship, but he was not willing to extend that same privilege to Muslims living in lower manhattan. hypocrisy.

Great. I look forward to seeing the lawsuits these people filed asking a judge to move the temple because "we don't like Mormons."