Gladys Knight will not vote for Mitt Romney

[_why me]

Harry Reid appealed to the Book of Mormon to support his views too, in his BYU devotional. He did a good job of pointing out that there's room in the LDS Church for all sorts of different political viewpoints, and that we shouldn't assume the scriptures and the Church support just one political viewpoint and one only.

The problem with critic boards that attempt to paint all Mormons as republicans forget to realize that the Mormon church is not just usa centered these days. In other parts of the world, Mormons come in all political shades. In france, there are Mormons who vote socialist. In Sweden, there are Mormons who vote social democratic. But they also vote christian democrat, green, liberal, conservative, and all other sorts of parties that are represented in other societies.

[_beastie]

The problem with critic boards that attempt to paint all Mormons as republicans forget to realize that the Mormon church is not just usa centered these days. In other parts of the world, Mormons come in all political shades. In france, there are Mormons who vote socialist. In Sweden, there are Mormons who vote social democratic. But they also vote christian democrat, green, liberal, conservative, and all other sorts of parties that are represented in other societies.

This post affirms what I've long suspected about you: you don't really pay any attention to anything anyone else says.

It's not critics who are insisting all Mormons are republicans on this board. It's certain LDS posters: droopy, bcspace, ldsfaq - who insist that Mormonism is incompatible with the Democratic party.

[_why me]

This post affirms what I've long suspected about you: you don't really pay any attention to anything anyone else says.

It's not critics who are insisting all Mormons are republicans on this board. It's certain LDS posters: droopy, bcspace, ldsfaq - who insist that Mormonism is incompatible with the Democratic party.

Many have this idea, critics in particular when they are attempting to score points. Of course, we have our share of republican Mormons here too.

Do you really think that critics have not made the same assertion on critic boards?

[_DarkHelmet]

This post affirms what I've long suspected about you: you don't really pay any attention to anything anyone else says.

It's not critics who are insisting all Mormons are republicans on this board. It's certain LDS posters: droopy, bcspace, ldsfaq - who insist that Mormonism is incompatible with the Democratic party.

Many have this idea, critics in particular when they are attempting to score points. Of course, we have our share of republican Mormons here too.

Do you really think that critics have not made the same assertion on critic boards?

Are you saying a person can be a liberal or a Democrat and remain a member in good standing?

[_KevinSim]

Are you saying a person can be a liberal or a Democrat and remain a member in good standing?

Have you not been listening to us? Harry Reid is a member in good standing! In case you hadn't noticed, he's the Democratic Senate Majority Leader! And pretty liberal to boot.

So yes, a person "can be a liberal or a Democrat and remain a member in good standing."

[_KevinSim]

Within Mormonism there are some socialist principles. But it would not support a socialist ideology. And the early Mormons were far from being socialistic. They had private property on the brain which is why the united order did not succeed very well. Plus, although they tended to look out for each other, this does not mean that they would have liked Jacksonian democracy to go away, to be replaced with forms of utopian socialism.

Granted the tangent that spawned this post was talking about socialism, but let me just point out here that there's a huge difference between Socialists and Democrats.

On the other hand, when missionaries in my sector in Concepcion, Chile, were looking for a play to stay, they chose a room rented out by a bona fide communist lady, a lady who joined the LDS Church some time before I ever arrived on the scene. She didn't feel the need to abandon her party due to principles the LDS Church taught her.

[_Droopy]

Two or three times, before elections I think, a member of our ward's bishopric has read a letter from Church headquarters declaring that neither of the two biggest political parties are incompatible with LDS theology. So Ldsfaqs doesn't even speak for the LDS Church, let alone all Latter-day Saints.

That's not, however, what the Church has said. The Church has not anywhere claimed that "neither of the two biggest political parties are incompatible with the Church." That would imply that the ideologies, doctrines, and policies of both parties were, willy-nilly, compatible with Church teachings. But both parties contain strongly irreconcilable beliefs regarding policy along a number of fronts. But party politics is really not the venue in which to be having this discussion.

The real conflict is not between Republican and Democrat, but between conservatism (contemporary classic liberalism) and Progressivism (a wholly incompatible philosophy grounded in a vastly different conception of the human being and his relationship to the state, other human beings, and rooted deeply in concepts of utopian egalitarian collectivism)

These ideas are not harmonizable with the gospel, nor with the Founding, nor the legal instrument of that Founding, the Constitution.

For the record, I've been a Republican for something on the order of fifteen years now, but I'm a moderate, not a conservative,

In other words, you are, in essence, to the left of the political spectrum.

and don't find that at odds with LDS teachings at all.

Many others do. The legitimacy of your claims here rise or fall on their merits.

I was also in attendance at the BYU devotional Harry Reid gave some years back, and am firmly convinced that that man is a completely genuine member of the LDS Church.

I don't know what you mean by this, but others, again, have severe reservations regarding Bro. Reid's "genuineness" as a Latter day Saint - irregardless of the presence of his name on the membership records of the Church.

Good heavens, this board alone is testament to the degree to which the definition of a "faithful" LDS is grist for the intellectual, linguistic, and pschological mill.

[_Chap]

... <stuff> ...

That was quick!

[Guest]

As I said in the other article, the Church considers both the Democratic and the Republican Party compatible with LDS theology.

CFR. The Church has said that there are good church members in both parties. Please show where the Church has claimed that both parties, their platforms, guiding ideology, doctrines, teachings, philosophy, and policy prescriptions, can be dumped onto the straight and narrow way in a lump, and members, on their way down that path, can rummage through both with impunity and while never taking their hands off the iron rod.

Indeed, the church takes no stand on partisan politics at all. Where it does and has taken stands is on ideologies and ideological movements within society and within political parties that are hostile and incompatible with the gospel - and a viable civil society.

The ERA was one such situation, and that almost all of the doctrines and ideological movements tending to social, cultural, economic, and human disintegration over the last forty or so years, have been aided, abetted, supported, glorified, encouraged, and funded, almost solely from within the Democratic party.

This is not because there is anything inherently evil or corrupt about any particular party, per se. The reason is that, as far back as the 1930s, the Democratic party began a long and tragic association with the Left. That association finally bore fruit after the sixties, and the consequences are with us today.

The fundamental problem is that the Democratic party is a post-American party subscribing to a fundamentally anti-American, anti-constitutional, and anti-liberal ideology. It is also, therefore, a post-gospel party.

It could have been the Republican party (and please, the Republican party is more than corrupt enough to be on the short list here), but the Democratic party chose to move down that road to a far, far greater extent than has the Republican.

Furthermore, I don't think right wing is an accurate description of the LDS Church politically; its more center right.

I don't know of any empirical evidence that shows the Church membership as anything other than overwhelmingly conservative or "liberal" in the European/U.K. sense.

[_Droopy]

I'd say it's more head-up-its-ass denial than center right or right wing.

Sock Puppet and I agree that the LDS Church is not right wing!

I know this may be asking a lot, based on past discussions here on this subject, but could you define "right wing" please?