Anti-Mormonism is the prejudice of our age

[MarkGrace]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a..._the_prej.html

[RC Vikings]

In a Gallup survey, 5 percent of adults said they wouldn’t vote for their party’s presidential nominee if he were black. Six percent said they wouldn’t vote for a woman, 7 percent said they wouldn’t vote for a Catholic, 9 percent said they wouldn’t vote for a Jew, and 10 percent said they wouldn’t vote for a Hispanic. But 22 percent said they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon. Gallup reported

wow

[YOhio]

When the great-grandchildren of SU gather together and read of his life, they'll wonder how this great man from whom they descended could have said such awful things about the LDS. All of his grand accomplishments will be mentioned, but that history intolerance will always be hovering there. Great-grandpa was prejudiced. Just a product of his time, they'll say.

[Surfah]

When the great-grandchildren of SU gather together and read of his life, they'll wonder how this great man from whom they descended could have said such awful things about the LDS. All of his grand accomplishments will be mentioned, but that history intolerance will always be hovering there. Great-grandpa was prejudiced. Just a product of his time, they'll say.

[MarkGrace]

When the great-grandchildren of SU gather together and read of his life, they'll wonder how this great man from whom they descended could have said such awful things about the LDS. All of his grand accomplishments will be mentioned, but that history intolerance will always be hovering there. Great-grandpa was prejudiced. Just a product of his time, they'll say.

haha

[SeattleUte]

When the great-grandchildren of SU gather together and read of his life, they'll wonder how this great man from whom they descended could have said such awful things about the LDS. All of his grand accomplishments will be mentioned, but that history intolerance will always be hovering there. Great-grandpa was prejudiced. Just a product of his time, they'll say.

Nonsense. Some of my best friends are Mormons.

[Viking]

the tic meter runneth over here but there's some sad truth to this:

My biggest issue with SU and with the new board tool, atheistcoug, is that it's not enough for them to not believe, they have to rub it in your faces.

I express my opinion, but I really hope that I'm always clear that it's not my place here or anywhere else to judge someone for their beliefs...i can state why I don't believe but try to emphasize that i support you (as I support my mormon wife/kids) in their beliefs.

It's just low-brow to do otherwise. I'm certain I haven't been perfect in this but this poll really is painful to read and reminds me that it's just not right to go after someone for their faith.

[falafel]

Nonsense. Some of my best friends are Mormons.

Plus its great to have mormonism to fall back on when it helps you pick up on hot moms in the park.

[MarkGrace]

Nonsense. Some of my best friends are Mormons.

haha

Well done.

[SeattleUte]

the tic meter runneth over here but there's some sad truth to this:

My biggest issue with SU and with the new board tool, atheistcoug, is that it's not enough for them to not believe, they have to rub it in your faces.

I express my opinion, but I really hope that I'm always clear that it's not my place here or anywhere else to judge someone for their beliefs...i can state why I don't believe but try to emphasize that i support you (as I support my mormon wife/kids) in their beliefs.

It's just low-brow to do otherwise. I'm certain I haven't been perfect in this but this poll really is painful to read and reminds me that it's just not right to go after someone for their faith.

I have never challenged a sincere personal expression of belief. I have challenged others to show where I have done so and they can't. What I challenge are actions of the LDS Church, which most progressive Mormons here agree with me are wrong, as well as spurious historicity claims of the LDS church (I try to waste as little time as possible on this as I've noted because these discussions really can't go anywhere and became redundant long ago), which you do as well. There is a difference.

It isn't an accident that progressive Mormons who run this place have fully accepted me into their community including secret combinations. What I do is express myself with a little less subtlety and a little more spice than they do, but we believe much the same.

Sorry for the culture shock; I realize we're recently experiencing a big immigration from CB.

Viking is just sore because of the ridicule I heap on BYU, and the fact I've challenged some of his grandiose claims to inside information in the stadium forum (most appallingly, his clam that BYU would join the Pac 12). I've also demonstrated his poor humanities education at BYU by noting that he doesn't even get what the Trojan Horse was.

So, Viking, spare us your false sanctimony. I'm sorry I've made you feel bad, but like tooblue I'd really just as soon you ignored me including refrain from false and ad hominem attacks in your posts such as that I have inherited money or challenge people's beliefs.

[Blueintheface]

[UtahDan]

I think that the article is right that what it describes as anti-Mormonism (which by the way has only a little in common with what most Mormons mean when they say that) is a safe prejudice to have (and that it ought not be so).

I think there are at least three different interesting angles here. The first is that it is the liberal media which is championing this cause. None of the clips you see on the news where some joker gets eviscerated in an interview for saying something about the church have Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity or the like on the other end of them. It is people like Anderson Cooper and Slate Magazine glaring down at their unconscious victim.

The second is the tension between the cultural tendency to perceive persecution where it doesn't exist (which comes from a past of authentic persecution, or at least a cultural narrative of it) and conservative politics which tend to say that claims of racism, sexism and homophobia are overblown or exaggerated for political advantage. Two strong urges there with different sources competing for whether it feels right to a politically conservative Mormon to claim victim status.

The third is whether religious "bigotry" belongs in the same category as bigotry against gender, race and sexual orientation (and I would include antisemitism under race). In other words, a religion is a set of ideas or ideals. I think most people here, if they are honest, will admit the Scientology, for example, requires the belief in such strange things that if they found out a person belonged to that faith they would draw at least some conclusions about them based on that. If a person were a Branch Davidian or a member of Heavens Gate, still more. Not because of religious bigotry, but because some ideas are so outlandish that they call a person's judgment into question. So does slapping the label of "religion" on a set of ideas immunize them from being criticized like any other set of ideas? If they do have a special status, why?


Last, I have probably said this before but the irony of a conservative evangelical leveling the charge of "culty-ness" at anyone else is delicious. The academic definition of cult does have some overlap with almost every fundamentalist or conservative Christian faith, and it certainly applies to the people leveling the charge. But let's be honest, they are not using an academic definition when they use the word cult.

Good article.

[UtahDan]

So, Viking...

I have to admit how much more entertaining CUF is when someone steps forward and is willing to be SU's punching bag.

[Viking]

I have never challenged a sincere personal expression of belief. I have challenged others to show where I have done so and they can't. What I challenge are actions of the LDS Church, which most progressive Mormons here agree with me are wrong, as well as spurious historicity claims of the LDS church (I try to waste as little time as possible on this as I've noted because these discussions really can't go anywhere and became redundant long ago), which you do as well. There is a difference.

It isn't an accident that progressive Mormons who run this place have fully accepted me into their community including secret combinations. What I do is express myself with a little less subtlety and a little more spice than they do, but we believe much the same.

Sorry for the culture shock; I realize we're recently experiencing a big immigration from CB.

Viking is just sore because of the ridicule I heap on BYU, and the fact I've challenged some of his grandiose claims to inside information in the stadium forum (most appallingly, his clam that BYU would join the Pac 12). I've also demonstrated his poor humanities education at BYU by noting that he doesn't even get what the Trojan Horse was.

So, Viking, spare us your false sanctimony. I'm sorry I've made you feel bad, but like tooblue I'd really just as soon you ignored me including refrain from false and ad hominem attacks in your posts such as that I have inherited money or challenge people's beliefs.

That's just not the case. In the end, SU, you are not much more than a troll.

Your first gig was to go onto CB as "CatBlue", something our dear Moose's Whistle might have himself devised.

Now you're here, enjoying a low IQ renaissance of sorts. Your gig is to troll, and yes, I think we'd all be better off if you were simply ignored.

[Jeff Lebowski]

That's just not the case. In the end, SU, you are not much more than a troll.

Your first gig was to go onto CB as "CatBlue", something our dear Moose's Whistle might have himself devised.

Now you're here, enjoying a low IQ renaissance of sorts. Your gig is to troll, and yes, I think we'd all be better off if you were simply ignored.

Oh brother.