Res Ipsa wrote:Oakes knows the difference between using religion as a means to end discrimination and using religion as a justification for imposing discrimination. It is disappointing to see him equate the two.
Digging deeper into this, wouldn't Oaks have more likely defended the white slave owners' rights to follow the tenets of slavery as outlined by their God in the Bible? As I recall, some slavery advocates justified the practice on religious grounds. Who will stand up for their religious liberties, if Oaks will not?
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
Oaks wrote:“How would the great movements toward social justice in the United States, such as the abolition of slavery or the furthering of civil rights, have been advocated and pressed toward adoption if their religious proponents had been banned from participating on the issue by the assertion that private religious or moral positions were not an acceptable basis for public discourse or lawmaking?”
when have "religious" people ever been "banned from participating on the issue" of gay civil rights?
here's just one of many, many counter-examples....
Oaks wrote:“How would the great movements toward social justice in the United States, such as the abolition of slavery or the furthering of civil rights, have been advocated and pressed toward adoption if their religious proponents had been banned from participating on the issue by the assertion that private religious or moral positions were not an acceptable basis for public discourse or lawmaking?”
when have "religious" people ever been "banned from participating on the issue" of gay civil rights?
here's just one of many, many counter-examples....
Its all about the motes and the beams, folks...... and the golden rule.......and forgive us as we forgive our debtors.......and pray for your enemies....... even in General Conference. You know, all the sissy stuff that Jesus talked about.
Res Ipsa wrote:Oakes knows the difference between using religion as a means to end discrimination and using religion as a justification for imposing discrimination. It is disappointing to see him equate the two.
Digging deeper into this, wouldn't Oaks have more likely defended the white slave owners' rights to follow the tenets of slavery as outlined by their God in the Bible? As I recall, some slavery advocates justified the practice on religious grounds. Who will stand up for their religious liberties, if Oaks will not?
That's a good question. Wasn't religion in general and Christianity in particular invoked on both sides of the slavery issue? And of the struggle for civil rights? Which side would Oaks have been on? I suspect at one point he was on the side of excluding blacks from leadership positions in his own church.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Oaks isn't telling the whole truth when he makes arguments for the freedom of religion. What he is really arguing for is the freedom for Mormonism to operate policies it wants regardless of the law of the land. The other religions are merely leverage ballast to add weight to his position. He wants the Church to be able to operate it's membership and employment policy and protocols within a legal vacuum. Not subject to the legal scrutiny that other employers and membership clubs are. Because God.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
Leaving aside the obvious point that it is weaselly and dishonest to frame anti-LBGT discrimination as "religious freedom", I wonder how far this attitude is the product of the fact that Elder Oaks comes from a church with a history of social and political separatism which once attempted to defend the practice of polygamy in precisely the same way.
