I caught this article about an email campaign that allegedly has the support of the LDS leadership to contact state representatives in Illinois on civil union legislation. I have to admit, it seems fishy to me. I don’t think the LDS leadership would sponsor an email quite like that. Does anyone have “further light and knowledge on this”? Or maybe the time to look it up?
There is also an attorney calling for a criminal investigation into the Mormon Church for its involvement in the suicides of numerous gay members. While it is certainly the case that the Mormon Church and its doctrines bear much of the blame for these suicides, the precedent that would be set by pressing criminal charges against the religion would be mind-boggling. Maybe lawyer readers of Main Street Plaza can comment on this, but it seems to me like this would never fly in our overly religious country. Though, maybe it might considering the child sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church. Maybe that is precedent enough?
this appears to just be a letter sent by one woman which one bishop (very unfortunately) gave the green light to.
I think someone at Mormon Matters described what PROBABLY happened well:
Sister Combs: “Bishop, can I send an e-mail to everyone about this bill?â€
Bishop Church, sighing inside: “Sister, you can send whatever e-mail you want to send.â€
Bishop Church, under his breath as he hangs up: “Why do these people call me with questions like this?â€
Sister Combs, after Bishop hangs up: “Bishop Church authorized my message!!â€
Word is the Bishop wrote it and directed the website administrator to send it out using the e-mail list. That is a far cry from church HQ sending it out though, which seems really unlikely. Many are still crying top down conspiracy though (http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9751), but then I think the church has only itself to blame for its image a monolithic entity where every policy comes straight from the leaders mouth.
I figured that had to be the case, but I’m glad someone actually has the information on the email. I did find someone I thought might be the Kristy Combs from the email:
http://bluefoxnauvoo.com/cat_list.cfm?catID=6
But now that I know it was pretty much limited to Nauvoo, I can suggest that it’s very likely that Kristy Combs.
it doesn’t really matter if it was only a bishop. he felt comfortable enough with the Church’s postion denying human rights to gays (and interfering in politics) that he allowed the email to be sent.
Sabayon’s account seems more plausible to me. The message of the email is actually quite sophisticated. It’s not been written by some wingnut.
The Mormon record on child abuse does not appear to be much better than the Catholic one. There are cases of bishops molesting children. In other cases, bishops and stake presidents failed to report the sexual abuse of children. And there are the usual cover ups.
Unlike the Catholic Church, we even excommunicated the mothers of abused children when they refused to shut up. In that respect, we are even worse than the Catholic Church.
The difference between the Mormon and Catholic pedophilia scandal is probably not the magnitude of the problem, especially if one controls for the size of the congregations, but that Catholics are less likely to submit to authority. Arguably, many Mormon lawsuits have been suppressed by pressuring victims and witnesses.
Nonetheless, the LDS Church has been taken to court several times. From the media coverage, it appears that their lawyers hide behind the ‘volunteer’ bishops to eschew responsibility.
I have seen it in at least one case that a sex abuse victim has been subject to severe emotional abuse when she participated on an apologetic board to explain her motive for suing ‘the’ Church.
In the army, we were taught that the fish begins to stink at the head. By contrast, Mormonism’s ethical precepts resemble bicycling: bowing to the top and kicking below.
It was disgusting how the apologists tore into that poor girl. Anything for the Lord, I guess.
Wow, clearly is was a good cover up because I have never heard anything about Mormon church abuse scandals (although it’s hardly surprising given what unrestricted access Bishops have to youth).
Still, I also think it’s simple prurience that made the Catholic sex abuse scandal bigger (also because the Catholic church is bigger). It was just the idea of abstinent priests abusing innocent altar boys (although most abuse victims were girls, but don’t even get me started on the homophobia and misogyny that made it so all we heard about was boys being abused or we’ll be here all day) that caught the imagination of the press, that was just so juicy.
Back to topic, I think Gen JC’s point is a good one. The Bishop clearly felt “inspired” that this was all in line with the church’s feelings on teh gays, so even if the e-mail was non issued by LDS, inc the fault is entirely their own.