LittleWyvern

No "good Mormon" exists using this criteria. We all have things that the prophets have taught that we struggle with. No Mormon is especially bad if they struggle with an issue X that you happen to feel especially strong about. Not only is that notion completely wrong, it only serves to tear down others by suggesting you are "better" than them. We shouldn't be creating "-ites" like this.

This CES Devotional by Dallin H. Oaks is my favorite on the subject. In it, Elder Oaks talks about the necessary balance between truth and tolerance in our public lives and gives three principles of tolerance: All persons are brothers and sisters under God, taught within their various religions to love and do good to one another. Living together with mutual respect for one another’s differences. . . is what the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us we must do. We do not abandon the truth and our covenants. There's also two quotes from the talk that I'd like to just paste in, as any attempt to summarize them would be detrimental:

But don't push them over. That's not good for them.

While we're enjoying the snow, let's spare a thought for poor Australia. ...but just a thought. Can't miss sledding.

Yes, but the added danger about all this information being published in a digital format (an additional "novelty" of this website) is that it makes a number of attacks that were previously unfeasible very feasible. Consider the recent snapchat attack, where phone numbers and connected email addresses were leaked. This alone isn't very dangerous, but the danger comes when multiple leaked databases are merged together. An attacker can easily merge the snapchat database with this database and have the email addresses for anybody on this site that uses snapchat. Other leaks could be merged in a similar way (what if an attacker had a list of phone numbers and associated SSNs, for instance?). This merge attack was not feasible just 15-20 years ago, and the laws on the books were probably written that long ago and thus built on assumptions that are simply not true anymore. I think Utah needs to take a look at its privacy laws and rethink them in light of current technology and attack methods.

Well, I was about to post a "I don't know where this database comes from" disclaimer but it I figured out exactly where it comes from. The state of Utah will sell this database (i.e. all your personal details) to anybody for $1050. Seriously, you can go buy it right here (although I guess you don't need to buy it anymore). Um... wow. Go Utah. This is "Identity Theft for Dummies" at this point.

The information of all 1.5 million registered voters in Utah have been released on a publicly available website. The information includes (among other things) each voter's full name, full address, telephone numbers, and party affiliation, and whether or not they voted during any particular election. Here's a news article about this release. If you are concerned about identity theft, you may want to take a look at the website just so you know what information of yours is out there.

I never had heard about this site before, so I searched for it and here it is. Thanks for the tip. :)

Most of the discussion on carbon is referring to the carbon cycle. It's a well studied cycle where carbon moves through the environment, and can be a good record of world climate (it's one of the reasons why drilling ice cores is so helpful). It is, however, poorly understood to what effect humans are imbalancing or changing the carbon cycle and the long term effects, if any, of that imbalance.

New? I think I've heard it before...

Sorry guys, Wisconsin is closed today.

I'd respond to this if the exercise didn't feel like talking to a brick wall.

Sweet, you took my quote and mangled it so it bears no resemblance to my post anymore. Not only are the words different, the meaning has completely changed. I really feel like you are interested in what I have to say.

If you're forcing me into that grammar here's what I'm really trying to say: ...[if] government finds a religion's teachings opposed to a fundamental interest of the government, it can find ways to penalize such implementations of religious beliefs in the public square that thus conflict based on the way the religion applies the teachings until such time as the religion changes its teachings or the public implementation's conflicts are resolved.

An update, of sorts:

Huh, I didn't know Bob Jones University was a religion.

Well, while the fall of that belief may have been influenced by the supreme court ruling, it most certainly wasn't caused by it (a kind of belief that requires the support of the federal government is awfully weak). In this particular case Bob Jones University wasn't forced to change anything at all: it simply lost tax exemption status due to its discriminatory admissions policies conflicted with a fundamental federal interest. It was still allowed to discriminate in admissions: as Bob Jones University is a private college, not a state college, laws requiring non-discrimination for college admissions don't apply. BJU continued its policies until 2000 (thus still acting on their religious beliefs), and issued an apology for its past policies in 2008. These actions seem to be in response to media pressure and not legal action (that is, these actions were not compelled). BJU continues to be a successful, albeit not nearly as politically influential, university. Liberty University seems to have taken this particular torch nowadays. On a general level, it can be difficult to distinguish between private and public actions, especially in a field such as religion where the legal boundary between the two is still being drawn. However, saying that state or federal courts can change a purely religious practice is nonsensical. Whatever religious movement that is/was behind BJU can continue to exclude unmarried black people from their religious ceremonies and no amount of court cases and lawsuits can change that barring (ironically) a revocation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and possibly a repeal of the 14th Amendment, but I'm not too sure about how the 14th Amendment was implemented prior to the Civil Rights Act). Similarly, the LDS Church's policy of allowing only one man and one woman to participate in temple sealings is protected from lawsuits and court cases. Any gay rights activist that thinks that forcing gay couples to get sealed in LDS temples is even remotely possible has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

Darn, I had all these "Thanks, Obama" gifs that don't make any more sense now. Thanks, Obama.

Huh, I guess that could also work for WALL-E. Buy n Large is your superstore, We've got all you need and so much more! Happiness is what we sell, That's why everyone loves BNL!

Yeah, I'm kinda mad the incandescent bulb got banned before the penny

I really have no idea what you're talking about. The most relevant thing I could find was a supreme court case where Bob Jones University argued that they were allowed to discriminate in college admissions and not allow unmarried black students or those in an interracial marriage to apply because it was their religious belief (or something like that, I'm not even sure if I'm on the right track). If you don't see a difference between religious ceremonies and college admissions, then I have nothing more to say. I was referring to this statement: ...which is generally what civil unions are, but I suppose I should have said "not object" instead of "support." (insert non-relevant Sarah Palin joke here)

This would really only happen if our temple marriages are also civil marriages. If we simply made our temple marriages only sealings and not legitimized by the state, they would be completely immune to the 14th Amendment guarantee of due process per the religious exemptions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (plus, the idea of trying to apply non-discrimination laws to purely religious ceremonies is just silly). Another interesting thing about the way the courts are using the "civil marriage as a state service" philosophy is that the difference between same-sex civil unions (which the Church generally supports) and same-sex civil marriages (which the Church generally does not support) is becoming smaller by the minute.

You think reading through all these pages will be enjoyable. You think attempting to understand these crazy conspiracy arguments will be funny, not infuriating. I, too, once thought as you did.

I'm not denying the movement itself will still exist, but after pop culture moves on the gay marriage movement will be tiny in comparison to its current size. There's a difference that you're ignoring between the strength of a movement and the wave of pop culture. One stays constant, the other comes and goes. I just don't think the gay marriage movement has much to it besides the jet fuel pop culture gave it. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I've seen too many fads come and go to be persuaded that this isn't one.