Respect for Marriage Act

[Carborendum]

25 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

My FIL says he heard on Ted Cruz’s podcast that Cruz is accusing Mitt Romney of having talked an individual LDS church leader into going rogue and making the announcement on behalf of the entire church without authorization.  Can anyone confirm if Cruz is actually saying this?

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gay-marriage-hunter-biden-crypto-corruption-with/id1495601614?i=1000586931514

Around 12:20.

Don't know if it is true.  But Cruz did accuse Romney of giving "terrible legal advice" to "one senior official in the Church".  The terrible legal advice was that there were indeed protections to religious organizations.  And that was exactly what the statement said.  I had a hard time with that portion of the statement because I read the bill.  I sure didn't see anything that would protect entity from the requirements of this law.

According to Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, the provisions which supposedly protect religious entities are "toothless" as the podcast describes them.  So, there really are no substantive protections that will do any good in a court of law.

If Romney actually did do this, he just lost all his political capital with any "senior figure" in the Church.

[The Folk Prophet]

1 minute ago, The Folk Prophet said:

https://omny.fm/shows/verdict-with-ted-cruz-1/gay-marriage-vote-in-senate-gop-goes-after-biden-c

@Just_A_Guy Listen at 12:00 minutes for about 40 seconds.

 

1 minute ago, Carborendum said:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gay-marriage-hunter-biden-crypto-corruption-with/id1495601614?i=1000586931514

Around 12:20.

Jinx!

[The Folk Prophet]

16 hours ago, laronius said:

I don't see anything but a simple statement about following the prophet even when you don't see the wisdom in the direction they are heading. That's more than just a drawn conclusion, that's doctrine. Methinks you had a biased opinion going in. No?

So having looked into it more, the quoted word "anemic" is directly being taken from Mike Lee's statement on the bill. So essentially they accuse Mike Lee of needing to dig deep and reconnect with the wisdom in following a prophet’s lead.

A ridiculous thing for them to say.

[The Folk Prophet]

So I just listened to the entire section about all this on the Ted Cruz podcast. I think he's mistaken on his information about the church's statement. But I think he's probably got a decent handle on the legal aspects of the bill. The bill states: 

Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this 
     Act, shall be construed to deny or alter any benefit, status, 
     or right of an otherwise eligible entity or person which does 
     not arise from a marriage, including tax-exempt status, tax 
     treatment, educational funding, or a grant, contract, 
     agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship, license, 
     certification, accreditation, claim, or defense.

Senator Cruz claims that because the bill doesn't prohibit the IRS from coming after tax-exempt status, but only states that the bill itself may not be construed to remove said status, that the danger of the IRS doing just that still exists. He claims that Mike Lee's amendment would strengthen this, specifically prohibiting the IRS from doing such a thing, and that if those claiming the bill already includes those safety's then no one should have a problem with adopting Mike Lee's amendment.

He says that 3 of the 12 republicans on board with the bill need to stand strong by stating that they will not vote for it unless Mike Lee's amendment is adopted.

It was an interesting listen.

Edited November 22, 2022 by The Folk Prophet

[The Folk Prophet]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

I have no idea what you're trying to say I said.

You said, "...the Lord is telling the prophets to stop preaching what they have preached before." So I was simply asking what it was you were claiming they were told to stop preaching. It's not particularly important or worth debating. In point of fact, the back and forth we've had doesn't seem that meaningful ultimately. I think the church is preaching compromise. You don't. Okay. No biggie.

[scottyg]

I know several faithful LDS persons who almost worship the ground Mitt Romney walks upon. "He was a stake president, is reasonable, and has experience leading the Lord's church".

I also know many equally as faithful to Mike Lee. Ultimately, they all have their faith misplaced.  No one should believe a politician (or anyone) cannot fall just because they are a member of the church.

There is a reason Utah continually ranks at the top of the list in regards to people falling for scams. Among other things, many will unfortunately be deceived and disaffected because of their own foolishness in this matter, and failing to think for themselves.

"if we are to have any hope of sifting through the myriad of voices and the philosophies of men that attack truth, we must learn to receive revelation.” Russel M Nelson, Apr 2018 general conference

[LDSGator]

47 minutes ago, scottyg said:

There is a reason Utah continually ranks at the top of the list in regards to people falling for scams. Among other things, many will unfortunately be deceived and disaffected because of their own foolishness in this matter, and failing to think for themselves.

 

All true. Totally off topic, but I really wish Utah didn’t have the reputation of loving pyramid schemes and falling for affinity frauds. Within my first week of membership, I was pitched a d-list energy scam (Ambit) and met a family where the dad lost thousands in some other kind of scheme! 
 

Like you said there are many reasons but I’m convinced that part of it is because LDS are inherently very nice and sweet people who have a hard time saying “no.” 

Edited November 23, 2022 by LDSGator

[scottyg]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

Totally off topic, but I really wish Utah didn’t have the reputation of loving pyramid schemes...

I was pitched one my first semester of college at Utah State after my mission...almost fell for it too. It sounded like an easy way to make a lot of money. But then I started asking questions about the actual product I and others would be buying. Turns out there wasn't one.

[LDSGator]

42 minutes ago, scottyg said:

I was pitched one my first semester of college at Utah State after my mission...almost fell for it too. It sounded like an easy way to make a lot of money. But then I started asking questions about the actual product I and others would be buying. Turns out there wasn't one.

Smart man.
 

Sorry it happened to you. It seems we all have stories about them. It was worse for LG. She always felt there were other motives when women from the ward wanted to hang out with her-99% she was right, and it was always a pyramid scheme being pitched. 
 

:: sigh :: 

[laronius]

Putting aside divine guidance in the matter, I have a hard time believing Pres Oaks was only relying on Romney's opinion. 

[laronius]

5 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

So having looked into it more, the quoted word "anemic" is directly being taken from Mike Lee's statement on the bill. So essentially they accuse Mike Lee of needing to dig deep and reconnect with the wisdom in following a prophet’s lead.

A ridiculous thing for them to say.

After rereading the Church's statement on the matter I am changing my opinion. If the Church was in fact saying this was a good bill then I think that final paragraph would have been appropriate. But I don't think that is what the Church is saying at all. Rather I think they are in essence supportive of efforts like Mike Lee's to protect religious freedoms in the face of the reality that gay marriage isn't going away anytime soon. They in fact never say the religious protections in the bill were sufficient. 

So I think publicsquare did get it wrong but perhaps for different reasons then you.

 

[The Folk Prophet]

4 minutes ago, laronius said:

After rereading the Church's statement on the matter I am changing my opinion. If the Church was in fact saying this was a good bill then I think that final paragraph would have been appropriate. But I don't think that is what the Church is saying at all. Rather I think they are in essence supportive of efforts like Mike Lee's to protect religious freedoms in the face of the reality that gay marriage isn't going away anytime soon. They in fact never say the religious protections in the bill were sufficient. 

So I think publicsquare did get it wrong but perhaps for different reasons then you.

 

I'm not sure what you think are different reasons of mine. Sounds like with you changing your opinion we're pretty much seeing eye to eye. 

[laronius]

4 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I'm not sure what you think are different reasons of mine. Sounds like with you changing your opinion we're pretty much seeing eye to eye. 

I don't think that paragraph was written so much out of arrogance but rather misunderstanding what the Church is really saying.

[The Folk Prophet]

34 minutes ago, laronius said:

I don't think that paragraph was written so much out of arrogance but rather misunderstanding what the Church is really saying.

I guess it feels arrogant when someone misreads something and then publicly proclaims they have the right of it. Maybe that's unfair of me. 

[Still_Small_Voice]

14 hours ago, scottyg said:

I was pitched one my first semester of college at Utah State after my mission...almost fell for it too. It sounded like an easy way to make a lot of money. But then I started asking questions about the actual product I and others would be buying. Turns out there wasn't one.

This reminds me of the film: The R.M.

The main character Jared walks in on a multi-level marketing meeting with his parents.

Jared: Are you guys doing Nuskin?  

Mom: Jared!  We don't use that word.  

What they were marketing was: LD3 - Latter-Day Discount Distributors.

[Just_A_Guy]

23 hours ago, laronius said:

After rereading the Church's statement on the matter I am changing my opinion. If the Church was in fact saying this was a good bill then I think that final paragraph would have been appropriate. But I don't think that is what the Church is saying at all. Rather I think they are in essence supportive of efforts like Mike Lee's to protect religious freedoms in the face of the reality that gay marriage isn't going away anytime soon. They in fact never say the religious protections in the bill were sufficient. 

So I think publicsquare did get it wrong but perhaps for different reasons then you.

 

The impression that just came to me—and I could well be wrong—was, “The church is placing its faith in people, rather in law.”

This approach revolts against every fiber of my political and professional being.  But, taking the Church as a church, and tracing the interactions of the people of God with the broader societies in which they found themselves throughout scriptural history; and considering the atextualist dog-and-pony show that is post-FDR American constitutional law—it’s not necessarily that bad of a decision.  Cruz and Lee are making two dangerous assumptions:  that the Lee amendment (or something like it) is even politically possible; and that it would be honored even if codified in law; whereas the Church is playing a very ancient game—one that predates both the modern nation-state and the idea of representative government as we know it.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Just_A_Guy

[The Folk Prophet]

10 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

that the Lee amendment (or something like it) is even politically possible;

It would be entirely possible if it weren't for a couple of claimed-conservatives-liberals-in-sheep's-clothing a la Romney.

(I realize that calling Romney a straight-up 'liberal' is unfair and I'm exaggerating and insulting beyond fairness because I don't like him as a politician. But my point remains. If the 12 so-called conservatives in the GOP would stand with Lee for unambiguous religious protection, then his amendment would be possible).

[laronius]

10 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

The impression that just came to me—and I could well be wrong—was, “The church is placing its faith in people, rather in law.”

This approach revolts against every fiber of my political and professional being.  But, taking the Church as a church, and tracing the interactions of the people of God with the broader societies in which they found themselves throughout scriptural history; and considering the atextualist dog-and-pony show that is post-FDR American constitutional law—it’s not necessarily that bad of a decision.  Cruz and Lee are making two dangerous assumptions:  that the Lee amendment (or something like it) is even politically possible; and that it would be honored even if codified in law; whereas the Church is playing a very ancient game—one that predates both the modern nation-state and the idea of representative government as we know it.

I don't know if faith is the word I'd use, maybe political capital. Though I guess that does require some faith that the other side would honor it in the future.

But yeah, there's a time to stand on principle and there's a time to face reality. The Church has done about everything it could to put the brakes on gay marriage but in the end the courts overturned the voice of the people. Now with even the voice of the people on board same sex marriage isn't going away anytime soon. And the Church has decided to change the focus of their efforts from stopping it to learning to coexist with it. 

[Just_A_Guy]

2 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

It would be entirely possible if it weren't for a couple of claimed-conservatives-liberals-in-sheep's-clothing a la Romney.

Would it be?  Would the Democrat have swallowed the Lee amendment if the Republican caucus had held firm?  

[The Folk Prophet]

7 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Would it be?  Would the Democrat have swallowed the Lee amendment if the Republican caucus had held firm?  

Well, I said "possible", not "probable" (though I did say "entirely possible", which implies probably perhaps. Let's call that a misspeak.) What I believe could be probable, however, is that, like Cruz suggested, if 3 of those 12 would say, "we're not going to vote for cloture unless..." then perhaps they'd debate the amendment, compromise on it somewhat, and come to something that both parties would accept that would firm things up a bit on the religious freedom side of things.

Edited November 24, 2022 by The Folk Prophet

[Just_A_Guy]

On a semi-topical note, I recently saw the below on Twitter and thought it worth quoting:

1. Convince gays to kick people out of their lives if they’re religiously orthodox

2. Watch their support systems dwindle

[JAG adds] 2.5.  Replace those support systems with an LGBTQ “community” that values the individual, first and foremost, as a vessel for and object of sexual desire

3. Witness them becoming isolated, lonely, and resentful

4. Put full blame on religious people

Edited November 25, 2022 by Just_A_Guy

[Guest Godless]

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

On a semi-topical note, I recently saw the below on Twitter and thought it worth quoting:

1. Convince gays to kick people out of their lives if they’re religiously orthodox

2. Watch their support systems dwindle

It's rare that LGBTQ* individuals alienate themselves from religious family members without provocation. The religious family members often make the LGBTQ individual feel unwanted and unloved, and so the LGBTQ person loses their support system through no fault of their own (it shouldn't need to be said, but "Come back to church/Talk to your bishop/Try praying about it" are not supportive statements). I'm not saying that the scenario you're portraying is non-existent, but it's naive to assume that religiously orthodox families are generally accepting and supportive of deviants. If nothing else, some of the things I read on this very website (and elsewhere) makes me skeptical that support without judgement is the norm among the religious. 

*Replace "LGBTQ" with "atheist" and you have my personal lived experience. I had a very strained relationship with my family, and my parents in particular, for over a decade. I recently learned from my sister that there was a time when we were teenagers that she felt like she wasn't allowed to be nice to me or try to be my friend because of the constant conflict between my parents and I. After I moved out I was constantly being bombarded with religious literature, and it was hard to have a conversation with my parents without my status with the church being brought up. And no, I wasn't guiltless in our estrangement either. It took time, and there's still room for improvement, but things eventually got better, largely due to therapy and a life-shattering event that happened earlier this year. Through all those years, I wanted a supportive family. I just didn't feel like I had one until I finally had a very difficult talk with them about the ways they try to "help" me.

[Just_A_Guy]

18 hours ago, Godless said:

It's rare that LGBTQ* individuals alienate themselves from religious family members without provocation. The religious family members often make the LGBTQ individual feel unwanted and unloved, and so the LGBTQ person loses their support system through no fault of their own (it shouldn't need to be said, but "Come back to church/Talk to your bishop/Try praying about it" are not supportive statements). I'm not saying that the scenario you're portraying is non-existent, but it's naive to assume that religiously orthodox families are generally accepting and supportive of deviants. If nothing else, some of the things I read on this very website (and elsewhere) makes me skeptical that support without judgement is the norm among the religious. 

*Replace "LGBTQ" with "atheist" and you have my personal lived experience. I had a very strained relationship with my family, and my parents in particular, for over a decade. I recently learned from my sister that there was a time when we were teenagers that she felt like she wasn't allowed to be nice to me or try to be my friend because of the constant conflict between my parents and I. After I moved out I was constantly being bombarded with religious literature, and it was hard to have a conversation with my parents without my status with the church being brought up. And no, I wasn't guiltless in our estrangement either. It took time, and there's still room for improvement, but things eventually got better, largely due to therapy and a life-shattering event that happened earlier this year. Through all those years, I wanted a supportive family. I just didn't feel like I had one until I finally had a very difficult talk with them about the ways they try to "help" me.

I appreciate your being willing to talk about what you’ve gone through, and certainly want to be respectful of that.

I will simply note, as far as LGBTQ individuals go, that it’s comparatively rare to hear the conservative/religious family member post their side of the story; and when they do, it doesn’t tend to get as much distribution.  The two LGBTQ folks in my own extended family—at least from my perspective—got unqualified family support and love from their immediate families; one family almost immediately [left] the Church in support, and the other almost immediately quit talking about religion in the LGBTQ family member’s presence.  And yet both have made long, drama-queenery Facebook posts about how their families were just so terrible to them.  I didn’t think too much of it until reading Shrier’s Irreversible Damage, where many of the parents of transgender teens were extremely progressive, irreligious, and even (in one case) lesbian—yet their experiences were still characterized by extreme alienation and wild accusations of bigotry being made by the transitioning teen.  Additionally, my professional experience in family law has reiterated to me that “supportive family” can be a very slippery term—there’s a) the kind of support we want to get; b) the kind of support our family wants to give; and c) the kind of support we actually need—which may be somewhere on the spectrum between a) and b), or somewhere else entirely.

It has been said—perhaps with more than a few grains of truth—that many Mormons have something of a persecution complex.  I think this as well as the experience of many teens who are setting themselves apart from their parents—in terms of religion, sexuality, or a host of other issues—suggests that at some level, some part of the human psyche has a need to be misunderstood.  I suppose that traditionally, society was structured in such a way that more or less forced us to outgrow it and eventually we realized that, tactical differences aside, our families really did love us and have our best interests at heart and that we had more in common with them than our teenaged selves had thought.  Nowadays, though, there are all manner of intersectional groups ready and willing to tell us that “no one in your life understands you the way I do”—leading us to not only wallow in our narcissism and go seeking for validation of our self-pity like addicts to crack; but we make that worldview the foundation for our future selves. And then we wake up one day in our forties or fifties and wonder why the last three decades of our lives have basically been an unbroken line of failed relationships (and often, professional mediocrity as well).   

Edited November 26, 2022 by Just_A_Guy

[askandanswer]

I'm inclined to think that the following is still true, but I'm not making any predicions about the details or exact processes of how it will happen. 

no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

[askandanswer]

12 hours ago, Godless said:

"Come back to church/Talk to your bishop/Try praying about it" are not supportive statements)

I can't allow a statement like this to stand without a response. @Godless you are completely wrong to discount the power and effectiveness of faithful, sincere, humble prayer. Having said that, I do enjoy your posts and often see them as helpful and thought provoking alternative views point on this forum.