I have been in a group discussion the last three days on a private Facebook group about the Mormon left. (So okay, okay, it is an oxymoron). We had a conservative (eg regular) Mormon (not completely wacko right) come after us and argue the arguments that religious conservatives argue. When she said she liked Glen Beck that was the end for me following is my rant to her, slightly edited mostly for spelling, and a couple of other postings regarding this conversation. I know many of you are fed up with Mormons and prop 8 and its outcome. I clearly have in mind the conflict of belonging to a group that one disagrees with. Religion is complex and my status right now is go to church some, make no monetary contributions, and express my opinion at church when given the opportunity, with a view of not getting excommunicated for it. So yes, I am kind of on the rail.
Below the fold, I rail on.
Here was the opening statement in the thread. She started it. This is on a group self identified as leftist. So she asked for it.:
full disclosure, I'm conservative, politically--however, my politics don't even operate on the same plane as my faith in the gospel...I'm not married to my politics, nor do I have faith in my politics. Many posters in this forum seem to be discussing their lack of faith in church leadership as a foundation for their politics. We shouldn't use Keynes or Marx--or the clenched fist, as an excuse for our crises of faith.
My comments:
1.
Full dislosure, I am liberal, politically and liberal theologically. The gospel to me is highlly valid. Our church leaders are valid so long as they are right. The Catholic church holds its leader to be infallable, we do not. If a church... leader promotes a doctrine that is untrue, or misinterprets one, then they are wrong. If a church leader subscribes to a political position that is not on a moral foundation that follows doctrine or the articles of faith, (for example, trying to deny non church members access to equal protection, or the full access to reproductive services as upheld by the supreme court and backed by our belief in sustaing the law, or maybe belonging to a party that tries to deny people fair access to the ballot by voter caging or enacting restrictive voter registration laws, or tries to deny breadearners the right to improve the state of the work they do to provide for their families by installing restrictive union laws, or paying companies subsidies to ship jobs overseas, or maybe lying about the need to start a f**king war and sending our children to die in a totally unnecessary campaign to steal oil, or maybe our church leaders belong to the same party in which a large portion of its members want to impose a fundamentalist christian theocracy on the United States.)Then maybe our church leaders should reconsider some things. When our church leaders (or members) espouse policies or interpret laws or belong to organizations that far underachieve the high ethical and moral standards and political honesty espoused in the Book of Mormon, then yes, politics and religon begin to mesh. That is why a separation of church and state are so vitally important in the U.S. That is why I am on this leftist group. That is why if you are going to say you are politicaly conservative here you shouldn't be surprised to get some blow back. Our priesthood leaders are only as good as they are just and impartial. And when they are John Birchers and tea partiers and get up in gospel doctrine class and say we should say God bless Glen Beck (HAPPENED IN MY WARD), well that ain't passin' by with out some stand up comment from me. Sister, (and I use that word sister in both a church and revolutionary sense, my clenched fist IS the basis of my faith. That still small voice speaks to me and I will shout out ethics, morality and repentence. Corrupt coporate fat cats, Republicans, and Democrats (the ones that are neoliberal coporate statists) and those church members in league with fundamentalist, restorationist, millenialist theocratic fascists) better do some repentin' too. If this is your shoe size, then so be it.
2.
The USA is a capitalist society for the poor, and a socialist welfare state for the rich and for Corporate personhood. You are way off base. The rich and corporations put their burden on all of us. They internalize profit and externalize... debt, pollution costs, failed mortgage investments, job safety, and bank failures. The right is simply delusional, not based in reality. That you like Glen Beck says it all. He is the worst conspiracy theorist - proto fascist apologist for palestinian apartheid of our times. He is a greedy scumbag that makes 30 milliion dollars a year telling people to take their children out of public schools and bankrupt the school system. Once you jumped the shark to Glen Beck, you lost all credibility with me.
Comment by a third person:
my politics don't even operate on the same plane as my faith"... This faux separation from doing what is right and moral in your personal life while supporting evil ideals in your politics is what is wrong with right wingers. In a democratic society the people and ideas you support are a window to your soul.
Me back to him:
xxxxx, I like what you say, but I think the problem that I have with the right is that they have evil ideas in their religion (theocracy and repression of women for two of many examples) and want to impose those evil ideas into the national body politic.
3.
What is a conservative? Someone that conserves the environment, the constitution and all of its amendments, conserves a great educational system, the support of families for everyone, life for all. A conservative is not someone that thinks God told them it was OK to trash the environment so the second coming would get here faster, nuke Iran to the same end, want to trash the first five amendments except the 2nd, and then trash the 17th. A conservative wants to conserve women's health, not let women die when they can't get a medically necesssary abortion or commit suicide because they can't get one after they were raped or die in a back alley because they tried it on their own. A Conservative wants to conserve the health of a mother by not denying her birth control so she can plan her family and not be forced into a financially untenable position or be forced to choose an abortion because she can't emotionally hadle the 6th child. A conservative doesn't only sancitfy life before it is born, and then treat the child with callous disregard by letting it starve or be under nourished or without affordable pediatric care or let it grow up ignorant because the school system withered on the vine while they stood by and watched with glee. A conservative doesn't say they value life and then stand outside the penitentary at midnight cheering while the state puts the needle in another person that went down the wrong path. A conservative does not go to military funerals and hold up signs that say GOD HATES FAGS and tells the dead soldier's family that God struck their son down because our country tolerates homosexuals. A conservative supports the office of the President like him or not, and they debate the issues, they don't put his face on a chimpanzee and claim he was born in Kenya when he wasn't. I could go on and on and on. Conservatives in America today are anything but conservative. They are destructors, slash and burn bully racist fascist punks that freely rewrite history to their own ends. I want none of it. Anyone who espouses being a conservative today and still identifies with the GOP or the Tea Party or White Identity or the John Birch Society is a liar. Self delusional. What you are is in deep denial of what is fair and just. Taxes are just as important as tithing. I pay taxes, I paid tithing in the past, but I don't now because of the Prop 8 issue. Liberals have their faults, mainly not having a spine often enough. Conservatives are not conservative, they conserve wealth for themselves and death for all others. A pox upon all their houses.
another commentator:
"They are destructors, slash and burn bully racist fascist punks that freely rewrite history to their own ends."
You know, the interesting thing about this statement is that it annoys me when conservatives type something similar to it to refer to liberals and seems to annoy me when used in reverse. too.
My last input:
Well I am annoyed. Sorry. I'll go cool off somewhere, maybe in a movie because it is 101 ouside today.
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I don't even know why I am putting this up on DK. It was a private convesation in a private room. All this will do for me is help blow off some steam and draw grief from the gay community because I am a Mormon. At the moment, I don't blame you.
The group I am referring to has long discussions about gays and the church and many of them disargree vehemently with church policy. I won't get into that right now.