Also, is there anyone today that isn't happy that the Church gave the priesthood to the blacks after political pressure?
Or do you think the Church messed that idea when they bowed to political pressure?
Churches don't have anything to either give or deny to any human being. They have no legal prerogative or dispensation for changing anyone's legal standing under the law. Accordingly, it's a non-issue. How about people having the right to their own prejudices and opinions, and the government having no jurisdiction, so long as it is merely personal, internal thinking. But stick a finger in somebody's eye, or come out verbally insulting and otherwise abusing someone and making them second-class socially or legally, I figure is something else. A good Church could say that's wrong, a government could draw some lines which protect individual equality under the law. I think categorical rhetorics that cross some line and become abusive, say of "statists" or "progressives" or "conservatives" is pretty much the same as racial hate speech, but I see we commonly do that without too much real damage to a person. . . . "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me."
God may or may not intend to attach meaning to race, there's nothing we can do about that, if there is such a being with sovereign, supreme jurisdiction over mankind beyond our reach, or the reach of our government. People who invoke "God" as approving any specific doctrine or idea are expressing incompetent speculative opinions, which we are all entitled to harbor, and in fact such "religious" people are little different from say. . . social "progressives" or advocates of any specific political faction, who invoke "History" or "Progress" or "Social Justice" or whatever secular doctrines they espouse. If you shut down free speech by one group, you give the government the power to one day shut down your own free speech.
Game is right, if you don't believe in a specific version of "God" or the "Big Sky Daddy", or if you're as smart as Siro, this is just human stupidity on exhibit for laughs.
If you come at it from a determination to make "equal protection under the law" a reality for all, as I do, there are actually down-to-earth real principles we can base our government upon, which limits the government from treating people unequally. Laws which attempt to prohibit people from treating other people unequally will be less effective, and will impair fundamental human rights like belief and speech.
Finally, green, the Church has a similar policy in regard to other ostracized pariah-class people, like polygamists. Children of polygamists have to go a special interview to get baptized, and basically they have to disavow their parents just like children of LGBT parents. It is because of a social pressure among their tithe-paying members who are appalled at any appearance of "evil" in their ranks of that particular caste. When the LDS faced extreme pressure in the press. . . yes, in the very same Salt Lake Tribune. . . .and nationally, and even had laws like the Edmunds-Tucker law, which seized LDS property and incarcerated men who had any cohabitation with multiple women..... The LDS officials did the same sort of two-step they are doing now.
First they go to one extreme and up the rhetoric for the tradition, and next they announce they are going to comply with the Law.
I just think we ought to leave religions alone, and let people decide where they want to be, what they want to do, and believe. Well, and maybe we could leave Marxists or Progressives alone, too. And LGBT folks too.
But anyone can claim "precedent" or "defense" in old "scripture" which is pretty clear-cut about various moral issues. The OT and the NT are clearly decrying the relations which the Church is trying to insist are still unacceptable to God. In the long run, after we run the gamut of "progress", we will see what people come to believe. Historically, the values of civilizations that endure will return to the basics of encouraging procreation and clear-cut family structure. A lot of cultures have toyed with experimental stuff like we are doing, but like Darwin suggests, survival goes to those who get the job of reproduction done.
We clearly have a confused culture message-board right now, but we get to think for ourselves and do what we want. We get the choice, but Darwinism/Evolution favor the proven behavior patterns which have been the core of every great or long-lasting society. Yes, there have been matriarchal, polygamous polyandrous or polygynist, and lesbian/gay cultures,and all kinds of local tribal varieties, but statistically-speaking, nothing has ever been more successful or long-lasting than a strict, highly-prejudiced pattern favoring single-partner heterosexual patriarchal family structure. It's what made Rome great, it's what made Western Civilization great, and predominant. It bulks up the population numbers, and the economic productivity, and is the most transmittable to the next generation.
So, in the final analysis, whatever you want to be or do, your decisions have consequences that relate statistically to outcomes like propagation, sustainability, transmittal to successive generations, and the ascendency of your society in competition with those around you.
If anyone really believes humans have rights, they should come down on the side of individuals having their choice, and on the side of freedom of like-minded people to associate in religions or political organization, and on the side of keeping government from interfering in private personal relations and choices and beliefs.
If you're a "progressive" as in todays idealists for the popular "way forward", I think you injure your cause by seeking to invoke government and law to reinforce your opinions. You would accomplish your "Ideal" better, unless it's just more government power you want and less human liberty, by taking the Libertarian sort of position.
