Month: November 2008

A reader writes:

I believe you and the reader you quote are missing what is fundamentally different about the Mormon attacks. This was not typical church activism. The Mormon Prophet commanded that every California member give time and money to pass Prop 8. Each member was then contacted by a church authority to make sure the orders from Salt Lake City were obeyed. Mormons were organized into groups to canvas neighborhoods, knock on doors, distribute yards signs, and otherwise organize against gay marriage rights.

Sounds like standard civic participation, right? But remember, Mormons are not allowed to dissent.

Those who openly speak disagreement with the church’s orthodoxy are routinely excommunicated (you can easily Google public examples, most are secret).  There are reports on public websites that Mormon Bishops even questioned individual’s actions supporting Prop 8 in “Temple Interviews,” a form of confessional where members validate that they are living up to the highest church standards.

Questioning support for Prop 8 in such a setting is an implicit threat to the individual’s church membership and continuation as a member of Mormon society. Deliberately complicating matters for outside observers, church members were ordered to disguise their actions. Official church orders told them to disguise their Mormon identity, not go in pairs, and not to wear white shirts and ties.

As the campaign escalated, the church broadened its call to members, drawing in activists and money from around the country. So although Mormons are less than 2% of the California population’s, several gay websites claim that over 70% of the private money donated in support of Prop 8 was Mormon. Yes, some Mormon individuals stood up against their church.  Of the 13+ million Mormons, about 300 signed an online petition. A Mormon ex-football player’s wife put out a supportive statement. He didn’t join it.

A great idea for RNC chair. At least, New Hampshire’s Union Leader thinks so.

"I would have preferred more opportunity to speak to the media more often" – Sarah Palin. I’d be happy to get an interview at any point, if I can ask any questions.

You can measure it in Britain.

The best answer I’ve seen so far comes from Equality Utah. Instead of throwing a hissy-fit, they are calling the LDS leadership’s bluff:

The LDS Church has articulated it is not “anti-gay” but rather pro-marriage and it “does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.” On November 5th, Elder L. Whitney Clayton stated the LDS Church does not oppose “civil unions or domestic partnerships.”

In response to these statements, Equality Utah is drafting legislation for the 2009 General Session of the Utah Legislature to address each of the issues mentioned by the LDS Church. During this press conference Equality Utah will be asking the LDS Church to demonstrate its conviction on these statements as well as its willingness to secure such rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Utahns.

A leading Christianist, Tony Perkins, is now saying that "civil unions" in California are fine. Great. So let’s ask the Family Research Council to support a full federal civil unions bill, with all the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage. President-elect Obama would be glad to help.

Fareed Zakaria advises Obama:

The world we are living in now is very different from even a decade ago. Next year, for the first time in history, the world’s emerging economies will provide 100 percent of global economic growth. And for several more years, the world’s richest countries will be mired in recession and burdened by debt. Many large emerging-market countries, on the other hand, will grow at 4, 5, and 6 percent a year.

Some will have hundreds of billions of dollars of surpluses. China just announced a stimulus package equivalent to about $586 billion, which is almost 15 percent of its gross domestic product and roughly 10 times as large (in proportionate terms) as the proposed U.S. package.

In such a world, Americans seem to understand that bloviating about "USA as Number One" is cheap rhetoric, divorced from the real world. They sense that the real challenge for Washington is not to boast about America’s might but to use its capacities — military, political, intellectual — to work with others to create a more stable, peaceful and prosperous world in which American interests and ideals will be secure.

Barack Obama keeps being advised (warned) by conservatives to govern from the center. But he should look at this new world, not failed Republican ideology, to find that center.

A reader writes:

You have a theatre background, Andrew — you need to analyze Palinspeak the way you would David Mamet dialogue.  For example:

"Some of the goofy things like who was Trig’s mom. Well, I’m Trig’s mom (raises her hand) and do you want to see my medical records to prove that?"

She’s not offering her medical records here.  She’s quoting herself making an earlier "offer" of the records, and explaining how the sheer fact that she offered should have been construed as proof that she has those records, yet the mainstream media failed to report that it was a settled matter.

Gotcha. The trouble is that Palin confuses what is settled reality and what is settled reality insider her own head. This was once terrifying – and 46 percent of the country was prepared to have this delusional whack-job as a potential president in the next four years. It is now just weird. But there is accountability here. The McCain camp is now trying to dump Palin. But they picked her. And defended her. And we do not yet have full accountability. I won’t relent till we do.

Give us the proof of Trig’s maternity now!

Will.i.am’s new video:

They’re obviously a little rattled. The SF Chronicle reports:

Months before the first ads would run on Proposition 8, San Francisco Catholic Archbishop George Niederauer reached out to a group he knew well, Mormons. Niederauer had made critical inroads into improving Catholic-Mormon relations while he was Bishop of Salt Lake City for 11 years. And now he asked them for help on Prop. 8, the ballot measure that sought to ban same-sex marriages in California. The June letter from Niederauer drew in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and proved to be a critical move in building a multi-religious coalition – the backbone of the fundraising, organizing and voting support for the successful ballot measure. By bringing together Mormons and Catholics, Niederauer would align the two most powerful religious institutions in the Prop. 8 battle.

The intervention of my own church’s hierarchy in targeting the civil rights of a minority is distressing. But they are still not as plugged into the Christianist network as well as the Mormons – and the LDS leadership was critical in pioneering this. In fact, we have a mountain of evidence that the LDS church has been waging Kulturkampf in Hawaii and California for well over a decade. How does the Chronicle account for this 1997 memo from the LDS church planning an anti-marriage referendum campaign in California:

Or this confession by Mitt Romney in September of 2007 that the Mormons and Falwell hatched the scheme long before last June:

Several months ago, not long before he died, I had the occasion of having the Rev. Jerry Falwell at our home. He said that when he was getting ready to oppose same-sex marriage in California, he met with the president of my church in Salt Lake City, and they agreed to work together in a campaign in California. He said, "Far be it from me to suggest that we don’t have the same values and the same objectives."

(Hat tip: Joe)

Steve Coll doesn’t want the debt to derail Obama’s proposals. A snippet:

During some internal discussions at our think tank last week, about the upcoming debate over a stimulus bill to be taken up by the lame-duck Congress, I was startled to hear some colleagues who had been prescient about earlier aspects of the crisis suggest gloomily that a stimulus as large as five or even ten per cent of G.D.P. might be required before this mess is over. The economy is about $14 trillion in size, so that’s potentially more than a trillion dollars beyond what has already been expended on rescue measures. (Obama and the Democratic-led Congress are starting much smaller—about $60 billion in stimulus measures will be taken up in the lame-duck session, and then, after the Inaugural, most second-round proposals are in the range suggested by the Princeton economist Alan Blinder over the weekend; two per cent of G.D.P., or about $280 billion.) Even without a very large stimulus, Obama will likely be the first President to preside over a $1 trillion federal-budget deficit.