More Evidence Mormons Have Joined The Club

A couple of weeks ago I cited a story about the support Mormons were receiving from some of their Prop 8 coalition friends and suggested (with supporting statements from Dr. Wiseman (an alias)) that perhaps this was the issue (Prop 8) and persecutorial (word? word.) backlash that would bring Mormons into the mainstream of political Christendom.

An article run in the NYT last week further buttresses this argument. From the Deseret News:

Declaring "no mob veto," a full-page ad in the New York Times on Friday denounced the "violence and intimidation" directed at members of the LDS Church who supported California's ban on gay marriage.

"When thugs ... terrorize any place of worship, especially those of a religious minority, responsible voices need to speak clearly: Religious wars are wrong; they are also dangerous," reads the advertisement paid for by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington, D.C.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has come under fire from gay rights activists across the country since coming out in support of California's Proposition 8, an amendment to the state's constitution that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

In a statement Friday, church officials expressed gratitude to the dozen civil rights and religious leaders, ranging from Catholic to evangelical Christian to Orthodox Jew, who attached their names to the advertisement.

"This was a thoughtful and generous gesture at a time when the right of free expression of people of faith has come under attack," said Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve, in a statement. "We join with those of all religious faiths and political persuasions who have called for reasoned and civil discourse on matters that affect our nation."

Of course, when it comes to intramural scrabbles about religious matters, many of these churches will still attack the LDS. Prop 8 cooperation (and other, similar cooperation) will not halt the institutional jealousies that arise from the increasing growth of the LDS church, but when it comes to matters of shared values, I think they will remember the horsepower members of the LDS church brought to the issue.

Indeed, Dr. Matt Holland (full disclosure, this professor is a friend and former mentor) seems to agree. From the same article:

Matthew Holland, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, said he sees an unprecedented show of support for the LDS Church from a wide spectrum of coalitions, affinities, associations and even some unexpected groups.

"The fact that they are willing to step forward and, in such a prominent way, be so supportive is something that we haven't really seen before," Holland said Friday night.

Many of the individuals who signed the ad are prominent national and international figures, Holland said, including Richard Cizik, vice president for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals; Nathan Diament, director of the Institute for Public Affairs of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious & Civil Rights; Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Michigan; and Chris Seiple, president of the Institute for Global Engagement.

Holland said he finds it significant that high-profile members of conservative Evangelical groups supported the ad because of divisive sentiments that emerged during LDS Church-member Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign.

"These very prominent leaders from the Evangelical right are now stepping up to give voice and solidarity to the church," he said.

The next time Mitt Romney (or some other Mormon) runs for President and members of the religious right raise questions about his religion, whatever, he'll be able to point to his very good speech about religion in American and the important role Mormons have played in this country in defending marriage and the family.

I think these two things--the success of his 2008 campaign and Prop 8--will be a persuasive and unifying argument.

We'll see.


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The Future Of Conservatism, Part 24

I don't entirely agree with Rod Dreher's analysis of the election (that Sarah Palin was a net negative) or on his prescription for the way forward (that we should follow, lock-stock-barrel, David Cameron's metamorphosing of the Tory party), but I do agree with him on two important points:

1) Social/Religious conservatives were not to blame for John McCain's loss

AND

2) Kicking out the aforementioned wing of the conservative tent is not the way to win future elections.


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National Review Sticks Up For Mormons, 1st Amendment

I'm tempting the Fair Use fates (again) by posting this, but I just don't see any other way around it. If you care about the 1st Amendment, you must read this article.

Last week in a Denver suburb, someone lit a Book of Mormon on fire and dropped it on the doorstep of a Mormon temple, presumably as a statement about the church’s support of Proposition 8 in California, an initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In a move that may make gay-rights supporters’ heads spin, the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

The outbreak of attacks on the Mormon church since the passage of Proposition 8 has been chilling: envelopes full of suspicious white powder were sent to church headquarters in Salt Lake City; protesters showed up en masse to intimidate Mormon small-business owners who supported the measure; a website was created to identify and shame members of the church who backed it; activists are targeting the relatives of prominent Mormons who gave money to pass it, as well as other Mormons who are only tangentially associated with the cause; some have even called for a boycott of the entire state of Utah.

The wisdom of hate-crimes legislation aside, there is no doubt that a lot of hate is being directed at Mormons as a group. But why single out Mormons? And why now?

Dozens of church bodies — including the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Christian bishops of California, and a wide variety of evangelicals — supported the proposition. It’s also worth considering that, while gay-rights advocates cannot discuss same-sex marriage for more than 30 seconds without making faulty analogies to Jim Crow-era anti-miscegenation laws, some 70 percent of blacks voted for Proposition 8. While there have been a few ugly racist statements by gay-rights supporters, such vile sentiment has been restricted. Not so the hatred directed at Mormons, who are convenient targets.

To date, 30 states have voted on initiatives addressing same-sex marriage, and in every state traditional marriage has come out on top. But somehow the fact that Mormons got involved during the latest statewide referendum constitutes a bridge too far? In truth, Mormons are a target of convenience in the opening salvo of what is sure to be a full-scale assault on much of America’s religious infrastructure, which gay activists perceive as a barrier to their aspirations. Among religious groups, Mormons are not the biggest obstacle to same-sex marriage — not by a long shot. But they are an easy target. Anti-Mormon bigotry is unfortunately common, and gay-rights activists are cynically exploiting that fact.

There are no websites dedicated to “outing” Catholics who supported Proposition 8, even though Catholic voters heavily outnumber Mormons. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not remarkably strident in its beliefs on the subject. So far, no gay-rights activist has had the brass to burn a Qu’ran on the doorstep of a militant mosque where — forget marriage! — imams advocate the stoning of homosexuals.

Churches oppose same-sex marriage in part because it represents an implicit threat to freedom of conscience and belief. California already had one of the broadest civil-unions laws in the country. There was little in the way of government-sanctioned privileges that a state-issued marriage license would confer. But the drive for same-sex marriage is in practice about legislating moral conformity — demanding that everybody recognize homosexual relationships in the same way, regardless of their own beliefs. Freedom of conscience, or diversity of belief, is the last thing the homosexual lobby will tolerate: In New Mexico, a state civil-rights commission fined an evangelical wedding photographer $6,637 for politely declining to photograph a gay commitment ceremony. In California, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously against two San Diego fertility doctors who refused to give in-vitro fertilization to a lesbian owing to their religious beliefs, even though they had referred her to another doctor. And just this week, evangelical dating site eHarmony, which hadn’t previously provided same-sex matchmaking services, announced it had been browbeaten into doing so by New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights and the threat of litigation. The first 10,000 same-sex eHarmony registrants will receive a free six-month subscription. “That’s one of the things I asked for,” crowed Eric McKinley, who brought the charges against eHarmony.

Where do they go from here? Gay activists are already using the legal system to try to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon church. If you believe that churches and synagogues, priests and rabbis won’t eventually be sued for their statements on sexuality, you’re kidding yourself. Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown University law professor and gay activist who helps draft federal legislation related to sexual orientation, says that, when religious liberty conflicts with gay rights, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” A National Public Radio report on the conflict noted that if previous cases are any guide, “the outlook is grim for religious groups.”

Given their cavalier disregard for the freedom of conscience, it’s little surprise that the gay lobby is equally disdainful of democracy: They began pursuing legal challenges to Proposition 8 practically before they were done tallying the votes. Lamentably, the state attorney general defending the will of the people will be former Jerry Brown, the liberal former governor who was an open opponent of the measure and tried to sabotage it. The legal challenges will be heard by the same state Supreme Court that overturned California’s previous law forbidding gay marriage back in May. There’s a real possibility the will of the people will be spurned a second time, democracy be damned. They’ve already burned the Book of Mormon. The First Amendment is next.

(emphasis added)


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Prop 8: Building A Strong Conservative Alliance

In the run-up to last week's round-table discussion on PJTV, I thought a lot about what I wanted to say. After consulting with my brother and a Wise Man, I concluded that I would speak to the strength of social conservatism, as evidenced by Prop 8's passage in California.

(In the end, it didn't really matter, as they just wanted to talk about conservatism on college campuses.)

Specifically, as prompted by this point from the aforementioned Wise Man, I wanted to talk about Mormonism's inclusion in the broader coalition of socially conservative Christians:

given the demographic change that now favours the Democratic Party and certainly the voting in California on Prop 8 bore this out--young people voted overwhelmingly against it--and seeing the excellent cooperation between Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons--isn't now the time to embrace Mormons who are bucking the demographic trend (largest families amongst Christian denominations in America) into the Conservative alliance

Indeed, this may be the silver lining to the cloud of persecution facing Mormons post-Prop 8. There is no question that members of the Church of Jesus Christ played a lead role in GOTV in favor of Prop 8 and that they also funded much of the Yes on 8 ad campaign.

Members of other Christian faiths witnessed Mormons' efforts first-hand and have seen the persecution these efforts brought in the wake of Prop 8's passage.

A recent press release from the LDS church notes the common cause coalition being built by the fight for traditional marriage. Michael Barber, Professor at John Paul the Great Catholic University:

As a Catholic school, we stand beside our friends in the Mormon Church and of people of faith who work tirelessly to preserve the freedom of religion in America. We also strongly oppose any attempt to ridicule another person’s faith, even faiths with which we have strong historical and theological disagreements."

This is the key point: theological differences ought to be put aside in favor of a partnership in defense of common goals and values.

Mormons can and should make common cause with other faiths on issues regarding life (abortion, stem-cell research, assisted suicide, etc.), family (marriage, divorce, adoption, etc.) and other issues without having to get into debates about theological questions.

Chuck Colson, The Christian Post:

Two days after the election, 2,000 homosexual protesters surrounded a Mormon temple in Los Angeles chanting 'Mormon scum.' Protesters picketed Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, holding signs reading 'Purpose-Driven Hate.' Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills was spray painted. Church members' cars have been vandalized, and at least two Christians were assaulted. Protesters even hurled racial epithets at African-Americans because African-Americans voted overwhelmingly in favor of traditional marriage. What hypocrisy from those who spend all of their time preaching tolerance to the rest of us!

Apart from highlighting the hipocrisy of the tolerance crowd, this comment groups together 3 churches which never would have found themselves on the same side of any question prior to Prop 8. Calvary Chapel and Saddleback Church have typically been critical of Mormonism, but on marriage, they agree.

Again, this is where the focus should be.

Rod Dreher, Beliefnet.com:

Now is the time for traditional Christians -- Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox -- to come to the aid of our Mormon friends. They put themselves on the front line of the traditional marriage battle like no other church group. And now individual Mormons are paying a terrible price for standing up for something we all believe in. I don't know how we can stand with them from afar, but at least we can thank them, and speak out when we see them being abused. We might also think again about how we view them. … I have deep disagreements with Mormon theology. But they are our friends and allies and fellow citizens, and they deserve our thanks and support.

This is the time. On the most important questions that face American families (especially from a socially conservative, religious perspective), Mormons and "traditional" Christians see eye-to-eye.


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Goldberg On Social/Religious Conservatives

The Republican party needs them. And, as evidenced by Prop 8's passage in California, being socially conservative does not lose elections.

Goldberg:

It turns out that people who buy into the logic of social liberalism, not just on abortion but racial and other issues as well, usually find themselves ill-equipped ideologically to say no to additional spending on causes they care about. They even find it difficult to stay Republicans, as we can see from recent example Colin Powell, who endorsed Barack Obama for president for largely ethereal reasons.

It should be noted that it’s also difficult to be fiscally conservative and socially conservative if you’ve jettisoned the conservative dogma of limited government. We saw this in spades as President Bush embraced “activist government” and ended up wildly increasing government spending over the last eight years.

And that should serve as a warning to those, on the right and left, who would like to see the GOP defenestrate millions of actual, living, breathing members of the party — e.g., social conservatives — in order to woo millions of largely nonexistent jackalopes. The GOP would simply cease to exist as a viable party without the support of social and religious conservatives.

Keep the social cons.


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National Review On Prop 8 & Attacks On Mormons

Thanks to Blake C. for this one:

On Tuesday, by a margin of 52 to 48 percent, voters in California amended their state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, as did voters in Florida (62 to 38 percent) and Arizona (56 to 44 percent).

Those who argue social conservatism is behind the GOP’s current electoral malaise take note: In Arizona marriage outperformed John McCain by 2 percentage points, in Florida by 14 percentage points, and in California by 15 percentage points.

The Arizona win, reversing a defeat for a marriage amendment in that state in 2006, also restores to state marriage amendments an unblemished record of victory: They have won in 30 out of 30 states where they have been on the ballot.

What lesson can we take from Tuesday’s marriage victories? Here’s one obvious one: Americans still care a great deal about this issue. The California supreme court may have believed that the public would acquiesce when it foisted same-sex marriage on the state earlier this year. But the successful campaign to overturn its ruling was an astonishing effort, unprecedented for a social issue, that raised more than 100,000 volunteers and almost $40 million from over 60,000 donors.

How have the leaders of the movement for same-sex marriage responded to their California loss at the ballot box? The same way they usually do: by getting lawyers to make ever more outrageous arguments to impose their values on unwilling people. (The ACLU is preparing to argue that a one-sentence definition of marriage constitutes such a wholesale revision of California’s constitution that the California Supreme Court should invalidate Prop 8.)

Just before they lost on Tuesday in California, same-sex marriage advocates in California descended to a new low. A group affiliated with Moveon.org, United Healthcare Workers, and the California Nurses Association released a television ad, “Home Invasion,” which portrayed Mormon missionaries as ransacking a California home: “We’re from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We’ve come to take away your rights.” (The ad was referring to the financial contributions Mormon citizens had made to the initiative campaign.) Are there any other religious minority groups whose political giving liberals believe should be stigmatized? Can we expect the Anti-Defamation League to speak up?

So far, not a single same-sex marriage advocate in California or outside of it has been willing to repudiate this vicious tactic: not MoveOn.org, of course, and not the ACLU or the Human Rights Campaign either. But also not, for example, Sen. Diane Feinstein, who appeared in an anti-Prop 8 TV ad saying that “we must always say no to discrimination.” But not, it seems, to bigotry.

The current conflict over marriage is in part a proxy for a larger ongoing conflict about the role of religious people and religious values in public life. As courts come to endorse the principle that sexual orientation is just like race, American government is going to find itself in the position of treating traditional faith communities just like racists. Voters should beware — if they are consulted on the matter.

(emphasis added)

Religious bigotry is the last acceptable form of bigotry in this country.

One of the lessons to be drawn from this election is that social conservatism is alive and well. Coupled with fiscal conservatism and strong-on-defense foreign policy positions, conservatism as a whole, has a bright future.

Conservatives must do as Ronald Reagan always did when confronted with a new problem: Return to first principles. It's why we are conservatives--because we have sure principles which we can always apply to new problems, if we work and think hard enough.


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Yes On Prop 8: My Best Shot -UPDATED - Email To Your Friends Edition

[ed. note: I'm going to keep reposting this through 4 November. Skip if you've already read it. Read if you haven't. Pass it along to friends and acquaintances--especially those voting in California.]

For the No on 8 folks, Gay Marriage isn't just a positive right they want enforced, it's a lifestyle they want normalized and accepted--by force, if necessary--by the rest of America. It's not enough to live and let live. It's about changing definitions and understandings and traditions and reshaping society and American culture.

Take, for instance, one California school where kindergartners were encouraged to sign "Gay Pledge Cards." This isn't just about marriage for the homosexual community.

Consider the latest back-and-forth between the Yes and No on 8 folks (h/t Branden B.):

The top issue that has emerged in the Proposition 8 campaign is whether same-sex marriage will be taught in California public schools if the initiative is not enacted. Opponents of Proposition 8 are spending millions of dollars on television commercials telling voters that the Yes on 8 campaign’s claim that gay marriage will be taught in public schools is a lie. Yet a review of public records filed with the First District Court of Appeal in Boston shows these same organizations who claim our statement is a lie fought to make it true in Massachusetts. Specifically, they fought to ensure that gay marriage be taught in Massachusetts public schools, even over the objection of parents who sought an “opt out” for their children. Gay marriage was legalized by Massachusetts courts in 2003.

Further, their assurance that parents can always “opt-out” of such instruction when it is taught is belied by the fact that in Massachusetts, they argued successfully that Massachusetts’ parental opt-out provision should not be permitted.

“These damning public records show that it is in fact the organizations leading and financing the No on 8 campaign who are lying to California voters,” said Yes on 8 campaign manager Frank Schubert. “On one coast of the country they tell judges that gay marriage should be taught to children in school at the youngest possible age. But, on the opposite coast, here in California, they have the audacity to tell voters that gay marriage has nothing to do with public schools.”

A friend who watches such things, told me that a recent episode of the popular teen soap 90210 (the 2008 version), had a scene in which students were paired up, given fake babies, and told to take care of them. The liberal utopians in Hollywood paired up two straight male teens, told them they were a gay married couple, and designated one of them the "caretaker."

After reviewing the shows treatment of the couple, I'm not so sure it wasn't an inadvertent argument against gay marriage. Sure, the writers depicted the teacher as enlightened and the students as ignorant & chauvinist (the liberal stereotype of conservative men). But the two guys regarded each other with disgust, cared not at all for the assignment (their fake child), and ultimately failed, going their separate ways--hardly a successful gay couple w/child.

How did that one get past the editors/director/producers?

At it's core, conservatism and traditionalists and the religious defend marriage as being between a man and a woman because history has shown that it is the most successful way to raise a family and perpetuate a society and culture. Empirical data from Europe is just beginning to trickle in and it doesn't look good for gay couple-based families.

Even so, I can't prove, based on evidence, that gay marriage would ruin society. But I can't prove it in the same way that defense of marriage advocates couldn't prove that the loosening of divorce laws in the 60's--making "no fault" the rule--would erode marriage and lead to more single-parent homes. We reap what we've sown there with higher crime, drop-out, and illiteracy rates from those coming from these less-than-ideal homes.

Moreover, it is the burden of those who want to change the status quo to prove that at least, the change will not negatively impact society. This is an assertion they cannot prove. And further, their claim of this positive "right" does not outweigh the potential negative impact on our society and culture.

We did not start this so-called "culture war," but we will fight to defend and conserve traditional marriage, because history has proven its success.


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The Difference Between "Appealing To" and "Becoming"

Our recent Obama posts have incited a lot of defensive comments. We've been called alternately unprincipled (new one), hypocritical (not new), full of crap (overused), an idiot (ditto), and intellectually dishonest (uncommon, but not new).

The following are the most common complaints:

1. your religion was once, or is now, considered a cult so you shouldn't call Obama's followers a cult.

OR

2. Bush, Reagan and others used religious rhetoric or appealed to the religiosity of their party, so what Obama is doing is nothing new.

OR

3. Obama is not using, appealing to, or becoming anything remotely religious.

***

3. We'll start with the last one first because it is the easiest. Obamamessiah.blogspot.com has done an incredible job of drawing out the pseudo-religious elements of the Obama campaign from all available press reports. You can't read the too-numerous-to-count articles and not see it.

For dems who already have religion, Obama simply appeals to their religiosity. We don't have a problem with this. As Justin and Ben pointed out, this is no different than what Republicans have done with the religious right for years.

Where things get a little sketchy is when Obama veers into becoming the religion. Democrats tend to be less religious than Republicans. But this does not mean that these people don't seek something to fill that gap. For many Democrats, that gap is filled by politics. This explains, in part, how personally the DailyKos kids and Huffington Post crowd take their politics. It explains why they tend to be more fixated on the candidate than they are on the candidate's policies and politics. For them, Obama doesn't just appeal to religious rhetoric in the way that Reagan or Bush or even Huckabee did and do, he has become the leader of their religion.

Hope and change are their foundational religious principles. Adherence to the gospel of environmentalism, nanny-state entitlements and regulations, civil liberties, anti-Iraq, etc., are the required bylaws. And Obama is the charismatic leader. People faint when he speaks, try to touch him when he passes by, and shout "I love you" when there's silence (this is just a small sampling). Obama is Martin Luther King Jr., JFK, Nelson Mandela, and FDR all rolled into one. If not a messiah, at least a political messiah--a messiah for the rest of us, if you will.

***

2. Can we help it if Democrats are more susceptible to cults of personality? Ben and Justin and MJ derided Republicans for how little love we have for our candidate. We think this is a good thing. We're only interested in a politician to the extent that their politics match ours. We didn't love GW in 2000 and we didn't love Reagan until long after the end of his presidency. Democrats loved FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, and now, Barack Obama. They love to love their leaders. We don't.

Since the rise of the religious right in conservative politics, Republican candidates have used rhetoric and adopted policies to appeal to these voters for their support and votes. Liberals have accused Republicans for years of trying to set up some sort of theocracy. Whatever. Values voters may have wanted to stop abortion and gay marriage, but they never wanted to run the government.

Enter Obama. Irreligious or anti-religious democrats have replaced religion with secularism. It may not have an omnipotent/omniscient being in charge, but like any other religion, it has its tenets (mentioned above, environmentalism, etc.), language (political correct speech), and now it has its charismatic leader. The left has always worshipped at the fountain of youth, so Barack is the perfect blank canvass. Barack isn't all-knowing, but progressive liberalism certainly knows better.

Barack Obama has become the charismatic leader of his pseudo religion. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush appealed to conservatives' already held religious beliefs. Even Mike Huckabee only set himself up as a religious leader, never The Religious Leader.

***

1. Disparagers of Mormon history and Joseph Smith can rightfully call the early movement part cult of personality--right, not because they are correct, but because they have the right to be wrong.

Whatever anyone thinks of the LDS religion then or now (cult or otherwise), the fact that we or anyone else happen to be members of or affiliated to some organization that others might consider a cult does not take away our right to identify elements of personality cults in other movements.

We aren't voting for the LDS church to take over the leadership of the United States. Mitt Romney didn't set himself up as the leader of a religious-like movement. He was satisfied to run for President.

***

Questions remain about the pseudo religious nature of Obama's movement. What we don't know is the extent to which Obama has invited the following seen everyday and documented by obamamessiah.com. Is he the instigator or simply a willing participant? Some of the rhetoric and the fainting routine seem to indicate the former.

Obviously, this phenomenon that has sprung up around Obama is not the sum of the man. We freely admit that he is intelligent, articulate, and an inspiring speaker. We won't use the hyperbole of Spikers in yesterday's comments, mostly because it is still way early in the game. We believe that once Obama's policies are fleshed out (as, eventually they will be), he will prove to be an old style liberal cloaked in the attractive apparel of a charismatic. There's nothing wrong with that if you like charismatic, old school liberals. Think, Jimmy Carter with personality.

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Romney's 20 to 1 Spending Advantage

MSM analysis of Romney's loss in Iowa has everyone raving about how you can't "buy elections." They point to the huge amount spent by Romney vs. the pittance spent by Pastor Huck and wax poetic about the "wise Iowan voters" who proved money wasn't everything. Whatever.

Romney may have had an incredibly well-financed and well-organized campaign. We grant all that. But it's not as though Huckabee simply showed up, filmed an ad with a floating cross, and won. This narrative ignores the ginormous elephant in the room: Evangelicals. It wasn't just that, for the first time in our memory, Republicans played identity politics, it's that Evangelicals leaders in Iowa actively campaigned for Mike Huckabee. Here was Huckabee's well-financed, well-organized campaign. And this one has been in place for decades.

It's ironic that the same group (Evangelicals) who made bigoted statements about Romney's religion and worried about how it would affect his Presidency, so blatantly played politics with their religion. Huckabee has been a part of this hypocrisy--making overt statements about Romney's religion, while riding his own to electoral success in Iowa. What's even more ridiculous is the fact that Romney's politics (if you believe his current position) more closely mirrors the priorities of social conservatives than do Huckabee's politics. Huck raised taxes, expanded government, and freed convicts (many of them murderers) at a terrific rate. No, Evangelicals voted for Pastor Huck because he and their leaders insinuated that God wanted them to.

And they did so illegally. The IRS would never go after these church'ss, but just because they wouldn't doesn't mean it's right.

This would never happen in an LDS Church. Mormon doctrine and official church position proscribes the endorsement of candidates or the use of church buildings, rolls, etc., for use by any campaign. Can you imagine the uproar if Mitt or his surrogates went from LDS chapel to LDS chapel, getting out the vote and trying to garner donations?

Say what you will (and our friends have) about Mormons voting for Mitt, but at least his politics (again, if you believe him to be sincere) match conservative Mormon beliefs. Here, there is no hypocritical contradiction between his positions and their politics as there is with Huck and the Evangelicals.


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Another take on Romney's "big loss"

From a Drudge Report-linked article (hat tip: Matt Lybbert) at a Washington Post blog comes this interesting take on Romney's performance in the Iowa caucus (note: scroll to the first comment).

Turn Rich Lowry's numbers around and you'd see something very interesting - if Utah was the first caucus and 60% of caucusers were Mormons and Mitt only got 1/3 of the vote and only won by 9 points, you'd say he lost. You'd say that even if his opponent had spent millions more. I hate to sound like a sore loser, but the media response doesn't make sense to me. Given the favorable circumstances, I think Huckabee lost and Mitt won.

No, we're not drinking the kool-aid, we just thought this was an interesting way of giving context to the outcome. Furthermore, and importantly for all those of us who were angry with the evangelicals and homeschoolers, this seems to indicate that evangelical voters are not blindly following Huck. Romney got nearly 20% of the Evangelical vote, Huck got 45%, and the remaining 35% was spread among the other candidates. Despite what will undoubtedly be the MSM company line, sanity and rational thought do exist among the religious right.


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This Guy is a Genius

In the Core Course of our Masters program, we explore the question, "what's modern, about modern history?" It's broken up into 4 themes which are taught by 3 different professors. The first set of seminars explored the Historiography of Modern History and History in general and the second, current seminar, has explored history through Nationalism.

This week we gave a presentation based on an article by Prasenjit Duara entitled, "Transnationalism and the Challenge of National Histories." It is from Rethinking American History in a Global Age, Thomas Bender, editor. Among other things, he warns against the use of history to promote ultranationalism and encourages a study of history that does avoids using the current evolutionary borders as limits or guidelines to historical research ie. British History, American History, Modern Germany, etc. He cites several examples in China and the Mexican border that show how history cuts across borders and must, to be truly understood, be examined locally.

In his Chinese local example, he shows how two different regimes in China plus Japan all used a folk history to promote different ends. He argues that this is part of the tension that exists between modernity and tradition--a Marxist argument that has been passed as fact. The Fascist regime in Japan and the Marxist and Fascist regimes he refers to in China most assuredly bent the history to establish their legitimacy as governors of Japan and China respectively. This does not, however, necessarily mean that an either/or dichotomy exists between tradition and modernization.

The Unites States, unlike those Chinese and Japanese governments, does not suppress alternate histories. We have, collectively, been forced to come to terms with the ugliness of our history--treatment of native peoples, slavery, women, etc., have all been incorporated into our history and collective memory. Despite these scars of history, we continue to embrace the good traditions of our past while looking forward to continued modernization. Such is the case in democratic, pluralistic societies.

We've linked to One Cosmos a couple of times in the past, and do so again here because of the light he sheds on this tension between tradition and modernization.

How do you tie free trade, progressivism, the tradition of the religious right, and scientific revolution into one post? Like this:

But what to do about it? The paradox, or “complementarity” at the heart of the modern conservative movement is the tension between tradition, which preserves, and the free market, which relentlessly destroys in order to build. While individual conservatives may or may not contain this tension within themselves, the conservative coalition definitely does, with the “religious right” on one end and libertarians and free marketeers on the other. People wonder how these seeming opposites can coexist in the same tent, but the key may lie in their dynamic complementarity, for freedom only becomes operative, or "evolutionary," when it is bound by transcendent limitations -- which, by the way, is equally true for the individual.

The ironically named progressive left is an inverse image of this evolutionary complementarity. This is because it rejects both the creative destruction of capitalism and the restraints of tradition. Therefore, it is static where it should be dynamic, and dynamic where it should be static. It is as if they want to stop the world and “freeze frame” one version of capitalism, which is why, for example, they oppose free trade. While free trade is always beneficial in the long run, it is obviously going to displace some people and some occupations. It is as if the progressive is an “economic traditionalist,” transferring the resistance to change to the immament realm of economics instead of the spiritual realm of transcendent essences.

I know this is true, because it is what I used to believe when I was a liberal. For example, I grew up at a time when most people worked for large corporations that gave their employees generous pensions and health benefits. As such, it seemed "natural" or normative. In reality, this was just a brief phase of American capitalism, lasting from the mid-1950’s through the 1970’s. But backward looking progressives act as if this aberration was “in the nature of things.” They have a similar attitude toward factory jobs in heavy industry, as if we could somehow go back in time and preserve these high-wage, low-skill jobs.

But while the progressive is thoroughly backward looking with regard to economics, he is the opposite with regard to the spiritual realm. For him, mankind was basically worthless until the scientific revolution, mired as he was in myth, magic, and superstition. Rather, the only reliable way to understand the world is through the scientific method, which has the effect of throwing overboard centuries of truly priceless accumulated spiritual wisdom. It literally severs man from his deepest metaphysical roots and ruptures his vertical continuity. In reality, it destroys the very possibility of man in the archetypal sense -- i.e., actualizing his "spiritual blueprint."

A new kind of man is born out of this progressive spiritual inversion. Yesterday we spoke of castes and of “spiritual DNA.” Progressives, starting with Karl Marx, waged an assault on labor, eliminating its spiritual significance and reducing it to a mindless, collective “proletariat.” You might say that the left honors labor in the same way they honor the military: both are losers.

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Romney Watch

In January of last year we wrote a column about the unlikelihood of Mitt Romney winning the Presidency. Much of our doubt was based on the MSM spin that the Religious Right would never vote for a member of a "cult." Most recent reports seem to contradict our conclusions that Mr. Romney would be unable to make it past the primary.

National Review, perhaps the most widely read and influential magazine on conservative thought recently hosted a cruise for like-minded conservatives. Though not a Religious Right publication, many of their readers and contributors are influential in conservative circles. As part of the cruise they conducted an informal poll.

At a 2008 panel, Kate O'Beirne asked for a show of hands from our 450 cruisers on the major GOP presidential candidates. Romney clearly did best with about 2/3 of the crowd supporting him. My impression was that Giuliani was second, and McCain and Gingrich tied in distant third.

It goes without saying that a 2/3 super majority of staunch conservatives bodes well for presidential primaries where typically only the most fervent partisans turn out to vote.

In answer to the question of whether Evangelical conservatives would support a Mormon for President, Mr. Romney recently appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club. His reception and review there were very positive. Click here to see video of his interview on youtube.com.

We haven't made up our mind about 2008, but we will certainly follow Mr. Romney's campaign with great interest.


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