Business scheduling does not just happen. It takes planning. Its cost money.
This year 2013, Christmas occurred on a Wednesday, smack in the middle of a work week. It meant many if most people did not want to concentrate on working. There is shopping and preparation before the holiday. There are returns to make and more shopping to do after the holiday. In The World of Doing Things other than Commerce, it is a complete waste of a week’s work. It is also hard to have a spiritual holiday three days either way from a Sunday.
Halloween can come on any day of the week and thus disrupts business scheduling in its own way.
Thanksgiving is a little better always coming on the last Thursday of November – but why on Thursday in November?
Christmas can come any day of the week and thus disrupts business scheduling on a big scale. At Christmas time 2013, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was rather shorter than usual and caused a number of problems, notably a foul up in UPS and FedEx that caused them to deliver numerous packages scheduled for before Christmas delivery after Christmas.
The time has come to legislate the new Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Halloween should always come on the last Friday. The last Friday should be the Halloween party night and the Saturday next should be the Trick or Treating Night. This holiday should always occur on a weekend.
Rescheduling Thanksgiving for business purposes has a long, distinguished history. According to an entry in Wikipedia:
“On December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday. Two years earlier, Roosevelt had used a presidential proclamation to try to achieve this change, reasoning that earlier celebration of the holiday would give the country an economic boost.”
In the 21st Century, Thanksgiving should be the third Friday. Thus – we will have three days of work, maybe four depending on travel plans. The holiday comes at the end of the week. Then, the Christmas shopping season can start on Black Saturday. The holiday is also two days from a Sunday for the celebration of the spiritual aspects of Thanksgiving.
In the 21st Century, Christmas should be a movable feast like Easter. We know that the Christmas celebration on 25 December does not reflect reality on the date of Jesus’s birth. The scripture evidence would suggest a spring birth date. Christ’s mass got moved to 25 December for symbolic purposes. 25 December came after the Winter Solstice, so it had natural light and darkness symbolism. Ancients co-opted old pagan Roman midwinter festivals called 'Saturnalia' and 'Dies Natalis Solis Invicti.’ They took place in December around this date — so it was a time when people already celebrated things.
In the 21st Century, Christmas should be celebrated on the fourth Sunday of December. This would then emphasize the spiritual nature of the holiday. The official federal secular American Commercial Wintertime Festival holiday should be celebrated the next Monday. Therefore, the last shopping day would always fall on a Saturday; the day off would always occur at the first of a week. The big after Christmas shopping day would always be on a Tuesday and business would have four work days.
Only one exception in this plan: These particular dates should never fall on a January 1.
Calendaring business is neither easy nor cheap, but this plan would somewhat uncomplicate three holidays almost in a row in as many months. The next step would be to figure out how to de-emphasize commerce profit margins from the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival and spread them out thorough the buying year.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? -- ABOUT SAME SEX MARRIAGE
On his birthday, it would be interesting to ask What Would Jesus Do? What would Jesus do about same-gender marriage?
It is, of course, risky to put words in the mouth of deity --- though humans have been doing that since the beginning.
The New Testament gospels suggests that Jesus was an orthodox conservative on sexual behavior. He was also orthodox conservative on the issue of divorce. He did not do complex rationalizations on either point.
On the subject of homosexuality, the New Testament records no comments from Jesus. The Bible has seven references to homosexuality, but they are found in the Old Testament and in Paul’s writings. To put this in perspective, the Bible has hundreds of references to economic justice and the laws governing the accumulation and distribution of wealth. The Old Testament required a death penalty on dozens of activities — not just murder and homosexuality.
The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants are both silent on homosexuality.
Acts 17 may hint at how Jesus and his associates in the Godhead might view this development in human marriage. The King James version renders it this way –
29 “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
This is how the New Standard Revised version renders the point –
29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
“God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, but now he commands all everywhere to repent . . . .”
Dr Andrew Weil, from the scientific medical perspective, put ignorance of human sexuality this way:
“We think about sex a great deal, yet live in appalling ignorance of its nature and best uses. Even on the most practical level, there is little information to assist us. Most if us struggle to come to terns with this drive without help. Trustworthy guides are seldom found.” – Habits chapter of Natural Health Natural Medicine, p. 161
We wonder and speculate. If and when alien beings arrive on Earth, will they understand the concept of male and female and marriage? Would aliens understand a distinction between opposite gender and same gender sexual activity?
We wonder and speculate. At what point does God considers a couple married ? Why does God see a distinction between married and unmarried sexuality — and why? Does God see a distinction in heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity? Is some of sex or all of it “Ick Factor” to them?
The answer to "What would Jesus Do" in this situation is the same answer to the question in all other situations. The answer is not found in old books, but in the process of continuing revelation. The
God’s love for us is unqualified. However, unqualified love does not mean God is under any particular obligation to like everything we do on any particular subject. This is why “judgement” gets mentioned in scriptures often. This helps explain why the afterlife reward system comes with varying grades and types. That we will get what we want in this life and beyond is a good blessing for this Christmas day.
It is, of course, risky to put words in the mouth of deity --- though humans have been doing that since the beginning.
The New Testament gospels suggests that Jesus was an orthodox conservative on sexual behavior. He was also orthodox conservative on the issue of divorce. He did not do complex rationalizations on either point.
On the subject of homosexuality, the New Testament records no comments from Jesus. The Bible has seven references to homosexuality, but they are found in the Old Testament and in Paul’s writings. To put this in perspective, the Bible has hundreds of references to economic justice and the laws governing the accumulation and distribution of wealth. The Old Testament required a death penalty on dozens of activities — not just murder and homosexuality.
The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants are both silent on homosexuality.
Acts 17 may hint at how Jesus and his associates in the Godhead might view this development in human marriage. The King James version renders it this way –
29 “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
This is how the New Standard Revised version renders the point –
29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
“God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, but now he commands all everywhere to repent . . . .”
Dr Andrew Weil, from the scientific medical perspective, put ignorance of human sexuality this way:
“We think about sex a great deal, yet live in appalling ignorance of its nature and best uses. Even on the most practical level, there is little information to assist us. Most if us struggle to come to terns with this drive without help. Trustworthy guides are seldom found.” – Habits chapter of Natural Health Natural Medicine, p. 161
We wonder and speculate. If and when alien beings arrive on Earth, will they understand the concept of male and female and marriage? Would aliens understand a distinction between opposite gender and same gender sexual activity?
We wonder and speculate. At what point does God considers a couple married ? Why does God see a distinction between married and unmarried sexuality — and why? Does God see a distinction in heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity? Is some of sex or all of it “Ick Factor” to them?
The answer to "What would Jesus Do" in this situation is the same answer to the question in all other situations. The answer is not found in old books, but in the process of continuing revelation. The
God’s love for us is unqualified. However, unqualified love does not mean God is under any particular obligation to like everything we do on any particular subject. This is why “judgement” gets mentioned in scriptures often. This helps explain why the afterlife reward system comes with varying grades and types. That we will get what we want in this life and beyond is a good blessing for this Christmas day.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE: Review of The Sound of Music Live
NBC’s advertising of The Sound of Music Live claims that no network has attempted a live broadcast of a musical in fifty years.
No wonder. If one has videotape to edit, use it.
The live broadcast of 5 December 2013, coming a few hours after the announcement of the death of Nelson Mandela, originated from a large converted warehouse space in Bethpage, New York. It puts me in mind of another memorable live TV musical production – the CBS live broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Julie Andrews, directed by Ralph Nelson. On 31 March 1957, CBS broadcast this nationwide from a converted old Broadway theater, a very tight space in which all the cast had to work around stagehands and big color cameras in choreographed rotations. It was also an early color TV broadcast, available only in those markets that had a CBS station with color transmitters. Unfortunately, CBS made no arrangements for a color kinescope; color videotape was not available in 1957. Fortunately, a black and white kinescope preserved the event; even today, the broadcast looks like a nerve-wracking experience for everyone in front of cameras and behind.
I will say this for The Sound of Music Live. It had remarkably few bloopers or problems. I only noticed
1 someone’s off stage image appearing where it should not
and 2 a camera focusing on live TV. None one froze or passed out or projectile vomited on live TV. I bet it was tempting, though. The production’s most noticeable problem was star Carrie Underwood, who portrayed a very pretty, talented but dull “Maria Rainer.”
“Problem” is probably the wrong word. Carrie looked a treat, and she was closer to the right age for the role than was the original Maria Mary Martin, who was in her 40s in the first 1959 Broadway production. She sings beautifully, but she could not connect to the rest of the cast. However, her lack of acting ability certainly gave the right impression about the character Maria — an inexperience young woman from a convent school.
The rest of the Broadway-trained cast did much better with their roles. They are also used to any problems that will happen in a live performance, so if anything went wrong with them, I certainly did not notice it. The kids who portrayed the former Navy captain’s family did well all the way around.
One aspect impressed me strongly in this production: it got back to the thematic roots of the 1959 production. The 1965 movie, which aimed for the biggest audience possible, removed or de-emphasized some of the themes that Oscar Hammerstein, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse explored in the play.
The Sound of Music originally examined two themes –
1 the survival of the artistic ego against the controlling vindictive, dictatorial ego
and 2 the competition between the spiritual aspect of music and the commercial exploitation of music. It is true that the commercialization of music got the Von Trapp family out of the coliseum and out of Salzburg; it is the spiritual aspect of music that gave them the courage to flee into the mountains and out of the long night of Nazism.
The theme of ego response to the dictatorial controlling ego has in the play version a rather interesting illustration in a support character named “Rolf.”
Rolf is a clean-cut superrace boy who delivers ominous telegrams to the Von Trapp estate. He is, as the song puts it, “17 going on 18" years of age, and in this TV version gets performed by someone really close to that age. In the beginning of the play, he likes girls to the extent that he likes the oldest Von Trapp daughter, Liesl. They get what is called on Broadway the secondary ingenue love song set against the forest set. They even get to role down a grassy flowery incline together. Romantic by NBC standards.
The next time he appears to deliver a telegram, he has brought two other male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend playmates with him. They all wear lederhosen. Rolf obviously is more interested in them than in any girl. The third time he shows up, he portrays a downright surly attitude to Liesl; the Nazi cause is his only interest. In the last scene, he lets the family escape, so by the standards of Broadway 1959, he is still interested in Liesl, but not enough to escape with them. He and his boyfriends must have made beautiful cannon fodder.
How different conditions are on Broadway 2013 vs. 1959. It occurred to me that the modern stage director could use the forest setting nowadays to symbolize Maria’s spirituality [singing “The Sound of Music” at the beginning] and to symbolize Liesl’s young love [singing "16 going on 17"], and to symbolize the Von Trapp’s escape to freedom at the finale, and to illustrate the predatory egos of the male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend. They could have been discovered running through the forest, kicking up the edelweiss and marking their territories urinating on Maria’s tree.
It seems inconceivable, considering that the actress who played Elsa has such talent to play the witty, ironic worldly girlfriend, that the Captain preferred Maria to her. In what world?? However, the play makes clear, as the film did not, that she and Georg and Max all had political differences that effected their relationships. Elsa and Max willingly let controlling egos dictated to them. Georg would not.
I heard years ago the first Broadway cast audio recording album of The Sound of Music songs, so I knew what the original finale sounded like. The memory of that recording did nothing to prepare me for the power of that ending, what with the symbolism of both the Triumph of the Artistic Ego and the glorification of the spiritual aspect of music. I was reduced to tears.
The Sound of Music Live was not as horrible as it could have been. Still, it made me long for the good old days of videotape editing.
No wonder. If one has videotape to edit, use it.
The live broadcast of 5 December 2013, coming a few hours after the announcement of the death of Nelson Mandela, originated from a large converted warehouse space in Bethpage, New York. It puts me in mind of another memorable live TV musical production – the CBS live broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Julie Andrews, directed by Ralph Nelson. On 31 March 1957, CBS broadcast this nationwide from a converted old Broadway theater, a very tight space in which all the cast had to work around stagehands and big color cameras in choreographed rotations. It was also an early color TV broadcast, available only in those markets that had a CBS station with color transmitters. Unfortunately, CBS made no arrangements for a color kinescope; color videotape was not available in 1957. Fortunately, a black and white kinescope preserved the event; even today, the broadcast looks like a nerve-wracking experience for everyone in front of cameras and behind.
I will say this for The Sound of Music Live. It had remarkably few bloopers or problems. I only noticed
1 someone’s off stage image appearing where it should not
and 2 a camera focusing on live TV. None one froze or passed out or projectile vomited on live TV. I bet it was tempting, though. The production’s most noticeable problem was star Carrie Underwood, who portrayed a very pretty, talented but dull “Maria Rainer.”
“Problem” is probably the wrong word. Carrie looked a treat, and she was closer to the right age for the role than was the original Maria Mary Martin, who was in her 40s in the first 1959 Broadway production. She sings beautifully, but she could not connect to the rest of the cast. However, her lack of acting ability certainly gave the right impression about the character Maria — an inexperience young woman from a convent school.
The rest of the Broadway-trained cast did much better with their roles. They are also used to any problems that will happen in a live performance, so if anything went wrong with them, I certainly did not notice it. The kids who portrayed the former Navy captain’s family did well all the way around.
One aspect impressed me strongly in this production: it got back to the thematic roots of the 1959 production. The 1965 movie, which aimed for the biggest audience possible, removed or de-emphasized some of the themes that Oscar Hammerstein, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse explored in the play.
The Sound of Music originally examined two themes –
1 the survival of the artistic ego against the controlling vindictive, dictatorial ego
and 2 the competition between the spiritual aspect of music and the commercial exploitation of music. It is true that the commercialization of music got the Von Trapp family out of the coliseum and out of Salzburg; it is the spiritual aspect of music that gave them the courage to flee into the mountains and out of the long night of Nazism.
The theme of ego response to the dictatorial controlling ego has in the play version a rather interesting illustration in a support character named “Rolf.”
Rolf is a clean-cut superrace boy who delivers ominous telegrams to the Von Trapp estate. He is, as the song puts it, “17 going on 18" years of age, and in this TV version gets performed by someone really close to that age. In the beginning of the play, he likes girls to the extent that he likes the oldest Von Trapp daughter, Liesl. They get what is called on Broadway the secondary ingenue love song set against the forest set. They even get to role down a grassy flowery incline together. Romantic by NBC standards.
The next time he appears to deliver a telegram, he has brought two other male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend playmates with him. They all wear lederhosen. Rolf obviously is more interested in them than in any girl. The third time he shows up, he portrays a downright surly attitude to Liesl; the Nazi cause is his only interest. In the last scene, he lets the family escape, so by the standards of Broadway 1959, he is still interested in Liesl, but not enough to escape with them. He and his boyfriends must have made beautiful cannon fodder.
How different conditions are on Broadway 2013 vs. 1959. It occurred to me that the modern stage director could use the forest setting nowadays to symbolize Maria’s spirituality [singing “The Sound of Music” at the beginning] and to symbolize Liesl’s young love [singing "16 going on 17"], and to symbolize the Von Trapp’s escape to freedom at the finale, and to illustrate the predatory egos of the male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend. They could have been discovered running through the forest, kicking up the edelweiss and marking their territories urinating on Maria’s tree.
It seems inconceivable, considering that the actress who played Elsa has such talent to play the witty, ironic worldly girlfriend, that the Captain preferred Maria to her. In what world?? However, the play makes clear, as the film did not, that she and Georg and Max all had political differences that effected their relationships. Elsa and Max willingly let controlling egos dictated to them. Georg would not.
I heard years ago the first Broadway cast audio recording album of The Sound of Music songs, so I knew what the original finale sounded like. The memory of that recording did nothing to prepare me for the power of that ending, what with the symbolism of both the Triumph of the Artistic Ego and the glorification of the spiritual aspect of music. I was reduced to tears.
The Sound of Music Live was not as horrible as it could have been. Still, it made me long for the good old days of videotape editing.
Friday, November 22, 2013
THE SENATE "NUCLEAR OPTION" : symptom not of Congressional problem but of nation-wide problems
The Senate leadership detonated the nuclear option on 21 November 2013. It is yet another example that when humans built a weapon, they will always find an excuse to use it whether it is a good idea or not.
The United States has 317,000,000 residents. It is a nation of 11 rather different nations. Given that reality, a Senate majority of half plus one is more realistic and more attainable than 60 percent.
The use of the filibuster, per se, did not constitute the real problem in the Senate. Its problem results from side effects and symptoms of a bigger nation-wide problem. Population size. Out-dated internal boundaries. Small totals of senators and representatives working for a huge population.
For The United States’s Congress to function with real representation and fairly, the United States needs -- for a basic foundation -- 75 - 100 states of populations between 3,175,000 to 9,000,000. Not too big. Not too small. Just right for the purposes of governance and raising local revenues.
That number of states would generate a Senate of 150 - 200 senators. Given the population of this nation and a Senate of that size, a 60% majority might under those conditions be workable. However, a majority of half plus one remains more ideally politically realistic.
The House of Representatives should have much more than 435 representatives, a number that dates back to 1912 when the country had less than 100,000,000 people. Consider –
The House would feature 500 representatives if one representative represents 634,000 citizens.
The House would feature 635 representative if 1 representative represents 500,000 citizens.
It is realistic to expect a country with 317,000,000 citizens should have a House of Representatives with 1000 representatives. 1 representative for 300,000 citizens, give or take. It means that the House leadership would be rather like the mayor and town council of a village.
The Nuclear Option is really not about a 60 person majority or a 51 person majority. The problem remains: the problem of the size of states and the number of Senators and Representatives. Those who want smaller government simply do not understand the representative needs of 317,000,000 citizens.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
OBAMACARE, FEDERAL SHUT DOWN, ASSESSING BLAME: Congress is an easy target, but not the only responsible party.
The Democrats in Congress and the Republicans in Congress and the Democrats in the Administration all, metaphorically speaking, stood eyeball to eyeball for the last week and refused to blink. Certain parts of the federal government, as a result, closed down for a lack of a budget because a certain minority of Congress members refuse to accept one particular statute now derisively referred to as “ObamaCare.”
A STIPULATION
We hear these days a lot of leaders and citizens talking about the hatred of ObamaCare in terms of preserving or expanding “liberty.” This tactic is, at best, disingenuous. The real issues, it seems to this correspondent, are about funding and structure and health. These are more tangible than an obscurely defined word.
THE MAIN CULPRIT IN THE BLAME GAME
There is certainly enough childish blame to go around Congress and the executive. However, the heaping helping of childish behavior this time goes to Republican Congress members who seem convinced health is not part of the "general welfare" or "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and is now just another commodity only people with money deserve.
Today, though, I want to discuss some people who also share blame in this mess. Those people are us citizens.
1 Many if not most of us have our pet federal projects want funded to the limit so long as someone else’s tax money funds them.
2. Many if not most of us do our best to minimize federal tax payments but maximize our use of federal programs.
3 Many people have the moral rectitude and emotional stamina to serve as excellent elected Representatives and Senators. Many of us refuse to serve. How many talented, first-class citizens among us make jokes and criticize the people who have been elected to office while refusing to serve? Someone, however crazy or obstinate, will always appear on a ballet to fill in the power vacuum.
4. If our leadership seems to develop mental health issues in office, if crazy people seem attracted to American public office, remember this: the climate of government these days, the climate of angry public discourse from hypocritical constituents.
5. Many citizens, too many of them in fact, appear to have forgotten that health is a part of “general welfare” spoken of in The Constitution of the United States and is part of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” spoken of in the Declaration of Independence. There are public obligations to health; it is not merely a private responsibility. It may be true that our representatives seem to have obsessed over health costs and payments and insurance at the expense of promoting health itself. However, many citizens seem motivated by resentment that the poor and the colored and the immigrants will get away with something, will get something for nothing.
6. Too many of us will not even educate ourselves about federal issues or even vote for quality candidates.
We should not be surprised if members of Congress do not particularly pay attention to the citizens any more.
THE CALL FOR ACTION
The citizens cannot just expect to wait around and get what they want in the way of federal health programs. We must lobby for
1 Separating the issues of insurance from employment.
2 Creating a one payer system. It might involve some sort of variety in programs for individual needs, but a healthy system for healthy people should have some major streamlining.
3 Tightening federal regulation of hospital billing so that from one place to another the itemizing of hospital bill items will become more uniform.
4 Creating a health program. It might be federal or state sponsored, but new structure we need. This is not quite to say create a federal medical bureaucracy.
A STIPULATION
We hear these days a lot of leaders and citizens talking about the hatred of ObamaCare in terms of preserving or expanding “liberty.” This tactic is, at best, disingenuous. The real issues, it seems to this correspondent, are about funding and structure and health. These are more tangible than an obscurely defined word.
THE MAIN CULPRIT IN THE BLAME GAME
There is certainly enough childish blame to go around Congress and the executive. However, the heaping helping of childish behavior this time goes to Republican Congress members who seem convinced health is not part of the "general welfare" or "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and is now just another commodity only people with money deserve.
Today, though, I want to discuss some people who also share blame in this mess. Those people are us citizens.
1 Many if not most of us have our pet federal projects want funded to the limit so long as someone else’s tax money funds them.
2. Many if not most of us do our best to minimize federal tax payments but maximize our use of federal programs.
3 Many people have the moral rectitude and emotional stamina to serve as excellent elected Representatives and Senators. Many of us refuse to serve. How many talented, first-class citizens among us make jokes and criticize the people who have been elected to office while refusing to serve? Someone, however crazy or obstinate, will always appear on a ballet to fill in the power vacuum.
4. If our leadership seems to develop mental health issues in office, if crazy people seem attracted to American public office, remember this: the climate of government these days, the climate of angry public discourse from hypocritical constituents.
5. Many citizens, too many of them in fact, appear to have forgotten that health is a part of “general welfare” spoken of in The Constitution of the United States and is part of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” spoken of in the Declaration of Independence. There are public obligations to health; it is not merely a private responsibility. It may be true that our representatives seem to have obsessed over health costs and payments and insurance at the expense of promoting health itself. However, many citizens seem motivated by resentment that the poor and the colored and the immigrants will get away with something, will get something for nothing.
6. Too many of us will not even educate ourselves about federal issues or even vote for quality candidates.
We should not be surprised if members of Congress do not particularly pay attention to the citizens any more.
THE CALL FOR ACTION
The citizens cannot just expect to wait around and get what they want in the way of federal health programs. We must lobby for
1 Separating the issues of insurance from employment.
2 Creating a one payer system. It might involve some sort of variety in programs for individual needs, but a healthy system for healthy people should have some major streamlining.
3 Tightening federal regulation of hospital billing so that from one place to another the itemizing of hospital bill items will become more uniform.
4 Creating a health program. It might be federal or state sponsored, but new structure we need. This is not quite to say create a federal medical bureaucracy.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
HAVE DONE WITH LESSER THINGS: Arise ye men and women of Zion and watch general priesthood meeting together
The women who requested tickets to LDS general priesthood meeting and / or intended to stand in line that evening to get stand by ticket seating have caused a real change.
General Priesthood broadcast was the major guys night out event of the spring and autumn social seasons – sometimes with dinners out afterward. With this announcement the LDS priesthood holding father can watch the broadcast at home with his wife and kids. This is change amid change.
LDS general priesthood meeting to be broadcast live and online for the first time
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586991/LDS-general-priesthood-meeting-to-be-broadcast-live-for-the-first-time.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 10:35 a.m. MDT
Updated: 4:00 p.m. 24 September 2013
SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will offer the male-only priesthood session of the upcoming general conference over live broadcast television and in real time over the Internet.
In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday morning, church officials indicated the priesthood session of its 183rd Semiannual General Conference on Oct. 5 will be broadcast live on BYUtv and two online resources, LDS.org and the Mormon Channel. According to the press release, the church has chosen to do so "as part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
Until now, the priesthood session has only been broadcast live to LDS meetinghouses via the church's extensive satellite system. To see it live, men and boys have had to travel to meetinghouses equipped with satellite dishes or attend the session in the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
The new procedure mirrors the pattern used for the live broadcast of LDS general Relief Society and Young Women meetings, which are held one week before general conference in the fall and spring, respectively.
On the surface this decision seems a shrewd move to disarm the women who want to attend the meeting in person and who ultimately want ordination to the priesthood. The Deseret News posted this article the same afternoon. It generated quite a lot of comment on-line, including a comment from a reader in Omaha who noted “God has order in his priesthood and his church.” It would probably be more accurate to put it this way
God has his Order in the Church.
LDS Church responds to priesthood meeting request by activists
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586996/LDS-Church-responds-to-priesthood-meeting-request-by-activists.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 11:55 a.m. MDT
SALT LAKE CITY — This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women around the world will participate, either in person or via broadcast, in the annual general Relief Society meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
An estimated 20,000 will congregate in the Conference Center for the meeting.
Seven days later, a much smaller group of women — probably somewhere between 150 and 200 — plan to approach LDS Conference Center ushers and ask to be admitted without tickets to the priesthood session of the church’s 183rd Semiannual General Conference. For the more than 70 years that the priesthood session has been conducted in the format that it follows today, men and boys 12 years of age and older have been exclusively invited to attend the session, often coming together as fathers and sons.
The women, who last week formally requested tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session, will not be admitted.
“It is the hope of the church that the priesthood session will strengthen the men and young men including fathers and sons, and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instruction related to priesthood duties and responsibilities,” church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said Tuesday in a letter to the group, "much the same way parallel meetings are held for sisters, such as the general Relief Society meeting.
"It’s for these reasons that tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission."
Todd also invited the women to “view the live priesthood session broadcast, as well as the other general conference sessions, on lds.org, The Mormon Channel or BYUtv.”
This will be the first time the general priesthood session of LDS conference is broadcast live to a general television or Internet audience. In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday, church officials indicated the live TV and Internet broadcast of the session is "part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
"We are pleased that the church has demonstrated its ability to change to be more inclusive by making the session available through live broadcast," said Kate Kelly, one of the organizers of the action to request priesthood meeting tickets for women. "This is an important step toward a future where Mormon women will participate side by side with our brothers in all areas of church leadership and life."
However, the church's two decisions — to deny entrance to women and to broadcast the priesthood session live — will not curtail the planned action, Kelly said.
"We will be in the line for standby tickets to the priesthood session on Oct. 5 to demonstrate our continued willingness and desire to attend," said Kelly, who indicated the group will meet at City Creek Park at 4 p.m. to pray and sing and then walk together to the Conference Center to ask for admittance. "We are demonstrating our faith by standing at the door and knocking."
Besides, she noted during a telephone interview last week, "this isn't really just about going to priesthood meeting."
"This is about the ordination of women to the priesthood," said Kelly, an international human rights attorney in Washington, D.C., who is one of the founders of Ordain Women, an Internet-driven campaign that professes to be for “Mormon women seeking equality and ordination to the priesthood.”
"We consider ourselves to be prospective priesthood holders," she continued, "and we want to go to priesthood meeting so we can show our leaders that we are ready for both the benefits and responsibilities of the priesthood. That is our focus."
Kelly was born in Oregon and reared by parents who converted to the LDS Church. A lifelong Mormon, she is a BYU graduate who served in the Spain Barcelona Mission. Today she is the chorister in her LDS ward's Relief Society. She referred to those experiences as she explained why she believes LDS women should receive the priesthood.
“To me, agitating on the issue is a question of self-respect,” she said. “I respect and value the church and myself too much to be silent on this question. I truly believe that God wants us all to equally share the burdens and blessings of the priesthood. The ordination of women would put us all on equal spiritual footing with our brethren, and nothing less will suffice.”
“Equality is an interesting term,” said Sister Linda K. Burton, general Relief Society president, in a video posted last April featuring the leaders of three LDS Church auxiliaries talking about the role of women in church leadership. “It doesn’t always mean sameness. We are of equal value no matter where we are — in the church or in the home. In the home we are co-equal spiritual leaders. I think that’s an important thing that sometimes is misunderstood. We can have equality while having different roles.”
For the most part, Sister Burton said, “I don’t think (LDS) women are after the authority (of the priesthood) — I think they are after the blessings. And they are happy that they can access the blessings and power of the priesthood.”
The empirical research seems to support Sister Burton. For their landmark book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” David Campbell and Robert Putnam conducted two extensive surveys on religion and public life in America. They found that an overwhelming majority of LDS women — 90 percent — are opposed to priesthood ordination for women. By comparison, 52 percent of LDS men oppose priesthood ordination for women.
More recently, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life conducted a national survey of Mormons in America. It found that overall 87 percent of Latter-day Saints — 90 percent of LDS women and 84 percent of LDS men — are opposed to women being ordained to the priesthood. The number climbs as high as 95 percent among those who claim a high degree of religious commitment. Even among those who claim a lower degree of religious commitment, 69 percent are opposed.
Kathryn Skaggs, who writes her widely read blog, A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman, from her home in Murrieta, Calif., said she believes she speaks for that vast majority of Mormon women when she expresses frustration "that this small element within the church who are pressing for the priesthood use the media to draw attention to themselves, as if they speak for all Mormon women."
"They don't represent us," Skaggs said in a telephone interview. "That's not to minimize those who have these passionate feelings about women being ordained to the priesthood. But my personal church experience suggests that most of us are at peace with how the Lord has chosen to establish his kingdom upon the earth. And there's a bit of resentment that the beautiful messages of conference might be overshadowed by this small group that doesn't even represent the feelings of mainstream Mormon women.
"I just really have a hard time feeling good about it," Skaggs continued. "They are taking the attention away from the reason we have general conference in the first place: to listen to what living prophets have to say to us. Instead, they are trying to get the living prophets to listen to them. That just seems wrong to me."
Writing on Patheos.com, BYU professor Margaret Blair Young, well-known for her detailed work on the history of black Mormons, said she would not be surprised to see more privileges extended to women in the near future. But, she observed, "this will not happen through press conferences.”
“For all who seek change of any kind in the church, I urge patience and faith,” Young wrote. “Cling to the things you value and don’t forget them as you seek positive change. We are not the Church of the Infallible Prophet, nor the Church of Your Particular Issue, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are a community, still learning lessons in loving one another and providing support for each other in our various journeys.”
For the Ordain Women movement, Kelly says, that journey won't end with the church's decision not to admit them to this October's general priesthood meeting.
"We operate on the Lord's time," she said. "We are not demanding anything. We are respectfully requesting that the brethren petition the Lord and ask if it is time that women are given the priesthood.
"Of course we believe it is God's priesthood," she said, responding to a question that is often asked of her by Latter-day Saints who do not approve of the Ordain Women movement. "If we didn't believe that, then why bother? But we all know the priesthood has been expanded over time. Christ expanded it to the Gentiles. In 1978 it was expanded to all worthy males. We see this as just another expansion whose time has come."
And so, she says, "Ordain Women will remain intact."
"We will continue to seek ordination through action and discussion," she said. "We plan to move forward in creative, faithful, courageous ways."
Which Skaggs says she understands and respects, in a way.
"I think it's very natural for LDS women to ask why the order of the church is the way it is," she said. "I think we've all asked it in one way or another, at one time or another in our lives. But most of us have received the witness that this is God's living church on the face of the earth, and we are willing to accept that this is the way the Lord would have it be. Just knowing that that's his will, it makes it easier to say, 'Thy will be done.'
"So I'm not going to be upset or frustrated or angry, because I know and trust that this is the Lord's decision," she continued. "I don't have to know why. I just have to know that this is the way the Lord has laid it out, and continue to believe and exercise my faith in him and his living church."
Meanwhile at the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack saw the announcements pretty clearer. Her report had a certain butter won’t melt in her mouth tone.
Women can see, but not attend, the Mormon priesthood session
Religion • LDS Church to broadcast meeting live for the first time, but won’t let women into the Conference Center.
Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56914470-78/priesthood-session-women-tickets.html.csp
Published: September 24, 2013 03:23PM
Updated: September 24, 2013 05:29PM
Ordain Women sees the LDS Church’s historic announcement that next week’s general priesthood session will be telecast live for the first time as a step forward. But, in the end, the group is still being shut out.
For the past few months, Ordain Women, which is pushing to open the faith’s all-male priesthood to females, has been asking for tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session of the 183rd Semiannual General Conference.
The meeting has been off-limits to women, even wives of LDS presidents and apostles. Traditionally, it has been the only one of the five sessions broadcast only to Mormon chapels and not publicly available.
On Tuesday, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that “the priesthood session will be shown live for the first time through expanded channels, including LDS.org, the Mormon Channel and BYUtv.”
When asked whether Ordain Women’s plan had prompted the decision to telecast the session, church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said in a statement that “broadcasting the priesthood session ... is simply another step in reaching a worldwide audience in a way that makes sense in a global church.”
In a letter directly to Ordain Women, Todd wrote: “Tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission.”
Even so, more than 200 women in the group still plan to wait in the standby line at the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City for tickets to the session.
“We will stand with men and boys who did not reserve tickets in advance of the priesthood session,” said Kate Kelly, one of Ordain Women’s organizers. “There may be more tickets available now that people can choose to watch the session at home.”
The group sees this effort for tickets “as a continuation of us asking, seeking and knocking,” Kelly, an international-rights lawyer, said from Washington, D.C. “It demonstrates our willingness to receive the priesthood and to accept the responsibilities that come with it.”
Female participation falls outside the purpose of the priesthood session, Todd wrote to Ordain Women.
It is meant to “strengthen the men and young men, including fathers and sons,” she wrote, “and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instructions related to priesthood duties and responsibilities.”
Todd explained that the priesthood session is for men what the general Relief Society and Young Women sessions — held in October and April the week before the two-day conference — are for women.
“We welcome you to view the live priesthood session broadcast,” Todd wrote.
But the two women’s meetings — unlike the priesthood session — are not considered part of general conference, Kelly noted in a statement, “and male priesthood holders always preside over and speak at this meeting, whereas women have never been permitted to preside over, speak at (with one exception in 1946), or even attend the priesthood session in the Conference Center.”
In the past, she said, major announcements were delivered at the priesthood session, including “the Perpetual Education Fund [which provides loans to Mormon students abroad to further their schooling], changes in temple recommend policies and availability, and announcement of new temple construction.”
Kelly pointed out the letter came from the church’s Public Affairs Department and not from its male authorities.
“We don’t see our actions as contradicting anything that was said to us directly by leaders,” Kelly said. “Our intention is to communicate a message to our leaders and to the Lord.”
If they are denied in-person access to the priesthood meeting, these activists plan to return to City Creek Park a block away to “continue our call for the ordination of women.”
After all, Kelly said, that is the group’s ultimate goal.
© Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
THE CONCLUSION:
Hard to tell if the general authorities realize that certain decisions of late have started aligning Church leadership to a decision to ordain women to the priesthood
Elder Russell M Nelson, chairman of the Missionary Department and father of about nine daughters, gets to oversee The Lord Hastening His Work. His roll in all this is open to some interpretation, including that of Trojan Horse. The decision to drop minimum female missionary age from 21 to 19 could conceivably bring in a high percentage of young women missionaries. Percentages in the 40s, maybe even in the low 50s. Over the years, priesthood leaders and boy missionaries have treated sister missionaries rather like Cinderellas before the Ball in the Missionary Department. The Missionary Department treated a mission as a rite of passage for boys and as a result the whole enterprise did have a certain boys PE quality to it. Some -- if not most -- men tolerated the young women but did not exactly encourage them -- when they came in small numbers. If they come in large numbers, then the issue becomes this – why shouldn’t women get actual leadership opportunities in the Missionary Program if they represent a large percentage of the missionaries?
In early October, women can watch the priesthood broadcasts for themselves instead of just reading the text, can gather in the great body of the priesthood receiving instructions from its prophets/leaders. Preparation time.
As for me: Only the latest development that makes "guys nights out" increasingly harder and harder to get.
General Priesthood broadcast was the major guys night out event of the spring and autumn social seasons – sometimes with dinners out afterward. With this announcement the LDS priesthood holding father can watch the broadcast at home with his wife and kids. This is change amid change.
LDS general priesthood meeting to be broadcast live and online for the first time
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586991/LDS-general-priesthood-meeting-to-be-broadcast-live-for-the-first-time.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 10:35 a.m. MDT
Updated: 4:00 p.m. 24 September 2013
SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will offer the male-only priesthood session of the upcoming general conference over live broadcast television and in real time over the Internet.
In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday morning, church officials indicated the priesthood session of its 183rd Semiannual General Conference on Oct. 5 will be broadcast live on BYUtv and two online resources, LDS.org and the Mormon Channel. According to the press release, the church has chosen to do so "as part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
Until now, the priesthood session has only been broadcast live to LDS meetinghouses via the church's extensive satellite system. To see it live, men and boys have had to travel to meetinghouses equipped with satellite dishes or attend the session in the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
The new procedure mirrors the pattern used for the live broadcast of LDS general Relief Society and Young Women meetings, which are held one week before general conference in the fall and spring, respectively.
On the surface this decision seems a shrewd move to disarm the women who want to attend the meeting in person and who ultimately want ordination to the priesthood. The Deseret News posted this article the same afternoon. It generated quite a lot of comment on-line, including a comment from a reader in Omaha who noted “God has order in his priesthood and his church.” It would probably be more accurate to put it this way
God has his Order in the Church.
LDS Church responds to priesthood meeting request by activists
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586996/LDS-Church-responds-to-priesthood-meeting-request-by-activists.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 11:55 a.m. MDT
SALT LAKE CITY — This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women around the world will participate, either in person or via broadcast, in the annual general Relief Society meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
An estimated 20,000 will congregate in the Conference Center for the meeting.
Seven days later, a much smaller group of women — probably somewhere between 150 and 200 — plan to approach LDS Conference Center ushers and ask to be admitted without tickets to the priesthood session of the church’s 183rd Semiannual General Conference. For the more than 70 years that the priesthood session has been conducted in the format that it follows today, men and boys 12 years of age and older have been exclusively invited to attend the session, often coming together as fathers and sons.
The women, who last week formally requested tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session, will not be admitted.
“It is the hope of the church that the priesthood session will strengthen the men and young men including fathers and sons, and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instruction related to priesthood duties and responsibilities,” church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said Tuesday in a letter to the group, "much the same way parallel meetings are held for sisters, such as the general Relief Society meeting.
"It’s for these reasons that tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission."
Todd also invited the women to “view the live priesthood session broadcast, as well as the other general conference sessions, on lds.org, The Mormon Channel or BYUtv.”
This will be the first time the general priesthood session of LDS conference is broadcast live to a general television or Internet audience. In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday, church officials indicated the live TV and Internet broadcast of the session is "part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
"We are pleased that the church has demonstrated its ability to change to be more inclusive by making the session available through live broadcast," said Kate Kelly, one of the organizers of the action to request priesthood meeting tickets for women. "This is an important step toward a future where Mormon women will participate side by side with our brothers in all areas of church leadership and life."
However, the church's two decisions — to deny entrance to women and to broadcast the priesthood session live — will not curtail the planned action, Kelly said.
"We will be in the line for standby tickets to the priesthood session on Oct. 5 to demonstrate our continued willingness and desire to attend," said Kelly, who indicated the group will meet at City Creek Park at 4 p.m. to pray and sing and then walk together to the Conference Center to ask for admittance. "We are demonstrating our faith by standing at the door and knocking."
Besides, she noted during a telephone interview last week, "this isn't really just about going to priesthood meeting."
"This is about the ordination of women to the priesthood," said Kelly, an international human rights attorney in Washington, D.C., who is one of the founders of Ordain Women, an Internet-driven campaign that professes to be for “Mormon women seeking equality and ordination to the priesthood.”
"We consider ourselves to be prospective priesthood holders," she continued, "and we want to go to priesthood meeting so we can show our leaders that we are ready for both the benefits and responsibilities of the priesthood. That is our focus."
Kelly was born in Oregon and reared by parents who converted to the LDS Church. A lifelong Mormon, she is a BYU graduate who served in the Spain Barcelona Mission. Today she is the chorister in her LDS ward's Relief Society. She referred to those experiences as she explained why she believes LDS women should receive the priesthood.
“To me, agitating on the issue is a question of self-respect,” she said. “I respect and value the church and myself too much to be silent on this question. I truly believe that God wants us all to equally share the burdens and blessings of the priesthood. The ordination of women would put us all on equal spiritual footing with our brethren, and nothing less will suffice.”
“Equality is an interesting term,” said Sister Linda K. Burton, general Relief Society president, in a video posted last April featuring the leaders of three LDS Church auxiliaries talking about the role of women in church leadership. “It doesn’t always mean sameness. We are of equal value no matter where we are — in the church or in the home. In the home we are co-equal spiritual leaders. I think that’s an important thing that sometimes is misunderstood. We can have equality while having different roles.”
For the most part, Sister Burton said, “I don’t think (LDS) women are after the authority (of the priesthood) — I think they are after the blessings. And they are happy that they can access the blessings and power of the priesthood.”
The empirical research seems to support Sister Burton. For their landmark book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” David Campbell and Robert Putnam conducted two extensive surveys on religion and public life in America. They found that an overwhelming majority of LDS women — 90 percent — are opposed to priesthood ordination for women. By comparison, 52 percent of LDS men oppose priesthood ordination for women.
More recently, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life conducted a national survey of Mormons in America. It found that overall 87 percent of Latter-day Saints — 90 percent of LDS women and 84 percent of LDS men — are opposed to women being ordained to the priesthood. The number climbs as high as 95 percent among those who claim a high degree of religious commitment. Even among those who claim a lower degree of religious commitment, 69 percent are opposed.
Kathryn Skaggs, who writes her widely read blog, A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman, from her home in Murrieta, Calif., said she believes she speaks for that vast majority of Mormon women when she expresses frustration "that this small element within the church who are pressing for the priesthood use the media to draw attention to themselves, as if they speak for all Mormon women."
"They don't represent us," Skaggs said in a telephone interview. "That's not to minimize those who have these passionate feelings about women being ordained to the priesthood. But my personal church experience suggests that most of us are at peace with how the Lord has chosen to establish his kingdom upon the earth. And there's a bit of resentment that the beautiful messages of conference might be overshadowed by this small group that doesn't even represent the feelings of mainstream Mormon women.
"I just really have a hard time feeling good about it," Skaggs continued. "They are taking the attention away from the reason we have general conference in the first place: to listen to what living prophets have to say to us. Instead, they are trying to get the living prophets to listen to them. That just seems wrong to me."
Writing on Patheos.com, BYU professor Margaret Blair Young, well-known for her detailed work on the history of black Mormons, said she would not be surprised to see more privileges extended to women in the near future. But, she observed, "this will not happen through press conferences.”
“For all who seek change of any kind in the church, I urge patience and faith,” Young wrote. “Cling to the things you value and don’t forget them as you seek positive change. We are not the Church of the Infallible Prophet, nor the Church of Your Particular Issue, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are a community, still learning lessons in loving one another and providing support for each other in our various journeys.”
For the Ordain Women movement, Kelly says, that journey won't end with the church's decision not to admit them to this October's general priesthood meeting.
"We operate on the Lord's time," she said. "We are not demanding anything. We are respectfully requesting that the brethren petition the Lord and ask if it is time that women are given the priesthood.
"Of course we believe it is God's priesthood," she said, responding to a question that is often asked of her by Latter-day Saints who do not approve of the Ordain Women movement. "If we didn't believe that, then why bother? But we all know the priesthood has been expanded over time. Christ expanded it to the Gentiles. In 1978 it was expanded to all worthy males. We see this as just another expansion whose time has come."
And so, she says, "Ordain Women will remain intact."
"We will continue to seek ordination through action and discussion," she said. "We plan to move forward in creative, faithful, courageous ways."
Which Skaggs says she understands and respects, in a way.
"I think it's very natural for LDS women to ask why the order of the church is the way it is," she said. "I think we've all asked it in one way or another, at one time or another in our lives. But most of us have received the witness that this is God's living church on the face of the earth, and we are willing to accept that this is the way the Lord would have it be. Just knowing that that's his will, it makes it easier to say, 'Thy will be done.'
"So I'm not going to be upset or frustrated or angry, because I know and trust that this is the Lord's decision," she continued. "I don't have to know why. I just have to know that this is the way the Lord has laid it out, and continue to believe and exercise my faith in him and his living church."
Meanwhile at the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack saw the announcements pretty clearer. Her report had a certain butter won’t melt in her mouth tone.
Women can see, but not attend, the Mormon priesthood session
Religion • LDS Church to broadcast meeting live for the first time, but won’t let women into the Conference Center.
Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56914470-78/priesthood-session-women-tickets.html.csp
Published: September 24, 2013 03:23PM
Updated: September 24, 2013 05:29PM
Ordain Women sees the LDS Church’s historic announcement that next week’s general priesthood session will be telecast live for the first time as a step forward. But, in the end, the group is still being shut out.
For the past few months, Ordain Women, which is pushing to open the faith’s all-male priesthood to females, has been asking for tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session of the 183rd Semiannual General Conference.
The meeting has been off-limits to women, even wives of LDS presidents and apostles. Traditionally, it has been the only one of the five sessions broadcast only to Mormon chapels and not publicly available.
On Tuesday, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that “the priesthood session will be shown live for the first time through expanded channels, including LDS.org, the Mormon Channel and BYUtv.”
When asked whether Ordain Women’s plan had prompted the decision to telecast the session, church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said in a statement that “broadcasting the priesthood session ... is simply another step in reaching a worldwide audience in a way that makes sense in a global church.”
In a letter directly to Ordain Women, Todd wrote: “Tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission.”
Even so, more than 200 women in the group still plan to wait in the standby line at the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City for tickets to the session.
“We will stand with men and boys who did not reserve tickets in advance of the priesthood session,” said Kate Kelly, one of Ordain Women’s organizers. “There may be more tickets available now that people can choose to watch the session at home.”
The group sees this effort for tickets “as a continuation of us asking, seeking and knocking,” Kelly, an international-rights lawyer, said from Washington, D.C. “It demonstrates our willingness to receive the priesthood and to accept the responsibilities that come with it.”
Female participation falls outside the purpose of the priesthood session, Todd wrote to Ordain Women.
It is meant to “strengthen the men and young men, including fathers and sons,” she wrote, “and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instructions related to priesthood duties and responsibilities.”
Todd explained that the priesthood session is for men what the general Relief Society and Young Women sessions — held in October and April the week before the two-day conference — are for women.
“We welcome you to view the live priesthood session broadcast,” Todd wrote.
But the two women’s meetings — unlike the priesthood session — are not considered part of general conference, Kelly noted in a statement, “and male priesthood holders always preside over and speak at this meeting, whereas women have never been permitted to preside over, speak at (with one exception in 1946), or even attend the priesthood session in the Conference Center.”
In the past, she said, major announcements were delivered at the priesthood session, including “the Perpetual Education Fund [which provides loans to Mormon students abroad to further their schooling], changes in temple recommend policies and availability, and announcement of new temple construction.”
Kelly pointed out the letter came from the church’s Public Affairs Department and not from its male authorities.
“We don’t see our actions as contradicting anything that was said to us directly by leaders,” Kelly said. “Our intention is to communicate a message to our leaders and to the Lord.”
If they are denied in-person access to the priesthood meeting, these activists plan to return to City Creek Park a block away to “continue our call for the ordination of women.”
After all, Kelly said, that is the group’s ultimate goal.
© Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
THE CONCLUSION:
Hard to tell if the general authorities realize that certain decisions of late have started aligning Church leadership to a decision to ordain women to the priesthood
Elder Russell M Nelson, chairman of the Missionary Department and father of about nine daughters, gets to oversee The Lord Hastening His Work. His roll in all this is open to some interpretation, including that of Trojan Horse. The decision to drop minimum female missionary age from 21 to 19 could conceivably bring in a high percentage of young women missionaries. Percentages in the 40s, maybe even in the low 50s. Over the years, priesthood leaders and boy missionaries have treated sister missionaries rather like Cinderellas before the Ball in the Missionary Department. The Missionary Department treated a mission as a rite of passage for boys and as a result the whole enterprise did have a certain boys PE quality to it. Some -- if not most -- men tolerated the young women but did not exactly encourage them -- when they came in small numbers. If they come in large numbers, then the issue becomes this – why shouldn’t women get actual leadership opportunities in the Missionary Program if they represent a large percentage of the missionaries?
In early October, women can watch the priesthood broadcasts for themselves instead of just reading the text, can gather in the great body of the priesthood receiving instructions from its prophets/leaders. Preparation time.
As for me: Only the latest development that makes "guys nights out" increasingly harder and harder to get.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
UTAH DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO SPELL CONSERVATION: Western water and modern political realities
When the Colorado River Compact went into effect in the early 1920s, its creators divided the river arbitrarily into an upper river and a lower river – rather like the way uninformed people and their mapmakers had for years arbitrarily named the Colorado River System as three rivers – Grand, Green, Colorado – when it was and is really one river system. The whole thing is out-of-date and based on untrue assumptions.
In the 1920s, no one in power thought future people would be idiotic enough to put four million people into the Valley of the Sun, 2 million people into Clark County, and 10 million people into the Los Angeles Basin. Idiocy aside, we must accept political reality: no one in Congress or the federal executive will divert or shut down water to those places so that a few Utahns can grow alfalfa or water lawns.
We Utahns can do more – much much more – in the way of water conservation. State government should make its influence felt in the matter. As a home designer when I visit the Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley Parade of Homes ever year, I always find it startled how much good space we have covered up in lawn grass. We pour an awful lot of water on a plant that never matures and that we do not eat. The time has come to ask how much water should we waste on vegetational aesthetics.
THE CALL TO ACTION
I urge Utah's governor and legislature to take action in the 2014 legislative session. Utah should start encouraging the following by either law or tax rebates:
1. Encourage xeriscaping.
2. Encourage people to plant less lawns, not more of them. Encourage the planting of lawns hybridized for less water consumption.
3 encourage home production of vegetables.
4 encourage agricultural production of crops that do not require flood irrigation.
5 encourage the growth of crops used by humans instead of animals.
In the 1920s, no one in power thought future people would be idiotic enough to put four million people into the Valley of the Sun, 2 million people into Clark County, and 10 million people into the Los Angeles Basin. Idiocy aside, we must accept political reality: no one in Congress or the federal executive will divert or shut down water to those places so that a few Utahns can grow alfalfa or water lawns.
We Utahns can do more – much much more – in the way of water conservation. State government should make its influence felt in the matter. As a home designer when I visit the Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley Parade of Homes ever year, I always find it startled how much good space we have covered up in lawn grass. We pour an awful lot of water on a plant that never matures and that we do not eat. The time has come to ask how much water should we waste on vegetational aesthetics.
THE CALL TO ACTION
I urge Utah's governor and legislature to take action in the 2014 legislative session. Utah should start encouraging the following by either law or tax rebates:
1. Encourage xeriscaping.
2. Encourage people to plant less lawns, not more of them. Encourage the planting of lawns hybridized for less water consumption.
3 encourage home production of vegetables.
4 encourage agricultural production of crops that do not require flood irrigation.
5 encourage the growth of crops used by humans instead of animals.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
DOMESTIC SECURITY AND THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR CRISIS: An essay about American national credibility
The Obama Administration wants to convince us citizens and members of Congress that the United States will have no credibility if it does not take military action in Syria. This attitude begs the question, “Does the United States have credibility these days?”
Consider. The Obama Administration
1 still supports a secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
2 still bans Habeas Corpus for terrorist cases in Cuba.
3 on the record supports killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
4 uses drone sometimes on civilians in Afghanistan.
5 uses the National Security Agency to peeks into emails
6 uses the NSA to catalogs all telephone calls
7 uses NSA and Central Intelligence Agency for domestic intelligence on American citizens.
8 still supports secret courts.
The last 4 items make it appear as if the Obama Administration has the worst case of governmental paranoia since the days of Stalin . . . .
NATIONAL CREDIBILITY
How does any of this make our government credible? I believe they do not. Most of the American public looks the other way mostly without comment.
We should have learned from The Great War of 1914-1918 was that chemical warfare did not work well as a military strategy against armies. However, it kills off civilians all to well. Obviously, international law should ban these weapons. Obviously the Syrian regime should not have used them on people. The big question now is – how will expanding this war stop the weapons?
How will expanding the Syrian War into a bigger and longer conflict involving the Russians and the Americans and the Iranians improve the lives of the average Syrians either in the short run or the long run? I believe it will not.
The Bush and Obama administrations have both utterly abused the US Army and Marines. They have both overworked and underplayed them. The administrations ignored the sex abuse scandals until it became too big to ignore. They assigned huge campaigns to groups too small. Not enough funding. Not enough funding for veterans physical and mental health care issues. Not enough oversight on private contractors that made fortunes off of political misery.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations and their military-industrial complexes took advantage of the political gridlock between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Those administrations reduced and undercut Bill of Rights as a result. Now the administration wants to use the political gridlock of Republicans and Democrats to guilt them into authorizing a Middle Eastern War Whether Congress can bestir itself and do the right things remains for us citizens to observe.
Most of the public have colluded with the administrations to abuse the military. At public functions, we cheer for the troops and then think “we support our troops.” Then we look away. Only a small percentage of American families provide the soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen for the American military. The rest just clap hands for soldiers before the game.
Credibility this is not.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Congress should stop letting administrations take advantage of it, its gridlock and the U S Constitution.
1 Vote against military adventures in Syria, no matter how noble it may look on the surface.
2 Close the secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
3 Restore Habeas Corpus for prisoner cases in Cuba.
4 Stop the killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
5 Stop the uses of military drones.
6 Curtail NSA’s peeking into emails and cataloging all telephone calls.
7 Curtail NSA and CIA domestic spying.
Consider. The Obama Administration
1 still supports a secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
2 still bans Habeas Corpus for terrorist cases in Cuba.
3 on the record supports killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
4 uses drone sometimes on civilians in Afghanistan.
5 uses the National Security Agency to peeks into emails
6 uses the NSA to catalogs all telephone calls
7 uses NSA and Central Intelligence Agency for domestic intelligence on American citizens.
8 still supports secret courts.
The last 4 items make it appear as if the Obama Administration has the worst case of governmental paranoia since the days of Stalin . . . .
NATIONAL CREDIBILITY
How does any of this make our government credible? I believe they do not. Most of the American public looks the other way mostly without comment.
We should have learned from The Great War of 1914-1918 was that chemical warfare did not work well as a military strategy against armies. However, it kills off civilians all to well. Obviously, international law should ban these weapons. Obviously the Syrian regime should not have used them on people. The big question now is – how will expanding this war stop the weapons?
How will expanding the Syrian War into a bigger and longer conflict involving the Russians and the Americans and the Iranians improve the lives of the average Syrians either in the short run or the long run? I believe it will not.
The Bush and Obama administrations have both utterly abused the US Army and Marines. They have both overworked and underplayed them. The administrations ignored the sex abuse scandals until it became too big to ignore. They assigned huge campaigns to groups too small. Not enough funding. Not enough funding for veterans physical and mental health care issues. Not enough oversight on private contractors that made fortunes off of political misery.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations and their military-industrial complexes took advantage of the political gridlock between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Those administrations reduced and undercut Bill of Rights as a result. Now the administration wants to use the political gridlock of Republicans and Democrats to guilt them into authorizing a Middle Eastern War Whether Congress can bestir itself and do the right things remains for us citizens to observe.
Most of the public have colluded with the administrations to abuse the military. At public functions, we cheer for the troops and then think “we support our troops.” Then we look away. Only a small percentage of American families provide the soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen for the American military. The rest just clap hands for soldiers before the game.
Credibility this is not.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Congress should stop letting administrations take advantage of it, its gridlock and the U S Constitution.
1 Vote against military adventures in Syria, no matter how noble it may look on the surface.
2 Close the secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
3 Restore Habeas Corpus for prisoner cases in Cuba.
4 Stop the killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
5 Stop the uses of military drones.
6 Curtail NSA’s peeking into emails and cataloging all telephone calls.
7 Curtail NSA and CIA domestic spying.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
CONGRESSIONAL VOTE APPROVING SYRIA CIVIL WAR INTERVENTION: asking the right questions
Praises to President Obama for asking Congress to approve an American intervention in the Syria Civil War. We need a national debate about this. I hope we ask the right questions.
How many Syrians died in the alleged chemical attack?
Who did the chemical attack?
Should Congress believe American intelligence on chemical warfare given its track records in Iraq and Afghanistan?
If the USA Military does intervene in Syria, what does it attack? We should not kill innocent civilians. We must punish those who ordered the chemical attack – if indeed that happened.
European, Russian and Middle East militaries could do this job. Where are they?
How do we keep a Syrian intervention evolving into the 2013 revival of Sarajevo 1914? How do we keep the intervention from escalating into a war with Russia and Iran?
Why can Israel have illegal atomic weapons but Iran cannot have atomic weapons and Syria cannot have chemical warfare? It would nice to have a national discussion about the Middle East above its basic hypocrisies of politics.
IN SUMMARY
Missile attacks on Syria run the risk of hurting a bunch of people who did not launch chemical attacks on Syrians. Obviously the Syrian government should not gas its own citizens. However, governments should not do a lot of things -- like not keep track of everyone's emails and phone calls. This is a job for the Hague Court.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Obviously the Syrian government should not be gassing its citizens, Obviously our missile strikes run the risk of doing more harm all the way around than good. Give to the Hague Court
How many Syrians died in the alleged chemical attack?
Who did the chemical attack?
Should Congress believe American intelligence on chemical warfare given its track records in Iraq and Afghanistan?
If the USA Military does intervene in Syria, what does it attack? We should not kill innocent civilians. We must punish those who ordered the chemical attack – if indeed that happened.
European, Russian and Middle East militaries could do this job. Where are they?
How do we keep a Syrian intervention evolving into the 2013 revival of Sarajevo 1914? How do we keep the intervention from escalating into a war with Russia and Iran?
Why can Israel have illegal atomic weapons but Iran cannot have atomic weapons and Syria cannot have chemical warfare? It would nice to have a national discussion about the Middle East above its basic hypocrisies of politics.
IN SUMMARY
Missile attacks on Syria run the risk of hurting a bunch of people who did not launch chemical attacks on Syrians. Obviously the Syrian government should not gas its own citizens. However, governments should not do a lot of things -- like not keep track of everyone's emails and phone calls. This is a job for the Hague Court.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Obviously the Syrian government should not be gassing its citizens, Obviously our missile strikes run the risk of doing more harm all the way around than good. Give to the Hague Court
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
MARRIAGE AS IT IS IN THE WORLD: THE PLACE OF HUMAN VALIDATION IN MARRIAGE COVENANTS
Commentators on The Diane Rehm Show (National Public Radio WAMU) discussed on 11 July the subject of same-gender marriage and the states. During the course of it, a caller asked a question that sounded rather like a set up, but it received the sort of response the proponents of same gender marriage might have wanted. The question was what danger does same gender marriage pose to one-man/one-woman marriage vs the risks of childless marriages on traditional marriage. Thomas Peters, opponent of same gender marriage, replied this way –
“Not every couple will choose or can have a child. Every child, however, has a biological mother and a father What same sex marriage does is tell the culture that mothers and fathers are interchangeable and disposable. Every child comes from a mother and a father. The reason why governments care about marriage in the first place is that it is the only institution that gives children a chance at a sustained relationship with their biological origins. If you change the laws for any one, you change the laws for everyone. This debate is about re-definitions. If we say that marriage is no longer about what is in the best interests of children, no longer primarily about their needs and how they do best, and is primarily about the desires of adults to be validated, we change the public purpose of marriage. This is why cultures need marriage, for tying mothers and fathers to their children as we know all too well is a difficult task. It’s amazing to me that President Obama, in his good advocacy for more good fathers can endorse redefining marriage and say that two mothers are just as good as one father. Gay people can be great mothers and fathers . . . Independently. However, a man cannot be a good mother or a female cannot be a good father. It’s a definition worth fighting for.”
THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION
To start with, let me restate a couple of points that I have written before on the official record.
Marriage is a four way covenant between
1the man
2 the woman
3 God and or the culture in which they live
4 children, who have a right to both a male and female parent.
The family can best be defined as a legal covenant between
1 the woman
2 the man
3 God and or the culture in which they live
and their children who have a right to both a male and female parent.
In other words definitions of both family and marriage basically are the same. However, over the centuries people have written laws and definitions to carefully keep the two concepts in separate columns.
That stipulated, this essay will discuss the disingenuousness of opponents of same sex marriage when they accuse those who practice and advocate same sex marriage of damaging the institution of marriage. The damage is done.
Heterosexuals seriously and irrevocably damaged marriage as an institution a long time ago, Peter’s observations illustrate some of the damage.
Peter’s observation: “Not every couple will choose or can have a child.”
My observation. The couples who cannot conceive and use adoption as a method of creating a family have for ages illustrated that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. Furthermore, for years courts have declared it is better for a child to have two male parents or two female parents instead of no parents. In 1965, as an aside – the sitcom My Three Sons created an adoption for a new boy character in which the widower father figure (portrayed by Fred MacMurray) got listed as the new legal father and the brother of his late wife’s father (portrayed by William Demerest) got listed as the new legal mother figure. The judge called this a “legal fiction.” In practice there was nothing fictitious about this.
Peter’s observation: “What same sex marriage does is tell the culture that mothers and fathers are interchangeable and disposable.”
My observation: The traditions of heterosexual divorce and remarriage only emphasize that parents and their partners are interchangeable and disposable in heterosexual marriage.
Furthermore, when a spouse dies and the other spouse remarries, it tends to emphasize the interchangeable nature of parent parts.
Peter’s accusation: “If we say that marriage is no longer about what is in the best interests of children [and is] primarily about the desires of adults to be validated, we change the public purpose of marriage.”
My observation: this point is so ludicrous that it is hard to even write about it with a straight face. As far back as we can go into history, marriage has been and is about adult validation, particularly rich and or powerful men / king figures / ruler figures acquiring the prettiest or the smartest or the wealthiest women to marry them or live with them to prove everybody’s worth as humans. For far too long, people used culture to deliberately separate the aspect of children and child raising from the aspects of power / validation / sexual fulfillment in the traditions of marriage. It is way too late in human cultural devolution for the opponents of same sex marriage to use this point as a reason not to allow same gender marriage.
THE CALL FOR ACTION
I make my call for action realizing well enough that we will have to overcome some cultural taboos biases and hypocrisies in American culture. As an example of all three, look at the introduction to Official Declaration 1 in the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which says “The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise (see 2 Samuel 12:7–8 and Jacob 2:27, 30).” The question implied in this statement are
how often did God really and truly declare otherwise?
and why is it that so many cultures deliberately do otherwise?
Wikipedia’s summary article on polygamy, preserved on 20 August 2013, states the facts this way:
“Polygamy exists in three specific forms:
polygyny -- wherein a man has multiple simultaneous wives;[Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, s.v. 'polygyny']
polyandry -- wherein a woman has multiple simultaneous husbands;
or group marriage - wherein the family unit consists of multiple husbands and multiple wives.
“Ambiguity arises when the broad term "polygamy" is used when a specific form of polygamy is being referred to. Additionally, different countries may or may not include all forms in their laws on polygamy.
“In the global context, polygamy is by far the dominant form of marriage. According to the Ethnographic Atlas, of 1,231 societies noted, 186 were monogamous; 453 had occasional polygyny; 588 had more frequent polygyny; and 4 had polyandry.[Ethnographic Atlas Codebook derived from George P. Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas recording the marital composition of 1231 societies from 1960 to 1980]”
Of those 186 monogamous cultures, many of them accept if not encourage powerful men to have both a wife, and male friendship and mistresses. In other words, the cultures encourage the multiple loyalties, without the legal frameworks.
THEREFORE
If we want children to have the benefits of both male and female parents, and if we want adults to have the right of validation to marry a person or persons that they want from a power and sexual desire point of view, then it is time for us to accept the concept of group marriage, particularly among those with same gender sexual attraction or bisexual gender attraction. Cultures do not want to encourage the collecting of multiple trophies spouses, which is what has given polygamy a bad reputation from the beginning. However, if we allow two same gender couples to marry each other,, then we should be willing to allow two couples to marry each other for the sake of their children for the sake of children having both male and female parent role models. It would require tolerance of double couples, of course, and that is easier written about than done. It would also require the willingness of those couples not to allow jealousy to overcome the fact that both men and women have important things to contribute in the teaching and rearing of children.
The controversy over same-gender marriage demonstrates a collision of two good things -- advanced human rights and advanced children's rights. The law will have to be creative to accommodate both
Saturday, June 29, 2013
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU DUDE AND DUDE: six question ands answer about the implications of Same Sex Marriage for the future of marriage
Over the years, members of the heterosexual community worked at the forefront of so-called “marriage reforms.” Women treated as property with no inheritance or property rights. No fault divorce. Quick divorce. Polygamy. La Casa Grande. La Casa Bonita. Man – wife – mistress. Open marriage. Marriage as companionship first, with reproduction and the needs of children put in a position of lesser importance.
My view -- for the record -- is that many of these reforms really were corruptions.
As one state and then another legalized same gender marriage, as the Supreme Court declared the central assumptions of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, as the critics wrung their hands and bemoaned the whole state of American culture, I myself wondered what these critics thought of the “earlier” reforms and if they thought they were good or bad. After no fault divorce, the gender arrangement of marriage is not such a big step forward or backward.
In the wake of the Supreme Court rulings favoring same gender marriage, in the climate of reassessing and retrenchment, NewRightAscension presents in this Frank Adult Essay, 6 questions and answers about Same Gender Marriage and What it Will Do in the Long View of 21st and 22nd Centuries Relationships, legal or otherwise, moral or otherwise.
1 HOW MANY SAME GENDER MARRIAGES ARE POSSIBLE IN AMERICA?
This is a country based on the free market. It will do as many as the market will bear.
However, we should keep in mind the statistic / census facts of gender-preference.
Determining the population of gay Americans proves hard from both a political and census viewpoint. Anti gay activists want to assume that 5 percent or less of the population prefers sex “that way.” Gay activists want to assume that 10 percent or more of the population prefers sex “our way.” Politics again gets in the way of accuracy.
If America has 320 million people, this translates to 16 -32 million people whose. This minority is about double the size of active Mormons in America.
For a start, some of these people will not want to get married or to produce children at all. Homosexuality is not heterosexuality done by men-men or women-women.
Next, some will prefer to have relationships in a collection, not in a pair.
Next, in the heterosexual community, many people have wanted to get married but never quite found the right person to marry and thus remained single. The homosexual community has even less choices available and less options: forced singleness will happen in it as well.
In summary, the actual numbers and percentages of gay marriages will always be low compared to the overall totals of traditional man-woman marriage. 5 - 10 percent at best on any given year.
2 WHAT CAN THE HISTORY OF THE LDS INDIAN PLACEMENT PROGRAM TEACH US ABOUT SAME GENDER MARRIAGE?
From the 1947 to 1990, an Indian Placement program in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moved native American children off reservations and into foster homes – typical Utah - Idaho - Arizona white Mormons – for public education. Some children in the program thrived and benefited from the experience; however, but many of these children found themselves in a gray existence, not exactly white and not exactly Indian. The program scarred them spiritually and emotionally.
Homosexuality is not heterosexuality done by guys. Or women, for that matter. Gay persons who find themselves unhappily married and with children could find themselves in a social box they do not fit.
3 WILL LARGE NUMBERS OF HETEROSEXUAL MEN PREFER TO MARRY A MAN – WHETHER HE IS STRAIGHT OR GAY?
Depends on the definition of “large.” This unusual question deserves an answer, given widespread practice in the last fifteen years of bromance [ brother romance / boy romance / bros ] among heterosexual and bisexual men. People in general get married at older ages. College education can take upwards of 4-7 years. This mean among young guys, living with other men or another man for several years happens more and more often for longer periods of time.
Many regular guys spend much time with their bromantic guy friends in close proximity. Could be some of them wake up in the same bed with him after an intense guys night’s activity, and looking up close at his friend asleep wishes this could last forever. Anything is possible in the twenty-first century, given the affinity many have with open relationships and disposable marriages.
Given the intense nature of heterosexual desire, and given the wide availability of willing available women – this scenario probably will not likely happen on a wide scale. Still, who knows? It used to be that two guys who loved each other might consummate their relationship in a business partnership. Nowadays, it could be consummated in a closed or open marriage, especially if neither man has much interest in fathering or raising children.
4 WILL SAME GENDER MARRIAGE PRODUCE MORE PEOPLE WHO PREFER SAME GENDER INTIMACY?
Among couples who will adopt -- no.
Among the male couples who use their own sperm for artificial insemination in a surrogate biologic mother arrangement, the answer might be maybe – providing genetics in fact do carry same-gender preferences.
The whole business of gender preference gets unfortunately complicated if we look into it too deeply. Homosexual men have reproduced for time immemorial – and have produce heterosexual and homosexual children. Heterosexual a couple produce homosexual and heterosexual children. Homosexual couples have produced heterosexual children. At this point, the answer to this question requires further study.
5 WHAT DOES SAME GENDER MARRIAGE MEAN FOR BISEXUAL PEOPLE?
Now that the Supreme Court has broken the gender taboo in marriage, the numbers taboo in marriage will become the next taboo for social inspection. I suspect some men will lobby to have legal marriages with both a man and a woman simultaneously.
6 WHAT DOES LEGAL SAME-GENDER MARRIAGE MEAN FOR POLYGAMISTS?
The next marriage battleground will be legal numbers in marriage. To those who talk about the Bible defining traditional marriage as a man and a woman, remember this — a number of the Book’s most important figures had several wives. So traditional Biblical marriage is also a man and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman and a . . .
My view -- for the record -- is that many of these reforms really were corruptions.
As one state and then another legalized same gender marriage, as the Supreme Court declared the central assumptions of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, as the critics wrung their hands and bemoaned the whole state of American culture, I myself wondered what these critics thought of the “earlier” reforms and if they thought they were good or bad. After no fault divorce, the gender arrangement of marriage is not such a big step forward or backward.
In the wake of the Supreme Court rulings favoring same gender marriage, in the climate of reassessing and retrenchment, NewRightAscension presents in this Frank Adult Essay, 6 questions and answers about Same Gender Marriage and What it Will Do in the Long View of 21st and 22nd Centuries Relationships, legal or otherwise, moral or otherwise.
1 HOW MANY SAME GENDER MARRIAGES ARE POSSIBLE IN AMERICA?
This is a country based on the free market. It will do as many as the market will bear.
However, we should keep in mind the statistic / census facts of gender-preference.
Determining the population of gay Americans proves hard from both a political and census viewpoint. Anti gay activists want to assume that 5 percent or less of the population prefers sex “that way.” Gay activists want to assume that 10 percent or more of the population prefers sex “our way.” Politics again gets in the way of accuracy.
If America has 320 million people, this translates to 16 -32 million people whose. This minority is about double the size of active Mormons in America.
For a start, some of these people will not want to get married or to produce children at all. Homosexuality is not heterosexuality done by men-men or women-women.
Next, some will prefer to have relationships in a collection, not in a pair.
Next, in the heterosexual community, many people have wanted to get married but never quite found the right person to marry and thus remained single. The homosexual community has even less choices available and less options: forced singleness will happen in it as well.
In summary, the actual numbers and percentages of gay marriages will always be low compared to the overall totals of traditional man-woman marriage. 5 - 10 percent at best on any given year.
2 WHAT CAN THE HISTORY OF THE LDS INDIAN PLACEMENT PROGRAM TEACH US ABOUT SAME GENDER MARRIAGE?
From the 1947 to 1990, an Indian Placement program in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moved native American children off reservations and into foster homes – typical Utah - Idaho - Arizona white Mormons – for public education. Some children in the program thrived and benefited from the experience; however, but many of these children found themselves in a gray existence, not exactly white and not exactly Indian. The program scarred them spiritually and emotionally.
Homosexuality is not heterosexuality done by guys. Or women, for that matter. Gay persons who find themselves unhappily married and with children could find themselves in a social box they do not fit.
3 WILL LARGE NUMBERS OF HETEROSEXUAL MEN PREFER TO MARRY A MAN – WHETHER HE IS STRAIGHT OR GAY?
Depends on the definition of “large.” This unusual question deserves an answer, given widespread practice in the last fifteen years of bromance [ brother romance / boy romance / bros ] among heterosexual and bisexual men. People in general get married at older ages. College education can take upwards of 4-7 years. This mean among young guys, living with other men or another man for several years happens more and more often for longer periods of time.
Many regular guys spend much time with their bromantic guy friends in close proximity. Could be some of them wake up in the same bed with him after an intense guys night’s activity, and looking up close at his friend asleep wishes this could last forever. Anything is possible in the twenty-first century, given the affinity many have with open relationships and disposable marriages.
Given the intense nature of heterosexual desire, and given the wide availability of willing available women – this scenario probably will not likely happen on a wide scale. Still, who knows? It used to be that two guys who loved each other might consummate their relationship in a business partnership. Nowadays, it could be consummated in a closed or open marriage, especially if neither man has much interest in fathering or raising children.
4 WILL SAME GENDER MARRIAGE PRODUCE MORE PEOPLE WHO PREFER SAME GENDER INTIMACY?
Among couples who will adopt -- no.
Among the male couples who use their own sperm for artificial insemination in a surrogate biologic mother arrangement, the answer might be maybe – providing genetics in fact do carry same-gender preferences.
The whole business of gender preference gets unfortunately complicated if we look into it too deeply. Homosexual men have reproduced for time immemorial – and have produce heterosexual and homosexual children. Heterosexual a couple produce homosexual and heterosexual children. Homosexual couples have produced heterosexual children. At this point, the answer to this question requires further study.
5 WHAT DOES SAME GENDER MARRIAGE MEAN FOR BISEXUAL PEOPLE?
Now that the Supreme Court has broken the gender taboo in marriage, the numbers taboo in marriage will become the next taboo for social inspection. I suspect some men will lobby to have legal marriages with both a man and a woman simultaneously.
6 WHAT DOES LEGAL SAME-GENDER MARRIAGE MEAN FOR POLYGAMISTS?
The next marriage battleground will be legal numbers in marriage. To those who talk about the Bible defining traditional marriage as a man and a woman, remember this — a number of the Book’s most important figures had several wives. So traditional Biblical marriage is also a man and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman and a . . .
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
I Hoped They Didn't Call Me on a Mission
The Austrian historian Robert Musil had a theory that the most important events of history are ones that might have happened but never quite did. The central event of my life was I hoped they did not call me on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On this the 35th anniversary of my not coming home from my mission, I finally record why I did not serve the Lord for two years.
RECENT EVENTS THAT BRING MY PAST TO MIND
My neighbors will return in about a month from their three year mission leading a mission headquartered in a major city in the southeast United States. Meanwhile,, the first under -21 years of age female missionary from my local Ward has been called to serve in one of the English-speaking missions in Virginia USA
Rumors abound that half if not most of the missionaries in the Missionary Training Center this year will be sisters – and this brings up all sorts of leadership fairness issues. I am on the record that missions will have to call both male and female district and zone leaders.
I saw a couple of missionary elders working the crowd at Orem Summerfest on Friday, and one appeared all of 17. Ironic to call him an elder when he seems so kid-like. I bet he shaves with a washcloth.
Youth has its appeal and its problems. I am not yet entirely won over to the idea of 18-year-old-guy-missionaries. I understand the practical necessities of it: our culture makes 18 the transition age, American and European Kulchural realities, organizations recruit our guys without shame. I will state for the record that we should not allow militaries to conscript youngsters or enroll teenagers, either. 20 should be the minimum age all around.
TRUE CONFESSIONS
I admire my neighbors’s willingness to serve in this tough sort of assignment. If the Church had to depend on me for its missionary work, it would be in the proverbial World of Hurt.
When I was 19, anxiety and situational depression issues would have made my mission a terrible mistake. The1970s Missionary Department dealt indecisively with mental health issues. [Some stake members had memorable disasters in the 1970s, including a mysterious death by drowning. But that is another story. ] I had asthma and allergies as well, but so far as I remember, no one in authority told me the department would assign me somewhere with advanced medical resources. Maybe it did not at that time – I cannot recall.
I was not really sold on Mormon Kulchur in the early 1970s, either. I would not defend the Priesthood Racial Policy. I did not know any black people then and did not know if I liked them, but even I could see the ban posed problems from the view of fairness and from missionary public relations angle.
Furthermore, I was the star of the family and did not relish the prospect of serving two years as another cog in a mission’s elder inventory. As an only child, as a guy uninterested in sport, as a kid bullied in school, I disliked typical guys and did not intend to live with any of them if I could help it. I could.
Mine was a family of underpaid working stiffs. A 1970s mission was either expensive or really expensive. We had to keep cost-benefit-ratio analysis in mind. Despite the two year investment of time and the expense, a mission has/had no guarantees of success. I view missionary work the way my mother viewed fishing. She wanted something on the hook every 5 minutes to keep her attention. So, she gave up on fishing. If I were a missionary, I would want to baptize every two weeks, for baptizing is the point of a mission and measures “success.” I did not want long hard work with lengthy dry spells and the possibility of rejection on a regular basis.
I should have been more openly honest about my reasons. On the other hand, the truth is never applauded for its own sake. [I stole that from Oscar Wilde. Don’t tell anyone.] So, I threw the sand of worthiness issues into the eyes of my bishop and state president. Worthiness issues in the LDS Church sometimes mean something else.
SPECULATING ON THE PAST THAT LEAD TO THE FUTURE
I often wonder what the 21st century LDS Church would have looked like if –
1 it had not spent so much time and energy promoting and then rationalizing, denying, rejecting, and suppressing polygamy
2 most of the people baptized in the 19th and 20th Centuries had remained active members
3 most of them had paid at least 5 percent tithing if not ten.
4 it had not followed a deliberate course it make itself unattractive to potential converts and user unfriendly.
It would certainly be different.
AN ASIDE
I have a theory – and like most of my theories, it comes at you in spades. Because The Church requires a lot of unpaid service, and because it does not pay its professional staff at competitive rates, I suspect some 19th and 20th Century church members resented it subconsciously and undercut it with cultural traditions and attitudes and with administrative edicts. The mission system reflects, I suspect, some of that. For one thing, it would be better if people who turned the mission into a rite of passage had not hijacked it. I simply refused to be a part of a rite of passage since I believed then I did not have to prove anything to anybody.
The two-year mission made sense in the days when the Church had few missionaries and a very large world to cover. Nowadays, more people doing more work for a year would do more than a few people working for two.
Today, I cannot imagine why any young man would join this Church. It is expensive; it is time consuming in its volunteer laity leadership demands; it provides for his daughter no possibilities at all for leadership or professional advancement on a ward-wide, stake-wide or church-wide basis.
IN CONCLUSION
In the early 1990s the Church developed the concept of the Service Mission. I have done some service missions already in my lifetime and hope to do some more in the future. Because I am single, I won’t get called to a long term full time missionary arrangement, and that is OK because I still don’t entirely buy into all of Mormon Kulchur in the 21st Century.
THE CALL TO ACTION
I hope the 21st Century LDS Church proclaims the gospel by local members on their ward, stake and district levels.
RECENT EVENTS THAT BRING MY PAST TO MIND
My neighbors will return in about a month from their three year mission leading a mission headquartered in a major city in the southeast United States. Meanwhile,, the first under -21 years of age female missionary from my local Ward has been called to serve in one of the English-speaking missions in Virginia USA
Rumors abound that half if not most of the missionaries in the Missionary Training Center this year will be sisters – and this brings up all sorts of leadership fairness issues. I am on the record that missions will have to call both male and female district and zone leaders.
I saw a couple of missionary elders working the crowd at Orem Summerfest on Friday, and one appeared all of 17. Ironic to call him an elder when he seems so kid-like. I bet he shaves with a washcloth.
Youth has its appeal and its problems. I am not yet entirely won over to the idea of 18-year-old-guy-missionaries. I understand the practical necessities of it: our culture makes 18 the transition age, American and European Kulchural realities, organizations recruit our guys without shame. I will state for the record that we should not allow militaries to conscript youngsters or enroll teenagers, either. 20 should be the minimum age all around.
TRUE CONFESSIONS
I admire my neighbors’s willingness to serve in this tough sort of assignment. If the Church had to depend on me for its missionary work, it would be in the proverbial World of Hurt.
When I was 19, anxiety and situational depression issues would have made my mission a terrible mistake. The1970s Missionary Department dealt indecisively with mental health issues. [Some stake members had memorable disasters in the 1970s, including a mysterious death by drowning. But that is another story. ] I had asthma and allergies as well, but so far as I remember, no one in authority told me the department would assign me somewhere with advanced medical resources. Maybe it did not at that time – I cannot recall.
I was not really sold on Mormon Kulchur in the early 1970s, either. I would not defend the Priesthood Racial Policy. I did not know any black people then and did not know if I liked them, but even I could see the ban posed problems from the view of fairness and from missionary public relations angle.
Furthermore, I was the star of the family and did not relish the prospect of serving two years as another cog in a mission’s elder inventory. As an only child, as a guy uninterested in sport, as a kid bullied in school, I disliked typical guys and did not intend to live with any of them if I could help it. I could.
Mine was a family of underpaid working stiffs. A 1970s mission was either expensive or really expensive. We had to keep cost-benefit-ratio analysis in mind. Despite the two year investment of time and the expense, a mission has/had no guarantees of success. I view missionary work the way my mother viewed fishing. She wanted something on the hook every 5 minutes to keep her attention. So, she gave up on fishing. If I were a missionary, I would want to baptize every two weeks, for baptizing is the point of a mission and measures “success.” I did not want long hard work with lengthy dry spells and the possibility of rejection on a regular basis.
I should have been more openly honest about my reasons. On the other hand, the truth is never applauded for its own sake. [I stole that from Oscar Wilde. Don’t tell anyone.] So, I threw the sand of worthiness issues into the eyes of my bishop and state president. Worthiness issues in the LDS Church sometimes mean something else.
SPECULATING ON THE PAST THAT LEAD TO THE FUTURE
I often wonder what the 21st century LDS Church would have looked like if –
1 it had not spent so much time and energy promoting and then rationalizing, denying, rejecting, and suppressing polygamy
2 most of the people baptized in the 19th and 20th Centuries had remained active members
3 most of them had paid at least 5 percent tithing if not ten.
4 it had not followed a deliberate course it make itself unattractive to potential converts and user unfriendly.
It would certainly be different.
AN ASIDE
I have a theory – and like most of my theories, it comes at you in spades. Because The Church requires a lot of unpaid service, and because it does not pay its professional staff at competitive rates, I suspect some 19th and 20th Century church members resented it subconsciously and undercut it with cultural traditions and attitudes and with administrative edicts. The mission system reflects, I suspect, some of that. For one thing, it would be better if people who turned the mission into a rite of passage had not hijacked it. I simply refused to be a part of a rite of passage since I believed then I did not have to prove anything to anybody.
The two-year mission made sense in the days when the Church had few missionaries and a very large world to cover. Nowadays, more people doing more work for a year would do more than a few people working for two.
Today, I cannot imagine why any young man would join this Church. It is expensive; it is time consuming in its volunteer laity leadership demands; it provides for his daughter no possibilities at all for leadership or professional advancement on a ward-wide, stake-wide or church-wide basis.
IN CONCLUSION
In the early 1990s the Church developed the concept of the Service Mission. I have done some service missions already in my lifetime and hope to do some more in the future. Because I am single, I won’t get called to a long term full time missionary arrangement, and that is OK because I still don’t entirely buy into all of Mormon Kulchur in the 21st Century.
THE CALL TO ACTION
I hope the 21st Century LDS Church proclaims the gospel by local members on their ward, stake and district levels.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
THE PRIESTHOOD REVELATION: 35th anniversary commentary
For people of my generation, the announcement made on live TV and radio by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints public communications department spokesman on 9 June 1978 is called simply The Revelation. The Church’s ban on ordaining men of black African racial genetic heritage started becoming a public image problem of the first magnitude with the rise of racial desegregation and the American Civil Rights Movement. The end of it came like the proverbial bolt out of the blue and was a welcome bolt at that.
The spokesman made the announcement at 11:00 a.m. On that Friday afternoon, which was my birthday, I was on the Brigham Young University Campus for work at the BYU Writing Lab, then located on the main floor of the library. It was the only time I ever saw a news story traveling through crowds of people. Those who had not heard the report could tell at a glance that something big had happened just watching the ripple effect through the crowd of college students. When someone told me in the writing lab about the announcement, I frankly wanted to believe it, but I would not let myself believe it without a second confirmation. I got that from my father over the phone a few minutes later.
In the 2013 LDS Scripture edition, The Revelation is prefaced in this way. I add my commentary.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). Throughout the history of the Church, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few [2?] [free black members] black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice. [Comment: history seems clear enough. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent.] [the next line is a bombshell in the history of LDS Church scripture honesty --] Church leaders believed [my emphasis] that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice and prayerfully sought guidance. [making the verbs compound tends to suggest that the leaders were interested and prayed for a long time, when that was not necessarily the timing case.] [this is not the same thing as saying that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.] The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.
This rewrite makes the situation more clear. I admit it also has a selective sense of history, what with its being short.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33).
The Old Testament has slave imagery and references throughout.
Throughout Church history, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church.
During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, 2 free black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent, regardless of legal status.
Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice. They prayerfully sought guidance, particularly in the mid -twentieth century. The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood. A general conference sustained it in September 1978.
COMMENTARY
Bible translations show how word choice, grammar and sentence structure can make meanings ambiguously unclear.
Translators of the Old Testament used euphemisms like "The Groves" and "the Poles" to mask from readers references to alters of a female heathen deity that certain modern Biblical scholars now suspect scriptures once presented as God's wife.
The King James Bible translators used the word "murmur" when the ancient word used really was closer to the modern Yiddish "Kevetch" which implies loud complaining. Griping.
Thus, in the 2013 scripture edition, God yet again get the blame for the black priesthood ban. However, the implications of the wording “Church leaders believed” remains very interesting to contemplate. . . .
One of the lesser known facts surrounding the priesthood ban situation is this: the ban never actually worked. Leaders, going way back in church history, ordained men of mixed black genetics without knowing it. Had Brigham Young worded the ban along the lines of “no man with a black parent or grandparent back 4 generations can be ordained to the priesthood,” the ban would have worked better. It would have also been more clear than the prohibition worded “one drop of Negro blood.” That definition turned out to be "not measurable" and eventually bogged the ban down under its own ambiguity.
Research done for Michael Quinn’s Elder Statesman: the expanded biography of J Rueben Clark seems to suggest that the church leadership reviewed the ban in 1939, 1947, and 1955 with an eye to abandoning it – but the Church leadership never quite did. Its research also found the First Presidency made some informed exceptions in temple and priesthood regulations for people with a black ancestor way back amid a family history of whites.
Had the church lifted the ban in 1939, by the time the Civil Rights Movement got its first starts in 1948 the LDS Church could have helped lead the movement with the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference. History, though, is always a mess despite the best intents of humans to stage manage it. On this 35th anniversary of opening the LDS priesthood to all worthy males, the Church still has some public relations mopping up still to do.
The spokesman made the announcement at 11:00 a.m. On that Friday afternoon, which was my birthday, I was on the Brigham Young University Campus for work at the BYU Writing Lab, then located on the main floor of the library. It was the only time I ever saw a news story traveling through crowds of people. Those who had not heard the report could tell at a glance that something big had happened just watching the ripple effect through the crowd of college students. When someone told me in the writing lab about the announcement, I frankly wanted to believe it, but I would not let myself believe it without a second confirmation. I got that from my father over the phone a few minutes later.
In the 2013 LDS Scripture edition, The Revelation is prefaced in this way. I add my commentary.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). Throughout the history of the Church, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few [2?] [free black members] black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice. [Comment: history seems clear enough. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent.] [the next line is a bombshell in the history of LDS Church scripture honesty --] Church leaders believed [my emphasis] that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice and prayerfully sought guidance. [making the verbs compound tends to suggest that the leaders were interested and prayed for a long time, when that was not necessarily the timing case.] [this is not the same thing as saying that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.] The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.
This rewrite makes the situation more clear. I admit it also has a selective sense of history, what with its being short.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33).
The Old Testament has slave imagery and references throughout.
Throughout Church history, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church.
During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, 2 free black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent, regardless of legal status.
Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice. They prayerfully sought guidance, particularly in the mid -twentieth century. The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood. A general conference sustained it in September 1978.
COMMENTARY
Bible translations show how word choice, grammar and sentence structure can make meanings ambiguously unclear.
Translators of the Old Testament used euphemisms like "The Groves" and "the Poles" to mask from readers references to alters of a female heathen deity that certain modern Biblical scholars now suspect scriptures once presented as God's wife.
The King James Bible translators used the word "murmur" when the ancient word used really was closer to the modern Yiddish "Kevetch" which implies loud complaining. Griping.
Thus, in the 2013 scripture edition, God yet again get the blame for the black priesthood ban. However, the implications of the wording “Church leaders believed” remains very interesting to contemplate. . . .
One of the lesser known facts surrounding the priesthood ban situation is this: the ban never actually worked. Leaders, going way back in church history, ordained men of mixed black genetics without knowing it. Had Brigham Young worded the ban along the lines of “no man with a black parent or grandparent back 4 generations can be ordained to the priesthood,” the ban would have worked better. It would have also been more clear than the prohibition worded “one drop of Negro blood.” That definition turned out to be "not measurable" and eventually bogged the ban down under its own ambiguity.
Research done for Michael Quinn’s Elder Statesman: the expanded biography of J Rueben Clark seems to suggest that the church leadership reviewed the ban in 1939, 1947, and 1955 with an eye to abandoning it – but the Church leadership never quite did. Its research also found the First Presidency made some informed exceptions in temple and priesthood regulations for people with a black ancestor way back amid a family history of whites.
Had the church lifted the ban in 1939, by the time the Civil Rights Movement got its first starts in 1948 the LDS Church could have helped lead the movement with the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference. History, though, is always a mess despite the best intents of humans to stage manage it. On this 35th anniversary of opening the LDS priesthood to all worthy males, the Church still has some public relations mopping up still to do.
THE PRIESTHOOD REVELATION: 35th anniversary commentary
For people of my generation, the announcement made on live TV and radio by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints public communications department spokesman on 9 June 1978 is called simply The Revelation. The Church’s ban on ordaining men of black African racial genetic heritage started becoming a public image problem of the first magnitude with the rise of racial desegregation and the American Civil Rights Movement. The end of it came like the proverbial bolt out of the blue and was a welcome bolt at that.
The spokesman made the announcement at 11:00 a.m. On that Friday afternoon, which was my birthday, I was on the Brigham Young University Campus for work at the BYU Writing Lab, then located on the main floor of the library. It was the only time I ever saw a news story traveling through crowds of people. Those who had not heard the report could tell at a glance that something big had happened just watching the ripple effect through the crowd of college students. When someone told me in the writing lab about the announcement, I frankly wanted to believe it, but I would not let myself believe it without a second confirmation. I got that from my father over the phone a few minutes later.
In the 2013 LDS Scripture edition, The Revelation is prefaced in this way. I add my commentary.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). Throughout the history of the Church, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few [2?] [free black members] black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice. [Comment: history seems clear enough. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent.] [the next line is a bombshell in the history of LDS Church scripture honesty --] Church leaders believed [my emphasis] that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice and prayerfully sought guidance. [making the verbs compound tends to suggest that the leaders were interested and prayed for a long time, when that was not necessarily the timing case.] [this is not the same thing as saying that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.] The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.
This rewrite makes the situation more clear. I admit it also has a selective sense of history, what with its being short.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33).
The Old Testament has slave imagery and references throughout.
Throughout Church history, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church.
During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, 2 free black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent, regardless of legal status.
Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice. They prayerfully sought guidance, particularly in the mid -twentieth century. The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood. A general conference sustained it in September 1978.
COMMENTARY
Bible translations show how word choice, grammar and sentence structure can make meanings ambiguously unclear.
Translators of the Old Testament used euphemisms like "The Groves" and "the Poles" to mask from readers references to alters of a female heathen deity that certain modern Biblical scholars now suspect scriptures once presented as God's wife.
The King James Bible translators used the word "murmur" when the ancient word used really was closer to the modern Yiddish "Kevetch" which implies loud complaining. Griping.
Thus, in the 2013 scripture edition, God yet again get the blame for the black priesthood ban. However, the implications of the wording “Church leaders believed” remains very interesting to contemplate. . . .
One of the lesser known facts surrounding the priesthood ban situation is this: the ban never actually worked. Leaders, going way back in church history, ordained men of mixed black genetics without knowing it. Had Brigham Young worded the ban along the lines of “no man with a black parent or grandparent back 4 generations can be ordained to the priesthood,” the ban would have worked better. It would have also been more clear than the prohibition worded “one drop of Negro blood.” That definition turned out to be "not measurable" and eventually bogged the ban down under its own ambiguity.
Research done for Michael Quinn’s Elder Statesman: the expanded biography of J Rueben Clark seems to suggest that the church leadership reviewed the ban in 1939, 1947, and 1955 with an eye to abandoning it – but the Church leadership never quite did. Its research also found the First Presidency made some informed exceptions in temple and priesthood regulations for people with a black ancestor way back amid a family history of whites.
Had the church lifted the ban in 1939, by the time the Civil Rights Movement got its first starts in 1948 the LDS Church could have helped lead the movement with the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference. History, though, is always a mess despite the best intents of humans to stage manage it. On this 35th anniversary of opening the LDS priesthood to all worthy males, the Church still has some public relations mopping up still to do.
The spokesman made the announcement at 11:00 a.m. On that Friday afternoon, which was my birthday, I was on the Brigham Young University Campus for work at the BYU Writing Lab, then located on the main floor of the library. It was the only time I ever saw a news story traveling through crowds of people. Those who had not heard the report could tell at a glance that something big had happened just watching the ripple effect through the crowd of college students. When someone told me in the writing lab about the announcement, I frankly wanted to believe it, but I would not let myself believe it without a second confirmation. I got that from my father over the phone a few minutes later.
In the 2013 LDS Scripture edition, The Revelation is prefaced in this way. I add my commentary.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33). Throughout the history of the Church, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few [2?] [free black members] black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice. [Comment: history seems clear enough. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent.] [the next line is a bombshell in the history of LDS Church scripture honesty --] Church leaders believed [my emphasis] that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice and prayerfully sought guidance. [making the verbs compound tends to suggest that the leaders were interested and prayed for a long time, when that was not necessarily the timing case.] [this is not the same thing as saying that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice.] The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood.
This rewrite makes the situation more clear. I admit it also has a selective sense of history, what with its being short.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “all are alike unto God,” including “black and white, bond and free, male and female” (2 Nephi 26:33).
The Old Testament has slave imagery and references throughout.
Throughout Church history, people of every race and ethnicity in many countries have been baptized and have lived as faithful members of the Church.
During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, 2 free black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. In 1852, President Brigham Young stopped conferring priesthood on any and all black males of African descent, regardless of legal status.
Church leaders believed that a revelation from God was needed to alter this practice. They prayerfully sought guidance, particularly in the mid -twentieth century. The revelation came to Church President Spencer W. Kimball and was affirmed to other Church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978. The revelation removed all restrictions with regard to race that once applied to the priesthood. A general conference sustained it in September 1978.
COMMENTARY
Bible translations show how word choice, grammar and sentence structure can make meanings ambiguously unclear.
Translators of the Old Testament used euphemisms like "The Groves" and "the Poles" to mask from readers references to alters of a female heathen deity that certain modern Biblical scholars now suspect scriptures once presented as God's wife.
The King James Bible translators used the word "murmur" when the ancient word used really was closer to the modern Yiddish "Kevetch" which implies loud complaining. Griping.
Thus, in the 2013 scripture edition, God yet again get the blame for the black priesthood ban. However, the implications of the wording “Church leaders believed” remains very interesting to contemplate. . . .
One of the lesser known facts surrounding the priesthood ban situation is this: the ban never actually worked. Leaders, going way back in church history, ordained men of mixed black genetics without knowing it. Had Brigham Young worded the ban along the lines of “no man with a black parent or grandparent back 4 generations can be ordained to the priesthood,” the ban would have worked better. It would have also been more clear than the prohibition worded “one drop of Negro blood.” That definition turned out to be "not measurable" and eventually bogged the ban down under its own ambiguity.
Research done for Michael Quinn’s Elder Statesman: the expanded biography of J Rueben Clark seems to suggest that the church leadership reviewed the ban in 1939, 1947, and 1955 with an eye to abandoning it – but the Church leadership never quite did. Its research also found the First Presidency made some informed exceptions in temple and priesthood regulations for people with a black ancestor way back amid a family history of whites.
Had the church lifted the ban in 1939, by the time the Civil Rights Movement got its first starts in 1948 the LDS Church could have helped lead the movement with the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference. History, though, is always a mess despite the best intents of humans to stage manage it. On this 35th anniversary of opening the LDS priesthood to all worthy males, the Church still has some public relations mopping up still to do.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
REMEMBERING FRANCES MONSON and contemplating the lives of prophets's wives
Frances Monson died this week.
She was for 65 years the wife of Thomas Monson, who has served as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1963, a member of The First Presidency since 1985 and President of the Church since 2008.
She married Tom back in 1948. She married him when they were both quite young, and I suspect that she expected he would probably have a long editing and publishing career at Deseret Book and serve in some church leadership callings. Instead, he rose high quickly. Tom served as a bishop to a large ward full of old people when he was in his mid 20s. At the age of 32, he served as a Canadian mission president during a period of time when the First Presidency, influenced by President Henry D Moyle, like to call young, $ucce$$ful men to lead missionaries. When Tom was 36, President McKay ordained him the youngest apostle of that generation.
The practical result of this was – He traveled away from home for weeks at a time. She got to raise her three children as a solo act for long stretches of time. She got to attend all sorts of meetings and talk at them whether she really wanted to or not.
I heard Camilla Kimball speak at BYU in 1982. I heard Frances Monson speak at a regional conference in the early 2000s — I think it was her. I remember elements of Camilla’s talk very clearly. I do not remember the other talk at all.
When Mrs. J Reuben Clark was asked once about her life as J Reuben’s wife, she reply simply and with a certain resignation, “Fate decreed otherwise.” A Mormon girl simply cannot specifically plan or prepare for the sort of existence that engulfs the wife of an apostle or church president. It’s not a tough life in the sense of repairing desert railroads or working in a coal mine or hunting in the Arctic. It is a tough life, though; it takes its toll on health and energy.
The press releases would not say what Frances died of except the euphemistic “causes incident related to age.” I know I would die from exhausted by that sort of siege mentality lifestyle, especially when one cannot really retire from it.
Frances Monson is only the latest church president’s wife who died before her husband. Since 1945 most church president’s wives have died before their husbands. The mortality-timing issue in regards to the Church President’s wife features is startlingly noticeable — even before some presidents’s ordinations.
Frances Monson 2013
President Monson outlived her
Marjorie Hinckley 2004
President Hinckley outlived her
Clara Hunter 1983
President Hunter outlived her. Second wife Enis Egan outlived him by 12 years
Flora Benson 1992
President Benson outlived her
Camilla Kimball
Outlived President Kimball by 2 years
Fern Lee 1962
President Lee outlived her. Second wife Joan outlived him by 11 years
Jessie Evans Smith 1971
President Smith outlived her and she was years younger than he. He outlived all three of his wives
Emma Ray McKay 1970
Outlived President McKay, though she also died in 1970
Lucy Smith 1937
President Smith outlived her and served as president as a widower
In my lifetime
Members of the First Presidency J Reuben Clark, Hugh B Brown, and Marion G Romney all outlived their wives.
Apostles L Tom Perry, Russell M Nelson, Dallin Oaks, and Richard G Scott all outlived their first wives.
As for the LDS Church Presidents who practiced plural marriage:
Two of President Grant’s three plural wives died before him. His third wife Augusta outlived him by 6 years.
Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F Smith all experienced divorce and or death of plural spouses. This tends to illustrate the fact that polygamy as an institution increases a man’s measure of grief.
Considering President Monson
Frances’s death raises the issue as to whether President Monson will now occupy the penthouse reserved for the President of the Church – a penthouse where Presidents Benson (1994), Hunter (1995), and Hinckley (2008) all died. No president of the LDS Church has remarried while in office. One president served his entire administration as a widower with a widower counselor.
He and Frances were married for 65 years and they knew each other longer than that. This is no passing fancy or minor loss. Not many relationships of that vintage are still around in Ameica's throw away / burn-out young culture. The president’s bereavement and grief will be a leadership issue that the institutional church must endure.
She was for 65 years the wife of Thomas Monson, who has served as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1963, a member of The First Presidency since 1985 and President of the Church since 2008.
She married Tom back in 1948. She married him when they were both quite young, and I suspect that she expected he would probably have a long editing and publishing career at Deseret Book and serve in some church leadership callings. Instead, he rose high quickly. Tom served as a bishop to a large ward full of old people when he was in his mid 20s. At the age of 32, he served as a Canadian mission president during a period of time when the First Presidency, influenced by President Henry D Moyle, like to call young, $ucce$$ful men to lead missionaries. When Tom was 36, President McKay ordained him the youngest apostle of that generation.
The practical result of this was – He traveled away from home for weeks at a time. She got to raise her three children as a solo act for long stretches of time. She got to attend all sorts of meetings and talk at them whether she really wanted to or not.
I heard Camilla Kimball speak at BYU in 1982. I heard Frances Monson speak at a regional conference in the early 2000s — I think it was her. I remember elements of Camilla’s talk very clearly. I do not remember the other talk at all.
When Mrs. J Reuben Clark was asked once about her life as J Reuben’s wife, she reply simply and with a certain resignation, “Fate decreed otherwise.” A Mormon girl simply cannot specifically plan or prepare for the sort of existence that engulfs the wife of an apostle or church president. It’s not a tough life in the sense of repairing desert railroads or working in a coal mine or hunting in the Arctic. It is a tough life, though; it takes its toll on health and energy.
The press releases would not say what Frances died of except the euphemistic “causes incident related to age.” I know I would die from exhausted by that sort of siege mentality lifestyle, especially when one cannot really retire from it.
Frances Monson is only the latest church president’s wife who died before her husband. Since 1945 most church president’s wives have died before their husbands. The mortality-timing issue in regards to the Church President’s wife features is startlingly noticeable — even before some presidents’s ordinations.
Frances Monson 2013
President Monson outlived her
Marjorie Hinckley 2004
President Hinckley outlived her
Clara Hunter 1983
President Hunter outlived her. Second wife Enis Egan outlived him by 12 years
Flora Benson 1992
President Benson outlived her
Camilla Kimball
Outlived President Kimball by 2 years
Fern Lee 1962
President Lee outlived her. Second wife Joan outlived him by 11 years
Jessie Evans Smith 1971
President Smith outlived her and she was years younger than he. He outlived all three of his wives
Emma Ray McKay 1970
Outlived President McKay, though she also died in 1970
Lucy Smith 1937
President Smith outlived her and served as president as a widower
In my lifetime
Members of the First Presidency J Reuben Clark, Hugh B Brown, and Marion G Romney all outlived their wives.
Apostles L Tom Perry, Russell M Nelson, Dallin Oaks, and Richard G Scott all outlived their first wives.
As for the LDS Church Presidents who practiced plural marriage:
Two of President Grant’s three plural wives died before him. His third wife Augusta outlived him by 6 years.
Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F Smith all experienced divorce and or death of plural spouses. This tends to illustrate the fact that polygamy as an institution increases a man’s measure of grief.
Considering President Monson
Frances’s death raises the issue as to whether President Monson will now occupy the penthouse reserved for the President of the Church – a penthouse where Presidents Benson (1994), Hunter (1995), and Hinckley (2008) all died. No president of the LDS Church has remarried while in office. One president served his entire administration as a widower with a widower counselor.
He and Frances were married for 65 years and they knew each other longer than that. This is no passing fancy or minor loss. Not many relationships of that vintage are still around in Ameica's throw away / burn-out young culture. The president’s bereavement and grief will be a leadership issue that the institutional church must endure.
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