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 . . .
Saturday, June 29, 2013
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.
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