A long post, bear with me, or skip past now.
As long as we’re allowing limited personal observations to override statistical evidence, let me add a couple of data points.
On charity: A woman I know very well was unable to pay her natural gas bill, and had her gas shut off about 10 days ago. This means no heat in the house, no hot water, no working oven, stove, or clothes dryer (as I helped to install both her oven and stove, and have frequently fixed her clothes dryer, I’m certain they are all gas appliances). Things being a little short this month, I couldn’t come up with the six bills needed to get things going again. I got a couple of electric heaters for her, and stocked her up on microwave food.
After trying several things (the Red Cross was willing to chip in $200, but only if someone else would pay the balance, and a low income program called HEAT would pay $150, but it takes two weeks) her home teachers stopped by for their monthly visit. (Home teachers are LDS members who go around and visit families in their ward, try to get you to attend more meetings, ask how you are, and usually deliver a little “spiritually uplifting” message in the form of a short story combined with scipture. The sheer joy of this is hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t had the “pleasure” inflicted on them.)
When they asked why it was so cold in the house (we’ve had nights in the 15 to 20 degree range this last week) she explained the situation. The bishop of her ward paid the bill today, and her heat will back on tomorrow.
Now bear in mind she is not the most active LDS member. She attends meetings probably four or five times a year, smokes like a chimney, and was an unwed mother. However, she does consider herself LDS, and welcomes the home teachers when they drop by.
On out of state adoption: I have personal knowledge (and I mean very personal, these were in my immediate family or the families of my in-laws) of three children born to unwed teen mothers, all of which were adopted by LDS families here in Utah. These adoptions were all arranged by the bishops of the respective mothers. None of the mothers were kicked out of the church, although one did leave voluntarily at a later date.
Now I’m all too ready to admit that the LDS church is often much too willing to cross the line between church and state, they have a terrible desire to mind everybody’s business, and my personal experience leads me to suspect a high level of hypocrisy (although not necessarily more than the membership of any other group). But they do sometimes do good (both as an organization and as people).
And based on my anecdotal evidence, all babies resulting from teen pregnancies are adopted in state, and the LDs church pays everybody’s bills for them. (Note for the sarcasm impaired: the preceding statement makes about as much sense as some we’ve heard from Brian.)
Brian, you post as if the mormons had all taken a collective dump in your cheerios. Get some perspective. You come across not as informed or presenting a legitimate argument, but as shrill and whiney with a huge axe to grind.
Ugly