Quoted for eloquence.
If the candidates discussed in that link get their way, then LDS people will automatically be ineligible for any public office. Other bans, such as receiving a teaching credential and voting will also happen.
Let’s not forget that for many (if not most) evangelical sects, at least the Catholics and Orthodox also are not Christians.
Yep. And the spelling of my outfit’s name includes a hyphen: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Apparently there are some other groups who use the spelling without the hyphen.
Heretics!
Thank you - I did read the article, but must have somehow missed that „religious tests for public office“ means ineligibility for LDS. As apparently did all the LDS Republican voters.
Right. (No pun intended.) And what peeved me the most was that during the felon’s run-up the first time, so many LDS were still supporting him even after he stated he would ban all the mebers of one religion from entering the United States. The Extermination Order is a big thing in LDS lore. For them to support the felon after his ban is the height of hypocrisy.
IIRC one of the inspirations for the First Amendment was Madison seeing Quakers being jailed for preaching their beliefs.
And there’s also the factor that, whichever sect does come out on top immediately makes them a target for everyone else.
Currently, I really don’t care what your religion tells you to do, so long as it’s not actually illegal, because I’m allowed to just ignore it.
But if your religion becomes the de facto law of the land? At that point, I care very much about what stupid things you believe, because now it affects me. So I’ll do whatever I have to to change your religion, to protect myself from its worst effects, and I won’t care a whit why any “original” members of that sect think about it.
I’m really appalled and sorry to read this. Idaho is part of that North-South swath running from Alberta through Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and turning into Southern California that has a sizeable LDS population. I can almost see some other state trying to turn officially “Christian”, but – Idaho? If this gets any traction it’ll be devastating. I hope the people of Idaho resist this with all their might, especially the LDS.
I also wanted to remark on what I quoted. When I lived out in Salt Lake City I found myself elected co-chairman of the Education Committee in a Catholic organization (don’t ask). To my complete and utter surprise a lot of Christian groups, including the Catholics, didn’t consider Mormons to be Christian. It made little sense to me, but apparently the LDS acceptance of the Book of Mormon, the D&C, and other writings as divinely inspired is held to set them apart from mainstream Christianity. I didn’t get the impression that they meant this in any mean way, but as a classification. Nevertheless it feels mean-spirited, considering how people use the word “Christian”. And it certainly feels as if this Idaho proposal isn’t at all benign.
Speaking as a Jew, I’m certain it’s not benign. And i hope the LDS Church realizes that and fights it.
Yes, yes it will be devastating, especially if the precedent holds. If it does this will spread to other states.
Religion isn’t founded on logic or reason so it doesn’t have to make sense. Although if you really study and compare the various sects you can start to understand why, with a narrow definition of Christianity, they view other nominally Christian groups as non-Christian.
Don’t mean it in a “mean” way? The hardline Protestants view Mormons as heretics. At least some of them very much do mean it in a “mean” way. It’s putting a label on (or peeling one off) a different group. It’s exclusionary.
It’s not.
How could it be benign? It’s declaring that some people belong more than others do. The only thing remotely surprising is where the line is being drawn - and it will be drawn more narrowly with time, I’m sure
Well, sure, but they’re doing it to save their souls. Isn’t that how religion works? Any manner of cruelty is justified if it is calculated to show people the error of their ways so that they may come around an accept Christ and, through his grace, the gift of everlasting life?
I’m not at all surprised at where these lines are being drawn.
But then, I got curious about Mormonism in my teens, just as I became curious about all religions in my teens. There’s no way hard-line Protestant sects would ever consider Mormons to be Christians just based on the Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Covenants, and/or Pearl of Great Price. That’s even before you get into their non-public aspects, which, out of deference to our Mormon members, I’m not going to detail here. If you’re curious go to YouTube and look up the information there, with the usual caveat to vet your sources.
From my viewpoint - if Mormons want to call themselves Christians it’s no skin off my nose. I don’t have a dog in that race. A bunch of self-righteous Protestants declaring who is and isn’t Christian are the asshats here, some of which have an excuse for why everyone other than their crappy little “church” which is a rented storefront in a dying strip mall are heathens and heretics and going to burn forever in hell.
Only proselytizing monotheistic “Abrahamic” religions. Certainly Judaism - you know, the part of “Judeo-Christian” that’s usually forgotten - isn’t like that. Judaism is for the Jews, they don’t care what non-Jews are doing as long as it doesn’t involve harming or killing Jews. No, MOST religions haven’t and don’t operate that way. If that seems the norm to you it’s probably because you were raised in a society either predominantly Christian or Muslim.
Yeah, like that’s ever worked. 
The Spanish tried that with the Jews but were so unconvinced of the effectiveness they came up with the Inquisition. In the new world they were absolutely brutal to the Africans they kidnapped and tried to force them to be Catholic but the slaves kept worshiping their gods in secret and that’s how we got Voudoun and Santeria.
Naw, there’s just some people who use religion as an excuse to be sadistic and cruel. If it wasn’t religion they’d use some other excuse to torture and kill people.
The LDS voters there won’t oppose it. That’s because their mantra is But we’re Christians too so it’ll be okay. As I said, it won’t be okay, because the bigots in charge don’t consider us to be Christians.
p.s. That swathe you refer to is the Mormon Corridor, aka aka Book of Mormon Belt aka Jell-O Belt.
Hey, what do you have against Satanists? (Mostly kidding)
Silly fools.
The “you’re not Christians” thing is what got the Mormons run out of several states, to eventually land in Utah, back in the 19th Century. Well, that and the polygamy thing.
I can’t help but get the impression that many of the proponents are using the word “Christian” not to mean following the Gospel of Jesus Christ but as code for White Nationalist. Of which unfortunately many members of both nontraditional and mainstream denominations are susceptible to the siren song.
Almost certainly; right wing Christianity in the US has a long history of being an extension of white nationalism, dating back to before the Civil War when it meant support for slavery. Although it’d be them genuinely regarding the two as identical at least as much as it’s a code.