First off, what the FUCK? I once heard somebody in one of the numerous church/state separation threads ask if a church ever actually gave orders to the government. Even I thought that this was ridiculous and would never happen in this country, but church/state need to be kept separate to prevent it from happening.
Well folks, I’ve just been proven wrong. Church and State are now melded together more than I thought. Utah is apparently a theocracy, and needs the permission of the church to do away with firing squads. :mad:
Isn’t Utah a good percentage Morman? I mean in the 90% range, I know at least a few counties are. It’s quite possible that with those kinds of numbers the state wanted to make sure that the church wasn’t going to tell people to vote against changing it and not really asking the church for permision to change it. Hell even 50% would make it hard to change.
But what about the propriety of the government asking a religious entity for its position as a prerequisite for government action? I’m not claiming it’s a constitutional violation, but it darned sure looks like an excessive entanglement of church and state.
Doing a search for the last name “Morman” on www.sbc.com I find only Bernie, Jefferey, and Jennifer living in the state of Utah.
Now as to the number of Mormons, that’s likely quite a bit more than 3.
At any rate, I think the usual number given is from 75~90 percent overall LDS for Utah.
Nope, especially if it slays ignorance. I’d like to see more religions’ leaders stand up and clarify some of their doctrines’ allegorical anecdotes. Although let the snake handlers keep on thinking its o.k., they’re cool.
Looks like a prerequisite to me, since it appears that the legislature would not have taken steps to change anything without the church’s approval. But quibbling over any distinction between “prerequisite” and “clarification” is rrelevant to my objection, which is that government has no business asking a church what its official position is on matters of public policy.
If the church wants to speak out on something, that’s fine. My objection is the government’s solicitation of the church to speak out.
No the government does not have any business asking a church about squat. However, since even if the above of 69% is LDS then they know that if the church doesn’t like something that a lot of people are going to be upset. Right, no, but that’s the way it works sometimes.
Looks to me like a clarification that the government, not the church, requested on purported information relating to an issue that would affect a good number of people in that church. I still don’t see any violation of SOCAS here. Actually, I think it would’ve been a dandy idea if Congress had considered that option when that moronic member of Congress decided to raise Cain over Wiccan services on base and he just spouted a bunch of bs about the faith. It would’ve saved a lot of hassle to have gone straight to the source for valid info on the issue.
Exactly how many people are on death row in Utah, that any significant percentage of the Mormon population would be directly affected by the elimination of the firing squad? This was a case of the State asking the Church to green-light a change to the law. That’s ridiculous.
What is ridiculous is yet another foolish comment from, oh who would’ve thought it :rolleyes:, Otto.
You are a liar if you are saying the LDS church green-lighted a change to the law. An honest answer is to say that the church said that there is no doctrinal position against it.
You are also a liar if you think the law will only apply to those who are currently on death row.
They wanted to see if the matter would be worth pursuing, Minty, nothing more. The presidency of the Mormon church reflects the opinions of many - if not most - of the church members… asking the church for its opinion on an issue both dispels the idea, among the people, that the idea might violate their own moral code, and also gives the legislators an idea of how the populace feels on the issue.
Remember, you can’t have a separation of church and state with a population that chooses to be religious, unless you ban that church. The population is the government.
Actually, this sounds to me like a good example of fighting ignorance. There was a mistaken belief among some Morman Utahns (I love that word) that their religion required firing squads. The commission decided to go straight to the source and get a correct, authoritative answer. Same sort of thing we do when we send moon-hoaxers to The Bad Astronomer for information. Now when a legislator or voter opposes elmination of firing squads based on Mormon beliefs, the commission can cite the official church statement in rebuttal.
