Redtail: FTR, smilingjaws, back in the days of using the moniker bluebird, stated “I hate mormons.” You might want to take anything she says with a whole flat of salt on this issue.
Duck Duck Goose writes:
If such a policy were ever committed to writing (let alone embodied as a statute), it would be so blatantly unconstitutional that I can’t imagine that it would withstand any challenge before the courts.
If a given governor were to say or show through his actions, in effect, that: “Of course I’m not choosing judges on the basis of religion (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)”, a complainant would certainly have a much harder time proving her case. Still, the courts have often (although by no means universally) accepted a doctrine of “constructive discrimination”, where, though a method of selection be never so fair on paper, the results gotten by applying it must be equitable (in what passes for the mind of the judge hearing the case), otherwise it is unacceptable. Whether the hypothetical complainant could get this doctrine applied depends on who’s hearing the case, and possibly the phase of the moon.
Bear with me, I do address the OP later in the thread.
Um. I’m a woman who grew up in the LDS Church. Believe you me, the CHurch does NOT believe women are the root of all evil. WTF? WHere the heck did you get that idea? Some anti-Mormon literature problably. WHy don’t you do some non biased research?
Here’s my experience with the Church.
Problem 1: Women don’t have the Priesthood
Reason: Women don’t NEED the Priesthood. Anything men can do with the Priesthood women can do anyway. Women are mothers, the closest thing to a God on Earth. Women have the power through their love for their children and their faith to do anything they need to.
Problem 2: Men have the power to become the Head of the CHurch
REason: For the same reason Women don’t have the Priesthood. THey don’t need to be bishops, presidents etc etc. Women are in control of the Church anyway. Women raise the children, who become the leaders. You probably don’t understand, but that’s the way it is.
So, all in all, Men seemingly have the upper hand, but women are honored and reverred by the Church.
[/quote]
“Discrimination and Women”. I am not going to put them here because frankly I don’t know how. Just
go there yourself. Of course you could probably use any search engine and find the same things I found. And
I was talking about myself not the LDS church, just church in general, when I said that I do not attend church
because of the attitude displayed toward women.
[/quote]
I would like to see you go to an un-biased place for research, please. I realize I’m probably biased in one way, so maybe you should do some investigation of the CHURCH ITSELF. Not what other’s say of it. Hey! I know, usually when people want to bash Mormons they pull of scripture out of context. Not very original, but always interesting.
Ok, I’m sorry for the hijack. Now, to the OP:
It would be unconstitutional to turn somebody down based on their religion. “Well I’m sorry Sir, but you see. You are a Mormon, and we already have some of those people in the Supreme Court. You gotta understand my situation. I know you are more than qualified for the job, but sorry, you are LDS. I have to hire this less qualified individual. It’s just the way it is.”
I for one have a big problem with that. That’s discrimination. I don’t give a flying rats ass WHAT religion they are if they are qualified for the job. And I believe that all the people on the Supreme Court are very qualified, otherwise they wouldn’t hold a job.
DDG, I’m not sure I follow your reasoning (re the ruling on opening legislative sessions with prayer). How would having 5 Mormons rather than 4 make a difference to that ruling?
I agree that many people have difficulty separating themselves from their religious focus. In fact, many people (including many politicians) say they can NOT do so. They state this publicly and repeatedly, and yet they are still considered competent to form the almost exclusive majority of elected and appointed officials.
Sorry, but I’m still having difficulty with the idea that being in the minority and being underrepresented is somehow a huge problem when it’s about non-Mormons in Utah, but no big deal when it’s about non-Christians in the USA. Can you explain why this SC thing is such a big issue for you?
Monty - thanks for the warning. That explains some things, eh? Any previous sumptoms from N2K?
redtail–I clearly stated I have no opinion on whether or not Utah’s Supreme Court should be balanced according to religious belief. Please do me the courtesy of believing what I write. I am capable of expressing my opinions and will if I have a definite one.
I just think it’s an interesting topic and I would like to read some well reasoned arguments on this. For instance, we do make efforts to make judicial and political appointments based on physical characteristics. haracteristics in order to promote diversity–e.g. there should be some women on the Supreme Court to represent women, African-Americans to represent people of color, etc. Is that decision based on the assumption that people with similar physical characteristics think differently or have unique insights based on their experiences that should be considered? If all the members of the court had voluntarily adopted the same religious belief system would they be more or less likely to represent a diverse population?
May I reiterate, I don’t have a dog in this fight–I’d just like to see some well-reasoned argument on the PRINCIPLE not on the religion. And, it would be interesting to read the opinion of someone with legal training.
peppergirl: Hear hear!
I’m not a Mormon (nor a Christian), nor do I have any clue about Mormon theology. Actually I really don’t even care about Mormon theology. If they want to rub blue mud in their navels, hey, whatever floats your boat.
Does an all-Mormon Utah State Supreme Court violate the First Amendment?
No. A government official’s membership in a particular religion is not a violation of any law. To create such a restriction, one would have to violate the “free exercise” provision of the First Amendment.
Does an all-Mormon Utah Supreme Court create a risk that their decisions might violate the First Amendement?
Hard to say. It is really up to the voters, who elect the Governor who appoints the justices, and who elect the legislature that presumably confirms the Governor’s appointments, to evaluate that risk.
Should the USC actually violate the First Amendment, there are ample federal remedies to correct the situation.
Does Polygamy cause spousal abuse, child abuse or incest?
There is no evidence that this is the case. The presence of such practices in specific polygamous families is not proof (indeed not even evidence) of such causation. Correlation is not causation; to assume so displays the fallacy of hasty generalization.
Even to show evidence that there is a disproportionate correlation between polygamy and child abuse would not prove causation; it may well be that abusers differentially choose polygamy, making polygamy an effect of abuse, not a cause of it. One would have to specify an actual mechanism present only in polygamy, and prove that mechanism was an agent of causation.
Does Needs2Know have an axe to grind around polygamy?
This does seem to the case. Of course it’s impossible to know what goes on in another person’s mind, but his/her words lead the inference.
"I do think that the tolerance for the practice of polygamy in the state of Utah does show that there is indeed very little separation of church and state."
This is a non-sequitur. There is no evidence that the “tolerance” comes from any other position than the concept that adults may do as they please. I have seen no evidence that Utah tolerates actual criminality (child abuse, incest, etc.).
“I would have nothing against the practice of multiple wives if it were fine for women to have multiple husbands.”
Why should you have anything against the practice of multiple wives without wives having multiple husbands? AFAIK, none of them have asked you to approve of their lifestyle.
“Until then it just seems to look like these women are brainwashed slaves and the ones that do escape have more courage. And that’s what I mean by treating the cause and not the symptom, because every now and then one comes along that this brave 16 year old child who defies this lifestyle.”
A charitable interpretation would correlate “cause” and “brainwashing” and thus read that paragraph as a reasonable (if fairly obvious) derogation of brainwashing. However, the general sense of N2K’s remarks imply the correlation of “cause” and “polygamy”. This is a fallacious correlation (fallacy of anecdotal evidence), and a doubly fallacious assignment of cause (hasty generalization).
Based on the totality of N2K’s comments in this and other threads, it seems obvious that s/he believes polygamy is intrinsically wrong and that s/he does understands neither the difference between anecdotal and scientific evidence nor the difference between correlation and causation.
Shame for the hijack!!! Hopefully this will end it…
04/00: The Senate approved a measure to help prosecute abuse and fraud in polygamous families and to fund help for
women and children who want to leave. Although the Mormon church has officially banned polygamy, some Mormons still practice it as a traditional practice. (Church & State, Apr. 2000, p. 22)
SingleDad, have I told you lately how much I appreciate your obvious good sense? I swear, nine times out of ten you either state something I completely agree with that makes perfect sense (As is the case here) Or something that actually changes my mind to agree with you! Thank you for the wonderful analysis of the problem here presented in the OP!
Grendel69 wrote:
Any Mormon found to be practicing polygamy is readily excommunicated from the church.
Thank you, Snark… and Singledad, too.
Duck Duck, I just want one point of clarification… do you mean, with your OP and follow-ups, that the “wrongdoing” (I use the term loosely) isn’t in the fact that there’s an all-Mormon Supreme Court in Utah, but rather in the fact that the governor appointed another Mormon in the first place? Like, he put in another Mormon partly because that new justice happened to be Mormon?
If that were the case, the governor favoring Mormons over non-Mormons (which would be difficult to prove), then there’d surely be a breach of constitution there. That’d be the “state” showing favor to someone based on their religion.
However, like I said, it’d be difficult to prove. I’m pretty sure that the new appointee is completely able and competent to take the job as Supreme Court Justice for Utah, as much as any other possible appointees. It’s just that there’s a much higher percentage of Mormons in Utah as there is any other religion in any other state (I think). The fact that there hasn’t ALWAYS been an all-Mormon Supreme Court seems to further the notion that nobody’s being favored simply because of their religion.
I still hold that the all-Mormon SC holds more possibility for trouble, though.
I feel the same sense of surprise and unease that I do upon encountering a high school football team that’s composed entirely of NFL first-round draft choice rejects. There’s a “cosmic unfairness” to it somehow, and I feel deeply sorry for Anytown High School every time they have to play the Newtown Neanderthals.
I feel deeply sorry the same way for all the non-Mormons living in Utah, whose court of last resort is now staffed completely by Mormons. Who’s going to speak up from now on for the non-Mormon point of view?
My point about the vote on prayer before legislative sessions was to echo the point speculated upon in the article, that if the bench had been 100% Mormon, it wouldn’t have been such a close vote, it would have been a shoo-in. It makes you wonder what else, from now on, won’t be a close vote, but will rather be a shoo-in.
All I want is for someone to tell me that it’s OK for the Utah Supreme Court to be 100% Mormon. I am aware that it’s not unconstitutional–I know the Founding Fathers didn’t anticipate quite so much of a melting pot 200 years in the future. But I can’t shake a nagging feeling that it’s not OK.
What I am saying is that I think the governor should have tried to be a little more equitable in his distribution of political favors. You can’t get away from the inescapable fact of Mormonism in Utah, the same way that you can’t get away from the inescapable fact of Judaism in Israel. The difference between the two is, Israel is a sovereign nation, and the state of Utah is, like it or not, only one-fiftieth of the United States of America. No other states have their Supreme Court deck stacked quite so obviously in favor of one religion, do they?
And as for the point about “Christians everywhere you look!”: I already said that yes, I think atheists ought to be appointed to benches, too. And Jews. And Muslims. What they’re being asked to pass judgement on is the Constitution. You don’t need a “Holy Book” to do that.
But atheists, generally speaking, don’t feel such a deep and sincere need to proselytize as the Mormons do. Neither do Jews or Muslims. My concern is that the all-Mormon Supreme Court, as it rules on the Constitution, will use their religious bias to shape the course of Utah’s destiny (if that doesn’t sound too high-flown) in a relentlessly Mormon direction. “Well, this is what the Mormons want, so this is how it’s gonna be…”
What happens to all those atheist topics, like prayer in schools and posting the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn? Seems to me they’re about to be S.O.L. in the state of Utah from now on. Seems to me that this would amount to the state imposing its religion on people. Even if “separation of church and state” isn’t in the Constitution, it’s still a guiding principle.
There is a sizeable minority of Mormons out there, and I have to wonder if they’re going to be well-served by this.
That’s all. No Mormon-bashing here. I’d feel the same way if the state of Florida was 70% Jewish, and I found out that the governor had just appointed a new State Supreme Court judge who was Jewish, so the bench was now 100% Jewish. Ditto California/Muslim, Massachusetts/Catholic, New York/Episcopalian, Kentucky/Holy Roller, etc.
**
My point about the vote on prayer before legislative sessions was to echo the point speculated upon in the article, that if the bench had been 100% Mormon, it wouldn’t have been such a close vote, it would have been a shoo-in.**
Could you tell me more about this. I’m a littl confused here. There was a court that had 4 Mormons and one non-Mormon. Yet it was a close vote. So that means 2 of the Mormons didn’t vote for, right? So what is saying that by adding a fifth that they will all vote for then time? Or am I getting it backwards? Because you’re refering to a topic I’m not familiar with and it’s kind of confusing.
**
What I am saying is that I think the governor should have tried to be a little more equitable in his distribution of political favors. **
Ok, here is where I see the possible violation of Church and State. I hadn’t thought of it from the governor angle before. That he could be holding up one religion over the other. I don’t particularly care for Leavitt (lived in Utah a few years ago) and could see him doing this.
If the court is peopled with one religion, I don’t see a problem because they are all free-thinking individuals and are no more under the control of the Prophet than Roman Catholics are of the Pope. However, if ypu have an official pruposely appointing only those for that position and ignoring other qualified candidates on the babsis of religion, then yes, you have Constitutional violations of the Establishment of Religion clause.
Uh…could you just please clarify what those Mormons are doing to Non-Mormons? Seriously, because I don’t see why you should have to feel sorry for the Non-Mormons and their point of view. I don’t see how there’s a big difference. I never had a problem there. And while I never had any great affection for Gov Leavit, I don’t think he would be so underhanded as to appoint a Supreme Court Judge based on religion. Could you give examples of how this will hurt Non-Mormons? Other then prayer in school or the ten commandments. (Which, BTW, I attended a Utah public school till I was a Junior and there was never an issue about prayer in schools. Come to think of it, I never saw the Ten Commandments posted anywhere either.) So, do you have a legit reason to feel sorry for those poor Non Mormons?
You said you feel that athelists ect ect should have places in the Government. I think everybody should have that chance who wants it, regardless of race or religion. Tell me this: How would you feel if you were about to appointed V.P at the company you work for. You’ve worked hard for many years, and this is something you really deserve. But then your boss says to you “Sorry, I know you are more deserving, but as V.P. you would be on the board of directors. We already have our quota of white males (Assuming you are one here), so we are going to give the job to a less qualified person who is not Caucasion. Sorry. That’s just the way it is”
Would you feel that would be fair? Would that be in the best interest of the company? I realize some businesses are forced to do this due to affirmative action. Should the government be forced to do so as well?
The facts aren’t going to get in the way of some folks’ views on this issue. After all, I don’t recall any of those who now say they’ll feel sorry for all the non-Mormons in Utah with a 100% Mormon Supreme Court saying they felt sorry for all the Mormons in Salt Lake City when the mayor was Jewish. That’s a 100% Jewish mayor there, folks.
You are right. I guess I forgot how evil Mormons are, and how horrible they treat everybody. Ok, everybody, you should all feel sorry for the Non-Mormons because they are being degraded and persecuted by the Mormons. And now that there are 5 Mormons in the Utah Supreme Court, there will be NO JUSTICE! First the State of Utah, then the Western US, then THe US, THEN THE WORLD!!! EVIL LAUGH YES WE CAN DO IT! WE WILL DO IT! THEN ALL OF YOU SINFUL HEATHENS WILL BURN BURN BURN!!! (THat was sarcasm BTW)
Pepperland, calm down, sarcasm or not.
I don’t see ANY persecution of ANYBODY in this thread, so there’s no need to get defensive.
An all-Mormon SC in Utah definitely has a much higher possibility for biased decisions compared to a mixed SC. This higher possibility justifies any concerns about the situation. I, for one, think that the situation should have been avoided if there was another alternative candidate for the SC seat that was equally qualified. I don’t know if there was or not… but in a state with such a high concentration of peoples of a single religion, it hardly comes as a surprise that there’d be an all-Mormon SC appointed at some point.
My advice is and always was to wait and see. I doubt any problems will arise… after all, I’m sure that, throughout history, there have been all-Catholic SC’s in certain states, or all-Baptist, or whatever (though I may be wrong).
DDG implied that basically, all the Non-Mormons were screwed because the SC were all Mormons. Through sarcasm, I was attempting to point out how illogical that implication was. Sorry.
Since this topic has digressed a bit…WHile at work tonight, I talked with a woman tonight who lived in Utah for 2 years. She (a non-Mormon) said that she left because it was difficult to get a job. She said that companies won’t overtly discriminate on the job application (Are you a Mormon? YES/NO), but will ask seemingly innocuous questions that will allow them to determine if the applicant is or is not Mormon.
She also said that there were some complications at the Legislative and Judicial levels (prayer in school and Mormon recruitment of school children being the two most pertinent issues related to those two branches), mostly things were on the up and up. She attributed this to the fact that Mormons know that they face discrimination and believe that the Federal govt can help them combat it; thus they don’t want to piss of Uncle Sam.
Anybody who is reading this thread should talk to a Mormon. They are actually really neat. I lived with one this summer and went to a bunch of Mormon parties. I grilled them all and they were really forthcoming. Real nice people and they actually all were quite liberal (gays allowed in the priesthood, etc.) As a non-Mormon I think it’s the one of the more interesting religions to consider.
Interesting. I never encountered issues about prayer in school or Mormon recruitment of school children (I’m not entirely sure what that is. Does that mean that Missionaries are going to Elementary schools?)
IMHO, Utah is a very different experience for most people due to the Mormon heritage and background. But New England is very different from Utah due to the Puritan background. CA was a shock to me when I first moved because it’s so liberal. Unfortunately most people equate different with bad. And to a lot of people Mormons are too different to be good.