News Release — 6 November 2012
First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Congratulate President on Election Win
Salt Lake City —
The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued the following statement Tuesday:
We congratulate President Obama on winning a second term as President of the United States.
After a long campaign, this is now a time for Americans to come together. It is a long tradition among Latter-day Saints to pray for our national leaders in our personal prayers and in our congregations. We invite Americans everywhere, whatever their political persuasion, to pray for the President, for his administration and the new Congress as they lead us through difficult and turbulent times. May our national leaders reflect the best in wisdom and judgment as they fulfill the great trust afforded to them by the American people.
We also commend Governor Romney for engaging at the highest level of our democratic process which, by its nature, demands so much of those who offer themselves for public service. We wish him and his family every success in their future endeavors.*
Now if my FB friends could be just as gracious.
I posted this on my FB:
edit: Sore losers and sore winners both suck. Watch what you say so you don’t suck.
Fair criticism. Something I personally disagreed with, big time. I am all for gay marriage. I have no problem with it.
Also, I know this is probably opening a HUGE can of worms and derailing this thread before it ever learned to crawl, but saying the Church spent money on prop 8 is not true.
Of course, I am sure I will get a rebuttal, but it is public record on what was and wasn’t donated.
To post that as a cite is ludicrous. The headline alone would make me search something unbiased: Defending Mormonism by providing well-researched answers to challenging questions within a faithful context
I can’t separate the Mormonism from the Man, because true belief in Mormonism requires suspension of reality to such a huge degree.
It really has nothing to do with the influence the Church would have; anyone who believes that the Garden of Eden was just outside of Kansas City, and that Adam and Eve later moved to the 'burbs on a hill not too far from I-29 is automatically disqualified from public office as far as I’m concerned.
But that isn’t what this thread is about. I think you should start a thread n great debates or something, and we should leave this thread for talk about the church and the presidential election or religion and presidential elections in general.
It’s in the church’s best interest to offer a conciliatory message in order to attract new members to replace those who are turned off by its stance on homosexuality and the barring of women from priesthood. Among other things.
So, you posted that the Mormon Church didn’t donate any money, turns out they donated at least $180,000. I consider that a lot of money.
The contributions included tens of thousands of dollars for expenses such as airline tickets, hotel and restaurant bills and car-rental bills for top church officials such as L. Whitney Clayton, along with $96,849.31 worth of “compensated staff time” for church employees.
I am not defending what the Church did or didn’t do on Prop 8. that isn’t what this tread is about. I posted a link to a website. You make your own conclusions.
Look at the OP for what this thread is about. Thanks!
The church didn’t make this statement mid campaign. Or even the morning of the election. It is an attempt to appeal to the 50 odd percent of Americans who didn’t support Romney. It’s pandering; an attempt to make itself more attractive to non-Mormons for the purpose of gaining new members. Would the day after statement have been similar if Romney had won? Nope.
It’s kind of presumptuous of them to make any statement. Do they usually do that? Do any denominations normally put out press releases after elections? I’m not sure why the LDS leadership felt compelled to comment or what else they could have been expected to say. I don’t care what any church says about the election in the first place.
I’m glad the election was decided on the issues, but I’ve never been quite sure where Romney’s religious views fit into the entire picture. I suspect a lot of people feel that way, and that’s why Romney’s religion didn’t get much attention even though a lot of people don’t know much about Mormonism and Romney was not just a typical churchgoing Mormon. I have a low opinion of religion in general and Mormonism really is pretty nutty even compared to a lot of other faiths. I do hope the LDS cuts down on its regressive political activism.
This press release is for members who are very devastated by the outcome of the election. It isn’t meant for non-members. For folks like April and I, it’s like, well duh.
I’m not sure why anyone thinks it’s damage control. Lefty up there explained why, Mormonism really didn’t play much of a role in this election.
Because they are stupid/ I don’t know. People would have said black people were “devastated” if Obama hadn’t won the last election, but I think the majority wouldn’t have been just like the majority of my peers who are Mormon and are not devastated, but people outside the church have assumed we would be.
If true, then why did you post it in this forum, where most that see it aren’t even LDS? What are we non-members supposed to do if not critique it-stare at it and say, “Yup. That’s a statement, allright”?
