Mormon racism: killing for interracial parents
One of the leading opponents of samesex marriage (and homosexuality in general) is the Mormon church, presumably on ethics grounds. Too bad for the Mormons that the very foundation of their religion is racist. Mormons are racist in the worst sort of way, with a bible that says that black people are cursed by God. For over 100 years, Mormons were publicly racist, but in the 1970s when it became politically incorrect to be racist, the Mormon church took their racism into their closets, publicly disavowing what they privately still hold true (no surprise that the movie "God with The Wind" is a Mormon favorite with its closet racism). Such racists include Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah (who had the gall to head the Senate Judiciary committee, a position no racist should hold), ex-governor Mitt Romney, noted cable entertainer Glen Beck, all of whom are also leading efforts to ban same sex marriage (which to them is worse than being racist, I guess).
The ethical dilemma the Mormons unethically refuse to resolve is this. One Mormon belief is that words of the head prophets of the church, especially two of the founding fathers - Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, that their words are the words of God. To this date, the Mormon church has not denied this belief (to do otherwise would lead to the collapse of their church). The ethics problem is that some of the words of these prophets, are amongst other things, extremely racist. For example consider the following quote from the Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110), writen by one of the prophets of the Mormon Church, Brigham Young, in 1863:
Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.That is, if a white man's sperm mixes/fertilizes with a black woman's egg, he should be killed instantly - DEATH ON THE SPOT. I wonder why God hated the concept of interracial couples so much to ordered that he spoke through Brigham Young (University) that the men in such couples be murdered. But first, before the man is killed, the word of the Mormon God is that the man be cursed by being turned black,
And curseth shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done. Second Book of Nephi, Chapter 5, verse 23.
And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethen... Book of Alma, Chapter 3, verse 6.
And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon their seed. Book of Alma, Chapter 3, verse 9.These are completely unethical laws and explanations which should be repudiated by the Mormon church on the spot, and eradicated from their sacred texts. Until then, the ethical views of Mormons should be ignored, for example, with regards to samesex marriage.
Maybe Hitler was thinking of the Mormon God's call to kill those who miscegenate (biracial parenting) when Hitler said in Mein Kampf: "In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following: (a) the level of the superior race becomes lowered; (b) physican and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap."
The science of sperm involves much science, another area where the views of Mormons should be ignored. For the book of Mormon is riddled with many scientific falsehoods. For example in the Mormon Bible, the book of Ether, the Mormon bible states that the Jaredites, a group of people who supposedly came to North America about 4000 years ago (despite there being no scientific evidence for such a migration, as evidenced by the genetic inheritances of American Indians), that the Jaredites had with them:
And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms. Book of Ether, Chapter 9, verse 19.There is no scientific evidence for the existence of elephants in the United States until the early 1800s (a few decades before the Mormon bible was invented). To say otherwise is to lie, making this passage of the Mormon bible a lie. And cureloms and cumoms? Fantasy animals undefined in the Mormon bible. Maybe one use of elephants and cureloms and cumoms was to crush to death white men who had children with black women. Some argue that cureloms were mammoths, but that is still a lie, because at the time of the supposed Jaredites, all mammoths were extinct.
Mormon Anti-Semitism. One very evil passage in the New Testament is a lie that appears only in the Book of Matthew, where he invents what evilly became the "blood libel" curse. The passage is:
When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands and said, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person. You see to it." And all the people answered and said, "His blood be upon us and on our children." Matthew 27:24-25Christian churches turned this into a call to hate and kill Jews, and over the next two thousands years, Jews in Christian countries were murdered as "Christ killers", conveniently ignoring their contradictory belief that if Jesus died voluntarily for our sins, he effectively was his own killer. Here's the thing. The two terms "us" and "children" are very vague, where the call is not an outright lie. Is "us" all Jews, the Jews at that moment in time, is "children" just their children, or all future Jewish children?
So you think when the founder of the Mormon church was inspired by God to edit the New Testament (see "The New Testament with The Joseph Translation"), he would have changed this horrible, evil passage (which might have inspired other Christian churches to edit their Bibles years before the 20th Century Germans kill millions of Jews). He didn't edit the two sentences, nor does he indicate that they should be deleted by striking them through with an editing line. He simply does not include these two passages in his translation with no explanation - an ethical cowardice.
Mormon sacred texts - While the Mormon's can't deny that the Book of Mormon (with some of its racist language) is the word of God, for some years they have been degrading the sacredness of the Book of Discourses, a book of speeches made by Mormon church leaders and written down by members of the Mormon church. They have to degrade the Book of Discourses (something the founders of the Mormon church would condemn) because it clearly states that God wants evil things done, including racist evils.
Let's return to the racist command to kill from the Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110), writen by one of the prophets of the Mormon Church, Brigham Young, in 1863 in Salt Like City (racism central):
Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.There is no denying that Brigham Young (University) is saying that God wants Mormons to kill white men who have sex with black women. And indeed, when Brigham Young (University) so spoke, he was speaking for God:
This quote is from a speech by Mormon President Heber Kimball, August 1853, that appears in the Journal of Discourse, Volume 2, Page 105. "Brigham Young's ... word is sacred.", which includes his word that God wants the men in interracial couples to be murdered - a sacred murder. President Kimball reiterates Young's authority a few years later:Brother Joseph [Smith] is gone, and now brother Brigham Young, the Governor of the Territory of Utah, is our Prophet, our leader, our Revelator; and it is for me and you to listen to him with all diligence, the same as we would listen to Joseph were he alive. Brother Brigham is his successor; his word is sacred.Journal of Discourse, Volume 4, page 119. So when that mouth-piece says racist things, it is the voice of God speaking, the voice of God saying to kill white men who get black women pregnant. And evil God then.We have acknowledged brother Brigham to be our leader, and he holds the keys of the kingdom here on the earth. Whether people believe it or not, he is God's representative in the flesh, and is the mouth-piece of God unto us.Now modern day Mormons, to cover and hide their racism, try to do so by degrading the sacredness of these Journals of Discourse. But do they have the authority to do so? The Mormon Church has never denied that the top leader speaks for God, and they have never denied the racism passages in their Book of Mormon. Yet they want everyone else to believe that these quotes from the Journal of Discourse are not true, despite these quotes being fully consistent with many other Mormon writings.
Until the Mormons clean up all of the racist beliefs and writings in their church, they should shut up about samesex marriage.
Mormons and Ronald Reagan. Not surprisingly, Mormons were huge supporters of Ronald Reagan, because a) both were conservative, b) both were mostly Republican, and c) both have mean racist streaks that they exploited. In Reagan's road to the White House, one of his worst exploitations of racism occurred on one day in 1980.
A little history first. In June 1964, three civil rights workers were viciously murdered in the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County in Mississippi, murdered by townspeople enraged at the idea of these "liberals" trying to secure the rights of African-Americans. The three murdered civil rights workers were David Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. Just a few days before the three men were murdered, members of the Ku Klux Klan had firebombed a black church in the county and had beaten terrified worshippers. A pretty racist town that deluded itself, as did many others, by saying that throughout time they were not racists, but defenders of "states' rights".
16 years later, in 1980, Republican Governor (California) Ronald Reagan launches his candidacy for the president of ALL of the United States. And where does he choose to as the momentus first stop in his general election campaign? Smack deep in the center of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where the deaths of the three civil rights workers still enraged some, and still gladdened some. Why there? Because Reagan and the Republicans wanted to tap into Southern racism to further their political ambitions. Just a racist thing to do as being outright racist. And Reagan's code phrase in his speech: "I believe in states' rights." No wonder Mormons were so eager to embrace Reagan.
New York Time columnist Bob Herbert, in the 13 November 2007 edition of the Times, page A29, had a solid review of this history and Reagan's racism. No wonder Mormons were so eager to embrace Reagan. No surprise that Mormons are now eager to embrace other Republican party hatred - all opposition to same sex marriage. From Bob's article:
The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County's primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination for president in in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.
That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: "We want Reagan! We want Reagan!."
Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd: "I believe in states' rights."
[..........]
Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. ... The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.
He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about "states' rights" to white people in places like Neshoba County there were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we're with you.
And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Right Acts of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.
Congress overrode the veto.
Reagan also vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Congress overrode that veto, too. Throughout his career, Reagan was wrong, insensitive and mean-spirited on civil rights and other issues important to black people.
A few weeks earlier, on September 25th, Herbert had a related column titled "The Ugly Side of the G.O.P.", where he explains more of this racist Republican political strategy:
In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan's presidency, the late Lee Atwater [political strategist who helped Reagan get elected] gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.", said Atwater. "By 1968, you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you are talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites."But at least Reagan didn't try to pass a law calling for the death of any white man who gets a black woman pregnant.