California judges and the BSA


carlimac
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No surprise...they have managed to co-opt the language and the brains of rational (I guess) thinking people. I for one am sick to death of homosexuals. (sorry, if the shoe fits wear it.) My empathy is gone and I have arrived at near zero tolerance for them. Does this make me a bad Latter Day Saint....nope. They wish to make war on traditional values and they have thus far met little resistance because like all of Lucifers deceptions they are very crafty, loud and shrill. 

 

I read in a now closed thread of ruffled feathers over use of the term homo and I guess applying that term in the context of an LDS forum it should be discouraged. But, I dare say, that words like "gay" have forever been changed from happy to instead describe an abnormal sexual proclivity. I would note that they refer to themselves as queens and queers and I think homosexual sounds even more disgusting than homo. 

Edited by bytor2112
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Well in my humble, uneducated opinion, those calling for this prohibition are only seeing the glass half empty. Didn't the BSA recently change the rules to include openly gay members? It's only gay leaders who are banned. 

 

I wonder how many judges this will affect. Apparently they have a year to comply. Will they turn over their merit badges? Honestly. Isn't this a little juvenile?  It makes me wonder if those imposing this law have written their own definitions of tolerance and respect. I bet if there are any judges with say, an Eagle, they got it when they were about 15 and this was probably 30 years ago when we all had little knowledge of or interest in anything gay, aside from AIDS.  

 

 It just smacks again of govt over-reach. And thin-skinnedness.   How about that. I made up a word. 

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This is just... comical. Your tax dollars at work. I completely agree with carlimac.

 

Seriously, isn't this just a huge waste of resources? Not to mention incredibly biased and unjust...

 

If the supreme court has that much power over people in the public sector, then I hope I will never have to work there.

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California is sort of a cross between a Kafka novel and a bad Woody Allen movie.  A few years ago the solons in Sacramento passed a law that required school textbooks to include favorable comments about gays and lesbians.  From the Huffington Post we read:

 

"State Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco and the bill's author, hailed the bill signing as a step toward teaching tolerance. Supporters say the bill will teach students to be more accepting of gays and lesbians in light of the bullying that happens to gay students."

 

One wonders what the reaction would have been if the law had required school textbooks to include favorable comments about Mormons, who made numerous contributions throughout California's history and who are widely marginalized here by liberals.

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One wonders what the reaction would have been if the law had required school textbooks to include favorable comments about Mormons, who made numerous contributions throughout California's history and who are widely marginalized here by liberals.

 

Interesting. I'm sure there would be outcry. Prop 8 seemed to make lots of enemies. At least a very loud, disgruntled few of them. 

 

 Not having lived in California during that time, I don't really see what the Church did that was so wrong unless it was simply that the members went at it with the zeal of avid BYU sports fans. That can be annoying- and I'm a BYU sports fan. Just not avid. ;)  Maybe not so much what we did but how we did it?

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Are you just anticipating it's closure? We've been reminded to mind our Ps and Qs. I think we're doing OK so far. 

 

Yep.

 

I'm getting tired of this topic that I have so much to say on but has tantamount to a gag order because what we say is used against us.  It's a topic that always circles back to the same arguments over and over.

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I think it only a matter of time before the BSA caves and removes all restrictions against any sexual orientation. The only question then is, what will the church do?

 

1.) Carve out their own special section of BSA similar to the 11-year-old scouts where special rules apply to LDS charters.

2.) Get rid of BSA and institute an Activity Boys program.

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I think it only a matter of time before the BSA caves and removes all restrictions against any sexual orientation. The only question then is, what will the church do?

 

Depends. If the BSA leaves such restrictions to each chartered organization or unit, probably nothing.

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Special rules do apply to LDS charters, they have their own manuals. Our troops are not run or governed like a traditional scout troop

 

I have recently completed the basic set of training for Scoutmasters. As far as I know, the above is mostly untrue, especially touching manuals and how things are governed.

 

It is certainly true that LDS troops tend to be run much differently from other, non-LDS units. It is also true that, while there are exceptional LDS troops, in general LDS units have a poor reputation among other Scout troops, and often (not always) deservedly so. Our unique system of "calling" Scout leaders rather than having normal volunteers (I would say "true volunteers") is probably at the root of this.

 

It's also a problem that our troops tend to be microscopically tiny. If we could include all Scout-aged young men in the troop, it would often come closer to the regular numbers for a troop (15-30 Scouts). It would also allow implementation of many of the Scouting principles of the older Scouts teaching the younger Scouts what's going on and how to do things, and allow for some actual patrol-building and spirit.

Edited by Vort
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As long as the chartered organizations still get to choose their own leaders I see no reason for the church to really leave.

 

Except that the moral code of the BSA is tied very tightly with the Priesthood.

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Is this the craziness we'll see in the rest of the country soon and the creep into religious freedom territory?

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765667022/California-bars-judges-from-Boy-Scouts-membership.html

 

It doesn't surprise me. I'm personally convinced,  many Californian judges are not only friends of homosexuals but homosexual themselves.  (Remember Proposition 8). 

 

In my opinion one should pay attention in the future to the fact, that there is a certain parity between homosexual judges and normally oriented ones. Therefore the state or the authorities would have to put those sexual inclinations publicly. And it should be possible to disqualify a judge of suspected bias if he's a homosexual and has to judge about cases around homosexuality.

Edited by JimmiGerman
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 Not having lived in California during that time, I don't really see what the Church did that was so wrong unless it was simply that the members went at it with the zeal of avid BYU sports fans. That can be annoying- and I'm a BYU sports fan. Just not avid. ;)  Maybe not so much what we did but how we did it?

 

I may have already mentioned this on lds.net, but it's an interesting story.

 
When Proposition 8 (the state proposition against same-sex marriage) appeared, I was doing the web site for a tiny ultraliberal church in San Francisco.  Every week the pastor would post a message on the home page, usually some bland or shapeless critique of the war in Iraq or a pep talk for higher taxes on the rich.  I didn't pay much attention to the content of these messages because they didn't really say very much and nobody read them anyway (and I have the logs to prove it).
 
However, when Proposition 8 passed, the pastor sent me an urgent message to be posted on the church's web site immediately.  It was a rather frantic appeal to everyone not to judge Hispanics and African Americans, who reportedly supported Proposition 8 in significant numbers.  "We must forgive these people and try to educate them," the pastor said.  I emailed the pastor back and said something along the lines of, "Gee, the LDS Church also supported Proposition 8, so are you going to include them in your appeal to forgive and be tolerant?"  The pastor replied, "Well, no, the Mormons are our enemies." 
 
And when I describe this experience to liberal friends, they seem shocked that I would call this a double standard.  And I'm pretty libertarian about same-sex marriage.
 
I stopped doing their stupid web site, and the church later closed.  Liberals here treat Christian churches the way Superman treats kryptonite.
 
But the general feeling I get is that a lot of Mormons in the Bay Area were really turned off by the Church's boot-camp support for Proposition 8.  I heard of Mormons who were badgered and hounded to contribute money or staff phone banks to call voters, and they didn't care much for that.  The Wikipedia article "8: The Mormon Proposition" is also quite interesting and describes the unseen political forces that swirl around so many of these social issues like great magnetic fields.  This movie was far from fair, and even the San Francisco Chronicle compared it to propaganda.
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Carlimac's OP question is an excellent one. Where does this leave the free exercise of religion?

 

Here we have an organization whose intent is to instill morality and character into boys. But we don't want that morality to disagree with the state-sanctioned morality. What if that morality is based on religious principles? Does that mean that the state officially condemns certain churches?

 

Additionally, we've seen in times past that the state regulates that your religious principles don't belong in places of business, and the rhetoric of politics suggests that religious morality should remain outside the voting booth. So where does that leave to exercise religion? We may still do so in our own homes, and in church. But as we've seen lately with aggressive CPS stories, if the village morality turns against your religious morality you may no longer have that freedom in your home.

 

Will churches still be able to preach a religious morality that opposes the majority, if only on the Sabbath? 

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I may have already mentioned this on lds.net, but it's an interesting story.

 
When Proposition 8 (...)

 

 

 

I remember the whole story that started in 2008 (Prop. 8,  pro: 52,24 %, against: 47,76 %). And there is one fact: the majority of the voters in California were against the same sex marriage.  That was the official result. Quite interesting to see how supporters of homosexuality and some activists have been succesful in undermining by appeals the will of the majority of the citizens of the State of California. I wouldn't call it democracy, if the US constitution supposedly doesn't allow such a vote on such a (important) subject. A Supreme Court can easily transform into some kind of a gravedigger of democracy if it ignores the will of the majority of the people and tells them what they are allowed to vote about and what they are not.

 

And just to mention it:  the Mormons with their 2 percent religious portion there in California have hardly played a significant roll.  And I've seen many people (i.e. in German forums) who were surprised when I told them about the only 2 percent Mormons there in California, and they understood it was nothing else but anti-Mormon propaganda.

Edited by JimmiGerman
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As I understand it, CA is actually not breaking ground in this area, 23 other states already have this type of ban in place.

As much as I like to bash my state for these kinds of things, it seems they are actually late to the party for once.

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