On Sat, 4 Aug 2007, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Oh yeah, Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson is a really good guy -
> politics as good as anyone who could ever hold elective office,
> smart, and really likable. He left the Mormon church when he was
> about 18 and really has no time for the thing now. He pointed out
> that the church still officially believes that people of color bear
> the Mark of Cain and no one ever calls Mitt Romney on this.
I think Rocky Anderson is a great guy based on what I've read (and I'm glad to hear he's a great guy in person) and I'm perfectly willing to agree the Mormon church is full of weirdness. But AFAIU, this last bit is a cheap shot that is technically true but substantially false. It's technically true insofar as the Mormon church has never officially repudiated any doctrine (including plural marriage). What they do instead is to have the president of the Church issue a personal opinion, play it up, and eventually elevate this mere opinion over doctrines in their holy books.
But factually, this is how the Mormon Church repudiates doctrine. Although they never "officially" repudiated plural marriage -- they never said Joseph Smith was wrong -- the present church defined itself on repudiation of that belief and vigorously expelled members who disagreed and help the police to prosecute and jail them. There is an official policy of zero tolerance.
And on the black issue, the Mormons, because they are like a military organization, could order integration in a way few other churches can match. They are still majority-white, but they are less so than most of their competitors. (FWIW, last time I looked at the stats, churches were still the most racially segregated institutions in our society, far exceeding schools, work and residence. The reason it doesn't upset people more is that a lot of it is choice on both sides -- black churchgoers mostly like their churches and don't have any desire to get into the one on the other side of town.) And FBOW, Africa is now the main focus of the Mormon's substantial missionary effort, which has always been the key to their weird success: they have always put more energy into winning converts than any other church on earth. So they are very actively trying to make themselves blacker, and have been for 3 decades now. Which I think is more than any of the Churches you would reasonably compare them with could say.
Again, this not to plump for Mormonism. I'm just saying this seems like a cheap shot. And while an ex-Mormon like Rocky Anderson, who has taken lots of tsuris from them, has certainly earned the right to take all the cheap shots at them he wants (lord knows they've taken them at him), it sounds to me that he's little like an ex-Catholic denunciating the Church -- knowledgability and personal experience may still not lead to scrupulously fair judgment.
Michael