To Liberal Mormons

Some people wrongly accuse Senator Harry Reid of being a liberal. I would not want our laws to be fashioned after any religion so I disagree with your last paragraph. I've met some Mormons who are quite on the liberal side.

Could you please define Liberal for me? I need your defination to fully understand and comment on this article. Thanks

George- I think you are unfairly lumping all LDS into one category when clearly there are prime examples of LDS who run the gamut in the political spectrum. This is one reason the church professes political neutrality and simply encourages each of us to vote for the candidates and issues that we feel inspired to. I think most differences of opinion (or at least for me) usually arise from varying viewpoints of how a similar goal or outcome could best be accomplished. Typically I vote for candidates or support issues that BEST represent my personal values, goals, and concerns because I find no one candidate or measure can meet 100% of them all of the time.

Ok - here goes. A liberal is a person who believes that the government has an interest in the welfare of all people in society. Senator Harry Reid hardly falls into that category. I chose him because he is a Mormon. I think that much is made of anti-Mormonism (mostly by the Mormons themselves). It is a sign of insecurity. The Mormon church has thrived in this country and continues to do so.

Capeach, not sure I understand your response with regards to what I wrote. I certainly do not lump all Mormons as conservatives, although I can clearly see how people could draw that conclusion from comments that slip out at Fast and Testimony meetings. I believe there are a lot of liberals in the Church, but they tend to be as quiet as Church mice compared to the conservatives in the Church. As for Harry Reid, I know next to nothing about him other than he is a Democrat and a Mormon. There have been prominent, and it is my understanding, that there are several Democrats among the leadership of the Church -- one being James Faust. However, when non-members think of the political stance of Mormons, they tend to think of Ezra Taft Benson or Bruce R. McConkie. There is a reason for that and it has to do with the hot-button issues which the Church feels compelled to respond to such as abortion and gay-marriage -- the membership seeing these issues being wedded to the Republicans frequently in members adopting the entire neo-conservative regime, much of which contains a lot of un-Christian attitudes on economic and church/state issues. I don't know how many times when the issue of welfare or economic issues are discussed that you hear, well it will work if the Church does it, but not if the government does it. So an attempt by the government to do something is classified as evil. We also have the millennial syndrome where anything which is economically or socially uncomfortable gets deferred to the millenium rather than being instituted now -- that sometimes has pernicious effects. For example in one of the editions of the misnamed "Mormon Doctrine" by McConkie it was said that the extension of the priesthood to all worthy males would not occur until the millenium. Same is true of the United Order, since it sounds awfully like a type of commune.

"Ok - here goes. A liberal is a person who believes that the government has an interest in the welfare of all people in society"

Joe,

Very good definition. The traditional simplistic definition is:

liberals = big government
conservatives = less government.

By this definition I would label Mormons as conservative. The Mormons have a distrustful history w/ the US government. The US government military fought battles w/ the Mormons and lost back in the 1800's. If the US military won we would not see a Mormon religion as we know it today.

As a result Mormons are naturally distrustful of big government. They believe more in taking care of their own on a local level vs. a big centralized government.

One of my parents friends is a strong Democrat and he is a patriarch in my stake. Mormonl liberals exist but they tend to get drowned out by the conservative members of the church.

Great comments. I totally agree. I'm a member of the church, and tend to vote for more Democrats than Republicans. There are just a couple of huge issues that steal the show for many LDS folks--and abortion and gay rights have already been largely decided. Beside, abortion to me is not a moral issue. No one wants to kill a baby; it's a matter of when a baby is a baby that is at stake in most people's minds.

But the issues you note in your article really could make great strides with good leadership.