Anti-Mormon bigotry on the Atlas

[memphis]

Again with the sensual language. Harlequin? My goodness, you've been a naughty boy! Better get down on your knees and say some Our Fathers lest your impure thoughts betray your humanity.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You set the terms of metaphor, memphis. Attempting to use them to take cheap shots at me now is in poor taste. Also, is sexuality a necessary precondition of 'humanity' now? News to me. The depths of your hatred for anybody who isn't like you continue to impress.

[Mechaman]

Am I missing something? That post wasn't bigoted in the least. Mitt's presidential runs were/would be heavily supported by both Mormon donors and voters, and yes, he would depend on them for his base of support. Just like Obama depended on blacks for his base of support.

Now, Lief may have made other anti-Mormon posts that I'm unaware of, but there's certainly nothing wrong with that one.

Also, that's assuming making jokes about someone's religious beliefs is "bigotry". Last time I checked, nobody is actually trying to impose second class citizenship or other restrictions on Mormons for their beliefs, the worst they get is made fun of on the internet. Boo hoo. I have to agree with the posters talking about "religious privilege" here. Your beliefs are not immune from criticism or jokes just because they might hurt your feelings.

First, I should note that I am nowhere near Mormon.  In fact, I am a pretty agnostic person in general.

Second, it wasn't really the post itself more as the history of the person who posted it (though I should note that Lief using the word "morman" instead of "mormon" is very very telling of his subtle bigotry).  I have made more than a few critiques of religious groups (especially in some of my historical posts on what people consider to be "mainstream protestants") and do not hesitate go call outright racism where I see it.

I am not a fan of Mitt Romney.  I did not support him for president.  I voted for Barack Obama in 2012.  However, I should note that you have a pretty absurd definition of "bigotry" if you think that "bigotry" excludes speech.

Here, let me help you out with a definition of "bigotry":

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You see, jokes about how many wives Joseph Smith had is not "bigotry".  Hell, even jokes about cycling 5,000 miles a year while wearing full on dress slacks and business shirts will make you God of Jupiter or whatever the hell insane weird thing that was in the Book of Mormon (supposedly) is not even bigotry.  It's not even bigotry to point out that as recently as the 1960s that the Mormon Church had a restriction on making black men leaders in the Church.

What is bigotry is the attitude that some on here take against Mormons as a whole as a bunch of crazy religious nutjobs who lack sanity..  Which is clearly what Lief and other people think.  I'll give you the strong benefit of a doubt here and say that from this post, and other interactions I've had with you so far on this forum, that you are not an anti-Mormon bigot.  Your observation that Mormons strongly supported Romney is not a bigoted observation.  It is no more bigoted than saying that Catholics strongly supported JFK or that blacks supported Obama.

Point is, there is a world's worth of difference from saying that "Mormons are generally strongly conservative on issues and strongly favor the Republican Party" or even "I disagree with a lot of Mormons on issues like abortion because I think that many are a little backwards on the matter" from blanket statements and assumptions that Lief has made Mitt Romney is likely a racist because the Mormon leadership supported a ban on black leadership fifty years ago.  We must clearly draw the line between opposition and outright stereotyping, which is what many here fail to do on a bunch of matters.

[Mechaman]

Contempt for people who hold crazy belief systems is not bigotry. By that standards, holding ill will toward Communists would also be bigotry. The Religious Privilege implicit in the thread title is breathtaking.

Before I bother responding, may I ask if you ever actually researched the Book of Mormon or asked a Mormon what they believe?  Because I really don't feel like this is worth the few minutes response time I normally give to somebody if I feel like you are just pulling this defense out of your ass in the same manner that jingoistic conservative nationalists pull out their standard faire anti-Muslim diatribes.

[Lief 🗽]

I stand by my comments.

I have nothing against individual mormen and -women, but the morman cult is obviously horrible.

[IceSpear]

Am I missing something? That post wasn't bigoted in the least. Mitt's presidential runs were/would be heavily supported by both Mormon donors and voters, and yes, he would depend on them for his base of support. Just like Obama depended on blacks for his base of support.

Now, Lief may have made other anti-Mormon posts that I'm unaware of, but there's certainly nothing wrong with that one.

Also, that's assuming making jokes about someone's religious beliefs is "bigotry". Last time I checked, nobody is actually trying to impose second class citizenship or other restrictions on Mormons for their beliefs, the worst they get is made fun of on the internet. Boo hoo. I have to agree with the posters talking about "religious privilege" here. Your beliefs are not immune from criticism or jokes just because they might hurt your feelings.

First, I should note that I am nowhere near Mormon.  In fact, I am a pretty agnostic person in general.

Second, it wasn't really the post itself more as the history of the person who posted it (though I should note that Lief using the word "morman" instead of "mormon" is very very telling of his subtle bigotry).  I have made more than a few critiques of religious groups (especially in some of my historical posts on what people consider to be "mainstream protestants") and do not hesitate go call outright racism where I see it.

I am not a fan of Mitt Romney.  I did not support him for president.  I voted for Barack Obama in 2012.  However, I should note that you have a pretty absurd definition of "bigotry" if you think that "bigotry" excludes speech.

Here, let me help you out with a definition of "bigotry":

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You see, jokes about how many wives Joseph Smith had is not "bigotry".  Hell, even jokes about cycling 5,000 miles a year while wearing full on dress slacks and business shirts will make you God of Jupiter or whatever the hell insane weird thing that was in the Book of Mormon (supposedly) is not even bigotry.  It's not even bigotry to point out that as recently as the 1960s that the Mormon Church had a restriction on making black men leaders in the Church.

What is bigotry is the attitude that some on here take against Mormons as a whole as a bunch of crazy religious nutjobs who lack sanity..  Which is clearly what Lief and other people think.  I'll give you the strong benefit of a doubt here and say that from this post, and other interactions I've had with you so far on this forum, that you are not an anti-Mormon bigot.  Your observation that Mormons strongly supported Romney is not a bigoted observation.  It is no more bigoted than saying that Catholics strongly supported JFK or that blacks supported Obama.

Point is, there is a world's worth of difference from saying that "Mormons are generally strongly conservative on issues and strongly favor the Republican Party" or even "I disagree with a lot of Mormons on issues like abortion because I think that many are a little backwards on the matter" from blanket statements and assumptions that Lief has made Mitt Romney is likely a racist because the Mormon leadership supported a ban on black leadership fifty years ago.  We must clearly draw the line between opposition and outright stereotyping, which is what many here fail to do on a bunch of matters.

Well obviously a post saying that Romney/all Mormons are racist because of a church policy from 50 years ago is ridiculous and bigoted, but if posts like that existed (not that I doubt they do, I'm just making a point), I find it strange that you'd draw the line at such a relatively innocuous comment as the one in the original post.

As for being an "anti-Mormon bigot", no, I am not. I happen to think they have a lot of silly beliefs, but as an atheist, I think that about pretty much all religions, so Mormonism is hardly alone in that regard.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I'm going to step away from the argument about choices-bigotry vs. intrinsics-bigotry because I believe what we are saying here is that some of the anti-Mormon stuff is brushed off while the anti-mainline Christian stuff is not stood for around here. 

Can't we just chalk that up to Mormonism's place in society.  Face it, in America Mormonism is seen as outside of the mainstream, a little kooky, and associated with a certain type of "weirdness" that Catholics and mainline Protestants aren't.  Therefore, they are subject to more accepted jokes, criticism, etc.  I don't see why this little slice of society here on Atlas would be all that different.  A lot more people are going to brush off Lief's comments because they are, in some way shape or form, more acceptable than Lief going off on Catholics.  It doesn't all have to be a conscious decision by the individual poster, it's just the way it is. 

As for how I feel about ripping on Mormons in particular?  Anyone who knows me knows that I don't have to get into it. 

[dead0man]

I don't know from bigotry, but I do know every Mormon I've met in real life has been WAY too nice.  Like almost suspiciously too nice.  Almost like they were up to something.....

[rejectamenta]

Possibly the most irrelevant 'bigotry' I've heard of behind the sparkling FOX/unicorn hybrid that is reverse racism.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

What seems to be the main point against anti-Mormon bigotry that Mechaman mentioned is that there are liberal members of such a belief system. I've heard the same thing about Catholics on here, the idea being "Don't hate on them, not all of them actually believe all that crap!" What this seems to come down to is that one shouldn't hate on a particular denomination because some percentage of the constituency might agree with you on politics, or might not care about the doctrine that much. Such is a false premise, and seems to indicate that if one is a liberal in any denomination, that is the reason one shouldn't be bigoted toward said denomination, which is absolute horse shyte. If you're going to be opposed to hatred or bigotry or discrimination against certain belief systems, it should be based on a general tolerance as opposed to some crap about how "I know X person, who is of Y belief system, and they're on our side of politics, so don't hate on them!" If sharing your political views is the reason to not hate certain demographics of society, then... well, really I don't have a response to this except a sort of "What?" combined with various expletives.

[Napoleon]

[Napoleon]

I don't know from bigotry, but I do know every Mormon I've met in real life has been WAY too nice.  Like almost suspiciously too nice.  Almost like they were up to something.....

That made a good impression so play another rise or shine game?

[Mechaman]

What seems to be the main point against anti-Mormon bigotry that Mechaman mentioned is that there are liberal members of such a belief system. I've heard the same thing about Catholics on here, the idea being "Don't hate on them, not all of them actually believe all that crap!" What this seems to come down to is that one shouldn't hate on a particular denomination because some percentage of the constituency might agree with you on politics, or might not care about the doctrine that much. Such is a false premise, and seems to indicate that if one is a liberal in any denomination, that is the reason one shouldn't be bigoted toward said denomination, which is absolute horse shyte. If you're going to be opposed to hatred or bigotry or discrimination against certain belief systems, it should be based on a general tolerance as opposed to some crap about how "I know X person, who is of Y belief system, and they're on our side of politics, so don't hate on them!" If sharing your political views is the reason to not hate certain demographics of society, then... well, really I don't have a response to this except a sort of "What?" combined with various expletives.

My point is about tolerance.  There are conservative Mormons, there are liberal Mormons, and there are socialist Mormons.  Maybe I worded it wrong the first time to make it sound like I believe (which is false, as any of you who really knew me well enough, which I guess you dain't) that you shouldn't embrace bigotry against groups because they have some people who agree with you.  That is not what I believe, I believe in general tolerance towards most groups short of those that are actually legitimately bad and harmful towards society.  And no, I don't consider the largely conservative Mormon Church any more of a threat to society than Fox News.

My point, in pointing out that there were a number of liberal members (not just a few) in the Mormon Church is to show that as a group they have enough diversity and allow enough freedom of thought (I don't recall the Church excommunicating Mo Udall, for instance) to make any such blanket attempts bigoted.  Obviously, if this were the 1930s and I encountered a liberal Nazi (don't know how that would work) I wouldn't excuse Nazis as a whole for being a bunch of racist bastards just because a member of the Nazi party believed in universal healthcare and thought that the anti-Jew thing was going too far.  The difference between a liberal Mormon and a liberal Nazi is pretty clear: the consequences of "not caring" about some of the more fundamentalist issues in Mormonism is a hell of a lot less harmful than ignoring the fundamentalist issues (like killing Jews and Slavs) that are advocated in Nazism and other evil ideologies.

Of course you know this is what I actually believe, and not what is in the OP.  THis seems to be more of a critique of how I wrote the Original Post in ten minutes twenty minutes before I left for work.  I concede it was poorly worded, but I still stand by my comments that there is a bigoted element on these boards against Mormons in general that otherwise pretends to be "liberal".  And before anyone says "OH I DON'T HATE MORMONS!  I'M NOT A BIGOT!" let me ask if you think that most people who claim "I AM NOT A RACIST, BUT. . . . " are actual non-racists or are just trying to say something racist?

You see this is about a whole thing of degrees.  The most insane thing I've seen from Mormonism is some random quotes about how you can be God of the Sun and guys biking in business wear in the middle of July in Midland, Texas.  Oh and maybe something about how blacks are the Son of Ham or whoever the hell it was who was Noah's black son a long ass time ago, though on the racism thing (and maybe I just notice this because I'm in the South) I should note that many white protestant denominations believed similar things about blacks as recently as forty years ago.  A church one of my friends went to a long time ago, for instance, has on record a sermon by a preacher in the 1960s about why a black man shouldn't sit next to a white woman.  So even on the legitimate points about negative things (like the anti-black racism) about Mormonism in the past half century, a lot of people are still missing that the Mormon Church was founded in a pretty racist era (the early 19th century, when most whites (even the abolitionists) thought that blacks were subhumans) and that there were some shrooms involved in the process.  Also, many denominations outside of the Latter Saints held onto some of their racist views also well into the 1970s if not the 1980s.  Likely, the average 19th century Mormon was less racist than the average white person was back then.

Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan was formed in a pretty racist era but with the explicit and primary goal of harming black people, and not just thinking (like a lot of people) that they were lower than whites.  That is on a whole more harmful level than what Mormons would've believed and practiced back then and would likely be more harmful than what they preach today.

Criticizing the Mormon's Church's opposition to gay marriage is not bigotry just like it isn't bigotry to criticize the Catholic Church for being opposed to birth control. What is bigotry is this idea that the followers of said church are deluded freaks who deserve spite.

[The Mikado]

I've never met a Mormon who wasn't an incredibly decent, upstanding, and generally nice person.  Ever.  I'm not sure what is is, but the LDS does a good job stamping out some really friendly folks.

[RI]

I've never met a Mormon who wasn't an incredibly decent, upstanding, and generally nice person.  Ever.  I'm not sure what is is, but the LDS does a good job stamping out some really friendly folks.

This has been my experience as well, though if you're friends with a Mormon for long enough, they will almost always try to convert you at least once. It's a bit disconcerting to know that deep down there is often at least a slight contempt for people who aren't like them.

[Joe Republic]

I've never met a Mormon who wasn't an incredibly decent, upstanding, and generally nice person.  Ever.  I'm not sure what is is, but the LDS does a good job stamping out some really friendly folks.

I have (although in fairness I've possibly had a bit more exposure than you).  If not generally bad, then mainly just those awful frat-bro douches.  But admittedly yes, the stereotype you describe is generally more accurate than not.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I've never met a Mormon who wasn't an incredibly decent, upstanding, and generally nice person.  Ever.

Mitt Romney.

[DC Al Fine]

I've never met a Mormon who wasn't an incredibly decent, upstanding, and generally nice person.  Ever.  I'm not sure what is is, but the LDS does a good job stamping out some really friendly folks.

I have (although in fairness I've possibly had a bit more exposure than you).  If not generally bad, then mainly just those awful frat-bro douches.  But admittedly yes, the stereotype you describe is generally more accurate than not.

I'm having a lot of trouble putting Mormon and "frat bro douche" together in my head.

[Joe Republic]

I could supply the links to the FB or Instagram profiles of two such examples right now if compelled. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I could supply the links to the FB or Instagram profiles of two such examples right now if compelled. 

Honestly? I don't want to invade people's privacy, but I am perversely curious now.

[Oakvale]

Serious question - would people get their feathers similarly ruffled at "anti-Scientologist bigotry"? I really don't see much of a difference. There's a lot of open water between established religions that have been around for centuries and a creepy cult invented by a literal conman.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Serious question - would people get their feathers similarly ruffled at "anti-Scientologist bigotry"? I really don't see much of a difference. There's a lot of open water between established religions that have been around for centuries and a creepy cult invented by a literal conman.

Say what you want about the LDS, but I don't think their main goal is to scam people of their money.

[memphis]

Serious question - would people get their feathers similarly ruffled at "anti-Scientologist bigotry"? I really don't see much of a difference. There's a lot of open water between established religions that have been around for centuries and a creepy cult invented by a literal conman.

How old must a religion be before passing this test? At what point did Muhammad stop being just a creepy conman?

[Boris]

I think the "I'm a Mormon" videos do a fantastic job of tempering would be anti-Mormon bigotry. If you're attractive, successful, and charismatic, does it really matter that you believe God changed his mind about black people in 1978?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Serious question - would people get their feathers similarly ruffled at "anti-Scientologist bigotry"? I really don't see much of a difference. There's a lot of open water between established religions that have been around for centuries and a creepy cult invented by a literal conman.

How old must a religion be before passing this test? At what point did Muhammad stop being just a creepy conman?

Would you genuinely be at all interested in the relevant sociological classifications here or is this a purely rhetorical question?