http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/0...kids/21260464/

Um you already made this thread. Why are you double posting the same link into multiple forums? Perhaps if you made some form of substantive commentary that differed, but as the double post is just silly

Gay Mormons parents sounds like a very small population, but the optimum play might be to leave the LDS.

I hardly think this is a noteworthy issue when a billion Muslims (including most of the "moderates" the liberal media would have you believe are nice people) believe that gays should be killed. And act on it in many countries where they have a majority.

Does that mean that a Muslim who doesn't specifically renounce anti gayness should be virtually eliminated for consideration for the presidency?

And there it is, DS has immediately turned the thread in RGT into the exact same discussion as the subject he wanted to raise in politics with the same link.

That is just one of the reasons.

It doesn't appear to be a consideration when the candidate is Christian.

Can someone make me a list of all the issues in the world that don't matter because of some other thing that may or may not be worse?

Feminism, gay rights, they're just silly unless you're Saudi Arabian. No point complaining about police brutality or legal injustice unless you're in North Korea.

Food isn't an issue if you're not in one of the worse parts of Africa.

It's rather cult-like to demand separation and exclusion of family in exchange for spiritual reward. Sounds like the kind of deal a sly devil would conjure up, IMO.

The Mormons seemed so reasonable before this. I wonder what changed.

You're probably being sarcastic, but in my mind Mormons were the lesser of many evils. But if you take a sliver of unreasonableness and let it grow, this is the monster that is created.

Edit - if Mormons don't wish to marry gay couples then that is their prerogative, but punishing children by singling them out as different in a negative connotation is a heinous crime.

I just realized this is the religious forum. Where's the Christian outrage? Mormons are following the bible. They are not punishing children; they are protecting them. Children are not subject to excommunication for their parents choices, rather, they are counseled and given the choice of baptism as adults at the age of 18 instead of 8. How sweet it is. What could possibly go wrong?

It's not a religious forum, it's a forum for discussions about religion, and one of the better ones you'll find.

Even if we presume this to be true, two wrongs don't make a right. Furthermore, if we assume it to be true, you would have a logic that validates any trampling on human rights. "Let's jail people without conviction, because they do that in a whole load of countries" etc etc. So either your comment is just hyperbole and rhetoric, or you wholeheartedly believe that any wrong you can find elsewhere is excused. Your pick.

Lastly, though gay rights are undoubtedly in peril in many predominantly Muslim countries, stating that "a billion Muslims would actively kill gays in countries where Muslims constitute the majority" (paraphrased) is absurd. Perhaps that is not what you meant, but then you should moderate your language.

I take it you haven't spoken to any Muslims. Easy to make idiotic generalizations about 1 billion people when you haven't met any of them.

This is not a clearly formulated question. Do you mean that a person shouldn't vote for a Muslim who hasn't specifically renounced anti-gayness?

Well presumably if you are not yourself anti-gay, you would probably not vote for someone who is anti-gay unless you think the other reasons for voting for that person override that consideration. The Muslim part is only relevant because it makes it more likely that the candidate is anti-gay. But it isn't like a candidate, especially a Muslim candidate, would be able to avoid being asked directly about his/her views on homosexuality.

Or do you mean something like, is outside what should be regarded as outside the acceptable background for someone to be a serious candidate for President?

For what it is worth, I think that right now a Muslim candidate probably is unelectable. This would be especially true of a conservative Muslim candidate. But should it? I don't think this is really a normative question at this level. If we lived in a country that had a large number of anti-gay Muslims, then the answer is yes, such a candidate should be within the acceptable background to be taken seriously as a candidate for President.

But this is just a question about democracy and representation, not about being a Muslim or anti-gay. In the same way, I would prefer that an atheist candidate that supports open borders would be regarded as electable in the US. But this is just because I am an atheist who supports open borders. No doubt if I was an anti-gay Muslim I would prefer an anti-gay Muslim candidate.

In other words, this question ultimately reduces to what views we think should be acceptable for citizens to hold. I don't think that being Muslim or being anti-gay should be considered unacceptable.

Perhaps in an absolute democracy.

Modern democracies aren't tyrannies of majority however, but are based on on natural law and the social contract. Natural law implies that there are actual recognizable inherent rights, and the social contract is the principle that the state only has authority if it protects your rights. This is not merely political science masturbation either, natural law is a recognized thing that courts in many modern democracies will actually use to interpret legislation.

Under those principles it is perfectly fine to reject certain candidacies and political platforms as inherently unfit and without legitimate authority.

Now you might disagree with those principles on some philosophical level, but we're discussing actual existing political entities - not hypothetical scenarios.

"Anti-gay" is rather vague. There are Christian candidates for the Republican nomination that hold anti-gay sentiments. They are far from virtually eliminated from consideration.

Just so we're clear, my view is that as a matter of fact, an anti-gay Muslim candidate for President in the US would be an unacceptable candidate to enough people that he shouldn't be taken seriously as a candidate. This is not a philosophical point, but a matter of political science. That is, any serious candidate for president has to be within a relatively narrow band of common social norms of her society.

Beyond that, I think the issue is philosophical. I see no good reason to support the claim that either the social contract or natural law prevents anti-gay Muslims from being serious candidates for high elective office in modern democracies. You might personally disapprove of such candidates, but your own approval or disapproval is not a sufficient reason for a candidate to not be a serious candidate for high elected office.

To make this clear, presumably you don't think that being Muslim is enough on its own to prevent someone from being a serious candidate. Thus, if anything is going to prevent them from being a serious candidate, it has to be that they are anti-gay. Yet, many actual leaders of modern democracies were strongly anti-gay. So evidently being anti-gay also doesn't prevent them from being serious candidates...

As I said, I think if there is a real objection here, it is a normative one. That is, you don't think such a person should be regarded as a serious candidate for president. But that is just a way of saying that citizens in modern democratic societies shouldn't have such views. It is of course fine to prefer to live in a country without anti-gay prejudice. But it is a different thing to say that if you live in a country where many people are prejudiced against gays that they shouldn't be allowed to vote on the basis of that prejudice.

This has nothing to do with the right to vote and I have mentioned no such thing.

This has to do with the right to rule, known as "status". Our modern version of "status" is the "state". The state (in a typical western democracy) IS based on natural law and the social contract. If it does not recognize and protect its citizens' rights, it has no authority. The minute a political platform is elected and legislates to remove that principle, the social contract seizes to exist. Your democratic state is now a tyranny of majority. This has nothing to do with what I think, this is a simple consequence of the underpinnings a modern democratic state is based upon. Its reverse ideal is indeed how many of them were born, in revolution.

Is it still "a state"? Yep certainly, but it would still be "a state" if you faced military coup as well.

I'm well traveled and have met plenty of Muslims. I count some of the less bat**** insane ones as my friends (they drink alcohol and eat pork). Having said that, I'm surprised my statement is controversial. I guess there are a lot of deeply ignorant people in the world (yes, that means you). I didn't want to turn this into a thread about Islam, which is why I didn't reply, but this sums up Muslim belief based on one of the most reliable polling organizations in the world:



Islam for the majority of Muslims, at least as captured in these polls (which exclude Saudi Arabia and Iran, by the way) is comprised of a deeply sexist, homophobic, brutal, religious fascism on par with Nazism in its scope, treatments of outsiders, and ultimate aims. The stats on homosexuality aren't included in the above, but are terrible. Over 95% of Muslims think homosexuality is morally wrong if you look at the polling. The US is an outlier in Muslim attitudes, both because it's so far away, because the populations are so small and thus not self sustaining, and because it's strongly selection biased for the least practicing of the faith.

In terms of beliefs, I see nothing wrong with people disliking homosexuality, or liking it. I don't even have a problem with shunning people with particular traits from a church - people can associate how they will, it's a fundamental human right (being allowed to be a member of a private group is not, IMO). So I don't why people are so interested in this particular church, when there are 40x the number of people in the world in a mainstream religion who want to KILL gays, and in many places where they have a majority, do so with the sanction of the state.

Then you probably shouldn't say that the thread topic is irrelevant because of Muslims.

I hate all this stuff BUT...

Mormons follow all these strict rules they come up with and I assume interpreted from Jesus and the bible... They are NOT social clubs and one thing I will say is they aren't hypocrites. They practice what they preach

Btw, what does the bible say about homosexually? Nothing? Other than Adam and eve were man and woman?.. I'm not sure. That's why I'm asking

The OT says things about homosexuality being an abomination.

I have no idea what the Book of Mormon says about it, but there's all sorts of crazy stuff in there.