In another blunder by the Mormon leaders in Utah, the faithful find themselves this time defending their dislike of minority religions in front of the Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS). At the heart of the debate is whether a town leadership can effectively hide their own religious beliefs and that of the town behind the veil of public discretion.
The Summum religious sect located in Pleasant Grove, Utah believe in mummification and the “Seven Aphorisms of Summum”. I have no doubt that they are just another wacky American made religious sect that stole a few key ideas from a larger religion. Of course the same thing can be said of the Mormons, who most people misidentify as protestants.
This legal debacle centers around the Summum who want to erect a three foot tall granite monument that has their Seven Aphorisms on it in the public park. This is a clear cut use of a public area displaying a permanent religious monument on public property which I am totally against. This is the first argument the town leaders make. The snafu here is the park has had a Ten Commandments monument since 1971. When asked about that the town leaders said it was a matter of public discretion revealing that the Ten Commandments were part of their towns social norm, but the Summum Aphorisms weren’t. Sounds like a clear cut case of Mormons hating minorities again.
What really is at stake here is freedom of speech. The court has so many times recently said they won’t provide hard and fast rules or even general guidelines when it comes to anything religious prefering a case by case approach. Considering the current makeup of the court this case ought to be a doozy. If the court sides with the town they effectively say that any town has the right to quash minority religious opinions from being expressed in same manner they allow they allow the expression of majority opinions. If the high court sides with the Summum they are saying that the government must put aside the majority believe and lend equal weight to each and every minority opinion. Either way this decision which will probably come out in the spring has long reaching effects for us all.
In the end though the mayor of Pleasant Grove sums up what he thinks will happen if the court sides with the Summum.
2 religious groups take battle over monument to Supreme Court – CNN.com
“Governments would need to either remove every and all monuments or permanent standing features, clear up to the Statute of Liberty. Or we would have to allow anybody and everybody to come in and erect a monument in any public spot, even if the place filled up where there was no room left.”
Apparently it has yet to occur to them that simply removing the Ten Commandments would solve all the problems. Should the town lose though, I wonder just how fast that monument will come down. Perish the thought of good Mormons like those of Pleasant Grove ever being subjected to the public display of a minority opinion…
I agree that not only should the Summum monument be prohibited but also the ten commandments should be removed. The separation of church and state is utterly paramount to the preservation of our free society, and it irks me to no end when crazed religious people can’t understand that.
With that said, I must dissent with you on your views of Mormons. Yes, they have many crazed and irrational members among their ranks like any church (or any non-religious organization for that matter), but as a whole they are wonderful people that in no way, shape, or form hate minorities as you so grossly over-generalized. In fact, there are more Mormons outside of the United States than there are within. They are the only Christian church in the nation that permitted blacks to sit wherever they chose in the congregation prior to the civil rights movement. The Mormons also have a long tradition of friendship and goodwill with many other religious sects, and have donated more pounds of food and supplies to the needy throughout the world than the Red Cross (they actually provided the Red Cross with most of their supplies in the after-math of Hurricane Katrina).
I am a liberal intellectual that writes movie reviews and believes in evolution…so why am I defending a semi-right wing religion? I lived in Utah for 3 years and have many Mormon friends that have to listen to this kind of over-generalization constantly. Yes, those particular officials in Pleasant Grove are despicable and I despise that kind of narrow-minded thinking, but the majority if the religion’s adherents would be similarly disgusted at that kind of hypocrisy.
Let us not forget that Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate Majority Leader and poster-child for the liberal cause is a practicing and devout Mormon. No thinking person would say that Harry Reid hates minorities. Similarly, it’s just irresponsible to make that judgment of an entire religion of 13 million people based on the actions of a few.
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