The Mormon Question

CNN's Religion blog has posted a story entitled "Explain it to me: Mormonism." The post is by Dan Gilgoff, CNN's Belief Blog Co-Editor.

The post lists 10 facts about Mormonism, including its official name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the persecution the Church endured in its early years, including the murder of its founder Joseph Smith.

Apparently this persecution continues to some degree even today.
As of this posting, some 12 hours after CNN posted its story, over 1,200 comments have been made to the story. One commenter, drjaz, noted:

The hate and vitrol towards the mormons is nothing short of amazing. I haven't seen anything else compare. You'd think the mormons were jews and this was the inquisition. . . . When Joseph Smith was just a poor young backwoods no name kid with no prospects for the future he said that the angel told him his name would be had for good and evil all across the world. That's one prophecy these mormon haters have ensured has been absolutely and undeniably fulfilled.

Beyond reading the original CNN posting, viewing the reader posts provides a glimpse into public attitudes toward Mormons.

To read the CNN post, click here.

Two Hispanic LDS Branch Presidents in Utah Deported

On the heels of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) issuing a new statement on illegal immigration, a statement which both discourages members from entering a country illegally and calls for an opportunity for undocumented immigrants to "square themselves with the law," KSL reported today that two Hispanic LDS congregational leaders in Utah are being deported.

Beyond the story itself, the comments posted to the story show the feelings readers have regarding this issue.

To read the KSL story, click here.
To read the comments, click here.
To read the Church policy statement regarding Illegal Immigration click here.

New LDS Statement on Illegal Immigration

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued a new statement on illegal immigration. To read the statement, click here.

The statement notes that it is Church policy to discourage "its members from entering any country without legal documentation, and from deliberately overstaying legal travel visas."

However, the statement also recognizes that how to deal with the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States, "is the biggest challenge in the immigration debate."

For the Church, "[t]he bedrock moral issue . . . is how we treat each other as children of God."

The statement expresses concern that legislation that only contains enforcement provisions will "fall short of the high moral standard of treating each other as children of God." The statement goes on to say that "[t]he Church supports an approach where undocumented immigrants are allowed to square themselves with the law and continue to work without this necessarily leading to citizenship."

The Supreme Court Upholds Part of the Arizona Immigration Law, but what does that mean?

In May, the United States Supreme Court upheld aspects of an Arizona anti-illegal-immigrant law which punishes employers who hire illegal-immigrants. (This is not the more well known anti-illegal-immigrant law SB1070 which punished illegal-immigrants more directly.)

Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post, draws together the opinions of Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, and Lyle Denniston of the SCOTUS blog and concludes that if the dispute over Arizona SB1070 reaches the Supreme Court, it will likely find a sympathetic majority.

Read the Washington Post story here.

You may also wish to read Did arizona Really Win at the Supreme Court? by Bill Ong Hing writing for the Huffington Post.

Arizona-Style Illegal Immigrant Crackdown in Alabama?

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is weighing whether or not to sign an Arizona-style anti-illegal-immigrant bill into law.

Fox News reports that Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, refers to the bill as "an outrageous throwback to the pre-civil rights era."

Read the Fox News story here.