One Mormon's take on Arizona bill SB 1062 (the "anti-gay bill")

I finally read SB 1062, and I don't see what the fuss is about.

You may have heard of SB 1062.  It's been in the news lately.  It's usually characterized as a terrible piece of legislation that will allow for the reinstatement of "Jim Crow" laws under the guise of religious freedom.  In headline after headline it's described as Arizona's "anti-gay law."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has taken no position on it.  A group of Latter-day Saints who support gay-marriage has publicly opposed it.

It's only about two pages long, and it clarifies the state's take on federal law that protects religious beliefs.  The most far reaching part of it, to me, seems to be the redefining of "person" to include some businesses.  It doesn't codify discrimination against homosexuals (it never mentions them), nor does it give businesses absolute freedom to do whatever they want.  It merely says that the government must have a compelling interest in removing a person's ability to practice his or her religion, and now the "person" may also be a business.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the legislation, saying that it was "too broad."  That may be so.  Legislation that is too broadly written has created problems throughout the world.  Read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago for an example.  It was one Soviet law, written very broadly, that allowed for the arrests that filled the gulags.

I'm not a legal expert, and I don't know the ramifications of the wording of SB 1062. It may actually be so broad that it would invite businesses to open up whites-only lunch-counters because the owner's religious convictions forbade the mingling of whites and non-whites.  I don't think the market would stand for it; and I don't think such a business could withstand the onslaught of public disapproval and stay open.  (This is not 1914, after all.)  Still, if a law allowed such a thing, it would not be a desirable law.


As other states mull the same issue, I wonder if the law might have to be written very specifically.  In certain small businesses, where alternate services are readily available, and where participation in some specific activities would violate the business owner's deeply-held religious convictions, the business owner ought to be exempt from lawsuits or government intervention if he or she chooses to follow his conscience rather than take the cash.  The Arizona law lists such businesses (including, I noted, a theater).  Maybe it included too many businesses.

It seems reasonable to me, for example, that a bakery should be required to serve all people who come into it, but could be allowed to refuse to make a cake that endorses gay marriage, just as it would be reasonable for the business to refuse to make an obscene cake.

It would not be right for that business to refuse all service to some people because they are overtly, covertly, or apparently gay.  It would also not be right for anyone to force the bakery to inscribe messages that the bakery owner considered offensive.

Like Governor Brewer, though, I'm not exactly sure how the line can be drawn legislatively.  A photographer should be given the same exemptions, I think, and so should a church-owned building.  But what about a public theater or an apartment building?  Should only non-believers work as county clerks, or should county clerks be allowed a religious exemption to refuse to perform a wedding?

I don't think the crafters of the Fourteenth Amendment intended all of this.

Another Mormon's take on Disney's "Frozen"

This week another Mormon blogger, Kathryn Skaggs, has taken some flack because she had the audacity to suggest that Disney's movie Frozen promoted the gay agenda.

I don't agree with her.  I think Frozen covers issues that might be personal to gays, but I don't think the film promotes their agenda.

Still, I can completely understand where Skaggs is coming from.

I remember the first time I saw the film (I've seen it twice--because I wanted to see it, not because I was dragged to it by children), I sat with my hands clenched throughout the song "Let It Go" because I expected it to promote a gay viewpoint.

Why would I think such a thing?

Well, partly because it has been so common lately for films and television--especially children's films and television--to provide sometimes subtle, sometimes overt messages that bolster the argument that the only thing wrong with the practice of homosexuality is that society (particularly the evil religious fanatical part of society led by the evil religious fanatical Mormons) does not accept the behavior as normal.  If we all just got together and recognized homophobia (with all its shifting meanings) as the greatest evil in the world today, and if we all recognized that bullying of homosexuals is the single greatest cause of death among all races and classes of adolescents, then we could defeat the evil religious fanatics and begin living in our sexual utopia, complete with free and legal marijuana.

Or something like that.

I feel a little bombarded by the message.  So much so that I have come to expect it.

Why shouldn't I expect a gay agenda in Frozen?  After all, the (straight, married) song-writing team for Frozen earned Tony Awards for The Book of Mormon, a musical whose first incarnations were intended to be a response to the Church's participation in Prop 8.  The cute singing snowman was played by the actor who portrayed one of the idiotic Mormon missionaries, who blunders into doing good even though his religion is one of the stupider ones ever on earth.  The singer who sings "Let it Go" is same one who sang Elfaba in Broadway's Wicked.  (That's fodder for another blog, I suppose.)  I liked Wicked, but I liked it understanding that the book it is based on is written by a gay man whose intent is clearly to suggest that what we thought was wrong is not wrong.  (The musical is usually read as a tribute to the lonely, ugly, misunderstood girls growing up in a world in which the competition is weighted in favor of the beautiful and popular--a reason for its success among  female 'tweens and adolescents.)

Add to that the fact that I have been presented with an almost unrelenting message from NBC that Russia is the most evil country in the modern world--even worse than the former Soviet Union--because they (name two or three things, then add) have anti-gay propaganda laws (then add some other evils, like force people out of their homes to build the stadium). 

If you know too much backstory, it might be hard to see something like "Let it Go" and not see some subliminal pro-gay messages--even if they aren't really there.

Personally, I was very pleased with Disney's ability to focus the talents of those who did Frozen, and make a film that is so beautiful and so positive to all children.  It is, after all, the Christ story--a story of personal sacrifice born of innocent, familial love.  It is the most timeless, important story in the world, told either directly through scripture, or allegorically, through a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen.  

I disagree with Skaggs.

But I understand where she's coming from.

Back in the Saddle Again

Well, I'm back.  The haitus is over.

I want to start this foray into the blogosphere with a more overt expression of my current intentions.  I read through my previous statement, and I don't necessarily want to amend that too much.  I'm still interested in pop culture, and I like to flex the ol' PhD occasionally.  I might even wax funny occasionally, if PhD's are actually allowed to do that without sucking all the moisture from the atmosphere.

But I am increasingly interested in having a voice in the national--check that:  world--dialogue about religion and its place in the public sphere.  I am also interested in both Mormon and general Christian apologetics

So, here is my intital salvo:

I am still an orthodox member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

I have a personal witness from direct experience that there is a God.  I have faith that I am in the image of God, and that he looks human though I haven't seen Him.

I have direct personal experience--I might rather say "experiences"--that prove to me that God loves me.  I have faith that He loves everyone.

I have direct personal experience--again, multiple experiences--that prove to my satisfaction that God does not lie.  In all cases in which I have been able to personally test the veracity of what God has said (either through the LDS canon of scripture or through personal experience), I have discovered that God has spoken the truth.  I have faith that He cannot and will not tell a lie.  I have faith that cases which I have not been able to test--either because they have not happened yet, or because the test is otherwise not available to me--these cases will also prove that God speaks the truth.  I have faith that things I do not currently know or understand will be knowable and understandable and will prove God's veracity.

A long time ago, I prayed to know if "the Mormon Church is true."  The unequivocal answer was a resounding "Yes!"  There can be no possible doubt for me that the answer came from God.  I am reluctant to publish too much of my spiritual experiences, and indeed, I don't believe it's necessary for me to prove to the world that the experience I had on the first night I prayed, or experiences I have had since, are from God and not my own little brain.  However, I feel a certain responsibility to be a witness, just as if I had received a subpoena to testify in court.

I have had innumerable spiritual witnesses that the Book of Mormon is a true, ancient document, and is the Word of God, equal to the Bible.  I am perfectly willing to discuss the Book of Mormon at length.  I love the book.  Both as a scholar of literature and as a practicing Latter-day Saint, I confess that the Book of Mormon is my favorite book.  If I were allowed only one book (and me a compulsive reader!), and if I were confirned to some limited space, I could find happiness in reading and studying and pondering the Book of Mormon--both as a literary and as a devotional text.  The King James Bible, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain would be icing on the cake--but the cake alone would suffice.

So here I am.  Back in the saddle again.  Chafing at the bit.  Champing in the gate. 

And maybe I can finish that novel while I'm at it...