![\"Botanical](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/06\/798px-Uppsala_University_Botanical_Garden.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yesterday, I mentioned the anger that some are expressing at the \u201cfact\u201d that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> has issued no statement regretting the massacre in Orlando or expressing its condolences:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI guess that righteous indignation is a lot more satisfying than using Google is\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some of those who are indignant at the Church\u2019s supposed silence in this matter are also expressing their rage at the way the Church\u2019s view of homosexual acts contributed \u2014 they have no doubt, of course, that it did<\/em> \u2014 to the murders at that Florida nightclub, Pulse.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A reader of this blog passed the following along to me, from a Facebook post somewhere. \u00a0I have no idea who the author might be, and don\u2019t care enough to try to find out. \u00a0But it will stand for some of the things I\u2019m seeing myself:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo my friends who are saddened and appalled by the mass shooting in Orlando this week, but belong to a religion or ideology that does not support gay marriage, please consider the fact that you are part of the problem. Yes, I know you would never pull the trigger, but understand your beliefs oppress members of the LGBT community. You tell them you love them and that you are tolerant. That they are in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. But your actions tell a different story. Your actions say they are not good enough to receive the blessings of your church, and they are not good enough to receive equality in this nation. They are different than you. They are less than you. They are not worthy. You vote for bills and politicians that will continue to deny them their birthright. So, although I appreciate you are mourning the loss of life and hatred in the world right now, please know your biases and prejudices will continue to put the lives of the LGBT community and other minorities in danger. I know there is so much more context around the shootings, but these primitive beliefs are so harmful to our world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Now, ironically, I think it\u2019s such sentiments as that expressed above that are at least potentially dangerous. \u00a0It\u2019s a very small jump from deciding that the religious beliefs of even nice, non-violent people are literally killing and oppressing others to taking legal and extralegal steps to punish and proscribe those religious beliefs and perhaps, yes, to punishing and proscribing even those nice, non-violent people.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As my reader remarks, following the quotation above,<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think many members of the church are oblivious to some of the rhetoric that is creeping up declaring our beliefs to be hateful, and according to this post, even dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0I fear it\u2019s just a matter of time until we will begin having empathy for our pioneer ancestors who were violently forced from society.\u00a0\u00a0After all, if I\u2019m part of the problem, as this FB poster declared, then the only solution is to forcibly stop me from being a Mormon, or at least make it difficult to be one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I see the same potential threat. \u00a0It may not happen, but it could. \u00a0And the time to oppose such a threat is long before it gathers enough socio-political and cultural momentum to become effectively irresistible. \u00a0That\u2019s why the battle to preserve religious liberty is so important, and is heating up.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAm I overreacting?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n No, I don\u2019t think so. \u00a0Not really.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It will start with Mormons<\/a> (and with others like them, on such issues) being obliged to take gender- and orientation-sensitivity courses at work, being unable to get employment in the first place, being passed over for promotions, being de facto<\/em> excluded from public office outside of Mormon-majority areas, being marginalized in cultural organizations, being effectively barred from the better universities, being targeted (even more than we already are) in elite and eventually mass entertainment, and so forth. \u00a0Will it come to \u201creeducation camps\u201d? \u00a0Certainly not right away. \u00a0Hopefully never. \u00a0But it\u2019s not impossible to see the potential seeds of such things in what\u2019s being said now. \u00a0There are already calls for the taxing of (especially) conservative churches and synagogues, and, in some quarters, for the use of zoning powers to ensure that such undesirable elements are kept out of \u201cgood\u201d neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n For related reading, see Jonathan Tobin\u2019s \u201cThe Shame of Anderson Cooper\u201d<\/a> in Commentary<\/em>, as well as this piece, \u201cThe Orlando Shooting Launches a War on Christianity,\u201d<\/a> by the estimable David French.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Posted from Uppsala, Sweden<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Yesterday, I mentioned the anger that some are expressing at the \u201cfact\u201d that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued no statement regretting the massacre in Orlando or expressing its condolences: \u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cI guess that righteous indignation is a lot more satisfying than using Google is\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n