Mormons and offense: My two cents
Shaun’s post on the coming media circus surrounding Mitt Romney’s likely run for president as the first serious Mormon (properly speaking, “LDS”) candidate is generating some upset comments from the LDS faithful who appear to not like the posting of people in the temple underwear. The most extensive response is by LDSer Guy Murray, calling the underwear shot “denigrating.” Others are pointing to Joe’s comment policy as grounds for removal. I weighed in at Guy’s blog but I’ll give my two cents here as TMV’s shadow blogger, known better for fluffy apolitical junk than this.
First, my street cred with LDS believers – they comprised probably a quarter of my high school, and I was friends with a few. I attended their seminary across the street from the school once, and besides the reading in King James English, wasn’t weirded out. As an evangelical in the late 1990s, I believed, as I’d say they did, we had a fair amount of common ground in feeling mocked in pop culture. If they were mocked by the religious or pagans in the rest of the school, it wasn’t overt. Just normal kids who used their free periods to go across the street.
I should also note my near-absolutism on free speech matters. On my own blog, I’ve rebuffed a few people that didn’t like something posted by a commenter, including characterization as a “bitch.” My guess is Joe doesn’t mind me noting there was a lot of debate among the cobloggers at the time before Joe instituted an explicit comment policy. Slurs against Jews by a handful of persistent commenters were popping up irregularly, and Joe among others thought it crossed the line and needed to be excised. I disagreed – more speech curing bad speech, sunlight as disinfectant and such – but that’s just me. Guy and other critics are certainly correct that the underwear shots can be considered “offensive,” a broad term that causes no end of legal headaches and corporate PC seminars and memos to employees.
But I’d remind those that consider the shot offensive that it indeed illustrates (literally) what is coming in 2008 – if Romney keeps hinting he’ll run, a slew of stories for the next 2 years about the LDS church, its history, controversies and role in America and abroad, including its rather secretive leadership structure. (Methodists and Episcopalians like the Bushes are only interesting these days when talking about gay bishops.) How do you grab the attention of my attention-deficit generation? Comedy – look at the Daily Show and YouTube. I’d never even heard of special temple underwear, so that pic indeed piqued my interest in a subject that I’d normally skip past. I happen to like Romney, already the subject of an extensive Weekly Standard profile last year.
Yes, a bit crude – but the underwear shot gets attention, and is something that a lot of folks like myself never even heard of. Let’s also consider the difficulty of describing temple underwear without something visual. If “South Park” can make fun of Latinos selling “Native American” tampons made from their hair to a gullible, progressive audience, and secular and faithful alike can pillory the Christian merchandising trend of the past decade, I don’t see how LDS temple underwear is off limits. LDSers could take a page from certain Middle Easterners that self-identify as Muslims (the efforts I make to be PC!) and start killing people that highlight temple underwear, but they’re too civilized for that. I happen to agree with the commenter in Shaun’s post that implied this was a side issue as long as people were dying over offense.
That said, I found Shaun’s three responses to Ann Althouse’s criticism to be in poor taste, especially patronizing a serious, intelligent blogger as “Annie Pooh.” A public apology from Shaun, many of whose readers at TMV probably didn’t see his responses at Althouse’s blog, wouldn’t be inapt.
Shadow blogger out.
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11 Responses to “Mormons and offense: My two cents”
Interesting thing about blogging is that there are things we write that we would never say to someone’s face.
I have not visited the Althouse blog.
Though Shaun is free to correct me if I’m wrong I still think he was grossly misunderstood and that the conversation got sidetracked to whether or not the picture is offensive and whether or not it should be shown.
From what I can tell, the picture wasn’t used to critisize Romney for being a Mormon or make fun of him for it either. It was used as an EXAMPLE of the kinds of things we can expect in media with a Romney candidacy. There is a difference. Shaun wasn’t saying that the temple underware (I’m sure it has an appropriate name other than that) should be laughed at or that it has an iota of value for judging Romney, but that it, and all things Mormon would be placed into the less-than-flattering spotlight of 24-hour cable news and late-night television. He’s right too. If the LDS folks think that Shaun is bigoted, then they better start taking tranquilizing shots right about now.
An argument can be made about how critisizing/making fun of some religions is OK but others not. Islam especially gets special treatment, and people ask angrily “why??” when we all know the answer “because no one wants to die for a joke”. I don’t think that was the issue at hand here, though.
When people are too close-minded to hold a conversation, a meta-conversation is right out.
I must admit, this whole issue is kinda cracking me up. Seems just yesterday we were unaware of Mormon underware, or ‘garmies.’ Now it’s all over the blogosphere, same picture. Let’s not get our shorts in a knot about this. BTW, there are 18,500 webpages on “mormon underwear” so it’s hardly a secret.
Shaun, you must be astonished by the whole thing. FWIW I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your raising this issue, or posting the pic (bet you’ll be more careful in your comments, though). Still, all this made your point. Running for president invites very close scrutiny, and the more, uh, unusual aspects of the Mormon religion will be aired in public.
Someone who wants to run the country should not revere a man (that would be Joseph Smith, central figure in LDS lore) who married around 40 women, one of whom was 14 years old when Smith explained to her that God demanded she marry him or be eternally damned.
Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, or rather, he channeled it with his face buried in an old hat into which he had placed his “peepstone” (or “seerstone” as the church terms it). This was after he had already sold his services (and that of the stone) around the neighborhood to find treasure chests, lost objects and such with the peepstone in his old white tophat. He confidently found vast treasures with his mystical skills, but as workers were digging for it, it always ‘sunk deeper in the ground’. Read the story yourself. Now I’m sorry if it’s starting to sound like I’m mocking someone’s religion here. It’s the Mormon story. It’s relevant to me that someone running for national office reveres Joseph Smith and takes his words as gospel.
Uh, in my humble but registered voter opinion.
Greg,
I enjoyed your explanation for Shaun’s post. Please feel free to correct me, but I essentially understand you to be saying:
1. I know Mormons, so I’m the best judge of what is offensive.
2. I think religious sensitivity is dumb anyway.
3. Our comments policy only applies to Jews.
4. The picture is OK because I think it’s funny.
5. This is nothing compared to what the next guy is going to do.
6. Just be glad we didn’t do worse!
Thanks again for a very enlightening read.
It is relevant to me what a candidate believes and how they approach the problems of society. To the extent that religion is central to their identity I want to know details.
Paul in Austin,
But the question is, which details?
Ones that would have any relevance on their public policy decisions, or ones that have to do with private issues of morality or worship?
And ones that you might learn about in a serious manner by reading in context about a religion from an unbiased source, or cherry picked instances of religious practice that (when depicted out of context) might seem odd?
CS,
You said “Ones that would have any relevance on their public policy decisions, or ones that have to do with private issues of morality or worship?”.
Should Romney be questioned on how his faith shaped his attitudes on race since until he was 31 the LDS faith forbade anyone who was known to have one drop of black blood from the priesthood?
Jim S,
I certainly think that’s a bit more relevant than undergarments, yes. I don’t know much about Mormonism but I imagine that their response would be that their priesthood is based on a lineage, not on equal opportunity for all, and that belief in this really isn’t indicative of racism (just as my Catholic belief in priesthood for men only does not indicate misogyny).
Again, that’s just my hunch, but in any case it seems like a fair point to raise even if I don’t necessarily think it’s that significant. Religions are generally not democratic in their hierarchy, nor are they required to be, and most rational people can understand that a belief of what is right within the church hierarchy doesn’t mean that one believes that people should be restricted access from positions in general society.
The priesthood, for 6,000 years in every Christian religion, has been restricted to Levites and the descendants of Joseph, literal or adopted. Look into it, every religion in JudaeoChristianity believes the same. Nowadays there are hundreds of thouands, and perhaps millions, of black Mormons; many of all of whom have the priesthood.
Nothing in GreenDreams’ post is true in any way. It just isn’t.
This and more neutral mellow mormon discussion linked above, but I still don’t know if I’d allow this topic; nor would I the discussion of anything anyone considers sacred. Again, all of your religions have garments, you just don’t know it. But if you read anti-Catholic or anti-Episcopalian or whatever books, you’d see a lot of the same stuff you see in anti-Mormon stuff… anyway…