Benjamin McGuire

There is a difference here between being okay with the legislation and supporting it. I have made it quite clear that I am in favor of the earlier legislation over this one. But this legislation doesn't bother me. You continue to avoid the hard questions here Rory. Because it's a useful starting point. You keep avoiding this question - do you think that there are boundaries that society can place on religious practice? Do you think that Mormons should have been allowed to continue with polygamy? Do you think that a religion that allows child marriage shouldn't face scrutiny because of that practice? We start with the heinous crimes because once we establish - in principle - that churches can place boundaries on the practice of religion, it is then merely a process of trying to determine where those boundaries should be. We haven't gotten to that point in this discussion because so far, you are outraged over the idea that society should have any say whatsoever.

I haven't said that I support this legislation. Let's review: 1) I am in favor of the earlier legislation (that this replaces) that made clergy mandatory reporters in all cases except for situations of privilege (which means in the Catholic Church, the confession). 2) While confession of perpetrators rarely occurs, information about perpetrators regularly comes from victims, and from others who know of the abuse. This is generally how mandatory reporters get their information. The reason why making Catholic clergy mandatory reporters is good is because it addresses a longstanding historical problem in which Catholic leadership was aware of abuse by both its members and by its clergy, and did not take efforts to bring this abuse forward to civil authorities. It isn't all about the confessional. And you still have yet to make any statement here that really recognizes the sheer scope of the abuse problem perpetrated by members of the Catholic clergy, and the failure of the Catholic Church to protect the children who were abused by these members of the clergy. Further, there seems to be no recognition at all that the issue of justice (and not repentance or forgiveness) is a civil and not a religious issue. The Church cannot impose civil consequences - but by actively working to prevent the public knowledge of crimes being committed, the Catholic Church engages in a practice that prevents civil society from getting the justice that they deserve. Further, you suggested this earlier: But this flies in the face of much of what we know about conditions like pedophilia. This is an illness that cannot be fixed by confession. And the attitude that confession will eventually correct it simply enables and extends the abuse that goes on. There is the suggestion that something like pedophilia is a purely moral issue - and as such, it should be exclusively in the domain of the Church in terms of determining how to correct the problem. And yet it isn't, and the Church, in attempting to do this, is exceeding it's own authority and extending that authority into the domain of civil society - it is taking something away from the rest of us and our need to both see a real constructive approach to correction for the perpetrators and a need for the collective society to be able to provide justice and mercy as we see fit. It is to answer these issues that creates the need to make clergy mandatory reporters - all of which have very little (if anything at all) to do with opening the confession. Finally, you keep asserting that the Church's right to seal the confessional should be absolute - and yet I think it is both a reasonable and a necessary position to make that there are limits that society as a whole can and should place on religion. You continue to refuse to address this point. Do you believe that there are limits that all religion should be constrained by to maintain their place within society? Children should not be faced with abuse at the hands of the religious leaders who have authority in their lives. The millions of documented cases remind us though that it has happened. Should we (as a society) simply trust the Church who has betrayed the trust of children over and over again?

No. You have this entirely wrong - and you should appreciate this from your Catholic background. The objective is not to force a priest to speak. That has never been the objective. The objective is to protect children. The cost of forcing clergy to speak is simply an outcome of the steps taken to get to that objective. Let's not be confused about this. This is not targeting Catholic priests specifically. The law does not target Catholics. It is not specific to Catholics. Catholics, naturally, focus on the way that it directly impacts them. I have repeated several times now in this thread that I prefer the earlier compromise - the one that protects that confession but requires clergy to be mandatory reporters in all other contexts. I think that the benefits of opening the confession are generally not very significant. The benefits of making clergy mandatory reporters in all other contexts is likely to be enough to make it worth doing (from societies perspective). And I have suggested that this is especially true since Catholic leadership has historically been aware of complaints of abuse and (for whatever reason) been unwilling to take steps to have the perpetrators made accountable under secular law for their actions. I say that the benefits of opening the confession are small because (a) I believe that very few confessions of child abuse are made, and (b) because of this, opening the confession would both result in few actionable reports and it would result in few priests having to compromise Catholic law. Given the small scope of benefit, it simply doesn't have that much value to society in comparison to the potential costs to Catholic priests. You keep misrepresenting my point of view. Get it right. But, you also are unwilling to recognize the simple fact that the relationship that religion has with larger society is not as something separate. We can truly separate them. The religion card doesn't allow for a carte blanche right to ignore society and its laws and standards. I don't think that you disagree with this - but then we are going to argue over where to draw the line. Or, perhaps you really do believe that every religion (not just your own) has the right to do anything they want because of their religious context - and not just Catholicism? I have two responses to this. The first is that this is about a history of abuse - much of which has been caused by leaders in the Catholic Church. Does the Church itself, when it becomes aware of abuse committed by its priests turn all of that evidence over to law enforcement immediately? You are ignoring the elephant in the room here. Second, what you seem to be saying is that it is the victim's job to advocate for themselves, and that the Church has no responsibility to advocate for the victim in these civil cases. And while this argument may be acceptable in some ways, it creates a problem in the overlap - when it is representatives of the Church that are the perpetrators of the abuse. Rather than simply going off and attacking here - why don't you spell out for us in a detailed way what you think is the responsibility of the Catholic Church and its priests - when they uncover allegations of abuse outside of the protected context of the confession - and also when they receive allegations of abuse pointed at one of their own? Why not? I have been a mandatory reporter for about 25 years now (my entire professional career). I don't have this freedom. Why shouldn't I expect that clergy be held to this same standards? At what point does the needs of society trump the freedom to be silent? Or do you think that the freedom to be silent should trump any and every need that society may have? A final issue though because you have brought this up several times in this last post. Mandatory Reporting is not considered a violation of Free Speech principles in the United States. Even though it compels speech, it is a compelling of fact - more similar to the filing of taxes than it is to something ideological, like a requirement to speak the pledge of allegiance. In a way, the efforts of the religious right to push boundaries by, for example, requiring physicians to provide women with literature about alternatives to abortion, have created this legal recognition that this sort of compelled speech is not a violation of free speech because it is a set of facts and not a requirement to speak an ideological message. A mandated disclosure doesn't become controversial, legally, just because a speaker objects to making it. Mandatory reporting has been determined by the courts to not be compelled speech - to not be a violation of free speech - and as such, the government has a right, should it see a need, to make everyone a mandated reporter. To do so, without providing the necessary training isn't helpful - but it isn't a free speech issue - and to not have to do this is not considered a right that citizens have (contrary to your point of view here) - anymore than we have a right to not file a tax return because it is compelled speech.

So, are you suggesting that it is pornography that is responsible for child abuse? Perhaps you can provide for us some evidence that with the legalization of pornography there was a rise in child abuse? Should I conclude that because thousands of Catholic priests personally committed child abuse that being a catholic priest somehow inclines one towards child abuse? Perhaps all of those priests who abused children were influenced by all that legal pornography they were reading? I don't think that legal pornography contributes significantly to child abuse - and the state makes child pornography (as well as any abuse of children more generally) illegal. I don't think that secrecy by the Catholic Church contributes to child abuse. The problem isn't really that simple, is it. What has been an issue is that the Catholic Church has, from time to time, been aware of individuals who were committing child abuse, and the Church did not take significant steps to prevent that child abuse. Now, this might not be a problem for you - but it is that history that is contributing to the lack of empathy in the larger society over the concerns of the Catholic Church about secrecy.

First, the evidence that we have is that confessions of child abuse in any religious tradition are actually quite rare. So, I think that the issue of opening the confessional takes a back seat to the need for clergy to be mandatory reporters in other contexts. I don't think that opening the confessional (at least in terms of perpetrators) is going to change things. But, I think that there are several benefits that are likely when we just make them mandatory reporters in all other contexts. I think the previous Washington law, which made clergy mandatory reporters except when the conversation was privileged was good. I think that the current push to move beyond that is an attempt to punitively impact churches, who have been difficult partners at best in trying to manage the problem of child abuse. I will be the first to recognize that some of this reluctance is caused by the fear of expensive lawsuits. I think that, when trained, clergy would be as good as most of our other professional mandatory reporters (i.e. teachers, social workers, etc). No one will beat physicians in terms of accuracy of reporting (due both to their special circumstances when encountering the victims of abuse and in their recognition of symptoms). But, I think that clergy generally hold a position of trust and would be approachable by victims - if victims knew that such discussions might lead to better conditions. But, most importantly, the problems associated with Catholic priests is that the Church itself would be required to take steps when allegations were made - or face sanctions. In France, in the 2021 report that I mentioned in my last post, an estimated 3,000 Catholic priests were directly responsible for abusing an estimated 216,000 individuals over a seventy year span of time. If such laws had been in place, and the Church became aware of accusations, it seems more than a little likely that subsequent investigations and civil actions would have reduced the number of victims. Churches create environments by their very nature that can make abuse easier to commit. I am not saying that Churches aren't changing. What I am saying is that Churches really have an obligation to society that is greater than the "we will handle it internally" sort of response that we have seen. If Catholicism doesn't want to have the confessional opened, then they need to come forward and promote policies and practices and engagements with local law enforcement that provides everything but that opening of the confessional - and if they really do this, then, I think, the absence of the confessional in that list wouldn't be so difficult for past victims and the rest of society to accept.

This is an irrelevancy. And I really mean that. This may mean a lot to the Catholic community - but we are also a society that has certain expectations. Part of being a Church in our society means that there are both benefits and expectations that come with it. Had the Catholic Church been meeting some of these societal expectations in the past, there would be far less pressure to force change now. But we all know that this wasn't the case. I personally think that the earlier version (it's only a year or so old now) was probably an acceptable compromise. It excluded certain types of confessions - but still made priests a mandatory reporter. And what that means is that priests would have been required to report things when they discovered them in any other context than that direct confession. What makes you think I am not considering this seriously? The problem is that Churches cannot be completely separate from the societies in which they exist. You seem to be demanding that we recognize your (collective) right to practice your religion as you see fit. And I am suggesting that, in fact, society (the rest of us) have some obligations that we believe supersede that right - not just for Catholics, but for every religion. This is, I think, one of those situations. This isn't just a problem of "our generation" - it is a problem that has only seen the light of day in "our generation". And I think that at the very least, you should maybe consider that there could be some necessary compromise. The Catholic Church, like all churches, receives a lot of benefits from our society - on the basis that it is good for society. And all that the Catholic Church would have to do to prevent legislation like this from threatening its sacred sacraments would be to simply stop claiming to be an officially recognized church. Then there are no priests - and so there is no mandatory reporting. The cost is just the benefits that society provides to Catholicism as a Church. If it is worth that much, there is a way to avoid it. This isn't about forgiveness of sins. Even if I believed that the Catholic Church (or any church for that matter) can forgive sins, this isn't about that. This is about justice. And justice is a pillar of our society. We have obligations to protect children in our society. And that obligation - in my opinion - exceeds the needs of the Church in this particular situation. So much is discussed about the perpetrator confessing - but in fact, all the data that we have suggests that perpetrators rarely confess. What happens if a victim discusses their abuse in the confessional? Can the priest who takes that confession do anything at all about it? No. So, we come back to this problem that the Catholic Church needs to come up with some sort of compromise - or society will continue to push back against them. Now, who knows, maybe the Catholic Church is getting better. Perhaps all of the litigation and the costs are teaching them that there is a price that they have to pay. And maybe once we get past "our generation" and move beyond this, faith in the Catholic Church will be restored. But, this sort of uncompromising push back isn't going to help. Further, it seems quite clear to us (as a society) that things like pedophilia are not simply sins - they are illnesses. No amount of repentance is necessarily going to get such an individual to change their behavior. The Church is unequipped to deal with this sort of thing. I do not believe that it is useless. I do not believe that it is harmful (in the larger societal context). I think that there are useful compromises which can be made. But - I am going to continue to point out that this is, at least in part, a problem that the Catholic Church has created. It is hard not to recognize this when the Catholic Church's own report of abuse in France concluded that 330,000 children were abused over the last 70 years in that country alone. That is a staggering statistic. I certainly agree that opening the confessional to mandatory reporting would not solve this issue - or prevent this sort of thing - but I do not think that it would be harmful. But making clergy mandatory reporters without opening the confessional would almost certainly have helped alleviate some of this abuse - forcing the church to report to civil authorities when they receive reports of abuse, and having the Church comply, would do a great deal to restore trust - both from the membership of the Church and from the larger society in which it participates. I think that society as a whole as a right to be skeptical of the Church's complicitness in some of this. As long as the churches do not offer some sort of transparency - both to their congregations and to society, society as a whole has a real basis to push back. The arguments about the history of the practice are, in this context, completely meaningless to me. It is not an argument that is going to win over society as a whole.

That was the whole idea about the fence-sitters that started in 1845. Orson Hyde, for example, said this in a general priesthood meeting on April 27, 1845: Orson Pratt's view was taken up and championed (and modified a bit) by Parley P. Pratt. These ideas persisted. And when the priesthood ban was lifted in 1978, they were directly addressed: So we had these three groups - those who supported Jehovah, those who opposed Him, and those "did not take a very active part".

The thing about it being figurative is this - it is trying to convey some meaning. If you are asking the wrong questions - questions the narrative was never meant to answer, the only thing you end up with is a misunderstanding of the text. It's kind of like suggesting that the Tree of life is a mango tree, since the fruit is the most desirable above all other fruit. This whole discussion about a literal third creates the numbers problem. If we read it as a literal third, then we have this numbers problem that you mention. Current estimates for the total number of humans who have lived is around 117 billion (your 10^11). A third of that dwarfs the current human population (8.2 billion). Even more so the human population 2,000 years ago (200 million). That is, at the time of Jesus, in theory, there would have been 37 billion of these sons of perdition - approximately 187 for every person alive (talk about your personal angels, right?). So we shift this, and say, well the "third part" doesn't mean a third - it must mean something else. And then we have a different problem (which we are discussing in another thread) because if there is a third part, then there must be two other parts (even though no text ever speaks of a second part - part of the reason why such an interpretation doesn't work with Revelation). And that second part must be the fence-sitters - and so we invent a theology that explains slavery (and clearly, if a literal third part of the host of heaven became slaves, then we have a lot of catching up to do ...) The question is, what is this story - this narrative trying to tell us? The D&C tells us that those who aligned themselves with the devil did so because of their agency. And this really creates problems with our idea of agency. After all, we have a lot of material like this: Do you see the conflict? How does agency exist in the pre-existence such that they could choose to turn away from God - while this separation from God (allowing agency) had not yet happened? And yet, here we are, arguing about the raw numbers of those who fell. Did they really have agency? Could they make choices that would determine their destiny? The theology is incomplete. And the narratives that we have clearly should not be read in any sort of literal fashion. They aren't meant to tell us how many fell, they are meant to explain what the other narratives are also trying to explain - a reason for the existence of evil in the world apart from God. These narratives are trying to explain why God couldn't either make a perfect creation or why He didn't make a perfect creation. As far as the author of Revelation goes, his narrative relies on imagery that is much older, just as the D&C relies on Revelation. To try and understand the text without understanding its literary history (and the myths that they incorporate) is also going to end up with misunderstanding.

Again - spoken of from that perspective. How many of the starving poor think that life is fair and that they shouldn't envy or complain about those who have enough to eat? You miss the point. That people complain about it not being fair - even from a position of privilege - only do so because there are those who are in better place than they are. And your comments kind of illustrate this. If, instead of comparing yourselves to those above you, you only compared your life to those in much worse circumstances (the remaining Palestinians in Gaza for example), you wouldn't feel the need to question fairness. And I would suggest that unfairness would continue, as would inequality by many metrics - and yet, I think that part of our becoming something more through the resurrection and exaltation - will result in our losing any need to see or understand the world through this lens of fairness. An eternal perspective (which we certainly don't have now) will make such distinctions trivialities that have no meaning. Do we envy because, as the Book of Abraham puts it: "if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, ... These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all." The focus isn't on these difference. For the Book of Mormon, the purpose of God in the end of man isn't to make them equal - isn't to give them some sort of fairness - it is to make them: "free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon." There is nothing fair about the atonement. The whole point of mercy is to make the situation unfair (fairness is the path of judgment). We are told not to envy, we are told to forgive everyone, we are told that our own preoccupation with fairness will be our undoing: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." While I do not think it bad or wrong to think that we can forgive others because God will make it right (or will provide justice), the reality, I think, is that God will provide mercy - He will never really make it right or fair, and our job is to turn away from that part of our human nature that wants to demand justice and fairness - so that we too can learn to be merciful and to act with a true love for all mankind that transcends that need for justice or fairness. Those concepts are necessary, perhaps, for our mortal condition - for society to stand. But even as a society we need to learn these other traits. Justice and fairness are only the minimum needs for society - and they will never get us to the point of building the kingdom on earth. Edit: I wanted to add one thing - I think also that we shouldn't be satisfied with where we are - and this is especially true with those who lives are miserable through no fault of their own. We as a society should not be satisfied when there are those in our society who lives are miserable through no fault of their own. And finally, we should not be quick to suggest that their lives are in fact miserable because they choose to be miserable.

My early experience (many decades ago) was that athletes regularly had their missions shortened to help them meet the necessary timing requirements for their sports. This was much more important when the age was 19 and athletes often had a year in an athletic program before their missions, and where there were often rules about eligibility that intersected with mission service. The two year experience simply didn't match up well with the needs of those athletes and the programs they were in. It was simply a relatively normal adjustment made to encourage them to go. I don't think much has changed since then. I also knew several missionaries personally who arranged to go home a month or two early for various family reasons (there wasn't a lot of resistance to it - at least in my mission).

The LDS Church has yet to seriously deal with the theological problems here. The Proclamation on the Family clearly separates gender from biological sex. This has caused them to do two things - on the one hand, they have recently asserted that biological sex is an indicator of eternal gender. On the other hand, they have had to confront the problem that occurs when biological sex cannot be such an indicator because the biological sex in indeterminate. In this second case, they have recently changed their policies to reflect the problem. Now, they suggest, parents shouldn't be eager to have their child get a gender assignment surgery - instead they should wait until the individual can help make that decision: And this is different from past policies. It wasn't that long ago that the LDS Church recognized that same-sex attraction was something you could be born with - that it wasn't learned. It wasn't that long ago that the Church announced that those with strong same-sex attraction shouldn't get married to someone of the opposite sex. And back in the day, homosexual behavior was sin only because it was a sexual relationship outside of a legal marriage. Which had to be changed when same-sex marriage became legal. The thing is, virtually none of this is supported by scripture. When talking about same-sex marriage, the LDS Church still goes back to the problematic assertion that the primary purpose of marriage is to have children - and so to point out that same-sex marriage - which can't produce children - cannot be a moral relationship. I think this will change. I think that there will be a time (perhaps not in my lifetime) when the Church will recognize same-sex marriage for time only, and when they will have more acceptance for transgender individuals. I think that our current culture wars that are involved with these issues make such changes less likely in the short term - but, I think there is plenty of time left. Policies are always built around what we consider normative behaviors. Theology and doctrine has to engage the exceptions. And the LDS Church has not yet produced a coherent theology that explains the relationship between gender and biological sex.

And yet, I take the opposite position. None of it is fair. There is no need for us to make it fair. The Father doesn't have to make it fair at all. Part of my point is that we want to make it fair - we want to believe that everything is somehow fair - and yet, this is almost always the belief of those who are in a better place than others. It is our way of telling those that are less well-off than ourselves that they can be grateful that everything is fair - and they should simply accept their place as part of that fairness. Only to my puppy ...

I think it's entirely figurative. The real purpose of the war in heaven narrative is to democratize the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden, only Adam (or Eve) make the decision that triggers the fall. The war in heaven makes the decision universal for all of humanity. The decision in the garden is replaced. But, our sense of the war in heaven is also based on these scriptural passages that are being repurposed to tell a story that was never originally intended. And in doing this, there is always going to be a loss of detail - and the opportunity for people to give more significance to specific language than it should be given. So, I think that rather than trying to make this a completely literal description of some historical event (which it simply cannot be) - we should embrace it's mythic nature and recognize the theological ideas that it champions. And given that this is the theological foundation of our rejection of the notion of original sin, and the idea of the depravity of humanity - I think that this is fairly significant.

At the same time, we have this problem - the Catholic Church has a history that cannot be ignored - they have enabled predators to continue their evil actions. Their claim that confession is privileged and sacrosanct has regularly been invoked in a way that, at least in appearance, seeks to absolve themselves from any guild or responsibility for these actions. It is clear that there are instances where religious belief should not trump the public interests. We do not allow religions to kill. We don't allow Jews, for example, to stone the perpetrators of certain sins - even though such an act is spelled out in the Old Testament. I think that given the history of religious organizations in trying to provide their own judgement or leniency in these cases - as opposed to society as a whole - have proven to be untrustworthy. I have absolutely no problem with the law as enacted. And I think that the Catholic hierarchy ought to be aware of the fact that they are more than just a little bit responsible for these laws being passed. I think, Rory, that if we say that the Catholic Church is on the same side, then there will always be caveats to this. The Church, in trying to treat this purely as a moral issue - instead of a most reprehensible criminal issue, is not really on the same side.

A few thoughts - First, I think this is wrong. I think that the Book of Mormon teaches that we are judged only on the choices we make when we are able to exercise real agency. The Book of Mormon also teaches that our agency in mortality is fairly limited. And so, I think, the argument can be made that those of us who have more freedom - who experience more agency - we are judged on a much broader set of criteria involving the choices we make than those who experience far less freedom. Some, who enter mortality, never have any real agency at all - and so have no space for judgment against them (those who die before an age of accountability or those who die without the law). In the end, this whole idea of fence-sitters was an appeal to the popular idea (it remains popular) of meritocracy - that is, we all get what we deserve - it came about as a way of justifying the horrible conditions that some were in (and going even further, to justify not advocating for the improvement of their conditions). This idea of meritocracy was a fairly huge deal in the early 19th century. After all, this was one of the most significant talking points of the aristocracy (both current and former) as they were being displaced by democracy. Read Tocqueville for example (1805-1859). Of course, this really only comes from the mouths of those who are born with some higher status - who got it by chance. And even today, since some of us get much more than others, we like to think that we deserved it for some reason - and rather than chance, it is easy to argue that we must have done something right in the pre-existence unlike our neighbor down the road from us. For those of us with privilege, we are confronted with what Jesus said to those who had received a great deal: "Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. ... Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." When I was younger, so much was said about the camel and the eye of the needle - it wasn't until later that I learned that this should only be read literally. Why the camel? It was the largest animal in the known world for the Jews. Why they eye of the needle? Because it was the smallest definable opening. Those that are born into privilege are condemned if they do not do everything in their power to help those that are marginalized. That's the judgement that comes against those who are "born with a virtual silver spoon in our mouths" - a judgment that doesn't apply to those who aren't. The Book of Mormon makes the argument that everyone in the pre-existence was on equal footing. The differences that occur for some in mortality occur because God had foreknowledge about their actions in mortality, and could then place some people in certain roles. We tend to have a range of differences of opinion in the LDS Church about the nature of God's foreknowledge - but in any case, such a view as the one presented in the Book of Mormon is opposed to the idea of fence sitters. There was, at least historically, quite a bit of discussion about what being in outer darkness amounts to - including Brigham Young's speculation that those in Outer Darkness would return to a raw-materials state from whence they could be re-organized into spirit children and get another go at salvation. I think that we have developed (speaking of the entire LDS Church) in a way that has moved away from the earliest roots of the Church which were much more universalist. We want grades and degrees - but there were many (including many of our highest leaders) who believed that eternal progression applied to everyone. And just as some of us had more time than others in the pre-existence (assuming that time is the right word), so to it may take some of us longer to reach celestial glory - but I expect that eventually everyone who doesn't re-experience outer darkness will eventually be exalted. This is God's purpose for His spirit children. The idea of fence-sitters isn't particularly helpful when placed against that sort of context of eternal progression. There is just a recognition that some may have been better prepared for others to enter mortality - and that that difference in preparation, in the end, has no real impact on the eternities. Finally, it's worth noting that the first mention of fence-sitting in LDS records comes from Orson Hyde, who, in 1845, suggested that the reason for the slavery of the black people was because they had been fence-sitters. The idea of the fence-sitter is inseparably connected to racial theology in LDS history. It is the repudiation of that racial theology that also required the repudiation of the idea of fence-sitters.

There is a reason why we don't use these sorts of issues when determining who is and who isn't a Mormon. Full participation in the LDS Church (having a temple recommend) doesn't carry with it much of a litmus test in terms of what you believe on a whole range of topics. The moment that we try to become pharisees - by demanding certain specific beliefs and actions - that is the moment where we also start denying the legitimacy of past and present leaders of the Church who also don't live up to our standards.

Sure. However, before we jump down that rabbit hole, let me point out the elephant in the room. You don't use cases where things go wrong as arguments against government regulation. After all, Roundup would almost certainly be being used (with no restrictions at all) if there were no regulatory agencies. And we would still be using DDT, chlorpyrifos, and so on.

What kind of nonsense is this? All food production is required to meet certain standards. Additional requirements are necessary for products that wish to carry the label "organic". The certification fee is required because of the additional requirements necessary to get that "organic" label - but - there is no requirement for farmers who grow crops consistent with the organic certification to actually label their crops as organic. Farmers want to get the organic label in part because there is a demand for organic crops and they can charge a premium price. This isn't a burden for farmers, it is a benefit: You can see from that study that while going organic had a large variable increased cost, even in the worst case, that increased cost results in significantly higher prices because of the premium value of organic certified product. The logic behind the certification and its costs is simply the desire to make the label "organic" meaningful. If the certification requirement to use the label disappeared, everything would suddenly become "organic" no matter how it was grown, and the concept would immediately lose any real value. However, any farmer is more than welcome to spend the extra money without using the label - and the government wouldn't care. So an organic apple doesn't have to wear a label. But if it does want to wear the label, the farm has to be certified. So, again, this statement you provide is nonsense. And, I think, there is a significant and necessary public interest in these kinds of certifications. Who was it that asked for the government to provide this oversight of the organic label? It was the farmers themselves. I am not going to argue that farming without chemicals would be good. In fact, farming without the commercial fertilizers would be even better. The reality is that organic foods aren't any different nutritionally than non-organic foods. This is all something of a PR move to try and increase the value of agriculture in a competitive market - and, if this helps local producers become profitable, then I am all for it. But to argue that the government regulation on the use of a label is somehow overreach is really idiotic.

It would be a tax break for all businesses - since unemployment taxes are usually paid by the employer (there are a few states with cost sharing to employees). In Michigan, to go back to my example, employees of a 501c3 are allowed to collect unemployment, and the actual money paid out is then billed to the business. This is a partial tax break since generally employers pay a bit more into the system than their employees collect out. It is usually a somewhat complicated system, and the Michigan system is explained here. In Michigan, there are three parts to unemployment taxes - a chargeable portion (based on actual claims), a reserve portion (based on total payroll - this would be something like an escrow account), and an unchargeable portion, which reflects overhead, and starts at 1% with a reduction based on number of years without a claim (down to 0.1%). Any organization which pays only actual claims would effectively pay for the first part, would ignore the reserve, and would get a tax break on the unchargeable amount. Unemployment taxes in Michigan are paid on the first $9,000.00 of earnings per employee per year. If your company has had no unemployment claims for the past 10 years in Michigan, and your reserve is current, your actual unemployment taxes would be 0.1% of the first $9,000.00 in earnings for each of your employees (or roughly $9.00 per employee per year). There might be considerable amounts in your reserve though. The required reserve levels in Michigan is 3.75% of total payroll for the previous year. Suppose that your total payroll was in the neighborhood of 12 Mil, your reserve would be $450,000. And, to make things simple, let's assume a gross pay for that $12 mil averages to 100K per employee (120 employees). And assuming with 120 employees that you do have recent claims, your unchargeable portion would be 1% of $9,000 for each employee or $10,800 per year - or roughly 0.09% of payroll. This is not particularly significant. For states that allow certain employers to completely opt out of unemployment, there would be significant savings. But their employees would also have no unemployment insurance.

Unemployment insurance is not the regulation of everything in sight. It isn't really regulation at all - and certainly not the sort of thing that Reagan was interested in. He had no interest while he was President, in cutting the program - he expected that unemployment costs would go down if unemployment went down (which it does). Regardless, there are a lot of areas where we really need the help of government regulation, and I mentioned a few of them. So, rather than tossing out some sort of gut reaction - that any government engagement is some sort of overreach, why don't you try and add something intelligent to the conversation.

I think that this is the wrong way to look at it. First, this decision has nothing to do with the idea that these organizations are providing an actual charity. This was entirely a question about what constitutes a religious organization. Second, the idea that the government should keep their hands off is completely nonsense. The only reason why the government allows there to be an exemption in this case is because the state expressly created that exemption. There is nothing that guarantees that exemption - it is not a right. Other states do not offer such an exemption. At the same time, this is one of the more gray areas. We wouldn't want a religious run food bank to be allowed to ignore food safety laws. We wouldn't want a charitable organization that helped with home repairs to be able to ignore work-safety laws, or to ignore building codes in the work that they perform. We wouldn't want a religious organization to be able to ignore child-labor laws. In fact, I can think of lots of situations where we want the government to treat charitable organizations just like other organizations. Third, in following your logic, I can think of reasons why this is helpful for these kinds of organizations - but - I would go a very different direction than you go. Most of the charitable type organizations that I am familiar with do not primarily use volunteer labor - they hire from that under-serviced group as part of their mission. But there is a high turnover in this group - and this can often create problems with high costs for unemployment insurance (a penalty so to speak). The way that you correct this problem is to do what they did in Michigan - to make those organizations pay back just the costs that are assignable to them. This allows them not to have to worry so much about who they hire from the available employees - and have fewer concerns for high employee turnover. But, there is something contradictory about being a part of the social and financial safety net while refusing to help provide for that safety net for your own employees. And finally, the real problem here is that since this is a question about what constitutes a religious organization - using the same criteria used in this decision, you could make the same argument that a Catholic hospital should not pay unemployment taxes - and because of that decision, that the employees of that hospital should not be qualified to collect unemployment. The hospital is not a charity. Should the government still be required to keep its hands off of it? What regulations should and shouldn't apply in that case - and how would you differentiate between them? Should the LDS canneries not be required to comply with food handling rules?

If you go back up to @Amulek's post, there are several things - 1: 501c3 is a federal status. A 501c3 status impacts certain types of taxes - but as a federal status, it only guarantees certain kinds of tax relief for federal taxes. 2: The issue here is about unemployment taxes. Unemployment programs are handled by the states - and so unemployment taxes are mandated by states. While some states exclude certain types of organizations from paying unemployment taxes, others do not. Wisconsin requires 501c3 organizations to pay unemployment taxes. In Michigan, where I live, a 501c3 has an interesting option. They do not have to pay unemployment taxes if they choose not to, however, they are then required to reimburse the state dollar for dollar whatever is expended for unemployment. For a variety of reasons, this is a tax break. 3: Wisconsin does exempt religious organizations from paying unemployment taxes. This is what is in question here. Does the charity organization run by a religion count as a religious organization? Religion owned organizations doesn't always count as religious for the purpose of this law - and those organizations can pay unemployment if they choose to. The catch here is that employees of a religious organization who don't pay unemployment taxes also cannot qualify to get state provided unemployment benefits. 4: When the article (linked in the OP) suggests that this could weaken the unemployment system in Wisconsin, it is merely because you could lose a percentage of revenue (as well as liabilities) - and in insurance systems, the more people pay in to the system, the more stable the system becomes, and the less of an impact administrative overhead causes. 5: Religious charities are a much easier subject for this kind of decision than are some other religion owned organizations. And the Catholic Charities self funded unemployment benefits also make this case easier. It is much more complicated to argue that a Catholic hospital system should be exempt (but based on this ruling, you could try to make a reasonable argument that they are religious). In the current employee challenged state of healthcare (Wisconsin currently has more than 1.2 million open healthcare job listings), it would seem very strange to have an employer like that eliminate such a benefit - so we may not have such a decision to look at any time soon - but, we may see some organizations use this as an attempt to cut costs - and to challenge where the line is between religious and not religious but religion owned - and also instances where there is no self-provided unemployment benefit (which would increase savings) - but where there may be a significant interest on the part of the state. 6: Should the impact become large enough to destabilize the unemployment program in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin legislature could simply end the exemption. This would not violate any sort of protected status. And the more that this law is used to apply to marginally religious applications, the easier such a change would become politically.

Sure - but, these are not cases of abduction by strangers. I am still looking for a CFR for your claims. Please provide it. The issue, at least in this thread, is that it was the hype over massively inflated numbers published in the 1980s. The whole "stranger danger" thing was started following the publication of these numbers - but by the mid-1990s, had already begun to change its messaging because it had become clear that very few abductions came from real strangers. However, the damage had been done - and, as Stephen Dubner suggests in a 2009 blog post: We do have information like this: This isn't just about human trafficking, of course, which would represent a smaller number than this. But, I think it works if we use this as representative. This report placed the number of 'stereotypical' stranger abductions in the US at 105 (more than half were sexually motivated crimes against adolescent girls). The same study showed that number in 1997 was 115, and suggested the difference wasn't statistically significant enough to discuss trends. These numbers suggest that stranger abductions are in fact a rare occurrence. Most of the time, when child trafficking crimes are committed against children, they are aided by some sense of trust between perpetrators and victims, who then leverage that trust to make the victims easier to control. These are US numbers. But, the damage is done, and in a context where children have an increasing scarcity, parents are less likely to want to take any risks at all.

No - you are simply wrong on this point Robert. You are just spouting complete nonsense. Family members or guardians are responsible for 41% of child human trafficking. 14% begin with an intimate partner. 11% begin with 'friends'. 66% of child human trafficking begins with someone well known to the victim. Now, yes, we can include statistics for those on-line relationships. But - those are (according the research) relationships that last a significant period of time while the victim is being groomed. That is not a random abduction off the street. Those cases are, as I suggested, relatively rare. Now if you think that I am full of it, please, post your references (CFR). I note in passing that last night, I got to listen to the several hour class on recognizing human trafficking that my wife had to take for her social worker license renewal ...

You seem to be missing the argument. It isn't that there aren't a lot of human trafficking cases. It's that most children who are pushed into this are pushed into this by people they know. The myth isn't that children are trafficked - the myth is that these children are mostly abducted - picked up off the streets at random. This is the myth that you seem to keep pushing. This doesn't mean that there aren't actual abductions - just they they are the exceptions.