Contact:

Crystal Young-Otterstrom
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801.652.0737

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A couple of weeks ago, the church held a news conference in which Elders Holland and Oaks discussed the church’s support of efforts and legislation to protect the rights of members of the LGBT community while calling for protections for religious liberty (see newsroom article here).

This past week was Ronald Reagan’s 104th birthday. I wish he were alive to celebrate, probably more than most conservatives I know. It would be interesting to see Reagan’s take on today’s political environment. Most likely his opinion would be tossed by the wayside by the same individuals that currently profess his adoration.

The State of the Union is Tuesday night, starting at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific. My preferred way of watching the last few years has been the White House's enhanced feed: it includes infographics and excludes pundits. We'll also be live-tweeting from @MormonPress. But if you want some other ways, C-SPAN has a nice undiluted feed, though it can be slow due to the heavy traffic, and all the major broadcast and cable news channels are also showing it, which means three things:

A fellow ward member who is African-American related to me recently that several years ago he and his wife felt impressed to move their family to Utah County even though they knew they would stick out among the vast majority of residents.  Moreover, repeatedly he has been offered better jobs elsewhere and he and his wife have considered moving, but again have felt impressed to stay where they are.

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, and the older I get the more this increases. It’s a time when it just seems a little easier to focus on happy thoughts, family, loving our fellow human beings, and, for those of us who are Christians, the Savior.

Imagine that Mormon missionaries were killed and abused by police on a regular basis.

Last week, President Obama announced that because of Congress’s failure to pass a bipartisan immigration reform bill, he is taking executive action to help improve our badly broken immigration system. At the same time, Obama acknowledged that his executive action would not solve all of our immigration challenges and that only new legislation would provide a comprehensive solution. Notwithstanding the fact that many previous Republican presidents used executive actions to reform our nation’s immigration policies, Republicans predictably responded to President Obama’s action with outrage, even though it was House Republicans who purposely stalled on taking up immigration reform after the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan reform bill in 2013. Among those expressing disdain for the President’s actions are Mormon conservatives. However, if those conservatives understood the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on immigration reform, they would applaud the President’s initiative.

Last week, Peggy Fletcher Stack, religion editor for the Salt Lake Tribune, approached me about commenting on a Los Angeles area LDS bishop who had written a blog post about Harry Reid. 

Mark Paredes has offended me. 

I don’t know Mark Paredes.  Until this weekend, I’d never heard of Mark Paredes, and in the great eternal scheme of things, what Mark Paredes does or says or thinks or writes shouldn’t make a whole lot of difference to me.  But offend me he has, and in the spirit of the Lord’s counsel in Doctrine and Covenants 42:90-91, I offer this brief but public chastening to my offending brother.

I’m offended, but not for the reason you think.