Here are some passages from the New Testament requiring equality and condemning wealth. I included a couple of verses that less explicitly deal with temporal welfare/egalitarianism to show the underlying principles. I hope these help people out!

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We've already expressed on this site our disappointment with Obama in addition to our severe disagreement with Romney's policies. We said we wanted to hear what the candidates would do to address climate change. We heard nothing. We said we were concerned with America's agressive global military actions. While Obama is better than Romney on each of these, his record isn't stellar. All people have to navigate a balance of pursuing their ideals/goals with realism/pragmatism. The pragmatic reality in the US is that it is a two-party state. We hear truisms that votes for 3rd party candidates are wasted, or that they benefit the major party candidate with the most different ideology. This is an unfortunate reality. 

“Suspected Militants” killed by drone attacks.

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Post by Joseph M

While Ray Suarez interviewed Rahm Emanuel for PBS NewsHour's coverage of the election, the crowd at the McCormick Place broke out in cheers, causing Rahm to break away mid-sentence to see what had happened.  (CNN had just called the election for President Obama.)

Rahm Emanuel threw up his hands and belatedly cheered at the news, (and my sister in Louisiana undoubtedly began to cry.)  This has been a roller-coaster of an election for us Mormons, and doubly so for us Mormons for Obama.  While my faith and hope in the President's reelection campaign never "officially" wavered, I did find myself responding to his donation email requests more than I'd ever thought I would.  So I greet the news of President Obama's election with happiness and an assurance that the future of our country is in good hands.  Four more years is no longer a chant, but it is a reality -  even if Romney isn't accepting it and is still challenging Ohio.

This website and the Facebook group have been an uplift for me and for many of us.  I am so grateful for the support and good wishes that we have received from the many Mormons for Obama across the nation and also in the greater world community.  I believe I will reflect on this more in the upcoming days.  But for now, it is with a tinge of anticipatory nostalgia that I write this post.

But alas, the moment is here, and we have cause to celebrate!  So press forward Saints!  Let's not forget the charge to do our part to bring peace, equality, and opportunity to our great nation!  Whether this is through our service in Church or in our wider communities, we possess the awesome ability to do good, and that has been evident through this Mormons for Obama group!

I love America. I love President Obama. And I love being a Mormon.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSLQSDFVK-8&w=560&h=315]

Well, we're continuing to increase the functionality of mormon sites online. We're excited about the latest edition. We've loved the Joseph Smith Papers Project which the church made available online. There are so many gems in there. However, it was difficult to quickly search and find particular words or phrases (like trying search the Nauvoo Relief Society Minutes for "priesthood"). To address this we've created an extension for chrome (the firefox add-on will come later). Please check it out and let us know what you think.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MwyErsB6Oo&w=560&h=315]

One thing I try to do is read posts occasionally from a few intelligent conservative voices. I think everyone needs to keep an open mind, and this helps. For me, one of those voices is former George W. Bush Special Assistant David Frum, and he penned some of the wisest words I've ever read in his CNN post, "Let's Get Real About Abortion." I would encourage you to study this and pass along to family and friends.

I have always felt that 80% of Americans were about in the same place on this issue; namely, that high abortion rates are bad, but that outlawing all abortions no matter what is not the answer. I don't question the sincerity of those who believe life begins at conception; if that's truly your belief, it's obvious you will be passionate on the subject.

However, there is a difference between respecting someone's religious beliefs and allowing those beliefs to dominate the conversation for the rest of us. I've always felt if the middle 80% got together, we could agree upon a common-sense approach to minimize the number of abortions performed, while not imposing an undue burden on those rare situations where the vast majority of Americans believe the mother, her family and her clergy should decide. One rule we must abide by: a society must not criminalize something unless there is virtual consensus among all members of society that the activity is criminal. The few who believe all abortion should be criminalized, regardless of circumstances, need to remember that fact.

Another thing we must recognize: prevention of unwanted pregnancies is the most effective way to protect unborn life. Given this fact, Planned Parenthood is the most pro-life organization in America. I don't agree with all their policies, but there is no question they prevent more unwanted pregnancies than any other organization. It is folly of the worst order when some Republican politicians talk of ending Planned Parenthood to score political points. Such an act, if successful, would result in a huge increase in the number of abortions.

Hopefully, there will be more voices of moderation and reason on the abortion issue like David Frum, so Americans can put this divisive issue behind us and really work together to make Jimmy Carter's dream come true: "Every baby conceived deserves to be a wanted child".

Post by Randy Astle -

We’re now on the cusp of election day and unfortunately time won’t allow me to do as deep a dive into Mormonism and environmentalism as I’ve done on my other topics. Still, the protection of the environment is important enough an issue that I thought it merited its own entry. I’ve been rather amazed throughout the presidential campaign that global warming and the environment have been virtually absent from the campaigns’ messages, even for President Obama who supposedly has a base concerned about government involvement in environmental issues. There have been other topics that have received little to no attention—education, the Supreme Court, nuclear disarmament—but the potential environmental catastrophe that we’re teetering into seems large enough that it would have received at least cursory examination.

So, following the lead of my earlier articles, how do my beliefs as a Latter-day Saint influence how I view the environment and environmental policy? The chief concept is one of stewardship, that the Lord has given us the earth on loan and that he will require an accounting of how we cared for it during our brief time upon it. As I study Church history my impression is that environmental thought was long absent from LDS rhetoric beyond a pragmatic desire to bend the elements to man’s will and make the desert blossom as a rose (Isa. 35:1). It’s only in recent years that other scriptures about environmental ethics have received attention, and I’m grateful for publications like the 2006 BYU-published book Stewardship and the Creation and the recent Sunstone issue on “Earth Stewardship” that have explored these issues in greater depth.

In discussing foreign aid, domestic economic policy, and domestic social issues, I have emphasized that I believe one of the primary purposes of a government is to protect and nurture the most powerless of God’s children. I see government not as a sentient entity but as a compact of the citizens it governs, and as such we the people have a responsibility for how our government acts in carrying out these duties; it is a tool the Lord has given us, not an obstacle we must overcome. Again, here’s D&C 134:1: “We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society.” Couple that with scriptures like the Lord’s statement that when we have cared for “one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40) and King Benjamin’s that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:27) and we see that the disadvantaged, those who are unable to help or advocate for themselves, are probably those who the Lord most wants us to help.

The Earth, God’s footstool, is defenseless. It lies entirely at our mercy. I think there are no truer words in scripture than these:

“Mister!” he said with a sawdusty sneeze,

“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.

I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.

And I’m asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs”—

he was very upset as he shouted and puffed—

“What’s that THING you’ve made out of my Truffula tuft?”

Our treatment of the Earth is perhaps the ultimate test of our character in this Second Estate, beyond how we view each other, our bodies, and other things over which the Lord has given us stewardship. Not even the Lorax could stop the Once-ler (us) from exercising his agency and his dominion over the Earth, so it’s up to us as free agents to decide what we will do. But it’s precisely because the Earth is so defenseless that the Lord requires such a careful accounting at our hand. Add to that the fact that we and our children and their children—and all God’s other living creations—have to live here for a very long time, and I cannot really fathom anyone wanting to err on the side of recklessness or diminish the tools, like the EPA, that could help us better care for the environment. This is one area where an overabundance of caution should prove universally acceptable, because all of humanity is at stake.

Well, the argument against the EPA or environmental regulations usually goes that they hurt business, they slow the economy, they cost jobs. There are a whole lot of people out there who still assert global warming isn’t a threat, but the primary rejoinder is an economic rather than a scientific one. Which is fine, because I don’t really know how to discuss this with someone who refuses to believe the enormous amount of objective evidence scientists have gathered in support of global warming being a man-made and potentially irreversible phenomenon. In addition to saying that all truth belongs to Mormonism, Brigham Young got specific and said, “Our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular” (JD 14:116). When 98% of the most active researchers on environmental issues agree that global warming is man-made, how could it be worthwhile for any Latter-day Saint to continue arguing that it’s a hoax or is scientifically unfounded? I think we would all, Republicans and Democrats, be better served if we locked arms and started trying to figure out ways to combat the threat.

But going back to the economic argument, not only is it very hard to believe that saving the planet is bad business, but the Lord has consistently shown that he values a lot of things a lot more than business. We are God’s children and he certainly cares about our ability to provide for our families—again, no one is saying it’s a zero-sum game between the environment and our pocketbooks because God is capable of taking care of both—but he is vitally interested in how we treat the earth and provide for a suitable home for his other children to live in. The command to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Moses 2:28) came long before the Fall and Adam’s consignment to working the earth “by the sweat of thy face” (Moses 4:25). Between those two verses the Lord taught Moses that “every plant of the field . . . and every herb of the field” (Moses 3:5) have spirits just like people and animals, so it just makes sense that these should receive higher prioritization in our minds than the system of buying and selling that Satan introduced after the Fall.

I haven’t yet given the Once-ler’s reply to the Lorax’s question. It’s telling:

“Look, Lorax,” I said. “There’s no cause for alarm.

I chopped just one tree. I am doing no harm.

I’m being quite useful. This thing is a Thneed.

A Thneed’s a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need!” 

Appropriating environmental resources—free gifts from heaven—for economic benefit is what Nibley calls the Mahan principle. “And Cain said: Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain . . . And Cain gloried in that which he had done, saying: I am free; surely the flocks of my brother falleth into my hands” (Moses 5:31, 33). It’s just business, ma’am. If some deforestation is involved, that’s an unavoidable cost of business. If we pollute some water in Ecuador, that’s a consequence of exploiting the Amazon’s fossil fuels. If fracking might be getting people sick in western Pennsylvania, we can’t postpone drilling until studies are done because our shareholders require consistent profits. And since inexorable commercial forces drive all these activities, and hundreds more, it’s not the government’s role to step in and restrict our right to conduct commerce.

And then I got mad.

I got terribly mad.

I yelled at the Lorax, “Now listen here, Dad!

All you do is yap-yap and say, ‘Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!’

Well, I have my rights, sir, and I’m telling you

I intend to go on doing just what I do!

And, for your information, you Lorax, I’m figgering

on biggering

and BIGGERING

and BIGGERING

and BIGGERING

Unrestrained by government, it’s nearly impossible for companies that are driven by profit to restrain themselves from environmentally destructive but financially profitable behavior. There are concerned individuals who may run some of these companies, and there are rare exceptions like Wal-mart’s upgrading of its fleet technology and routing systems, but the bottom line is such a powerful force that I fear 49 times out of 50 environmental concerns get consciously or unconsciously brushed aside. I believe Satan pushes for this kind of mentality not because he’s out to destroy the earth but because it engenders a selfish mindset that will distract us from seeking for God. By contrast, those who are concerned about animals or the earth are quite likely, I suspect, to also be concerned about their fellowmen and, often, their God.

Both presidential candidates are beholden to big business. In August Mitt Romney released his energy plan for America, and my understanding is that the words “environment” and “global warming” never even appear in the document. Instead he’ll drill aggressively (which Obama is already doing) and roll back environmental regulations. All indications are that he would love nothing more than privatizing the EPA or breaking it up into state agencies, where localized commercial interests could easier sway policy away from wise global stewardship. Renewable energy is mentioned in his plan’s general statements but not in any of its specifics, meaning it will receive little beyond lip service in a Romney administration. Earlier I quoted D&C 104:17—“the earth is full, there is enough and to spare”—in saying that the Lord has the ability to give us unlimited resources, but I want to make clear I don’t think that means there’s no such thing as peak oil. It could just be that wind, solar, wave, and other developing energy sources, such as from nanotechnology, are the way the Lord desires to continue blessing us and ensuring that the benefits of electricity and technology spread throughout the developing world—and without the high cost of burning unlimited fossil fuels.

President Obama has a mixed record on the environment, and his campaign unfortunately continues to advocate for increased oil production and clean coal, which I am dubious will work in a truly sustainable economy. But his willingness to investigate options beyond increased drilling, his efforts to encourage (including helping fund) private technology firms to develop new energy sources, and his support of controlling damaging emissions through cap-and-trade is admirable and a necessary first step as we seek to end global warming and other environmental disasters. President Obama is aware of the ecological cost of America's actions and is actively engaged is seeking solutions for both our country and our entire world.

The Lord has given us this Earth, but it is not ours. I believe he will require an accounting from each of us as to how we cared for it and the plants and animals he placed upon it. I believe that we cannot let ourselves off the hook by saying “someday it will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.” In fact, I believe that working to replenish the earth now will help prepare it for this renewal after Jesus’ Second Coming.

“SO…

Catch!” calls the Once-ler.

He lets something fall.

“It’s a Truffula Seed.

It’s the last one of all!

You’re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.

And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.

Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.

Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.

Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.

Then the Lorax

and all of his friends

may come back.” 

Author: Kim Burningham

Dear Friends,

The election has nearly arrived. Thank heavens!

I suspect that you and I are alike--glad the election season is coming to a conclusion. Some parts of our election process are very helpful. Focus is placed on issues which need to be debated. The spotlight is aimed on our leaders and potential leaders; we get to know them better. Most importantly, we are able to express our feelings when we vote!

Other aspects of this “silly season” are distressing: the abundant negative television ads, the distortion of positions, the obfuscation. I am most troubled, however, by the hostility exhibited in the 2012 election, and believe some of us need to grow up: respect and seek to understand differences, not belittle and demean.

Some extremes are horrifying: the real Halloween nightmare. In my own community, some folks were informally chatting at a church meeting. The conversation—as is often the case—drifted to politics. “I am so proud of my grandchildren,” beamed one. “They wrote a letter to Obama and told them that they hated him.” Another responded, “I wish he’d die.”

It is hard for me to believe such an event actually took place; civilized people reacting in this way and encouraging it in their progeny!

Another example: in an eastern Utah town, anonymous pranksters created a mock hanging: “A dummy of Romney [was] sitting in a chair by a tree holding onto a red rope that goes over a tree branch and forms a noose around the neck of a dummy Obama.” (Salt Lake Tribune, October 28, 2012) Thank heavens some observers, including the mayor of the Orangeville town, was appalled. But some of these Utahns were apparently laughing. I hope you are as appalled as I am.

Certainly, we differ. Some of us support Governor Romney; others advocate for President Obama. I celebrate the fact that we can disagree, examine, and express our reasons. But when that disagreement takes the form of demeaning, hate, and lack of respect, I am embarrassed.
I am convinced, though I disagree on some points with both presidential candidates, both men seek to serve our country for its good. One is our current leader; the other could be a future leader. Both deserve our honest and kindly attention. Neither deserves vindictive responses. I am embarrassed by those who take the lower road.

They do, indeed, turn our election months into the silly season—more than silly, their actions are deplorable.

Happy, although somewhat disappointed, Halloween
Kim R. Burningham

Post by Randy Astle -

As their name indicates, this is the elephant in the room for social conservatives. There’s a very large voting bloc that goes well beyond Mormonism for whom social issues, particularly perhaps abortion and now gay marriage, often take precedence over anything else. Described as “conservative family values,” these are often linked to family and framed within moral rhetoric—more than, say, economic or foreign policy issues—and tend, I think, to be the most discussed political topics in religious settings. They are therefore what often comes up when conservative Mormons discover that one of their friends is a liberal or a Democrat: “How can you support a party that supports abortion?” “How can you vote for Obama now that he’s come out in favor of gay marriage?” Etc.

It might not be possible to answer such questions satisfactorily, but I have two thoughts that move in that direction. First, taking a broad view helps. That, for instance, is why I’ve spent so much time in this series trying to establish that neither party is the party of God, neither has any more or less divine approbation than the other. As a peculiar people with our own set of beliefs we are going to agree with the Republicans sometimes, with the Democrats sometimes, and with neither party perhaps most of all. A nuanced view of an issue rarely falls inside a party platform. Second, we need a degree of pragmatism in the real world: I do not have to agree with a candidate on every issue in order to believe he or she will be the best candidate for that office; I actually doubt that I’ve ever found a candidate with whom I agree on everything—how could that even be possible? Thus it really comes down to prioritization, a little personal quid pro quo, although that doesn’t imply a surrender to cognitive dissonance or abandonment of our moral values: it just means that in our search for the greatest moral good in the real world of politics we all have to take what we can get, and some matters truly are weightier than others. Conservatives as well as liberals have to make these types of decisions.

Both of these thoughts get tied up in the question of what we’re really talking about with the rubric of “social issues.” I tend to take the broad view that they are any and all policy issues which deal with society. The gospel of the Latter-day Saints, of course, has a lot to say about building a proper society, more than any other Christian denomination I know of. Ultimately salvation is an interpersonal activity, structured vertically through generations of ancestors and descendents and horizontally through couples, families, and the community of Zion and its stakes. Joseph Smith was a highly social individual, and that concern has filtered down to us through his original teachings like that the “same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there [in heaven], only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy” (D&C 130:2) and beyond that to a very intricate Mormon social structure. I’m writing this in my ward meetinghouse as six or seven families have gathered to let our children play in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. We were here doing the same thing yesterday (Monday) as the storm grew close; we trick-or-treated here on Saturday; I’ll be back tomorrow morning for playgroup for my three-year-old, Thursday night for a community orchestra rehearsal, Friday night for Activity Days, and Sunday, finally, for church, not to return until the next Wednesday for another playgroup—the longest hiatus of our week. And activities at the meetinghouse, as any Church member knows, is just the beginning.

So Mormons are social people, especially among our own, and the doctrines and practices about family and society run deep in our theology. And it’s issues that touch on these doctrines and practices that the Church leadership has reserved the right to comment on in the political sphere. In its statement of political neutrality, the Church newsroom says that the Church “reserve[s] the right as an institution to address, in a nonpartisan way, issues that it believes have significant community or moral consequences or that directly affect the interests of the Church.” This could yield a rather broad purview—moral issues could be construed to include war, poverty, and education, for instance—but Church leadership tends to limit its activities to issues that directly affect the structure of families: issues of marriage and sexuality.

In an earlier post I linked to a Mormon Matters podcast on the Church’s political history that discusses in depth how this happened, and that entire conversation is definitely worth hearing. Philip Barlow also implied the limitation during an interview for a New Hampshire Public Radio article:

“‘Joseph Smith taught that salvation, or exaltation, is a relational thing. And the relations that we’re talking about are most intimately marriage, and then nuclear family, and then the extended family, and then the wider community.’ So, Barlow says, when the 1960s saw the rise of casual sex and drug use, and the 1970s brought the Roe vs. Wade decision, many Mormons saw traditional family structures as being under threat . . . The Mormon theology of salvation and the family also explains how Church leaders openly pushed for Proposition 8 in California, which banned gay marriage. To non-Mormons, that appears to be a clear-cut political issue. ‘That’s different in the thinking of Church leaders,’ from endorsing a candidate, Barlow says, versus ‘when there’s a moral point at stake with some law or another. That’s how they officially construed Proposition 8. Mormon thinking construes damage to the family as a fundamental threat in society, and a fundamental threat for the well-being of human beings,’ Barlow says.”

Many people would assert there’s “a moral point at stake” with laws that seek equal pay for women or a higher minimum wage or more stringent inspections of food processing facilities, but it seems that the Church has determined those issues to not immediately influence family stability and therefore to not become involved with them. What’s unclear, as discussed in Mormon Matters, is whether that direction is coming from Church officials like the First Presidency and apostles, grassroots self-reinforcement through cultural norms among the general membership, or some sort of combination of both. But with rhetoric both over the pulpit and the dinner table focusing more on issues like gay marriage than, say, poverty, the former for better or worse tends to get the lion’s share of attention when Church members go to the ballot box.

I wanted to bring all of this into the conversation because I think it illustrates how for better or worse a few social issues have taken precedence in the thought of most Church members, even though there’s no fiat saying that these are or even should be the only social issues about which members should be concerned. My earlier point that we all have to prioritize which issues we most fervently support is validated by this conversation: for many members of the Church the social issues on which they’ve chosen to focus are abortion, heterosexual marriage, and other issues that revolve around sexual morality, like regulations on pornography or prostitution or even the display of sexually explicit media and entertainment. Because of this they support “socially conservative” politicians who share their beliefs on these core issues. Now, these issues certainly remain important for other Church members, but they may choose to emphasize them less than alleviating poverty or providing affordable medical care to all members of our society, so they will support politicians who support their views on those core issues regardless of what they think about the others. And that’s the way it should work, because who could ever find a politician that matched his opinions on every conceivable issue?

I don’t have much to say personally about gay marriage, for instance. I believe the Proclamation on the Family that says “marriage between a man and woman is essential to [God’s] eternal plan” and I agree with President Monson and other general authorities who have counseled us to oppose same-sex marriage. I believe I would oppose it regardless of any explicit statements from Church leaders just because of what I believe about the purpose of marriage in the plan of salvation, the importance for children of two-parent families with a father and a mother, and the complex moral position of homosexuality. I have similar opinions about premarital sex, marital infidelity, divorce, and abuse.

(That’s not to say, by the way, that I believe there should be no conversation about homosexuality within the Church. I’ve been quite pleased, for instance, by last April’s “It Gets Better” video by and for gay BYU students, and I’ve been excited to watch the progress of the Far Between movement and documentary that promotes understanding between gay and straight members of the Church.)

But I don’t see myself as “favoring traditional marriage” or “against gay rights,” the labels that would normally be attached to the position I just outlined. Those are labels that are insufficient, myopic. If I had to label myself I would say I’m “pro-family.” What that means is I cannot stop at just saying, “I think laws that would allow same-sex marriages should not be passed.” It’s much bigger than that, coming from the Proclamation’s last sentence: “We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” This is a call to actively promote measures that not only maintain traditional family structures like heterosexual monogamy, but that seek to strengthen families in myriad other ways. We must implement programs that help marriages stay together. We must do what we can to help children belong to a married “father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.” We must fight poverty, disease, crime, ignorance, and any other societal ills that contribute to the breaking down of extended and nuclear families. Simply protecting traditional marriage is only the tip of the iceberg.

So I choose to evaluate my pro-family position against a large network of issues and programs, weighing some points more heavily than others. If I’m presented with a candidate—or an entire party platform—that supports legalizing same-sex marriage but also supports strong measures for reducing poverty, then I’m prone to support that candidate or party because I believe that poverty is a greater danger to marriage and childrearing than gay marriage. I regret that promoting gay marriage remains part of that candidate’s or party’s agenda (realizing, of course, that many Church members support gay marriage), but I believe that the overall result will be beneficial for families and society, a stance I don’t see as being cognitively dissonant or dishonest in any way because it achieves the greater moral good. Of course, if I were able to find a candidate who supports both heterosexual marriage and complete socialization of the health care industry, for example, then that candidate would have my unreserved support. Barring such an unlikely possibility (because it straddles the extremes of our country’s two parties), I will take what I can get, emphasizing the candidate who I think can do the most good.

In my last two points on foreign affairs and economic policy I’ve emphasized that I think one of the most fundamental purposes of government is to eradicate poverty and inequality wherever it may exist; this is in accordance with my self-identification as “pro-family,” though I could add the labels “pro-community” and “pro-life” to myself as well. This last term, in fact, which is normally associated only with opponents of abortion, was brilliantly reified and explained by Thomas Friedman in his Times editorial last weekend. Forgive my quoting him rather extensively:

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children. You can call yourself a “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life conservative.” I will never refer to someone who pickets Planned Parenthood but lobbies against common-sense gun laws as “pro-life.”

“Pro-life” can mean only one thing: “respect for the sanctity of life.” And there is no way that respect for the sanctity of life can mean we are obligated to protect every fertilized egg in a woman’s body, no matter how that egg got fertilized, but we are not obligated to protect every living person from being shot with a concealed automatic weapon. I have no respect for someone who relies on voodoo science to declare that a woman’s body can distinguish a “legitimate” rape, but then declares — when 99 percent of all climate scientists conclude that climate change poses a danger to the sanctity of all life on the planet — that global warming is just a hoax.

The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth. That radical narrowing of our concern for the sanctity of life is leading to terrible distortions in our society.

Respect for life has to include respect for how that life is lived, enhanced and protected — not only at the moment of conception but afterward, in the course of that life. That’s why, for me, the most “pro-life” politician in America is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. While he supports a woman’s right to choose, he has also used his position to promote a whole set of policies that enhance everyone’s quality of life — from his ban on smoking in bars and city parks to reduce cancer, to his ban on the sale in New York City of giant sugary drinks to combat obesity and diabetes, to his requirement for posting calorie counts on menus in chain restaurants, to his push to reinstate the expired federal ban on assault weapons and other forms of common-sense gun control, to his support for early childhood education, to his support for mitigating disruptive climate change.

Now that is what I call “pro-life.”

I’m a New Yorker and haven’t been thrilled with everything Mayor Bloomberg’s done, particularly with education policy and his unprecedented pursuit of a third term, but this description is incredibly apt—it groups together many of Bloomberg’s achievements that otherwise look haphazard and dictatorial (and which run into the same counter arguments I discussed last time: a few weeks ago I saw a PepsiCo delivery truck emblazoned with the slogan, “Don’t let government bureaucrats take away your right to choose your beverage”). If we see all of Mayor Bloomberg’s policies as pro-life, a pattern emerges that goes deeper and embraces more areas than we normally ever even think about with this terminology, and we can even include the city’s new bike lanes and the closure of Broadway to vehicles around Times Square. The mayor’s only position I would differ from is the first one about a woman’s right to choose, because I believe that abortion should only be considered when the life of the baby or the mother is at stake or when pregnancy is a result of rape, abuse, or incest. Though I arrived and that independently it is, by the way, also the Church’s position, a middle road between being either pro-choice or pro-life that therefore brings us grief from both sides: hence the perennial pro-life protesters with graphic placards outside every general conference. My point here is that it is possible to really be “pro-life” by supporting the life of the unborn baby, the life of the mother—including her quality of life when the pregnancy results from trauma—and the life of the child and family after birth. (And that policy is in harmony with Church leaders’ teachings that we don’t really know at what point a premortal spirit enters its physical body, as in page 354 of Man: His Origin and Destiny in which the First Presidency says, “The body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ or embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man.” See also Journal of Discourses 17:143, Doctrines of Salvation 2:280-281, and even Mormon Doctrine 768.)

I also believe that people who are pro-life and really want to minimize the number of abortions in this country will give women all the tools they can to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Teaching the law of chastity obviously comes at the top of that list, but it’s obviously unrealistic to expect all American women (and men) to quickly adopt that standard. Therefore, making contraception available becomes the next biggest factor, and a study published October 4 in Obstetrics & Gynecology (and discussed here) showed that having free access to birth control, as provided under the Affordable Care Act, reduces abortion rates from 20 per 1,000 sexually active women to 4.4-7.5 per 1,000 women. The birth rate among teen girls was almost six times lower than the national average, and 75% of all women chose to receive IUDs or implants, the most effective—but, previous to the health care reform law, expensive—forms of reversible contraception. What this means is that the Affordable Care Act has the potential to significantly lower the rate of unwanted pregnancies and abortions throughout the country, which is a very positive thing for anyone who wants to reduce abortion rates. The same is true of Planned Parenthood.

My positions on issues like gun control and immigration are similar to this. I’m pro-life and believe the Lord doesn’t want us to kill anything unnecessarily, and since guns are used essentially exclusively for the taking of life—whether animal or human—my religious and moral position makes me essentially oppose the ownership of guns for any reason. I understand the original motivation for the Second Amendment, but today it’s out of date and out of sync with scriptures like Genesis 9:10-13 JST (which includes a commandment against killing animals unless faced with starvation) and Mormon 7:4. We don’t need to jettison the entire Second Amendment, but as society becomes increasingly urban some serious reform will help make us safer and more in-line with basic Judeo-Christian-Muslim law about the sanctity of life—and acknowledge the fact that many, many, many guns are used for crime rather than hunting or self-defense.

I mentioned immigration when discussing foreign policy, specifically how most of it, at least from Latin America, is a result of failed, oppressive, or exploitative U.S. policies south of the Rio Grande. My opinions about this really solidified on my Spanish-speaking mission in Atlanta where I dealt with undocumented immigrants every day, including nearly all the Latter-day Saints I met. My most profound religious belief affecting this topic is that we are all children of the same God, regardless of race, language, religion, or nationality (2 Ne. 26:33; 29:7). If we all share our divine origin and potential to become like God then any law or policy that institutionalizes discrimination is ill-founded at best, and any language that considers another person, not an activity, as “illegal” is simply unconscionable. Second to this is my belief that all of the Americas—not just the United States—are the free and promised land spoken of time and again in the Book of Mormon. This does not diminish the importance of the U.S. Constitution as an inspired document or the role the U.S. has played and will play in the Restoration and world’s affairs. But there’s no limitation on the Lord’s blessings and the combination of the Nephites’ repetition of these promises and application to themselves long before 1776, the inclusionary language of verses like Doctrine & Covenants 10:49-51 (which emphasizes the plurality of the nations included in the Lord’s promise), the history of Latin America in achieving independence from European monarchy (2 Ne. 10:11), and my own experiences in seeing how the Lord has blessed and inspired some undocumented immigrants in remaining in the United States has shown me that the hand of God stretches from the Yukon to Patagonia, and that his desire is to bless everyone who lives upon these shores.

Combining all that with my stance of being pro-life means I think we should do everything we can to improve the lives of everyone, regardless of birthplace, who has struggled and sacrificed to live among us and build up our society. Combining it with being pro-family means I believe that nuclear families should be kept physically together as much as possible and laws should not threaten their peace of mind or lifestyle (compare Arizona’s strict immigration law, written by a fellow-Church member, with the anti-polygamy legislation of the 1800s). Being pro-community means I recognize the positive economic effect and long-term stability that immigrants bring to the American economy and that we should actually encourage more immigration, not less. I also believe that the United States has some atoning to do for its negligent behavior in Latin America (check out the book and film of Harvest of Empire for more about that) and that, as part of that, anyone who wants to come here should have an opportunity to do so; once here they should be protected the way the Nephites protected the Ammonite immigrants in the land of Jershon. Any laws that encourage the persecution or even marginalization of a portion of the population are economically ill-conceived and morally dubious; they damage families, basically, and I am trying to find ways the government can protect and nurture families.

Governor Romney’s positions on immigration, from advocating “self-deportation” to supporting spreading the Arizona law to other states, regardless of its dubious constitutionality, will terrorize immigrant families, who have come here at great sacrifice to provide a better life for their children than was available in their homelands, and who already work incredibly hard to contribute to our economy and society. Except for a few Native Americans, we are all descendents of immigrants, so it should be easy to put ourselves in the shoes of today’s immigrants and ask what could have motivated them to tear up everything and come here and what, now here, can most help them in building up their families and our shared society. We should follow the Proclamation in seeking that the government “promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family,” regardless of origin. I agree with Harry Reid’s assessment of the Arizona law: “Laws that legalize discrimination are not compatible with our nation’s ideals and traditions of equal rights, and the idea that such an unconstitutional law should serve as a ‘model’ for national reform is far outside the American mainstream.” And I’m pleased with President Obama’s progress in making the U.S. more hospitable to Hispanic immigrants, though there's much more left to do.

The scriptures are replete with stories of immigrants—some welcomed in their new lands, some not—who journeyed to obey the promptings of the Lord and find a better life for their families—including Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus who fled into Egypt the same way many parents from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico, and elsewhere have fled here. We should treat these families with the same deference we would want ourselves or our Lord to be treated, for “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40).

I’d like to close this post by looking at what I consider to be the biggest social issue and moral dilemma facing our country today, which is the accessibility and affordability of health care; improving it is the reason I voted for Mr. Obama in the primary and general election in 2008 and the main reason I will vote against Mr. Romney, who has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, next week. If in the midst of all the material blessings we have received as a country we are unable to care for our sick, then I fear, a bit like the prophets of old, that the Spirit of the Lord will no longer preserve us and we’ll be left to our own devices (as in Hel. 4:24).

I don’t think I need to spend any time proving that the Lord has commanded us to care for the sick. No LDS reader is going to seriously suggest that the Lord wants the sick to care for themselves. The question, then, is whether the government or an unregulated private industry can best accomplish that. Proponents of the latter say that competition between health care providers fosters innovation that drives medical techniques and keeps down costs. They say that being able to choose between doctors, or no doctor at all, is a right and any attempt to limit that choice or require them to purchase health insurance is a violation of their agency. The federal government should not have the authority to involve itself that deeply into their personal affairs, they say, and no one can constitutionally be required to purchase anything.

The legal arguments against these positions have been presented plentifully by the Justice Department and others, and they rest upon the concept of a community contract that I presented last time which limits choice in order to improve the general good: when one person gets sick, the entire community has to pay for it, so it is therefore within Congress’s power to require the purchase of a product to mitigate that. (I disagree with Justice Roberts’ evaluation of the law as a tax and hope that can leave the door open for further movement toward a truly nationalized system.) But I’d like to take the same step back I’ve been trying to take throughout this post and just look at the Affordable Care Act through the lens of being pro-family or pro-life. If we are in favor of saving lives and families then we will favor any measure that will protect and nurture them, whether we see it as curtailing a little bit of our freedom or not.

So will the Affordable Care Act protect families? I’ve already talked about how it’s improved prenatal care and diminished abortions. It already is making health care available to more Americans than ever before. In September we saw that the number of uninsured Americans dropped—by 1.3 million—for the first time in three years (due to both young people remaining on their parents’ insurance and more people enrolling in Medicaid and Medicare). That’s a great improvement over those excluded under the system of private insurance, but it still leaves around 48-49 million Americans without recourse to standard medical care (and remember how proud we Mormons often are to have achieved a mere 12 million Church members).

On October 10 Mitt Romney claimed that the existing private system of emergency room care was sufficient for the uninsured (something he’s said before), and that through that system nobody ever dies because they’re uninsured. “We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack. No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital.’” He apparently received some pushback on that comment because the next day he doubled down, saying that “people will always receive the treatment they need, and do not die or suffer because they cannot pay for care.” I myself, having spent many years uninsured, even while working, can disavow this last claim that the uninsured don’t suffer; both my wife and I have dealt with chronic but not life-threatening issues for which we haven’t been able to access treatment, and the financial and mental suffering is another matter altogether. But more distressing than these quality of life issues is the estimate that roughly 26,000 Americans do actually die each year from conditions that could have been treated had they been insured. It does not matter how advanced a country’s medical care is if 15% of its population cannot access it; that’s why in the WHO’s 2000 rankings of countries’ medical systems the United States ranked 37^th, between Costa Rica and Slovenia. Critics have said that the rankings were biased toward countries with socialized systems, but I believe that’s exactly the point because it reflects the fact that inaccessible care is worse than bureaucratically inefficient care or technologically out-of-date care. If we are truly our brothers’ keepers and want to promote life, health, and happiness for all the citizens of our country, then we will devise a system where everyone can actually access health care, and not just for heart attacks. I don’t care how advanced the treatments are for the 85% if 15% have no way to receive it. I’d rather be a bit less scientifically advanced but a bit more inclusive, and that, to me, is an infinitely better system.

I really appreciated this essay, nearly a year old now, in which the author describes how she was opposed to the Affordable Care Act but then was diagnosed with cancer and had her life saved because of the law’s pre-existing conditions provision. Without that she couldn’t have received medical insurance, and good luck trying to treat cancer by walking into an emergency room every other week.

But also note the financial information in her story. That brings me to my second and final point about government aid in health care: that healthcare is unreasonably expensive and dealing with it is a major burden on families and individuals. So yes, the Affordable Care Act represents a redistribution of wealth, whether you want to call it a tax or a regulation of interstate commerce. I won’t get into all of its funding systems here—that’s the subject for another blog—but it does in a way require funds from the well-to-do to pay for those who cannot pay for themselves. That sounds a lot like a nationalized system—which in fact I believe that would be a much more efficient and just way to go, just like essentially every other developed nation has decided—but it also sounds like one big insurance pool (but one where no one’s excluded for being sick). However you look at it, it is set to relieve a great deal of financial strain throughout middle- and lower class America.

As Latter-day Saints we want to protect the family. We focus on social issues that do this and foster families’ growth. “We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” We’re willing to fight, at great cost, to stop legislation allowing same-sex couples to marry, but we tend to forget the very damaging things to the families that already exist. Consider that financial problems are the leading cause of disagreements and divorce in marriage. Even back in 1975, Marvin J. Ashton, in his classic piece of familial financial advice “One for the Money,” said, “the American Bar Association recently indicated that 89 percent of all divorces could be traced to quarrels and accusations over money. Others have estimated that 75 percent of all divorces result from clashes over finances. Some professional counselors indicated that four out of five families are strapped with serious money problems.” Now consider that the leading cause of personal bankruptcies—studies indicate between 42% and 62% of them, in fact—are caused by medical bills. 78% of those who filed had insurance, by the way, meaning it did not save them from being buried under their medical bills. So it stands to reason that one of the most important things we can do is to eliminate or at minimum mitigate medical bills as a negative factor in family finances. These numbers are the result of decades of the free market determining costs and private insurance companies’ practices. By allowing the Affordable Care Act to reach full effect in 2014 we will protect tens of thousands of families from these dangers.

This has been true in my own family. We’ve spent about half of our thirteen-year marriage uninsured; it’s effected our medical care, of course, but also our career choices as we’ve repeatedly been forced to seek full-time employment that provides medical benefits but didn’t advance our professional goals or long-term ability to increase our earning power. We’ve twice paid nearly all our life savings for medical bills, and we’ve thrice been denied Medicaid because our assets were too high. Obviously all of this has been incredibly stressful, even when fully insured and considering career changes. In fact, the only time we’ve had true peace of mind was the two years we lived in England and used the National Health Service to give birth to our first daughter and treat other conditions. When our second daughter developed a retropharyngeal abscess when she was a few months old, it was only the fact that we were on Medicaid that saved us financially; even if we had private insurance all the payments would have easily sunk us, let alone what would have happened had we been uninsured.

So, I’ve tried to give some examples of government programs and policies that can strengthen families and protect them from the vicissitudes of the world or even the active buffeting of Satan. I truly believe that we need to look at the big pictures of social issues: what will most help families, like the Proclamation says, and where can we have the most influence (focusing on an issue like abortion that has little chance of changing could prove an ineffective use of energy). I don’t support everything that President Obama has done, but I do believe he is involving the government in the right way to mitigate the exigencies of the free market to protect families and individuals. Governor Romney has proposed measures that protect certain aspects of society, but at a greater holistic cost than benefit. And for that I support President Obama’s re-election.

Next I’ll look at how we need to protect the most vulnerable thing of all: the earth.