Sigh.
Now, I understand that Mormons aren't the only ones who get stupid, out-of-proportion questions about their faith. Muslims are constantly having to answer about whether this or that passage in the Qur'an makes every Muslim a terrorist. For centuries, Jews have been hassled over whether the Kol Nidre prayer on Yom Kippur means that no Jew can be trusted to keep his word. And so on.
But seriously? We do care about marrying in the faith when possible, or at least marrying someone who treats your faith respectfully. But thanks to the church's growth worldwide and among immigrant communities, interracial, intercultural, multilingual, and international marriages are probably way more common among Mormons these days than among the population at large.
And this is probably hardly news to Mitt Romney. His dad's cousin, my grandma, married an immigrant from India back in 1958, when Arizona law still technically forbade such marriages. What did her dad, Romney's great-uncle, think of that? Well, my grandpa had joined the LDS Church several years before he met my grandma and served faithfully in it. And that was good enough for my grandma's father, who fully supported the marriage.
I have cousins now who are half-Navajo, half-Belgian, half-Japanese, half-English, half-South Indian. All of us are religious Latter-day Saints.
The Gill clan. Yup: all Mormons are definitely closet racists.
The LDS church doesn't track statistics on race (in a worldwide church, whose version of race would you be tracking anyway?), but if you add up the membership per country, it's pretty clear that the majority of Mormons are not white.
So yeah, there are plenty of racist things various Mormons have said, and there are some very racist-sounding things in our scriptures (especially the Bible, which expresses persistent prejudice against Edomites and has a mixed record on Samaritans). But to think that all Mormons are racists in the 21st century? And to harass an individual Mormon about interracial marriage when there's no shortage of multiracial members of the Church?
Please. Just please. Get with the times! If you can do nothing else, at least acknowledge that my cousins and aunts and uncles and I exist...
Sometimes when I think about how large the church is I remember that the twins I watched in nursery were my classmate's niece & nephew.
ReplyDeleteOn a more related note the Romney campaign, and the questioning it has engendered, have depressed me to no end.
-Aaron K.
You and your wife's namesakes are in town now from London, by the way.
DeleteYeah...many of the discussions have been pretty depressing. But on the bright side...um....
Hm. I'll get back to you on that. ;)
About two years ago in a sunday school class your sister in law (at least I believe I have the relationship right) asked a question about race and the priesthood (something to the effect of noting that there were black priesthood holders ordained by Joseph Smith for a time but then not again until 1978). The question was, in my opinion, perfectly valid based on the lesson that week. But the instructor shut that discussion down as fast as possible.
DeleteToo often we have been afraid to ask hard questions about our faith. Often I believe there is a cultural belief that such questions betray a lack of faith, or questioning of the truthfulness of the church's teachings.
I, however, think that the fear and reluctance to look at these issues is the greater signal of inner turmoil. We should beware those who say "all is well in Zion." Hard questions build belief.
Maybe that's the bright side.
-Aaron K.
This is a wonderful topic that I LOVE and I am sad that the teacher didn't address it. Read the 'history' section of this web site:
Deletehttp://www.blacklds.org
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ReplyDeleteHere's a bright side. Crap like this gets boring when it can't really be backed up. While it will never go away entirely, sensible people will realize it's been harped on enough and move on. Then they'll have to come up with something else to say about us. Something accurate, mayhaps?
Key word: "sensible."
DeleteJust read about Bret Hatch's remarks in the paper this morning. Dismayed. I. Was. Just read your blog post. Feel. Better. I. Do. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteSure, some individuals may be racist, even within the Church. There are those in my family who are as well. That is human nature, alas. We can't necessarily change the perceptions of adults who are old, stubborn, and set in their ways.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we can certainly teach our children differently.
^Favorite. It's true. We can't say there are No Racists in the church...because there are. Just like there are everywhere, unfortunately.
DeleteI love you non-cookie-cutter LDS family! (I have one too.)
ReplyDeleteIt just goes to show that attacks on someone's religion get even stupider when politics are involved. Thanks for setting Bret Hatch straight. I also liked Mitt Romney's response: "no."
ReplyDeleteLove your family picture. I get so tired of so much lack of color up here- my family picture is a bunch of pale- blue eyed blonds- talk about boring. So I go and marry a guy from across the country- and his family is descended from Swedes too.
ReplyDeleteThe topical guide entry on "Interracial Marriage" is still not particularly edifying.
ReplyDeleteYeah, everyone is trying to wave away all of these questions, but the church still has things like this: http://www.lds.org/manual/aaronic-priesthood-manual-3/lesson-31-choosing-an-eternal-companion
DeleteThat have quotes like this: “We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally, and of somewhat the same economic and social and educational background (some of those are not an absolute necessity, but preferred), and above all, the same religious background, without question” (“Marriage and Divorce,” in 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year [Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1977], p. 144).
Of course people are going to have questions. Acting snarky, sighing, and calling questioners stupid is just going to make Mormons look asinine.
Apparently, I slept through priest's quorum one time too many. I think it's a good step that the follow-up question after that quote in the manual talks about cultural differences rather than racial, but I hear both you and lionofzion on the "there's still some stuff we need to clarify."
DeleteBut I don't think that means we should give a pass to people who use the accusation of racism to push Mormons out of mainstream public discourse. I mean, it shouldn't take that much research to figure out that a LOT of Mormons are married inter-racially. And so I do think what Bret Hatch did was lame and needed to be called out as lame.