I remember back in the early 2000's when politics was a no-no. I think I first joined in 2004 or 2005.

I haven't been here for a few years, but come back to check in and see who is still here and what is being discussed. I was surprised to see several political threads.

T-Bone

There is a stickie at the top that explains the policy re politics. The rules bend a bit when there is a major issue that everyone is going to want to vent about. Gun topics were allowed for several days after the Uvalde mass murders, then the usual policy on gun debates (that being that gun debates are a hard "no").

Same thing after the SCOTUS Dodd decision, though abortion has never been a hard no. A great many issues are both political and religious, so the mods try to walk a fine line. Sometimes they wobble a bit. Also sometimes posts are close to that line, and stay up for a while, but get pulled when responses get out of hand.

If you don't get deleted every now and then, you are just not trying.

I wish I could phrase this in a way so that most men could get it -- that it is profoundly upsetting to women that we have lost a right that we have had for 50 years -- the right to bodily autonomy. Men would generally scoff if legislation were proposed that they would need to get mandatory vasectomies or castrations under certain circumstances. But many don't seem to get that women want an "out" clause for an unwanted pregnancy. They can't equate the two.

Women didn't always have access to birth control, either. There was a time that a woman could only get birth control pills if she was married and had her husband's permission. And even then, she might draw the ire of her church and her community.

Unwanted pregnancies have a whole host of consequences. Women have fought hard over the last few decades to be taken seriously in a wide variety of careers. There was a time when women were denied jobs, promotions, and more because who wants to invest in someone who may get pregnant and leave? We deserve a chance to regulate our own lives.

I can't take it seriously when men whine about politics taking over the board. Come back when you have had a major right to bodily autonomy taken away from you, and we can discuss your concerns then.

Thank you, summer. Ditto to every word.

+1

What is mine is mine, what is yours is up for discussion.

"I can't take it seriously when men whine about politics taking over the board. Come back when you have had a major right to bodily autonomy taken away from you" IN THE NAME OF RELIGION.

I hope men realize that.

The so-called pro-lifers have always had the right to not have an abortion. Nothing has been taken away from them.

There is no national consensus about when human life begins. The ruling in Rowe v. Wade specifically mentioned this. So we have let one religious viewpoint rule the day, in a pluralistic society. The Christo-Fascists must have their way. They are the new playground bullies.

Sure, there are some women who favor forced birth and are pro-rape rights over their own rights. Until their daughter dies of an ectopic pregnancy or needs medication or care they can't get, they will continue to only focus on forcing others to comply to their views.

Like summer said, pro choice means supporting women who choose not to abort or seek reproductive health care. Too bad certain women don't reciprocate to allow all women to make their own decisions.

The majority of us are exmos, which serves as the 'unifier' and gives us a common touch stone, but after that, all bets are off in terms of block voting...

And we have a luxury now that was absent until, say about the middle of last year: We can see the church 'failing'; we're actually looking at winning! ... if you don't count temples being announced as points for them.

So I see us as finally being aware that as a board-with-a-purpose, we're not that much in demand, especially given the growth of r/exmormon over on Reddit, where they DO enforce the policy of NOTHING off topic.

So we're facing a truth...  We're a wildly disparate group of humans who were once mormons and it got under our skin and just bailing out wasn't enough for us.  And now we're 'comfortable', mostly, with each other and so we meet at the fences of our respective domains and share views.

The 'regulars' all have promoters and detractors, but we continue to make it work, mostly because it's all just pixels on a screen and the mods can make things disappear.

It's a party!

It's hard to disentangle religion and politics in the contemporary United States.

Is abortion a religious topic or a political one?

Is the separation of church and state religious or political?

How about prayer in school?

What about voting restrictions that deprive certain ethnic groups of equal rights? Can a site discussing a faith as racist as Mormonism really treat such socially-dictated race-based restrictions as political and not religious?

What about the convergence of extreme forms of white nationalism and a third of the Mormon community? Do we pretend that does not exist or that it and its ramifications are not related to religion?

The erosion of the barrier between the state and religion began about 15 years ago and has now progressed so far that it is nearly impossible to treat the two as distinct topics.

There are many other forums that would welcome your entrenchments with open arms. But I don't think that they are going to be libertarian.

Oh that is you stinker! I wasn't sure. I hope things are going well :)

As to the politics, I am glad I don't have to admin it. Fighting, sucks a ton of the board, no one is ever happy.

Only if it's the right kind.

The board leans to the left, like Bill Clinton.

are not liberal or conservative issues and in fact are rejected by majority of all Americans.

It's not about left vs. right.

It's about right vs. wrong.

Clinton does not lean "left". Check your overton window.

I was going to say that Clinton was centrist Dem to a fault.

I believe bradley was writing ironically.

misplaced



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2022 12:38PM by Brother Of Jerry.

What's the point of escaping a Mormon theocracy only to find yourself trapped in a fundamentalist christofascist theocracy?

Iran?

Afghanistan?

Will America be next?

Sounds like you've done a u turn to the far right.

You jumped to the wrong conclusion.

Unless you think being ruled by religious fanatics is a good idea.

Good luck to you on your "Crusade".

I don’t think calling out Afghanistan and Iran is a crusade. Would you like to live there?! Nor is calling out religious extremism being Islamaphobic.

Just as discussing religiously-motivated politics does not warrant criticism for the board being political. We are here because we escaped one form of oppression. It should not be surprising that exmormons would discuss other similar issues.

The future belongs to the religious fanatics. The secular crowd had their chance and blew it.

Mormons want hard, inflexible, permanent "rules" because helps them feel safe.
You know, thinking is scary but thankfully there are hard rules to enforce rigid, regimented, all-of-us-are-exactly-the-same safety-in-the-herd believing-doing-behavior-uniformity. Whew.

Observant, intellectually curious folks are going to wander wide, not being afraid to do so.

Mods apply their judgement because the world is complicated and no one hard rule covers all circumstances
-- you know, in an ice skid you repress the reflex, turn into the skid, no braking - actions which require Brain.

Dr. No,
I was just about to post something but your post was stated well. Personally, I want my views challenged when done intellectually and with facts. This forum has evolved like everything else.

Mormonism is not officially xenophobic, since most of its converts are now international members, and the organization does not want to be perceived as hating people outside the US.

That said, the foundational theology is clearly racist, however embarrassing the GAs find that to be now, and a significant portion of the rank and file members are indeed xenophobic.

Mormons as a matter of official policy and theology treat women as second class members.

Mormonism is very highly authoritarian. You are told which congregation you are to attend, and what underwear you must use, and whether or not you can attend a temple wedding, and its not a suggestion, its an order.

Mormonism tends to be anti-science, whether it is food faddist outgrowth of the WoW, or rejecting all the science that refutes the BoM and BoA, or rejecting evolution and geology because of "young earth" theology, or a belief in an actual flood of Noah, or the general anti-science attitude that goes with authoritarianism.

And of course there is the ongoing Mormon hierarchy fight against gay rights, especially same-sex marriage, and other LGBTQ+ issues.


If you are an exMormon who rejects all those things, then you are pro-science (climate change, vaccines, clean environment), pro women, for diversity, anti racist - its odd that those are now considered to be liberal traits. That was not the case 70 years ago, when the Southern states were solidly Dem and when the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the EPA were all passed with substantial Republican support.

But there you have it. A rejection of Mormon culture kind of makes you way more liberal than the average TBM.

I find it almost comical that there is a rather long list of frequent posters here that range from mildly center-right to whack-a-doodle right. I don't know if they are a majority here, but it is not a small group. Yet there are persistent claims that the board is liberal.

We rejected Mormonism. Stephen Colbert's Dictum. "reality has a well-known liberal bias", also applies to exMormonism.

But make no mistake. The political right is well represented.

  

How about the Mason jar line?

Everyone wanting to use RfM as a political outlet needs to watch this.

https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/FdnexSZh

Only the right kind of politics

Untrue. We discuss your politics all the time.