Pink Mastodons in the Livingroom

                                       
                                                The Phenomenon of Porn

My sister linked me to the Ask Mormon Girl blogsite thinking it might be of interest to me. Dismayed at some of the problems wanting of advice from this kindly, knowledgeable young matron (a Neo-religious Ann Landers), I caught the post about Porn. I find myself vexed with ire over the misconceptions and misunderstandings of 90% of the responses. It is difficult when observing such heartache to adhere to my motto of minding my own business. At first I thought I could keep my response short and pointed, but in the midst of such ignorance, it is difficult. There were a few people posting who have sufficient grasp of the essential issues who will realize improved relationships. The rest I predict will continue in frustration, misunderstanding, rancor, and marital dissolution.

The first misconception is with the definition of “addiction.” My Sage dictionary is faithful to English: “1. Someone who is physiologically dependent on a substance; abrupt deprivation of the substance produces [physiological] withdrawal symptoms. 2. Someone who is so ardently devoted to something that it resembles an addiction.” Looking and acting like a duck does not necessarily mean the action is performed by a duck. There is a distinct, marked difference between addiction, and obsessive, or compulsive behaviors. Those people who cannot understand the fine distinctions will continue to have relational problems, especially with intimacy. An excellent book discussing addiction, behavior, and healing is The Codependency Conspiracy, written by forensic psychologist, Stan Katz. Dr Katz also illuminates the fundamental flaws in the 12 step program used by AA, and plagiarized into numerous recovery groups, a variation apparently adopted by LDS practitioners. Look for it in your local library system. It is well worth the read.

Sixty years ago as a child, I learned it was common knowledge in this country that psychiatry was quackery. Since then, the acceptance of its scientific validity has swept through our culture, in spite of the material published by their own researchers invalidating the efficacy of its techniques. The church leadership, finding increasing membership behavioral problems, as often provoked by local leaders as otherwise, incorporated psychotherapy into its administrative structure in order to get members help and attention diverted from those local priesthood officials who exacerbated these kinds of problems. During this same period, Donald Cameron, one time president of the APA, was investigated for civil liberty and psychological abuse violations in connection with his “psychic driving” research funded by the CIA, then classified as MK Ultra. For a brief period, some of these same techniques in diminutive form were employed by BYU officials on campus, in an attempt to heterosexualize homosexual church members with disastrous results, seriously damaging the lives of these “patients.” This psychic driving consisted of pornography, electroshock, and drugs. Its abysmal failure precipitated its discontinuance.

The second area of misunderstanding is the sexual chastity elephant being forced into the living rooms of church members. Obsession with sexual purity is one of the chief contributory causes of porn’s increasing usage among church members. I have two brothers who spent time incarcerated for their arson, all because our father’s obsession with certain behavioral issues of his kids. This obsession was driven by his own weaknesses in these same areas, unwittingly producing the same problems in us he had struggled with as a youth. It can be taken as a cardinal guide that those who are obsessed with the behavior of others are sufferers of the same weakness, and are propagating their dysfunctional relationship habits upon all those they have influence. This is precisely what Jesus had reference to with His Beam & Mote in the Eye parable.

This second area of misunderstanding is characterized by suppressing or medicating the symptom, which is porn, when the actual problem lies elsewhere. Western society has devolved into treating symptoms, while classifying them as disorders or diseases. This cancerous solution to symptomatic problems is spreading throughout the world and has caused me considerable alarm for the well being of my posterity. A few years ago I broke a tooth crown and went to a specialist to have it reworked. The doctor discovered an infection in the tooth so severe that he was nearly forced to remove the tooth to terminate the infection. Yet I felt no discomfort anywhere near it. But I had been suffering increasing nerve pain in my arm, to the point I could barely hold a spoon to feed myself. Once the tooth infection was cured, the nerve problems disappeared in my arm and my natural strength returned. When church officials pound the pulpit unceasingly over chastity they are effectively scratching at a skin lesion that cannot heal. The cause of the infection must be eliminated, not bandaided. Failure to address the underlying cause of behavioral problems is a clear sign of spiritual impotence in religious leaders and quackery in the behavioral modification professions. Now, what did I just say?

Those who have done their historical investigation on this subject know that the period when porn, whorehouses and legal regulations, and the incidence of venereal disease all spread like grass fire with the sexual suppression of the Victorian era. In America, we barely regained our senses with the passing of the 21st amendment, for corruption and drunkenness had spread to the center of the Federal government with the passing of the 18th amendment. One would think Americans learned something from that debacle.

In my professional career I encountered the concept of Root Cause Analysis. Because my career was in physical science, it was often a mistaken assumption by associates that product failure was a physical phenomenon. What I discovered early on was that RCA has to do with people, not physical impurities. All solutions to product failures focused on misunderstanding and procedural errors in people’s behavior. The same RCA principles apply to human social dysfunctions. The manifestation of porn is symptomatic of a systemic problem, and its treatment and elimination requires involvement of both men and women, because both are involved in its root cause in society. Women who do not go beyond the first step in their man’s ownership of porn obsession are destined to fail in their relationship until they perceive their interactive part in the overall development of intimacy substitutes.

The third misunderstanding is not realizing that porn usage (true of all other symptomatic behaviors), is a substitute for an underlying deficiency. Without attention to the underlying deficiency, substitutes will always be employed. Suppression or other behavior modification methods will always fail, with its attendant guilt and shame in a religious context, perpetuating the failure cycle. A large portion of this misunderstanding of overt sexual “misbehavior” is a failure at understanding human sexuality, its biological nature, and its successful socialization. Men have often been denigrated because they are inept at initiating sex with women. But it works both ways. My experience has been that very few women understand how to love, and “make love” (that is, understand how to implement sexual pleasure in males), to the men in their lives, becoming frustrated and hurt because their man begins looking for intimacy augmentation or substitutes elsewhere. What men are looking for is intimacy, overridden in their early adult years by sex hormones. Those women who are successful rarely are able to articulate exactly why how they treat their husband/lover keeps them returning and bonding with them. The sexualization process in American culture has few if any rituals, rites of passage, or socialization processes providing a vehicle for healthy sexual development and its perpetuation. Most of it is implanted by the mother before the child is aware of themselves.

Charles Moore, Santa Cruz District Attorney and Catholic priest, extemporized on the hormonal differences between men and women entering puberty. He declared that when women enter this transition, their hormones can increase at least three times that in childhood. But for men, that increase can peak at least fifteen times the previous level. A woman’s sexual nature will usually remain fairly constant within normal hormonal fluctuations until menopause where interest doesn’t decline, but shifts. For men, hormonal peaking takes place in early adulthood and can begin decline as early as thirty, or as late as seventy. This 5/1 disparity underscores the difficulties in women understanding male sexual behavior, male disappointment in female responses, and for men, completely overshadows their underlying needs for intimacy.

Without effective socialization from both mother and father, males can have considerable difficulty in expressing their intimate desires with women because their brains are suffused with testosterone, clouding their judgment. Such is common knowledge among men, and even depicted in the Epics with the island of Sirens. For every male who has difficulty expressing his sexuality in productive, meaningful hetero relationships, there will be a mother who did not, or was unable to, communicate to her son effective and appropriate methods of developing intimacy with a woman. Likewise, there will also exist a father who did not, or was unable to, instruct and model his son on appropriate methods and boundaries for releasing sexual energy. For those sports-minded males, that activity is a useful diversion, but does nothing for his need for feminine intimacy and expressing the creative force. Fortunately, most of this is communicated through parental interaction with children in an atmosphere free of guilt, shame, or berating, but rather laced with physical expressions of affection, open discussion (listening to the kid!), and building the child’s confidence in making their own analysis and solutions to problems.

Emotional isolation is likely to be at the root of every human social dysfunction. Obviously, if parents are not communicating freely and effectively on the emotional level, children will not learn effective techniques either. I am reminded of my 4 year old redhead daughter who, after having heard her mother frequently query her daughter: Do you need some loving and attention?, one day told her mother emphatically: Put the baby down, I want some loving and attention!

The female complainant who expressed frustration, disillusionment, repugnance, and disdain over males who engaged in pornographic media was forlorn that she would not find in today’s society a male who did not have the “problem.” What she was totally unaware of is that even if she had found someone that fit her bill of values, in time he likely would have developed the problem because her attitudes on the matter were invisible to herself. As Grandma Betty tells me; she’s missing a puzzle piece in her character. This woman does not realize that what she finds repugnant in men who indulge in porn is likely to be a reflection of herself in the same area and despises herself for it. Such people don’t like being reminded of their own deficiency. Mote and the Beam principle. As Eric Hoffer wrote:

“The awareness of their individual blemishes and short-comings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.”

This woman is attempting hypergamy (looking to “trade up”) and marry someone less defective than she perceives herself to be. Often this takes the form of looking for a man who appears to be the idealized image of her own father. The same can be said of women who point out the “degradation” of women in pornographic productions. It is quite often the fact that those who object to being exploited do it themselves and to others. Another respondent who expressed this disgust, does not realize that the “degradation” she believes exists in the photography is a projection of her own feelings of degradation, were she to be the person being photographed. There is no way she could possibly know what the feelings were of the woman who was in the photographed material. She is projecting her own feelings of inadequacy. Religious harpies, whether cloaked in black suits or white veils or ties, who focus on sexual “perversion” at the pulpit or in the press, are merely revealing the spiritual emptiness, depravity of soul, and bereft intimacy existing within themselves. This principle is true across the board for any vice humans use as a substitute for the missing “puzzle piece.”

The quest for intimacy runs deep and can be found in a human yearning. I have yet to find explored in public literature. It concerns the differences in the creative force, actualized by men and women.

The yearning a man has for intimacy is an expression of the creative, the need to find greater expression of self, and perpetuate the self beyond his own mortality. I expect the same is true for women. Women are so constructed that all of their reproductive organs for bearing offspring and sustaining them are also sexual organs that men are drawn to, who find deep satisfaction in observing, touching, and manipulating. Indeed, medical research recently has pointed to such action prior, during, and post delivery can significantly enhance a woman’s birthing process and recovery from its stress. The entire act of conceiving, gestating, and delivery is a sexual one—a symbol which they frequently are blind to. Men have no such organs. There is only one through which they can be creative, and use to perpetuate their identity immortally. In exceptional instances they may be able to nurse an infant. But that is the extent of the physical connection to their offspring. For women, having a baby is an act of fulfillment. For men it is the culmination of her sexuality; it is the power of her sex that he cannot do, and cannot participate in, unless she involves him in it all the way. The way men see it, symbolically women are having a sexual experience in the production and physical nurturing of a child. Men cannot have a similar sexual experience with their children, except vicariously through the woman’s inclusion. This is the crux of Kyle Pruett’s book, Father Need. The benefits of such maternal inclusion in her sexual expression Doctor Pruett covers in his book, The Nurturing Father.

Let me interject right here that it is precisely the absence of nurturance as a dominant male characteristic that makes the Proclamation on the Family a piece of trash. Women are not the primary nurturers. This view is ae perpetuation of a myth, begun post WWII. It is at the core of the war between the sexes. Likewise, making a living has nothing to do with men or women, but with parents. Virtually all of society’s ills can be traced to this single process of exclusion of males from the sexual aspect of creating and nurturing a replica of themselves.

Doctor Pruett has demonstrated that in those families where the father has been intimately included in the gestation and delivery process the incidence of all male forms of abuse are dramatically reduced. The more the father can be encouraged to nurture his child, the more fulfilled he becomes, the more fulfilled and developmentally sound the child is. When a child’s mother alienates its father from herself, she is alienating him from the child. A man’s connection to his children is the symbolic connection of his umbilical organ uniting through a woman’s sexual organs in an act of completeness and transcendence. If she does things that inhibits his natural bonding urges, she destroys those links that not only tie him to her, but generatively to their offspring. The day my first daughter was born I transformed from the identity of being male, to being a father. The entire concept of fatherhood in American culture has been denigrated and neglected to the point that virtually our entire society does not know what it means.

My first wife refused to allow me to touch her in any way during her delivery (and incidentally in many other natural ways otherwise), and that single act almost lost me. Had I been of a more impulsive nature, I would have walked out of the hospital at that moment, never to be seen or heard from again. But I waited, until being the last of the line of “attendants”, I could hold my newborn daughter in my arms and get acquainted with her. (Medical personnel just don’t get it. A newborn does not need immediate fussing over cleanliness and inspection. What they need is to be introduced to their father immediately—to be reassured by that man who created them they are and will be safe, and they are the central figure in his life.) Until that moment my daughter was in distress, refusing to be consoled by anyone, including her mother. When I took her in my arms she immediately ceased her crying, and we bonded. In that instant, I became a father. I felt the mantle of responsibility for her care in all its parameters descend upon me and I became transformed. It was magical. I was fortunate to have similar experiences with each successive child. But their mother continually refused to initiate, much less participate in those moments, to the detriment of our children and our ultimate divorcement. Each of the children today are bearing the scars of that schism between my first wife and I. While I have attempted to repair the breach and damage in my relations to my children from that lack of parental intimacy, their mother’s inability to initiate and sustain intimacy has produced similar difficulties in the children, of which the oldest is now the greatest of sufferers. In time, the children have become emotionally estranged from their mother, suffering feelings of isolation and sometimes rejection. It shows in their hetero relationships.

Women must come to this understanding: a man’s fullest expression of his sexuality can only be achieved through inclusion of a woman’s sexual power in his life. It is through not only his physical union with her, but with the emotional and spiritual union that he is empowered to define and obtain his highest creative self. He cannot do this alone, and if he must be alone, will often seek the substitute of imagination, stimulated by visual sexual artifacts. Males are visual, at least as far as sex is concerned. There isn’t a person alive that is capable of articulating why this is so. A large percentage of women do not understand the nuances of what stimulates a man. Those that do predominantly use it to manipulate men, rather than use it to exalt him. Only a few women become self-aware of their sexual power and its impact on the male psyche, and use it to improve both her well-being, and his. Visual imagery of a woman in various states of erotic ecstasy is the vehicle through which an isolated male obtains a modicum of sexual release. Men are quite well aware that it is lonely, that it is sterile, that it can be a symbol of objectification. But the alternative is no sexual release at all, and this is the ultimate state of loneliness and isolation. A man never feels more disconnected from life than at that moment he resorts to isolated sex. At least for those few moments spent with visual erotica they can experience the pleasure of self-love, even though the real thing is denied them. This is not a justification of porn, but an explanation of the human dynamic that creates it! The solution to its eradication is greater sensitivity to a man’s emotional state of being and the production in marriage and social settings; those rites, rituals, and activities that healthily facilitate the gratification of the male’s creative urge.

Karl Kraus journalist and satirist wrote during the rise of promiscuity in the Weimar Republic:

“When it comes to sex, the whole world is utterly stupid: it sees sexual life in terms either of a division between the sexes, or of decisions made on moral grounds.”

“Intercourse with a woman is sometimes a satisfactory substitute for masturbation. But it takes a lot of imagination to make it work.”

It should be a lot clearer at this point how women are involved in the phenomenon of porn (beyond exhibitionism, or debauching themselves for money) which requires a lot less imagination than real sex with a woman, and what they must do as their part in diminishing its presence. Far too many women are clueless to the signs of male isolation. Sometimes they remove themselves from female association for personal recharge. Other times it is an act of resignation. Developing those cues is part of the courtship process, which must be enhanced in marriage if it is to be productive of intimacy.

Women should also realize that celebration of the nude female form has always, and is always going to find public expression, and therefore learn ways to celebrate themselves wherever it exists, and also help their children to understand its healthy expression. When the sexual dynamic of men and women are fully understood, there is nothing to fear, no shame, no guilt, and no embarrassment. None of this crap like Spencer W. Kimball wrote about the first time he attended a nude female follies exhibition. That was his insecurity and character defect, and he should have kept it to himself, rather than shoving it in the livingrooms of members of the Church through his book The Miracle of Forgiveness. What a prude!

SethSmee

REFERENCES
The Codependency Conspiracy Stan Katz/Aimee Liu
The Myth of Neurosis Garth Wood
Sex by Prescription Thomas Szasz
The Myth of Psychotherapy Thomas Szasz
Lexicon of Lunacy Thomas Szasz
Anti Freud Thomas Szasz
Father Need Kyle Pruett
The Nurturing Father Kyle Pruett

The Library

                                                    

                                                           Bibliography

Some of this is repeat information. But I thought it useful to those looking for resource material. I began my studies of Morgdoc at age 13. Somehow I just could not get enough of the Book of Mormon, reading it once for every year of my life until I excommunicated the CJCLDS. More than forty times (no, not the Church--the book!). The irony is I didn’t want to read the Book of Mormon during my teens, and began Seminary only at the insistence of my father. Not the kind of guy you said “No” to. So I ended up graduating from four years of Seminary. I also audited enough Institute of Religion classes on the college campus to have graduated twice had I been interested. I also read the Bible at least a half dozen times, as also the Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price, probably a dozen times. I thoroughly highlighted and trashed two sets of Church scripture editions from heavy use. All my questions began with these, and I never looked into “apostate” material until after eschewing the Morg. I didn’t read all of Roberts’ history of the Church. He is a boring writer, romanticizing the rise of the Church way beyond reality. It is also evident he did not perform due diligence in his research as Church Historian, until he wrote his essays about A View of the Hebrews published in Studies of the Book of Mormon.

I also read at least 3-4 dozen books by various Church leaders and educators. None of them are really helpful in analyzing the Morg’s doctrines or history. I will say that the worst volumes I read were Take Heed to Yourselves –Joseph Fielding Smith, Miracle of Forgiveness –Spencer Kimball, and everything Cleon Skousen wrote, particularly his “Thousand Years” series. Cleon did not know anything about ancient or modern history, and was one of the worst authors for knowing what he was talking about on any topic.

Next after that was the works of Neal Maxwell and Bruce McConkie. Bruce loved the sound of his own voice everywhere he went, and Neal had that loquacious gift of not having said anything meaningful, page after page of Cool Whip rhetoric. Hyrum Andrus was actually on to something with his Foundation series. Unfortunately, though what he wrote seemed to make sense, it was a construction built on a false premise. Same with Avraham Gileadi. I also read nearly everything Hugh Nibley published, starting with Since Cumorah on the mission. He was a good but fraudulent writer, and only two of his books were really worth reading once (if you like ancient history); The Ancient State and Temple and the Cosmos. The problem with Nibley is you really have to know your stuff, do a lot of digging, to identify where he is off his rocker. After a half-century of reading Mormon publications I am forced to conclude with regard to History, the Mormon version is always and irretrievably distorted beyond recognition.

Short List of publications I read as a member:

Bible
Book of Mormon
Doctrine & Covenants
Pearl of Great Price
Discourses of Brigham Young
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith
Doctrines of Salvation –Joseph Fielding Smith
Principles of the Gospel –Joseph Fielding Smith
Journal of Discourses
History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints –Joseph Smith
Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints –B.H. Roberts
History of Joseph Smith –Lucy Mack Smith
Jesus the Christ –James Talmage
Articles of Faith –James Talmage
Studies of the Book of Mormon –B.H. Roberts
Missouri Persecutions –B.H. Roberts
Entire Nibley series
Proper Role of Government (ad nauseum) –E.T. Benson
Book of Enoch (Ethiopian & Slavonic)
The Nag Hammadi Library –James Robinson
Mormonism in Transition –Thomas Alexander
Extension of Power –Michael Quinn
Origins of Power –Michael Quinn
Religion and Sexuality –Laurence Foster
In Sacred Loneliness –Todd Compton
Mysteries of Godliness –David Buerger
The Great Angel –Margaret Barker
Bible in Cockney –Mike Coles
Far and Wide –Douglas Reed
Lest We Regret –Douglas Reed
A Prophet at Home –Douglas Reed
The Grand Design of the 20th Century –Douglas Reed
The Controversy of Zion  –Douglas Reed
The gamut of Psychiatric publications by Dr Thomas Szasz


Short List of publications I read after booting the Morg:

An Insider’s View of Mormonism –Grant Palmer
Jesus Interrupted –Bart Ehrman
Misquoting Jesus –Bart Ehrman
Forged  –Bart Ehrman
Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reexamined –Rodger Anderson
Keystone of Mormonism –Arza Evans
Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith –Linda Newell/Valeen Avery
Mormonism: A Latter-day Deception –Martin Wishnatsky
Sidney Rigdon –Mark McKiernan
Temple Theology –Margaret Barker
The Lost Prophet –Margaret Barker
The Temple –Margaret Barker
The Older Testament –Margaret Barker
On Earth –Margaret Barker
Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon –Wayne Cowdrey/Howard Davis/Arthur Vanick
Realm of the Ring Lords –Laurence Gardner
Genesis of the Grail Kings  –Laurence Gardner
The Origin of God –Laurence Gardner
Revelation of the Devil –Laurence Gardner
Origins of Totalitarianism –Hannah Arendt
Nature of Totalitarianism –Hannah Arendt
Threat of Conformism –Hannah Arendt
Religion and Politics –Hannah Arendt
Seeds of Fascist International –Hannah Arendt
Proofs of a Conspiracy –John Robison
Fire in the Minds of Men –James Billington
The Essene Gospel of Peace
The Gospel of the Holy Twelve




Also of interest are a few websites:

www.lds-mormon.com
www.content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/dialogue
www.dialoguejournal.com
www.mormonlit.lib.byu.edu/lit_work.php?w_id=117
www.signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=6774



There is a lot of material on the Web these days, and a lot more books than when I exited now available at Amazon. I found the conference archives at the Exmormon Foundation informative and a fair representation of modern membership life.

SethSmee

The Essence of Rebirth

                                

                                                                       Divinity

   
Mention the word divine and people immediately think of what; cathedrals, crucifix, Mary, God, Jesus, candy? Mention the name Jesus, and what comes to mind? Religion? The cross? Pain, suffering, guilt, salvation? Revulsion? This mental process indicates an assumption; symbolic mental connections previously stored in our minds drawn upon in communication by word in print or vocalized. Of course it is our assumptions that get us into trouble. In Mathematics, the equation that represents a relationship doesn’t care about the validity of one’s premise.  It will allow confidence in a wrong solution. In demotic speech, people are familiar with the utterance: To assume makes an ass of you and me. And when a person stops to ponder this aphorism, it is soon apparent that assumptions are the cause of humor, embarrassment, and in severe cases spiritual and/or physical harm to other living beings. It is not a place we like to be for long, unless everyone concerned is having a jolly good belly laugh. Laughing relieves the tension built up inside, whether from feeling inadequate, or feelings of unexpressed love.

In the album Octave, the Moody Blues versed this simple aphorism: “Remember when you smile, love’s in your eyes.” Smiling and laughing are love’s expression. Laughter is bonding, providing a sense of community whether with one, or a thousand. It connects human souls together, bypassing the usual defenses, inhibitions, and assumptions we bury ourselves with, which we do not to hide from being seen by others, but to avoid revealing ourselves to ourselves. As Eric Hoffer observed, it is the attaching of oneself to a mass movement that allows us to displace the identity of who we are, with the identity of the group. Sometimes we join a group to find expression of those things we enjoy and wish to share with others. Other times we join a group in order to find meaning in our lives; to give it purpose, and definition. In this, we run from our feelings of inadequacy, impotency, mediocrity, and the mundane. We look to the group to give us what is lacking, to fill the hollow vacancy within. The drive for personal expression, the need to define ourselves is the energy that fuels mass movements, whether in associations, politics, or religion. When the creative expressions of natural love are inhibited, whether alone or in a group, we become frustrated, and start looking for substitutes to release that energy, or satisfy the hunger.

Mass movements go through developmental stages, just as humans do, and indeed are a manifestation of human development at the social level. These phases are the creative, the practical, the stagnant. In a movement’s beginning, there is opportunity for creative expression, for recognition, the natural realization of self-confidence and self-esteem. Self-acceptance is afforded, and the soul finds a measure of fulfillment. But the practicalities of moving forward and accommodating the creativity of additional members tends to suppress and over-ride creativity. Ultimately practicality drives the movement into stagnation; for the exigencies of managing movements inevitably lead to the suppression and destruction of individual expression, the loss of individual spirituality in the corporate whole. Then, rather than being the vehicle of personal change, it becomes the instrument of rigidity. Thus, Mass Movements, whether religion, politics, or business, tend to be instruments of stagnation and infantilism, rather than growth. Michael Ellner, president of HEAL summed up this condition: “Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information, and religions destroy spirituality."

The seeds of a movement’s dissolution are sown in its founding, for they are the very substance of the individual’s questing hunger. Said Hoffer: “The estrangement from the self, without which there can be neither selflessness nor a full assimilation of the individual into a compact whole, produces, as already mentioned, a proclivity for passionate attitudes, including passionate hatred. There are also other factors which favor the growth of hatred in an atmosphere of unity and selflessness. The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish. … when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom, freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement.” Mass movements are the breeding ground of the True Believer. When they enter the stagnant stage, a vacuum is produced in the absence of creativity which is filled by the True Believer, who inevitably becomes a tyrant when acquiring the reigns of leadership.

True Believers are frustrated people who fill the internal emptiness with purpose, meaning, and self-validation by external means. The natural love experienced as an infant atrophies, and substitutes of all kinds replace that void. Faith is substituted for self-esteem, pride for self-confidence, certitude for understanding, enforced loyalty for love. For those members who have a long history with the Morg, these characteristics should be evident. Mormonism officially entered the stagnant stage when Harold B. Lee instituted the correlation program. It is at this period in the church’s long decline of creativity that policies, programs, and practices were substituted for the spiritual core of its religion. By this time, the mandate for its top leadership to obtain special witness of Jesus’ divinity and approbation had been absent for over fifty years. In such a spiritual vacuum, these men had no choice but to implement increasingly mundane practices and rules, just as the chief priests had done in ancient Israel. Today the member is compelled to outward conformance via the most trivial rituals and performances, such as itemized by Paul Toscano, as related in my previous blog. The list of incantations, observances, blessings, cursings, spellbinding, and divination increase as substitutes for the loss of spiritual vitality absent in its movement and movers. Of course in such an environment of spiritual destitution there is plenty of opportunity for mendacity on the part of the leadership, as Reinhold Niebuhr describes: “Extreme orthodoxy betrays by its very frenzy that the poison of skepticism has entered the soul of the church; for men insist most vehemently upon their certainties when their hold upon them has been shaken.  Frantic orthodoxy is a method for obscuring doubt.” The act of insistence in blind faith produces misrepresentation.

Said Charles Moore: "If you base a religion on faith, and believing what somebody says, then you are vulnerable to believing a lie. And if you believe a lie, you are constantly in conflict with yourself, because your heart knows better. Your heart and mind are divided. Consequently, your whole life is in hostility, anger, striking out. Faith based religions are the basic cause of war. Liars silence the messenger because liars are threatened by the truth. People who tell the truth, are willing to listen to any opposition because it doesn't threaten them. People who lie get very angry with any opposition, because they feel threatened, because they know they are lying, even if it be unconsciously." So when Boyd Packer says some truths are not very useful, and threatens to excommunicate truthsayers, that is, spiritually kill the member who attempts to declare the truth, he is a liar and knows the church history IS a fraud. When Gordon Hinckley spiritually kills members who refuse to be silent, he is a liar, and knows the church founding is a fraud. When Jeffrey Holland metaphorically pounds the pulpit in General Conference, using body language that expresses anger, with covert threats against those seeking to declare the Book of Mormon is a fraud, he is a liar, and knows that the book is indeed, a fraud.

When members of Morgdumb awaken to this mendacity of its leaders, their sense of purpose and confidence is shattered. At some point they cast about for a means of exit. Often such people cannot be reconciled to any religion, for Morgdoc asserts there can be no other genuine Church. The doctrine of Apostasy precludes it. If the genuine organization was not restored, then in truth it never existed, and the entire house of cards of Faith implodes. Many become agnostic or atheist. But in gravitating to another “ism” there is one inherent component fueling it: the need for a substitute. If they were a True Believer, they remain one. If they were a fanatic, they continue to be fanatical. When a person leaves Mormonism (or any other form of “ism”), the Church seldom leaves them. They often retain the attitudes, behaviors, and mentality that captured and held them in it, not realizing the defect runs deeper than faulty dogma and mendacity. This behavior manifests itself in divorce, addiction, or any other transition out of dysfunctional behavior. The need for substitutes remains, and they begin looking for another familiar forum to fill the social void. Even in the few who recognize their own complicity in allowing the spiritual abuse, few continue the journey of self-restoration. Hence we see the ex/post Mormon gravitating to others in forums and conferences and movements of various kinds which provides a new identity. In various ways it is proclaimed they are “recovering”, but it isn’t really recovery, it is validation of the individual’s new identity, and the acknowledgement of the spiritual deprivation experienced in a tyrannical, controlling organization. Atheism becomes a dominant, driving force in these environments, and often the True Believing mentality wages the same kind of spiritual warfare that was waged upon them by the 15 Apostates. As Eric Hoffer wrote:

“The fanatics of various hues eye each other with suspicion and are ready to fly at each other's throat. But they are neighbors and almost of one family. They hate each other with the hatred of brothers. They are as far apart and close together as Saul and Paul. And it is easier for a fanatic Communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism or Catholicism than to become a sober liberal. The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not. The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. He is an atheist with devoutness and unction. According to Renan, "The day after that on which the world should no longer believe in God, atheists would be the wretchedest of all men.'' ”

There is on these forums a certain crowd of atheists who dominate the conversations of others who prefer to retain their Christian beliefs. Nothing satisfies these zealots of atheism until they have thoroughly castigated and destroyed—in their minds—the logic of the Christian believer. They delude themselves with the idea they have deconstructed Mormonism, Christianity, and God with impeccable logic. Never mind the majority never had any formal training in logic and rhetoric. And as indicated in the beginning, even if their logic is sound, that still does not prevent them from making erroneous conclusions because their basic assumptions rarely get analyzed openly where they can be examined. The certitude of some of these individuals is astounding. They will quote all manner of scientific fact, all the while being ignorant of the scientific investigation behind the scene of mainstream, condoned theory. Some of them have no idea that much of what they read about science is outdated, refuted, or is a product of a broken peer review process, which often utilizes consensus—a political methodology—rather than honest examination of the submitting scientist’s premise and conclusions. They exhibit nearly a fanatical faith in the scientific process, a process which does not have a Guardian or Overseer, nor does it have a Consciousness that guides its destiny. The altar of God is replaced with the altar of the scientific process. Many of these folks do not realize the scientific process is a seldom-honored method, employed by fallible and questing men inhabiting their own movements.

Just like the social structure of the Morg, these people are friendly and cordial when introduced to new fallout (potential converts). But the ostracism they learned as members is a ready tool, implemented with ridicule if need be, to eschew those who do not wish to part with their beliefs. Nothing changes. As Eric says, it is far easier to transition from one movement to another; to move from Nazism to Communism is a simple matter, rather than looking inward to discover the defective attitudes causing the behavior. No certitude excels the True Believer, and his big brother, the fanatic. Scientific certitude affords the True Believing atheist a substitute for the insecurity of not knowing who they are, nor where they are going. It is a form of blind faith and displacement of confidence in a different form of God they create and worship: the God of Rational Thought. The irony is, even during the Age of Reason, Deity was never eschewed.

It is heart-rending to observe the same forms of manipulation and obfuscation practiced in Mormonism upon the newly execrated. Disturbing in any setting surely, but vulnerability is acute among these souls who have lost friends, sometimes family, and a social community that will no longer grace them with their affections and humor. The devastation is much greater than with those who transition from sect to sect, or one dogma to another. The only way to end this circular carnival of dysfunction is to cease substituting human needs with cheap fixes. One must begin with experiencing divine love. Notice that Hoffer’s solution is the gentle philosopher who considers virtue the only good. But virtue finds its substance in self-love that is an endowment of divine love, whether it be as parent to child, or a gift from a celestial Being. Interestingly, Eric writes fondly of his parents, and the godmother who cared for him during his blindness and death of his mother. That love carried him throughout his itinerant life. In the final analysis, a person must begin the transition by inserting love as their driving force. When this happens, self-esteem increases, self-confidence increases, the need for certitude about the world and one's future subsides, and serene natural bonding with others fills the soul. Jesus was first a healer; a physician of the body and the soul. The two are entwined. Whether one believes He existed or was divine is no consequence. His remedy was the ancient art and doctrine of spiritual health. Following His code of behavior will maximize the harmony, peace, and raised consciousness prattled about on the Web. Casting one’s bread of love upon the water returns more than what was given. If Man created God, then the power of Godliness resides in Man, and it only requires release to attain the state of Transcendence.

For myself, I trust in the transcendent experience mentioned in earlier posts. There is one detail in the account that I have not mentioned. Those who are familiar with the Hindu Chakras will recognize the significance of this. At the termination of the 2½ day instruction by the Master Healer, He placed His finger midway between the Crown and Third Eye points of my forehead, and then again on the Heart point of my breastbone. In this act I understood He was enfusing this experience of spiritual wisdom, intuition, facility of transcendence, His love, compassion, and healing force into my soul. He was reuniting my heart with my mind and leaving His imprint there. At the time of this experience I knew practically nothing about Chakras. I had read of them briefly in connection with Yoga while on the mission to Norway twenty years earlier. I never thought there was any substance to the concept then and had forgotten all about it. Only today, more than twenty years later, in discussing ideas for this blogpost with my wife did I realize just how significant that act was. At the time, it seemed just as natural as breathing. But it was the culmination of the transformation that I experienced. For days afterward I was not sure exactly what world I was in. Often it seemed I had one leg still in that other Realm. People who have experienced Near Death, or an Out of Body state will immediately recognize the divine love I experienced, and the feeling of completeness it grants.

The sorry part of sharing this divine love is its rejection by those who have been so spiritually malnourished they have difficulty accepting their self-worth. All that can be done for them is partial infusions until their souls are revitalized sufficient to partake of its fulness. It is this infusion that generates change and rebirth.

SethSmee


REFERENCES
Niebuhr,  Does Civilization Need Religion?
Hoffer, The True Believer, The Ordeal of Change
The Laura Lee Show, Charles Moore interview, History of Western Civilization
Teachings of Jesus

Charlatans & Harlequins

                                            

                                                                 Buried in the Part

   
After discovering the You Tube interview of John & Brooke McLay, one time CES instructors who resigned their membership in Morgdumb, I came across anniversary interviews of the notorious September Six—church members who were excommunicated in 1993. I was struck by the dichotomy, and dismayed in the discovery that this latter group still considered themselves Mormons. Whereas John McClay had resigned because of his conviction Joseph Smith was a fraud, the Six retained the core conviction he was authentic.

It was an interesting and valuable experience to realize that excommunication does not inevitably lead to the revelation Joseph Smith had no actual trans-mortal experiences. The excommunicant does not always connect the insult of being severed from the church community and salvation, with the incongruity of the act as something Jesus would not, and did not do. Ergo, the men who perpetrated this “disciplinary council” are not in fact witnesses of Jesus. They do not connect such behavior as indication these men have never associated personally with Jesus. They retain the core belief that these men were, and are, authentic representatives of Jesus on earth.

John resigned because of “doctrinal, historical, moral, and logical concerns”, feeling that his integrity was in jeopardy and could not continue teaching while his personal views no longer upheld the church’s authenticity assertions. Paul conversely perceived Joseph as a man with foibles and folly, but still possessed of a divine intervention, guiding him along to his violent end. Both John and Paul, along with their respective wives Brooke and Margaret, consider the church invested with many good people, as though this somehow relieves the church of its production of evil and human destruction. For John the issue is doctrinal, historical, and moral, while for Paul it is behavioral. Paul was canned for being outspoken, obstreperous, and recalcitrant. Enter the cognitive dissonant state.

Paul was taught the same dogmas and theology I was in the 60s, not just from the CES, but from the Apostolic Rameumptom. Particularly as missionaries (I embarked the same year he returned) we were told that the church’s mission was to dispense the True Gospel along with the Restored Ordinances, and that such could only be received by those who had been bestowed authentic priesthood authority. It was the central theme of the Norwegian mission. Neither of us perceived the church’s Authorities as infallible, beyond remonstrance, or the essence of the church. A full-time mission takes the member significantly closer to the leadership of the church, and exposes the missionary to the operations behind the façade of soft-spoken, pulpit moralizing, and intoxicating stupor—often confused with whisperings of the Spirit.

Paul and I had an advantage that John did not have; we both had from a young age close association with the church’s internal operations through various hierarchical authorities. Paul however, returned from his mission not having been disabused of the assumption there was a spirit of egalitarianism within the priesthood. He had a "supportive" mission president. I did not. While I knew of the idiosyncratic and often arbitrary implementation of church power through my father’s having worked for the church, I had not come into full conflict with the power structure until the mission experience. Upon my return I saw a completely different attitude under the veneer of sanctified holiness by virtue of calling, and the disrespect, dismissal, and often disdain church authorities had toward the common member. Beholding this reverse side of Tommy Slick Monson’s effigy in the raw at various church levels as my father had, I held no illusions that anyone’s complaint of misdeed, or even outright treachery by priesthood leaders was going to be countenanced by anyone in church authority except from above them. And of course the average member would never hear about such censure if it happened. Indeed, still today, many members cannot accept such malfeasance of office among “the Lord’s Anointed.” It is simply incomprehensible and so disturbing it is difficult to conduct any dialog on the subject. They exist in a shell of “hyggelig” fuzziness, having never been exposed to the force of their remonstrance.

Paul, along with the rest of the September dross and the audience at Sunstone, seemed to believe such egalitarianism was inherent in the priesthood structure of the church. I knew differently. I was a direct recipient of the emotional and physical abuse received as a result of my father being subjected to arbitrary use of power, manipulation, scheming, and general ill-will that infested the marbled old church office building. I received at the hands and lips of my father the indoctrination that I was not to speak to my elders unless spoken to, nor to gainsay them on anything they intended to do if and when it seemed to me unfair or illogical. No, my father did not learn to be abusive as a result of intercourse with church authorities. He had issues from childhood in a broken family. But as the trite saying goes: "Birds of a feather flock together,” and such people gravitate to the center of power as a means of validating themselves where they were not as children. They grow up still looking for that approval of authority they failed to receive in developmental years. At a youthful age, boundaries are violated in people who get buried in the part. The problem was systemic in my family, pervaded my ancestry, and I saw the outward signs everywhere in the church power structure. It has become my life mission to purge such behavior from myself and my unwitting posterity.

Paul Toscano’s unwitting miscalculation of how the priesthood power structure operates is unfortunate, but excusable. He, like I, had been enthralled with the theology of Mormonism. It’s tenets explained and encompassed the world’s three major religions, giving an unprecedented view of religious history, God’s involvement with Man, and opened a vision of eternal life beyond any theology ever promulgated. It provided a relationship with Diety that was intimate, to including the passage into immortality by the direct embrace of a Supreme Being. Such enthrallment tends to focus and narrows one’s attention and makes a person blind to the larger, systemic operations. Because of such promise and theological construct of the Atonement’s power of Redemption, I with many others was horrified at Bruce McConkie’s assertion that none could approach Christ or be familiar with Him. To me, this was the sum and substance of the Five Points of Fellowship at the Veil. Redemption was personal, sacred because of the Lord’s condescension to not only purge our human frailties, but lift us up into His presence where we could complete the metamorphosis spoken of by John: “we shall be like Him.” I believe most of us knew in our hearts Bruce was way out on a limb, and the calling of his office had gone to his head.

Paul has not come to the same juncture I have. He and Margaret have been yearning for the transformation of divine love. I had the transcendent experience that is spoken of by those men in past ages ranked as prophets by the Christian world. Unlike Joseph Smith, mine was about my life, my choices, where I am going, and had nothing to do with starting a church and exploiting the acolytes for my own support and aggrandizement. It was because of this experience that the shell of my True Believership began to crack and flake off.

With the aid of my deceased parents, I was taken to a rendezvous point with Jesus. It was in almost every respect an experience like those who report having a Near Death experience. But I never died. In the space of three hour’s time, as marked off by my bedside clock, I spent three days of subjective time in another world. It had most all the familiar trappings of mortality, but none of it familiar to past experience. I spent 2½ days in the company of Jesus, of whom I discovered I had been friends with for most of my conscious existence. During that period I reviewed my life, not just in mortality, but going way back, examining all the decisions I had made about what I wanted to become and how I expected to get where I wanted to be. It extended beyond mortality into possible futures, depending on what I wanted to be, in comparison with my potential.  This review, and that which I was taught by His expert insight helped me to relinquish my hold on certain paradigms of behavior and notions of “foreordination” which were confusing the hell out me in mortality. It was an ineffable experience. I have tried over the years with numerous attempts to write in detail what I saw, learned, where I traveled, and most of all, the impact His magnificent soul had upon me. I cannot recapture it, and certainly there are no earthly metaphors with which to describe it. The heck of it is, I was not permitted to remember all that happened, except key points that would manifest themselves at appropriate junctures in my life. And if I could remember all those things I learned, it would just further exacerbate the hell I sometimes suffer trying to integrate the transcendent experience into everyday life. Sometimes the disparity is so great I yearn never to have had the experience at all. There are times when ignorance is bliss. It was not the only time we had occasion to converse.

The upshot is however, that the experience totally transformed my life, my attitudes, my perceptions, my feelings toward all living things. Along with some of the aftereffects cited by people who have returned from the dead I had one particular effect imprinted on my soul that made it ultimately impossible to continue membership in the Morg. I knew what kind of person Jesus was, and still do. Unlike many who discover the deceit, the mendacity, the manipulation, the thieving, the condoning of murder and depredation inherent in Mormon history and caused them to leave, it was not these things which was my tipping point. My wife and my sister only had to observe a small portion of Joseph’s abuse of the women (and their husbands) he married, and they were done. Not so for me. I had studied the scriptures for years, and noted many discrepancies in doctrine, the approved church history and sequestration of damning behavior, and the alarming trend of creeping change in doctrines and ordinances in my own lifetime. These important issues were repeatedly swept aside by church authorities, and still I could not remove myself from their grasp.  The basic theology had me.

Not until I concurrently read about Gordon Hinckley’s flippant attitude toward these six faithful and questing members and Joseph’s treacherous, debilitating spiritual vampirism imposed premeditatively upon his wives, did I realize none of these men were anything like the Man they proclaimed to be serving.  They were not just comprehensively corrupt, they were the very heart and soul of those people He castigated: “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.” Of such characters he warned: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?   Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” A great noise was made about the possible damage to faith Paul and Margaret’s discussions might make upon members, but no peep was heard for the devastation Gordon and Boyd bequeathed to all these good people and their heirs and relatives for squashing and thwarting them for supposed insolence or embarrassment. What they did Jesus never did. A Redeemer lifts up, brushes off the dust, comforts, teaches in everlasting patience, and does not condemn nor exile any soul; certainly not because they are spiritually hungry and demand a few answers.

The incongruence is palpable and unpalatable. Gordon, speaking at a 1994 CES fireside was beside himself because he and Boyd had severed the membership of six good people and it caused such a calamity in the church he remarked that you’d think the church was unraveling. Only six people had been cutoff, while several hundred had come in to take their place! By their own doctrines they stand condemned: “And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!” (D&C 18:15)

But these two men, and their affrighted accomplices, did as the Lord spoke of the chief priests in His day:

“Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast [him] out of the vineyard, and slew [him]. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?  They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out [his] vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.  Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?  Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.” Matthew 21:33-44

These 15 Apostates, who consider themselves the “husbandmen” of the Lord’s vineyard have likewise acted treacherously toward the laborers. And this is the heart of their defect: they have arrogated the vineyard to themselves, and behave themselves as though they are the Church. They are buried in the part. The offense is not the possible disaffection of other potential laborers or newly acquired ones. The offense is to them, the effrontery in demanding of them better instruction, greater sustenance at the table, so that they can return to their labors revitalized. It is intolerable. To even suggest they are failing at their stewardships as CEOs and administrators of the vineyard’s owner is inexcusable. Only the owner can reproach them, and indeed they will be ground to powder for their reward, for they have embezzled the Master’s vineyard to their own designs.

How does a person become so buried in the part? What kind of personality becomes so invested in the movement they identify themselves as it’s chief impetus? The insecure, who attain megalomaniacal stature in their own eyes. (Look up the synonyms of megalomaniac.) Why are they insecure? Because they know they are unequal to the task. In the early days of Mormonism the men who were called to Apostolic duty were charged with obtaining their own witness of the divinity of Jesus, AND His approbation in being selected to shoulder the burden. To this was added a transformation of the soul beyond any simple feeling superceding scripture or authenticity of leadership. Being in Jesus’ presence is transcendent, it changes a person’s entire outlook on life. And it bequeaths a value to all living things that stretches the soul’s desires. In such a person there is not the slightest thought of doing anything that might cause a person to falter or self-destruct. A return from such an experience leaves the soul possessed of compassion for the least of all creatures who suffer.

One hundred years ago the requirement for obtaining this witness was removed by Heber J Grant, one of the most insecure, stunted, and incapable men to inhabit the Mormon church. Once he had attained the presidency, he no longer thought it necessary to obtain this Witness, and all men after him were never admonished to do so, even though the Mormon scriptures declared it vital to their mission. To take its place, these men, virtually all since the days of Joseph, employed a substitute. For the self-confidence they lacked, they substituted pride; and for the self-esteem they lacked, faith. As it is with all men who are given power and authority over the lives of others, it is used first and foremost to crush any whose self-esteem and self-confidence exceeds their own. It is the only way they can preserve their appearance of pre-eminence in the job. Building faith is the process of destroying self-esteem, for where that exists, faith cannot.

Eric Hoffer, the American Pauper Philosopher observed: “Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves. The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.” The intensity of rebuke for insolence against the holy cause of the Apostates is the manifestation of the lost faith in their own abilities. “The practice of terror serves the true believer not only to cow and crush his opponents but also to invigorate and intensify his own faith.” When they rebuke members for destroying faith, it is not the faith of the church members, but in themselves that is destroyed. Those who are most affected by this are those who are the most vociferous and vehement of their rightness in censure. For as Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in his discourse on religion: “Extreme orthodoxy betrays by its very frenzy that the poison of skepticism has entered the soul of the church; for men insist most vehemently upon their certainties when their hold upon them has been shaken.  Frantic orthodoxy is a method for obscuring doubt.” Hence we have the dogmatic insistence of Jeffrey Holland, the purges of Boyd Packer, the spying of Ezra Benson, and so forth. The excellence they cannot claim for themselves is the knowledge of Jesus, His approbation, His condescension, and more than any other factor, His love. Mammon is their substitute for salvation. False pride is their substitute for self-confidence in knowing the Master, and faith for the lack of self-esteem that comes from experiencing Redeeming love.

It was no coincidence that Joseph Smith declared the first principle of the Gospel was faith in Jesus. Had he actually received the visitation of Jesus in the grove, he would have declared the first principle of the Gospel is obtaining the redeeming love of Jesus, which is Grace. Jesus told the Pharisees that the greatest commandment was love, and seldom spoke about faith, but trust, which is a byproduct of love and it’s attendant increase in self-esteem. When He admonished people to believe in Him, the wrong word was written. He meant they should trust in Him. With trust comes self-confidence, the antithesis of pride.

These hypocrites, rather than tossing a bone to the homosexuals, the feminists, the intellectuals, to gnaw upon and find marrow to fill their stomachs and satisfy their desires, persecute them for hungering after the true Gnosis, which is the reception of the pure love of Christ. For in the bestowal of Grace do the substitutes of faith and hope vanish in the light of confidence in the presence of God, and the promise of eternal well-being. They understand not the counsel of Peter who spoke to his cherished friends:

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. [Seeing] then [that] all these things shall be dissolved, what manner [of persons] ought ye to be in [all] holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” 2 Peter 3:9-12

True witnesses of Jesus are longsuffering, unwilling that any should perish for any reason, and strive with them all the day long, not to contain them, or to shut them up, or to sever them from the flock, but to nourish them, encourage them, strengthen them when weary, that they too might receive of their Lord’s Grace and have rest to their souls.

The weakening of the church and the faltering of faith alleged by the 15 Apostates is NOT from contact with people who are disaffected, excommunicated, or anti-Mormon. In fact, what pushed me over the edge was reading Eric Hoffer's characterization of mass-movements and its application to religion. This is blatant scapegoating, following in the footsteps of old Levitical practice. If such contact occurs, it is post injury. The bleeding the church is suffering is directly due to the 15 Apostates’ inability to not only prevent injury, but their incompetence at spiritually nourishing and guiding the “heavy laden” to God’s Grace. Each and every time such instability arises among the membership, the 15 Apostates are affronted, and blame the cries of the victim, punishing them for their outbursts of spiritual hunger, and pain. Or they blame those who have been excised from the fold. The spiritually destitute or injured are told to cease and desist, or they will be cut off from the Body.

These first-aid solutions do not, and cannot accomplish the intended purpose. A physician does not cut out that organ or tissue of the body that is hemorrhaging to stop blood loss. They don’t apply a tourniquet to arterial wounds and walk away. They perform a root cause analysis and implement a remedy that addresses the cause. The problem is, these men are the cause themselves, and they know it because they feel guilty, ashamed, mortified, affronted, offended, and cannot admit to themselves much less to the church their failure at succoring the infirm. They are like Keystone cops, running around trying to apply the rote remedies they were taught in spiritual infancy, but never advanced to higher understanding. They do not even comprehend the call of an Apostle is not just an eyewitness to Jesus’ works and His reality (which they now deny is requisite), but also to be healers themselves, as their Mentor requires.

There are Witnesses, and there are special Witnesses. The special, chosen Witnesses are supposed to be those who have mastered the art of spiritual healing, which healing derives its power and efficacy from the love of Jesus directly. They are supposed to lead the questing soul to Christ, not in metaphor, but literally by example as well as precept. That is why the church is hemorrhaging. The power they proclaim to possess is absent, and they are impostors. The power they do possess is institutional, it is organizational, it is authoritative, it is corporate, it is Levitically legalistic. They have corrupted the call of Apostleship from personally knowing the Christ and having His approbation to the legalistic right of authority by succession, wresting their own scripture to excuse their spiritual impotence.

I paraphrase what Eric Hoffer observed of those who are designated prophets: “A prophet’s shame is his failure at the mundane.  If the objective is impossible then their shame is concealed.  Universally, prophets are busy correcting acolytes while their own house is in disarray.” All one must do to verify this is read Letters, the life of Marjorie Hinckley, and observe the absence of Gordon in his family’s life; to see that it was his wife who sustained the home and children, while he was cavorting about the world or burning the midnight oil, too busy in the “work of the Lord” to follow his own counsel of presiding in the home. The children of church Authorities are universally neglected while they are out provoking guilt, despair, confusion, and obfuscating questions, rather than witnessing the powerful effects which the Lord has wrought upon their souls. Years ago, I realized that General Conference was their opportunity to scapegoat the membership, by accusing them of misdeeds which they, the Apostates, struggled with. I and my family weren't having difficulty with what they complained about. They were completely out of touch with our needs, as I suspect was true of most members.

What false witnesses of Jesus do is what blind guides do. As Paul Toscano stated: “[Church] Members are relentlessly pressured to strain at gnats: by avoiding alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, facial hair, tatoos, body piercing, R-rated movies, public displays of affection, nudity, erotica, masturbation, necking, petting, premarital sex, disrespect for questioning authority, dissent and anger; while being constantly encouraged to swallow camels by tolerating elitism, racism, misogyny, lack of intimacy, homophobias, xenophobia, moral superiority, purification by exclusion, institutional secrecy, theological correctness, spiritual abuse, class discrimination, disdain for civil liberties, and the abdication of personal judgement and responsibility.” Who was it that was convicted of omitting the weightier matters of the Law?  “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. [Ye] blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” Matthew 23:23-24

Paul’s moral assessment of the 15 Apostates is perfectly on track:

“I don’t believe the authorities of the church have any right to make the extraordinary claims they make for themselves, and not deliver. They cannot claim, as Boyd Packer did recently when somebody asked the question about dating, or sex, or something: “Why would anyone ask an eighty-year old man about sex?” That’s a very duplicitous, malevolent, bad thing for him to do. The reason they’re asking him is because he is an Apostle, because he has given advice from that Apostolic office on that very subject; because he has told people how to live their lives. And the fact that he is eighty years old is irrelevant. If he doesn’t know anything about sex now, he never did, and he shouldn’t have been saying anything about it. He cannot claim to have the right to advise them, and then when they have a question, back off with that [answer]. That’s duplicitous, and malevolent.”

In Paul's video interview he claims these are good men. I disagree. To me there is an essential, corroborative difference born out in the Master’s harangue of the Pharisees. Well oiled manners, politeness, and social grace is only a veneer. It is quite easy to appear altruistic at the Rameumptom, at the desk, or in the press. Because of my early life encounters with these men I am no longer persuaded by their words, nor their social cordiality. I observe their deeds, and the consequences of their vaunted counsel. If their works tend to evil, then they are evil. To me that IS the definition of wickedness. A corrupt tree does not bring forth good fruit. It brings forth evil fruit. Fruit that looks edible, and may even taste edible, but poisons the soul.

In Hebrew, the word for priest means “he who intercedes.” The function of a priest is to intercede. The idea of intercession connotes saving, preventing, restoring. Presumably, this is in similitude of the Master who makes intercession with us. But this is not, nor ever has it been, what priests have done through the annals of time. They have confused the idea of intercession with interposition. They interpose themselves between God and mankind. Whose Plan was it, according to Mormon doctrine, to interpose himself between God and His children? Blind guides do not see this discontinuity. But it has been the very foundation of religion stretching back tens of thousands of years. The Intercession of Christ was never between God and Man. This is an error of understanding in Christianity born of those who never knew Jesus. It is an error perpetuated in the characterization of Redemption being the process of Christ paying off our debts. 

The Intercession of Christ is between Man and the effects of the Fall upon his soul. Coming unto Christ is the act of requesting Him to help us where we are incapable of helping ourselves against our own fallibility. When we invite Him into our life, to this end He is empowered to make intercession, to help us rise above that fallen state, and the errors we make because of our weaknesses are not held against us. Why? Because in the acts of His help we are “perfected in Him”; we are transformed first in our hearts to desire no evil, and from that new state flow the acts of divine love out of our own hearts. Redemption is a synergistic relationship, as well as ultimately a state of being. Sins (in the vulgar sense) are not assumed or born by action of an exalted Empath. Such an idea is incomprehensible, and precisely why the Atonement is not understood. Sin, in the original Greek means to miss the point; to miss the intended mark. It is in this context that Jesus, through His intercession, helps us aim and hit the mark. This vulgar concept of sin has it’s origin in ancient mythological thought; an explanation for why the Golden Age was brought horribly to an abrupt end, and today continued in Catholic Mass by repeating the mantra: “I have sinned, I have sinned, I have sinned,” which is interpreted by the supplicants as “I am evil, I am evil, I am evil.” The 15 Apostates do no less when they go about beggaring the membership over petty behaviors by substituting works that do not, and cannot, produce the moral vitality to perfect, much less exalt. Matthew 23 is Jesus’ diatribe against the chief priests. Mormon Apostles would do well to spend their study time between that chapter and a mirror, rather than picking at the splinters in the spiritual eyesight of the membership. Again, I have to declare it: It is not the temptations of the world that is decimating the membership. Neither is it by any influence of the departed. It is the impotence of its leadership.

Now I began this blog site with a post covering the subject of Christian church founding. I have written here as though such an authentic organization exists. But it has been with the intent to use Mormon theology and practice to convict its hierarchy of its own sins and dissimulation. History does not substantiate Jesus having created a church. Religious scholars know that the letter to the Ephesians is not the work of Paul, hence all such offices detailed there were someone else's production. Religious scholars also know that Christianity as  passed to us is Paul’s invention. The ancient texts extracted from Qumran unequivocally show that the Jerusalem “church” was not associated with Paul’s ministry and that he was told to get out of town by them because he was an heretic to their order. Peter, James, and John followed the strict code of the Essene life as did Jesus. The very essence of Jesus’ ministry, teachings, healing, bear out He constructed no organization, did not start a religion. What He instigated was his own version of an Essene sect. It is evident everywhere in his teachings, in his admonishing, in his injunctions. The HEbrews never had churches among them. The word does not even exist in Aramaic of Hebrew. They have synagogues, where the people are taught. Church is a Greek word, and consistent with the proselytizing of Paul. An organization, a mass movement, a religion, and certainly a priesthood, is unnecessary to accomplish the dissemination of Jesus' theology. All one needs is to hear His doctrine in purity and simplicity, and then seek Him individually, privately. Anciently it required bearers of the Word, for writing and reading were exceptional skills. Today we have the red-letter Gospels which, although mutilated by centuries of well-meaning monks, still retain sufficient content to begin the process.

The priesthood Morgdumb is so proud of never existed. On this topic I have written as well. Religious priesthood is a corruption of an ancient order that preceded the Flood. That order was inherent in the Royal Cult, the Followers of Horus. That was an order intended to preserve the Gnosis of all knowledge, and was passed down with the aid of temples constructed for its inculcation. There was never any Melchizedek or Abrahamic priesthood as Morgdumb proclaims. What those men had was a remnant of the original knowledge of the Creation and the scientific technology that encoded our celestial origin, and a bastardized Mythology that explicated those physical relationships with the spiritual origin. Abraham’s posterity bent it to their own purpose of exalting themselves above their peer nations, proclaiming they had the true Gnosis. They had nothing of the sort. Only in recent decades has a clearer picture begun to come forth, outlining what the actual Fall was and the Creation story that explains it.

Mormon temples bear absolutely no resemblance to those built anciently. Not those of Egypt, Sumer, Mexico, or the Orient, and certainly not those of ancient Israel. Likewise the ordinances administered within Morgdumb cannot be found in ancient history, and only in a few limited instances resemble those practiced by ancient Israel. In their temple ceremony, there used to be a preacher who would exclaim: “It is a wicked and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign.” But I say it is a wicked and adulterous priesthood that cannot produce any. Elijah proved that point quite handsomely upon the Baal priests.

In all these matters there is no authenticity, consistency, or connectivity with the Past. They are now having grave difficulty reconciling the actual history of American aborigines with the fictional gold-plate stories. At every point of principle, doctrine, and history upon which I was instructed by the CES, I am finding the real world about us is a vastly different picture. Were the 15 Apostates possessed of divine spiritual virtue, being authentic witnesses of Jesus, they might stand a chance at preserving Mormondumb. (That they have removed this requirement, and none confess to this personally re-defining the concept of Witness. The absence of the transcendent experience is the sum and substance of their apostasy from their own founding principles.) But modern research and the equivalent of its “white stone” is quickly undercutting their authoritarian, dominating grip upon its membership. Without the true Gifts residing in its leadership, it is doomed to atrophy and become a husk of its former days. And they cannot help themselves, for like actors who immerse themselves too far into their character, they are Buried in the Part.

SethSmee

REFERENCES
Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change; The True Believer
Niebuhr, Does Civilization Need Religion?
Benson, Apostolic Testimonies www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon481.htm
Luke 6:43;Matt 7:15;Matt 23:25;Matt 21:23-44; 2 Peter 3:9-12
Barker, Temple Theology; The Temple; The Older Testament
Quinn, Extensions of Power
Erhman, Jesus Interrupted
Bauval/Hancock, Message of the Sphinx
Gardner, The Origin of God

FATHERS; Civilization's Last Hope

I almost escaped notice of this time of year.  I have not cared for it much since the day a man in black robes sentenced me to life outside the daily felicity of my children.  I applied for their custody and was denied.  I was devastated.  The children's mother felt vindicated--for a very short time.  I was not the kind of father I had wanted to be, but certainly not the villain she had made me out to be in their eyes.  There was a lot of transference of her feelings onto them in those days.  And sadly for her, the vindictiveness continues to this day.  The children have long since reached adulthood, but the impact of her vindictiveness and its secondary effects has not departed from their lives.  They struggle as did I, and the irony of it is, the oldest is worse off than the others, who had graduated from high school when the split up finally became official.

I did not have a father growing up, although I had a biological dad.  He was more an itinerant priest than father even though his profession was the construction and maintenance of pipe organs.  He was a war baby as I was a post-war baby, and that social atmosphere for him engendered a different attitude about the future than what was beneficial for post WWII.  In the middle of his life he suddenly found himself in an obsolete profession, his spouse dead, near broke, and no idea how to be a father.  Nor did he find himself possessed of the desire to finish the job.  In his panicked state, he cast about for a willing woman to take the reigns.  But of course she wished for her own offspring, and I bless all the stars in heaven she was infertile.  Those of us still left in the home were disowned soon enough as he redoubled his efforts to raise the rest of his Zionist tribal pack by adopting kids to suit her maternal over-drive.  Had she reproduced I doubt us pre-adolescent kids would have emotionally survived.  Dad would never have had the opportunity to send me away when he finally felt able to implement his Millenial Dream.  I would have either left town or this planet.

Be all this as black as it seems to me at this far distant shore, he did insist on a few things which I perceive noteworthy.  As my mother sagged over the years into the old woman in the shoe role, we were compelled to muster to the duties of laundry, house-cleaning, and feeding ourselves.  All of us had our turn at a rotating list of chores. It would have worked out well had not some of the older siblings been negligent.  Rebellion often lurked when dad was otherwise occupied--which was quite often.  About the time dad finally sent me away for good (or so he thought) I was performing most of the dish-washing, mopping, vacuuming, mowing and garbage detail.  All this in addition to 2 hours weekly of personal laundry and ironing.  The younger ones were not considered capable of performing any of those tasks, and when they did, it was often in haste.  I was tolerant of their incompetence for lack of skill, but I chaffed constantly at their laziness.  What I got out of it was a skill-set unusual for a father in these "modern" times.

Part of dad's exiling of his children was sending me off to work on the older sister's dairy farm.  The amusement of the operations lasted only a short while.  His excuse was to teach me to work.  But I was the only one he compelled to submit to such summer work.  And besides, every time I was gone he was off pursuing his Millenial Dream, dragging the remnant of our family half-way across the North American continent.  I especially did not understand his reasoning since I was handling more than my sibling share of household chores.  I didn't really learn anything about how to work for a boss (my brother-in-law resented my presence and preferred to focus on raising his own children--and rightly so), although I did learn a few things about farming.  But I did buff up considerably, at least to the point I lost my fear of bullies and popular athletes.

 Thousands of mile-markers distant from those days I am deeply disturbed when I read of men who receive little praise from their wives for their contribution to family felicity through their efforts at fathering.  These women have not learned anything about men really, and expect the world to turn for them as their father's provided for them while they were imbeciles.  All too many of them complain about their husband's lack of competence, and/or interest in domestic labor.  I have yet to see any of them know anything about REAL labor unless they were raised on a farm which required their participation in order to survive. Furthermore, they complain because men don't know how to make love to them once married. But I'm still looking for the woman who has learned how to make love to a man, especially as his virility diminishes with time. It takes more than looking like Barbie to fulfill his bonding urges.  Lest this be perceived as nostrum, my first wife although familiar with farm survival labor to some degree, still was sheltered by that of her father's labor who she despised for many years. She had no idea about the mechanics of sex beyond stick-figure action, and wanted to hide under the covers with the lights out on our wedding day.  Some farm girl.  As the oldest of six girls, she was especially adept at complaint, backstabbing, and competitive subterfuge as the rest of them.  When we met, her opinion of most males on campus was that men felt they were God's gift to women.  How I missed her stereotyping I cannot fathom.  What she never realized was that the real problem in her wifely repertoire was that she felt she was God's gift to me.

Contrary to the stereotyped clarion blasts in all the Media, men are not simply the equivalent of the dairy bull who's only reason for existence is to inseminate the entire herd.  There aren't any more dumb brutes among men than there are dumb broads among women.  Women are constantly prattling about this or that male-centered discriminatory issue.  What they don't understand is that while their hormone level may rise to thrice their childhood level upon entering puberty, the male's testosterone levels are seven times higher than females at this age.  Is it any wonder a male seldom has anything else on his mind?  It takes a well-tempered and nurturing father to guide his son past this rampaging period, to socialize him into managing those urges productively.  When men are given a chance to transcend the effects of the chemical changes that often drive them to insane acts, they discover they want and can actually achieve equal if not better in some instances, nurturance and parenthood than their spouse.  Their is no difference in capacity, only in understanding and opportunity.  And it takes a well grounded father who is blessed with a dynamic, vibrant, and flexible relationship with his spouse to teach his daughter how to be worth more than a Barbie late-comer.

So where does a mother fit into this?  If she does not participate with her husband in socializing her son to become a desirable husband, what does this say about her?  Women, you just can't have it both ways.  Good men are attracted to good women.  Women who understand the male psyche know what makes them tick and what motivates their paternal instincts.  Too many women enter marriage with the expectation their chosen mate will treat them where their father left off.  Enter Snow White and Cinderella.  Just as a man must learn how to polish his bride, a woman must learn how to cultivate a faithful groom.  And it is at this crossroad where it starts going South.

A Groom can never be groomed to be a woman's ideal mate.  This is the heart of a woman's misunderstanding.  She cannot and never will successfully groom a man into her desired image of perfection.  Men do things differently than women, and if she tries to mold him in her image, he will despise himself and other men will pity him should he measure up to her standard.  The good men are not all taken, deary.  They are cultivated.  Once a woman understands how this is carried out she will obtain her heart's desire, but rarely before.  So my deepest wish on this celebratory day is that women will get off their high pedestal of emotional superiority and go read up on what makes a man roll up his sleeves.  It doesn't take a lot of effort to implement and the rewards are mutually delightful.

Start with Dr. Kyle Pruett's research in The Nurturing Father, and Father Need.  Do what he counsels and watch the amazing transformation of your children and your relationship.

SethSmee

Why I oppose DOMA

Christians are hypocrites.  At least they do not follow the teachings of Christ, but have corrupted them.  Let us begin with a portion of the Lord’s prayer:
“…thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, Luke 11:2)

Clearly, Jesus is indicating that the objective of His teaching is to bring the Kingdom of God down among men.  That is what the Christians seek; it is implied in all their sermons and in their belief in the “Rapture”, or the Second Coming of Jesus to rule personally the people of the earth.  Sounds like a dictatorship to me, but that is a secondary issue.

What did Jesus say about marriage? 
“…The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:  But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:” (Luke 20:34-5)

Is it so hard to put this together?  There is no marriage in heaven, and this asocial institution is one that all faithful Christians should be working to bring about on earth.  If and when the Kingdom of God arrives on earth, there will be no marriage on earth either.  It is what the Lord Himself has so stated (if you can believe what is contained in the Gospels), but Christians in the Far Western world are supporting a political movement for the opposite.  Who are the children of this world?  Do Christians teach anything about this?  My take on the Lord’s answer to the Sadducees in Luke is that they are those who adhere to the institutions of men, but have no interest in the Kingdom of heaven, much less bringing it about on earth.  Within the context of Jesus’ own sermons, this is undeniably the case.

Some Christians will point to the teachings of the converted Saul of Tarsus in defense of their views on homosexuality.  But you cannot find any such teaching in the words of Jesus.  Get out your computerized scriptures people and find it if you can.  This doctrine is Paul’s exclusively, and is one of the body of teachings Peter and James eschewed from the Jerusalem church.  It was Paul’s twist on Jesus’ teachings as well as his departure from Jewish orthodoxy that forced them to banish Paul from preaching around Jerusalem.

Now some Christians (those who are ignorant of their own doctrinal history) will argue that Jesus created a church, and that church is the one that Paul expanded.  But today it is common knowledge among Christian theologians that the book of Ephesians is a fraud; Paul did not write that book.  Furthermore, the word church as Jesus used in Matthew 16:18 in Aramaic does not have reference to the Church that Paul created, which subsequently became the Catholic church of the Roman Empire.  The concept of church in this context is entirely different.  Any priest worth his salt in theological training will tell you these two facts are so.

If then marriage is a secular institution, it is plain the Church co-opted marriage, proclaiming it as ordained of God, not of men, contrary to the words of Jesus himself.  This is the myth the Church has promulgated down through the centuries, and the cause of it can be found in the early history of the Church when the Pope assumed the head of world government.

Today people enter into marriage predominantly by the action of a priest, but when they divorce, it is by action of a judge of the local court.  Everyone turns a blind eye to the fact that priests receive their commission to perform marriage from the State.  Marriage today, as is the case historically throughout the world, is the co-mingling of property in common cause.  Said Dr. Thomas Szasz:

“Success or failure in marriage depends not on whether husband and wife love each other, but on whether they want to merge their lives and fortunes.” Untamed Tongue p94

For generations, the Chinese custom of marriage was predicated on this very principle, as indeed were the Western royal marriages throughout the Middle Ages.  Love and heaven have nothing in common with marriage.  Those are the facts.  (The story of love, marriage, and living happily ever after originated with the Ring Lord culture which culture predates Sumer.  Their fairy tales were code stories used to preserve the origin of their tribes.)  In view of this it is dissimulating of both the homosexual community as well as all Christianity to support the notion that marriage is about love and raising a family.  The institution of marriage has to do with the property of the persons involved combining to support each other, and the rearing of children so that they do not become a burden on the community.  The African aphorism about a community is required to raise a child is not about the child’s physical support, for even they do not care for children in this manner, but the socializing of the child’s mores to preserve and support the community’s survival.

Now I am not in favor of the dissolution of marriage and its consequent impact on family.  The oldest of the human mythology speaks of the Golden Age where all men did right by each other, and there was never want for the necessities of life.  That was considered heaven on earth then, and the fact that nobody spent their lives acquiring property since none was necessary, did not preclude family association.  It seems evident from the old records that human bonding was simply predicated upon other values.

At this juncture some will conclude that I am in favor of homosexual marriage.  Not so.  The reason is secular, not moral or religious.  The US Constitution’s Amendments do not support rights by class distinction.  Retired people, colored people, GLBT people, and others do not as a class or subclass have specific Rights different from any other presumed class of people.  The Constitution considers the entire population of the country as a homogenous whole and makes no distinction based on race, color, creed, or sex (the exception being the inclusion of slavery which was ultimately amended out).

In order for one person to have a Right, there must be some form of claim by that person upon one or more people who have a corresponding obligation.  This is why the Bill of Rights clause, Amendment Ten declares that all privileges beyond that extended to the Federal government in the same document are reserved to the people.  Not to some people of one distinction or another, all the people.  Opposite to the interpretation Alexander Hamilton took (at great remonstrance from Jefferson and others of the Signers), the obligation the Federal government has is the protection of all Rights imaginable, except those enumerated to empower the Government to carry out such protection, on behalf of the People. What the Federal government under the aegis of Hamilton doctrine has been doing is subdividing and granting Rights to particular classes of people.  This is the crux of the problem with homosexuals and their false claim to the right to marry as a group.  The governments, both Federal and State, were never granted authority by the People to dispense any Right of marriage.   The Federal government was only granted the right to protect the right of all people regardless of distinction to marry as they see fit.  Once this door is opened, the Federal government then has the opportunity and impetus to invent all manner of Rights pertaining to family and marriage which was not and never should be its purview.  Any parents who have had dealings with Juvenile Court know just how bad this can get.

When the State of Hawaii was considering the issue of DOMA, the supreme court struck down the law passed because it was unconstitutional.  The homosexual community claimed it as a victory, the religious Right (particularly the Mormon church funding the movement) saw it as a step backward.  Neither realized the full scope of what the judge issuing the ruling was saying.  A public column in the local paper had a comment by one person that marriage is a contract with society.

It is no such thing, and never has been.  No contract with society is even implied.  When two people apply for marriage within the State, it is for the purpose of obtaining a license to do so, which covers the basic requirement of asserting monogamy and being free of contagious venereal disease.  Certain other minor matters are attested to by the applicants on the license.  There is no written contract with the State, nor with each other.  Only in divorce is a written contract honored, that of a pre-nuptial agreement.

If the government were properly doing its designed function, there were would be no distinction between applicants for marriage license based on race, color, creed, or sex.  Any discrimination on the part of the government in this matter is expressly forbidden in the Constitution.  Well, one may ask, what about clubs, businesses, or religions who discriminate against people in any one of these areas?  If the government extends itself into any of them to regulate, then this becomes racism, fascism, state religion, and sexism.  It is National Socialism, in the same vein as Germany 1932, one step away from a military dictatorship.  On this point, Jefferson erred in creating the Virginia Constitution, for he discriminated against homosexuals in the document, going back on his own principles.  According to his own doctrine, the majority cannot over-ride that of a minority in the Democratic Republic.  That slavery and distinction of sexual preference was written into constitutions was an error and defect.  It allowed moral favoritism to exist to the detriment of total equality as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

The fact that religious leaders have been fanning the flames of class distinction in the name of moral rectitude is an indication they crave power over the population greater than what they have been granted.  Through their own venality, infidelity, moral turpitude, and lust for total control over the population (in the name of God, always) they have alienated large portions of the pluralistic society in which we live.

If they happen to win in the courts over the DOMA issue, they will have unwittingly opened the door to their own destruction by the State.  Soon the Federal government will be dictating to them who can and cannot marry, who can and cannot be a member of their congregations, and who can and cannot enter into their sanctuaries for the purpose of religious devotion.   These religions who are financing and perpetrating this persecution in the name of moral rectitude shall find themselves suddenly with the shoe on the other foot.  They will be staring at the government’s discrimination against them.  Not just the religions, but the homosexuals as well.  If this continues we shall continue to dissolve as One Nation under God, and become a people divided, just as the people of Germany became after WWI, ripening for the military dictatorship that took hold of their country and ultimately lead to their total subjugation.

When are you going to wake up and learn the lessons of history, fellow citizens?  Neither DOMA nor the homosexual movement to "grant" the right of marriage is preserving our Constitution, but destroying it.


Seth Smee