This year I have already heard some people who argue out of spite that the winner of the Alabama – Texas game should not be considered the National Champion. Personally I think that’s foolish. Whatever team wins that game will have gone undefeated having played against an undefeated team in their bowl game. What more could we ask of them? The same criteria will apply to the winner of the TCU – Boise State game and thus I argue that while the coaches are obligated to vote for the winner of Alabama-Texas the AP voters should create a split championship by voting for the winner of the TCU-Boise State game (unless Texas-Alabama is compelling while TCU-Boise State turns out to be a really sloppy game on both sides). In fact, Obama should follow his sportsman’s heart by inviting both teams to the White House and honoring them as is traditional for the National Champion. (If he really wants a playoff the President could invite them on the same day and watch them play a friendly scrimmage. )

I just had to get this out before the Fiesta Bowl began today so that I could be fair to both teams – especially considering I have a favorite in this contest. While I like both TCU and Boise State better than either Texas or Alabama I would definitely prefer to see TCU win.

It looked like a stunning reversal: the same church that helped defeat gay marriage in California standing with gay-rights activists on an anti-discrimination law in its own backyard.

. . .

The ordinances passed and history was made: It marked the first time the Salt Lake City-based church had supported gay-rights legislation.

More than a year ago – months before the votes started coming in for California’s Proposition 8 the LDS Church stated its official position that they were supportive of the basic rights of all people, including homosexuals, such as probate rights and housing rights. They stated that they were amenable in theory to the Common Ground Initiative but could not take a public position on bills that had not yet been drafted.

The position of the church never changed. Some people claim this is a PR move to blunt the backlash over their role in defeating Prop. 8, but the only thing that changed is that unlike the theoretical five bills of the common ground initiative, the Salt Lake City council actually drafted two bills. The church publicly supported the bills – in keeping with the position they had already taken.

Sadly some people still don’t get it and are suggesting that the church should take a further step by actually writing bill proposals for the state legislature to consider which would extend these same benefits statewide that were just passed within Salt Lake City. The fact is that the church will do just have they have done up to this point – they will not write legislation and they will take no position on theoretical bills that have not been written. When bills are written that are acceptable the church will support them. Bills they can’t quite support will get no comment. In the Utah Legislature they don’t even have to worry about addressing bills that are worthy of their opposition.

Considering that I could not hope to add insights beyond those of Elder Oaks some might question why I would bother to write anything about his speech. There are two reasons – first, this subject of our freedom of religion (for any atheists I could comfortably call it “freedom of conscience”) is important to every American who cares about preserving a viable nation where we enjoy any amount of liberty whatsoever and thus I could not pass up the chance to promote that message; and second, when I saw that some of what he said was being misunderstood (as shown in a poll where 2 in 3 respondents disagreed with his  assertion that the retaliation and intimidation against supporters of Prop. 8 was similar in nature to the voter-intimidation of blacks in the South) I knew that it was necessary for people who understood what he said to stand up and declare their understanding.

I would like to address those two reasons for writing in reverse order, first to address the apparent misunderstanding and then to talk about how we must treat the freedom of religion in order to preserve a free society.

The poll cited above asks if respondents agree with Elder Oaks that “the anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern blacks during the civil rights movement.” With only that question to go on it is understandable that people would think to disagree. The blacks during the civil rights movement faced intimidation tactics for a much longer period of time and from more than just lay people, but from official quarters as well. The problem with the question is that it misrepresents what Elder Oaks actually said. Here are his words:

Along with many others, we were disappointed with what we experienced in the aftermath of California’s adoption of Proposition 8, including vandalism of church facilities and harassment of church members by firings and boycotts of member businesses and by retaliation against donors. Mormons were the targets of most of this, but it also hit other churches in the pro-8 coalition and other persons who could be identified as supporters. . .

It is important to note that while this aggressive intimidation in connection with the Proposition 8 election was primarily directed at religious persons and symbols, it was not anti-religious as such. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation. (emphasis added)

Vandalism, harassment, firings, boycotts of member businesses, and retaliation against participants were all forms of intimidation faced by both blacks in the South and supporters of Proposition 8, yet that is not how he was trying to compare the two situations. Let me repeat his comparison with special emphasis:

. . . these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South . . .

If you don’t believe that this is how he meant his statement hear the explanation that Elder Oaks himself gave (h/t Matt Piccolo):

Now for the question of how we must treat the freedom of religion in order to preserve a free society. Elder Oaks quoted Richard John Neuhaus who said, “In a democracy that is free and robust, an opinion is no more disqualified for being ‘religious’ than for being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain dumb.” If we hope to preserve a free and robust society we must insist that we and those who disagree with us tolerate any expression of opinions whether it be religious, atheistic, psychoanalytic, Marxist, just plain dumb, or any other description. That starts with us before we can reasonably demand it of those who disagree with us. As Elder Oaks said:

“At no time did anyone question or jeopardize the civil right of Proposition 8 opponents to vote or speak their views.”

Once again Elder Oaks has addressed this issue better than I could so I will summarize his conclusion.

1. We must speak with love, always showing patience, understanding and compassion toward our adversaries. . . Even as we seek to speak with love, we must not be surprised when our positions are ridiculed and we are persecuted and reviled.
2. We must not be deterred or coerced into silence by the kinds of intimidation I have described. We must insist on our constitutional right and duty to exercise our religion, to vote our consciences on public issues and to participate in elections and debates in the public square and the halls of justice. . . when churches and their members or any other group act or speak out on public issues, win or lose, they have a right to expect freedom from retaliation.
3. We must insist on our freedom to preach the doctrines of our faith. I will add here that the freedom to preach the doctrines of our faith does not translate into a freedom or right to compel others to participate in that faith. This is true whether the issue is a specifically religious participation or a more secular participation. In other words, it is wrong to punish someone for choosing not to participate in a public religious observance (a prayer in a public setting for example) just as it is wrong to prevent someone from choosing to engage in a religious activity in a public setting.
4. The call of conscience — whether religious or otherwise — requires no secular justification. At the same time, religious persons will often be most persuasive in political discourse by framing arguments and positions in ways that are respectful of those who do not share their religious beliefs and that contribute to the reasoned discussion and compromise that is essential in a pluralistic society.
5. Latter-day Saints (or anyone else) must be careful never to support or act upon the idea that a person must subscribe to some particular set of religious beliefs in order to qualify for a public office. . . Such advocacy suggests that if religionists prevail in electing their preferred candidate this will lead to the use of government power in support of their religious beliefs and practices. In case that was unclear to anyone let me emphasize his point which was that the idea that a person must subscribe to some particular set of religious beliefs in order to qualify for a public office should never be acted upon or even supported.

(italic comments mine)

Cross-posted at Pursuit of Liberty

Let us tell you a few things about David Miller.

He’s wary of socialized healthcare. He’s in favour of weakening the federal government, and he also supports strict caps on income tax for individuals and corporations. Yeah, turns out David Miller’s a really conservative guy. How’d he ever get elected mayor of a city with such a strong lefty contingent? Oh, right. He didn’t.

Actually, he doesn’t even live in Canada.

David Miller of Bountiful, Utah, a conservative blogger (his site is actually a pretty good read), has politics very different from those of our own soon-to-depart Mayor Miller. But the two men do have one thing in common, aside from a name: they’re both active on Twitter, where Mayor Miller uses the handle @mayormiller, and David-from-Utah goes by @davidmiller.

This was how I was publicly introduced to the people of Toronto by the Torontoist. They picked up on the fact that I was being incorrectly linked in messages to/about the mayor of Toronto and thought it was funny enough that they asked me if they could do a story about it. It was a fun read – and I got a few random tweets out of it today – thought I’d share it here.

Anyone who wants more information about my candidacy is invited to visit my campaign website.

Latest Version: 2.0 (March 16, 2009)

Display templates are introduced here giving you total flexibility in deciding what to display. There is one set of template settings for recent votes and another for search results. Each template is made up of a header, a footer, and an item template. Template tags are used to display the variables specific to each recorded vote such as the vote cast or the vote description. There is also a setting for what to display when no votes are returned in the recent votes and another setting for when no votes are returned in a search.

Votes are entered on a dashboard widget:

A vote management page is available from the posts menu:

Recent votes are shown by adding <?php recent_votes(); ?> in your theme templates. You can show a search votes form by using the shortcode [ SEARCH-VOTES ] on a page or post. Options for Voting Record include:

• The option to specify a primary voter (if most or all of the votes being tracked are from one person).
• The option to specify header text/code for the recent vote list.
• How many recent votes to show – limited by number of votes or number of days.
• What to show before a list of recent votes and what to show before a list of search results.
• What to display at the end of a list of recent votes and what to display at the end of a list of search results.
• The format for displaying your recent votes or search results lists, including which pieces of information to show.
• What to display when no recent votes are returned or when a search comes up empty.

To install it simply unzip the file linked above and save it in your plugins directory under wp-content. In the plugin manager activate the plugin. Settings for the plugin may be altered under the Voting Record page of the Options menu (version 2.3) or Settings menu (version 2.5 or later).

I’m hoping that it is a positive experience for my few subscribers.

A marathon provides a good example of both. Winning a marathon is a competition. The winning time of any one race has no bearing on the outcome of other races. Your time in one race may be too slow to win while the same time in another race would constitute first place. Finishing a marathon is a challenge – any marathon runner will congratulate any other on the accomplishment of running that 26.2 mile race. Finishing a marathon in under 3 hours is a challenge – no matter how many people accomplish the feat, my finishing in under three hours does not diminish your success in finishing in under three hours.

The distinction here might seem trivial, but I believe that we can find valuable benefits from being able to distinguish between a competition and a challenge. For some non-athletic examples: getting elected to a political office is a competition (assuming you are not unapposed) while getting into heaven is a challenge.

I forgot to mention that in my Halloween post but that is another reason that I was able to enjoy Halloween more this year. I remembered it today when I realized that I had to adjust my blog for daylight savings – I can’t wait for Wordpress to fix that bug.

The way this is the case for telling the truth is that one side received all the benefit as both sides argued about related obscurities that were all false to one degree or another. Those opposing Prop. 8 claim that the measure was designed to institutionalize discrimination. They benefit from this because of the emotional reaction that good people have to the idea of discrimination. When the proponents of Prop. 8 focus their arguments on the secondary effects of legalizing gay marriage, using fear as their tool in place of truth the opponents can easily counter with the idea that the repurcussions of this action will not have a ripple effect citing the fact that gay marriage has already been legal for months (and naturally within those few months we would already be seeing the side effects of such a monumental social change as redefining the primary unit of society).

If the advocates for Prop. 8 would stick to publishing the truth of their position and defending themselves accurately against the false claims of discrimination their opponents would not be able to obscure the real issue as effectively as they have been able to do. The voters would be left to decide on the issue of whether marriage is a construct of man or something more eternal in nature. If the issue were decided based on the real argument then it would almost not matter the outcome of the vote – the people would be declaring where they stand on the issue and the debate would serve as an opportunity to teach the truth.

As it stands, the debate has circled around the central issue and been hijacked by half-truths and high emotions. The people of California will decide the issues based on viceral reactions rather than honest or clear belief. Many will make a choice that they honestly do not understand and cannot be fully held accountable for that choice which means the issue will undoubtedly be revisited without the benefit of so many people already understanding what it being decided.