Fantasizing New Apostles

Here is a discussion about who the new apostle might be just before Elder Cook was called. http://www.newcoolthang.com/index.php/2007/10/fantasizing-about-apostles/451/
My interesting notes is that only four apostles as a member of the First Presidency were suggested and one was right. On the issue of men who have dealt with homosexuality, if a man in the Seventy has dealt with that in the past, would we know it? This is a question that the haters have not dealt with.
I am a long time rooter for Elder Kikuchi being called to the twelve, same with Elder Soares (which with him being born after 1960 could likely happen) and I would love to see Darius Gray in the twelve. However, Brother Gray is no spring chicken, so I do not expect that.
I actually found this thread by doing a search for David Paulsen. I assume they mean the BYU philosophy professor and not the civil engineer in the Church Temple Department who was mission president from 1998-2001 in Brazil, but either one is about equally as likely to be called as an apostle.
I am giving up hope that Elder Kikuchi will be called to the Twelve, and am now shifting to predicting that Elder Teh will be the first Apostle from Asia, but who knows, I clearly do not.

How the Women's Research Institute's defenders doomed it more by their actions

I was reading one of the defesnces of the continuance of the BYU Women's Research Institute and realized that the author through her lack of even a modicum of respect for the decisions of BYU's Administation and her knee jerk assumptions that they are chavinist male pigs doomed her institution.
Her claim that BYU's administration acts as if feminisims is a bad word and they should not needs to be reevaluated. When I hear feminism the first thing that comes to mind is Sonia Johnson. Then Janice Allred, Maxime Hanks and Margaret Toscano. What do all these people have in common? They have all been excommunicated from the Church for actions related to their feminism that lead to their removal. The same could be argued for Lavina Fielding Anderson, although she has a rejection of authority that is only tangentially feminist.
Don't get me wrong. I know there are people who are beieving members of the Church and feminists, although I wonder how at times when they accept the false notions that women should have the right to chose to murder the unborn, but feminism is a world view that has lead many out of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Beyound this, the fact of the matter is that the BYU Administration is KEEPING the women's studies minor. Let me say that again, BYU WILL STILL HAVE A WOMEN'S STUDIES MINOR. Some have griped about "an interdisciplinary minor being placed under one program", these people seem to ignore that the Native American Studies Minor is part of the History Department at BYU.
This is an attempt by BYU to free up more money for the actual researh. It was the "Women's Research Institue" not the "women's activism institute". This difference seems to escape the minds of many complaining about its end.
It is true, at least for a given value of "major university" that BYU will be the first major University to dissolve such an institute, however what other university ever had to remove a faculty member for advocating that people pray to the Heavenly Mother? Ture that was 13 years ago, but still. Also, in the mid-1990s a BYU feminist group put up material that suggested all men were potential rapists. This is the type of divisiveness that Satan wants between the sexs.
What we need is not institute focused just on women, but studies that focus on the family and how to deal with it. If we want to repuce rape, maybe we should focus on its causes, which means addressing those who do it, which are almost completely men. The percentage of rapes perpetrated by men is MUCH HIGHER than the percentage of rapes where women are the victims. Yet to act as if ALL MEN are potential rapists is not logical. Other schools have more extreme, one women's group at a school in Maryland published a "potential rapist" poster where they had randomly chosen a male name from the student directory.
Lastly, those who speak so inflamatorily for the WRI need to read Spencer W. Kimball's "A King Like All Other People" talk. Then they need to read V. H. Cassler's the defense of companionate, monogomous, heterosexual marriage, and ask two questions. One, if the big issue today is marriage, should we not have a marriage institute. Also, if Women's Studies is a sub-set of sociology, which I think we can convincingly argue, and the next biggest issues are history, political science and family life than why have a seperate institue? Thirdly, if BYU has a School of Family Life, is this not a better place for marriage studies than the Women's Research Institute?
The WRI may or may not be neccesary, but to act like we must be the same as everyone else, when we fully believe salvation is a family affair which no other religious group and defininately the secular humanists who control academia do not believe, why should we have a king like all other people?

Mormons in mid-Michigan

Two recent stories have been of note. The Central Michigan University student paper did an article on the sisters missionaries on the campus. They also mentioned a member of the Church who is a student at Central. It is a fairly good article although its comments to some extent became a chance for some people to go on a tirade against the LDS Church and to mock educated people who believe in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.
Then yesterday the Mormon Times had an article about Bruce E. Dale and his work on grassoline. The article mentions that Dale has been a stake president, but it fails to mention he is currently a temple workers.

Source or influence

Even more astonishing, the main work that the Stanford people use to try and claim shows Rigdon was influenced by the Book of Mormon was written after the Book of Mormon was published, and after Rigdon read the Book of Mormon by all accounts.
We might as well try to prove my ancestor Joseph Lee Robinson wrote First Nephi because his journal uses such similar phrasing. Most people would instead believe he was intentionally copying the Book of Mormon structure at the start of his journal, but that should not really disturb us, I mean we have to then assume that Robinson had internalized the text of the Book of Mormon, a truly radical assumption.
The fact that Rigdon among other things could have had the text of the Book of Mormon in front of him as he wrote the piece that is used to prove he wrote the Book of Mormon seems to entirely escape his opponants.

Ryan Larsen's analysis of the bizarre Stanford Study

I was somehow drawn into this debate by someone who misused my name.
I have just began to read Larsen's reply, and already have to say that this is an invalid word-print study.
1-They did not study Joseph Smith's own work for comparison.
2-They did not study the possiblity that none of their people listed wrote the Book of Mormon.
3-When did Isaiah-Malachi become a single author?
4. Why did they not include Gordon B. Hinckley and Hugh Nibley in their wordprint study? I mean if we are going to include people for whom there is overwhelming evidence they did not see the Book of Mormon until after it was published, than why stop with Sidney Rigdon and not include people who the evidence has never been disputed.
These are my thought at the start. Basically, it is going to be hard not to find problems with this study.
All it seems to lead to is telling us that Oliver Cowdery did not write the Book of Mormon. Surprise, surprise. I will avoid any snarky comments on that idea.

Fair Housing and Incurable Ignorance

Accuracy in reporting is clearly not a strong suit of the Associated Press. However on the issue of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its position on Fair Housing the issue is even more complexed.
First off, the Church specifically stated support for fair housing and employment non-discrimination laws in its statement "the Divinity Institution of Marriage" issued to explain its support for Prop 8.
Thus, the claim by the AP and others that the Church's position on the fair housing and employment non-discrimination laws in Salt Lake City was "unprecedented" and represented a change of position was FALSE.
This would be bad enough. However reading the debates on fair housing laws, I have come to realize that many people in Utah are totally ignorant of the existence of the 1968 Fair Housing laws and its 1974 and 1988 revisions.
These laws make it illegal to discriminate in providing housing on the grounds of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disablity status or "familial status". What exactly the last one means I am not sure.
Thus the claims that Salt Lake's law is "unprecedented" or deneying basic freedoms are misguided. All homeowners come under these laws.
The fact that some people have openly stated they would refuse to rent to Mormons shows that these laws are unknown.
Since religion is a choice, the debate about the origins of homosexuality is irrelevant in this context. There is clear precedent, dating back to 1968 when discrimination based on religion was outlawed by federal ordinance, for laws that forbid discrimination based on identities people choose. The fact that some people have the ability to decide what racial identity to embrace also complicates the entire debate, making race less genetic than some claim, but most people are stuck in a given race so that is not a big issue, religion is though. Interestingly, as far as I can tell, age is an acceptable factor to use in evaluating renters.
What still remains unclear to me is what actually constitutes discrimination in housing based on sexual orientation. What is not clear is what type of apartment policies against sexual actions landlords are allowed to apply. I am not sure how much it matters, but it does effect some arguments. If the law would allow for a universal ban on sexual activity in your apartment than the analogy to drug addicts is pretty poor.
However when the balance is such that the current actions of some people lead to high levels of homelessness, I think that a law to keep people from kicking people out just because of "sexual orientation" is a good thing.

"Mormons back Salt Lake's gay rights law" an exploration of media attacks

The quoted phrase was the headline in the Detroit News. Since I had already read the Deseret News articles, including the text of Otterson's actual speech, I knew that the AP had missed the boat.
First off, the issue is not that "Mormons" are backing the law, but that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially endorsed the law. This is a hugely important distinction. This is also the main reason it is worthy of national coverage.
Although Dobner does mention that the Church specifically reaffirmed its support of man/woman marriage, she misses mentioning at all the other grounds that the Church gave for being willing to support this law. Specifically it exempts religious groups from its reach. Religious owned housing can still apply its own rules (in this context, that means the LDS Business College dorms), and religious groups can still use their criteria for employment, and would not be threatned with action if they refused to employ someone on issues related to sexual oritentation.
That is a hugely important concession in the bill. It is even more important when we realize that Title VII religious discrimination exemptions might be threatened if a seperate sexual orientation protection was balenced against them that like gender and race discrimination did not have a religious employment exemption.
That said, Dobner does not miss the chance to try and portray Utah as a theocracy where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints controls the government. Her theory has a flaw though. The Church expressed concern that immigration legislation consider the humanity of those it effects. While this might have slightly happened, the fact that the Church did not outrightly oppose hunting down undocumented immigrants shows that if its view normally prevail it is more because it judges what will work before acting than that it has huge control on the legislature.