The Mormon Women for Ethical Government issued a thoughtful and clear-eyed endorsement of impeachment. After listening to the impeachment debate, where every Republican claimed that Trump did nothing wrong, that the issues were trivial, that the process was illegitimate, that it was….blah, blah, blah, it is refreshing to read a commonsense explanation of why impeachment of a lawless president is necessary to protect our democracy.
Here is their statement:
We assert that our most sacred civic expression is the casting of an individual vote. Any president or leader who forces political support and fails to honor and protect the free and legitimate elections on which our republic rests has lost the moral right to govern. By attempting to compel Ukraine to announce investigations benefitting only his re-election efforts, President Trump forced every American taxpayer to become an unwitting contributor to his political campaign and a supporter of his re-election.
Regardless of the behavior of any other political actor in either party, the president of the United States is never justified in bringing our common resources and might to bear against a political rival. As an organization committed to the defense of ethical government, we feel an urgent need to speak in defense of our norms and institutions. The House of Representatives produced the required articles, following procedures previously established, and voted through a legislatively approved process. They have fulfilled their constitutional obligation.
When presented to the Senate, these articles deserve a full and fair trial with impartial jurors, conducted as required by the Constitution. Even in an era of polarized partisan politics, truth is discernible and powerful. The Senate must resist all impulse to reduce this process to gamesmanship and theater and instead must pursue truth by compelling testimony from the actors at the heart of this inquiry. The president himself must honor his sworn duty to uphold the law by providing the documents Congress has subpoenaed and instructing his staff to testify. If he is innocent, their testimonies will be exculpatory. Subversion of this process, regardless of outcome, represents a subversion of justice.
At MWEG we are committed peacemakers. However, we recognize that true peace is not an absence of conflict. Rather, it requires, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught, a courageous defense of truth and justice. Some argue that an impeachment process must be bi-partisan before it is legitimate. Some say that without Congressional Republican support, investigating the president would be too divisive. We reject this argument as one devoid of moral authority. Peace cannot be purchased so cheaply. Effective leadership does not sacrifice truth and principle on the altar of consensus. Instead, it gives voice to truth and lends courage to those who are fearful. Our nation is truly indivisible only when there is liberty and justice for all.
While we speak to all of our fellow citizens and elected officials, we call specifically upon our co-religionists Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) to honor their oaths of office. We remind them that this oath qualifies them for service and was taken in the name of God. The oath of office does not require our representatives to protect the economy, their political party, their seat, their ambition, or even the president. It demands that those sworn to office will uphold the Constitution and fairly adjudicate on behalf of every citizen. We expect them to honor that oath, and we will hold them to account with our votes.
# # #
Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring women of faith to be ambassadors of peace who transcend partisanship and courageously advocate for ethical government. MWEG is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We do, however, fully sustain the leaders and doctrines of the Church.
Marvelous and inspiring statement, thank you for posting. How influential is this woman’s Mormon group in their community? Today’s NYTimes has an op-ed from a researcher publishing new book on evangelicals saying that the recent Christian Times editorial written by the outgoing editor of that magazine will not change the minds of the white evangelicals who rally behind and see Trump as the hand of God for all he has so far delivered on their theocratic agenda and all the evangelicals he has appointed to his Administration.
PEW Research Center Poll, reported March 18, 2019:
Approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president:
Protestant: 50%
White evangelical Protestant: 69%
White mainline Protestant: 48%
Black Protestant: 12%
Catholic: 36%
White Catholic: 44%
Nonwhite Catholic: 26%
Religiously unaffiliated: 20%
Thanks for the stats. I think Trump appeals to evangelicals and Catholics who are aware that he has stacked the courts in order to strengthen laws against abortion,
Yup. Still running the Karl Rove playbook.
Those numbers for Catholic support of IQ45 are pretty low.
Laura: I think you are right about many Catholics–about abortion as the deal-breaker for their vote. It’s less Trumpian than it is anti-abortion Republicanism. CBK
Thanks!
This is one of many groups of Mormon-affiliated political organizations. It’s somewhat influential.
As a Mormon, I wholeheartedly support this statement, but I know a lot of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who won’t.
Thanks, helpful.
A powerful letter from Mormon Women for Ethical Government explaining Donald Trump’s alleged crimes and why Donald Trump must have a full and fair trial, not one maligned and controlled by the accused.
Well, apparently these women beg to differ from the author and “white evangelicals” who still support Trump. Thank you for posting this article.
Forwarded to: lonergan_l@googlegroups.com, a blog dedicated to the Jesuit philosopher, Bernard J. F. Lonergan.
If I could, I would have forwarded it to Martin Luther King, Jr. CK
I read yesterday that only 80 percent of evangelicals and 40 percent of Catholics support Trump.
How many evangelicals and Catholics are there in the U.S.? I didn’t look that up. Running out of time this morning.
Lloyd Here is a good link, where, as I read it, the map from 2011 numbers Catholics in the US at circa 50 million. In my experience (and only that) the evangelicals I know have NO IDEA about the history of Catholicism, how it is actually Christian ( believe it or not, some don’t even know THAT) and predates anything “protestant,” or about its love of the same Bible they claim to love.
It’s also full of totalitarians and sinners, just like all other human organizations. CBK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church
See the recent figures I posted above, Lloyd. 69 percent approval among Evangelicals. 36% approval among Catholics.
Hm, I like your ratios of evangelical and Catholic support for Trump over the figures I saw.
Pew is reputable. I trust their figures.
Pew’s religion statistics may be reputable. However, Pew has a persuasion arm that gains traction for policies because the public is unaware of the organization’s different functions. Pew pairs with John Arnold on campaigns like pension attacks
Take what you hear from every media source with a grain of salt. Where did that old saying come from?
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons’ preferred name, ate NOT evangelicals. Most Evangelicals do not consider Mormons to be Christians, and many Evangelical pastors are openly hostile to members of the Church.
I lived in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor. He was not an ideologue. He worked with people across the aisle. Obamacare was HIS plan, the one he developed and implemented in Massachusetts (though he felt that he had to repudiate it when he was running in the Repugnican primaries). I’m a leftie, and I did not support him for president, but he was a good governor. There is a LOT that I disagree with the man about, but I believe that his faith is a tempering influence. I think he’s actually does care about others, unlike the current occupant of the now Whiter House.
Hello Threatened: I was quoting from the article. Also, see the note at the bottom of their letter–I found that interesting also. CBK
The note at the bottom isn’t surprising. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints carefully avoids politics in most cases. These sorts of disclaimers are pretty common for Mormon groups like these.
I live in the South and know a bunch of evangelicals who loathe King Con as much as I do.
Really, they loathe him, for his lying? womanizing? vulgar ridicule? all of the above? Thanks for the numbers. The author of the NYT op-ed yesterday reported that 81% of WHITE evangelicals support Trump. I read somewhere else that this comprises about a third of his base.
I have a friend who grew up in a missionary family. She’s an evangelical Christian. She’s not wealthy, but she gives enormously to food banks and women’s shelters. She volunteers at a jobs center and does resumes for the down-and-out. She walks the talk. One of the most decent people I know. She thinks the Trumpy evangelicals are totally nuts. Doesn’t understand how they can square THAT GUY with the one who said that whatever we do to the lowest among us, we do unto God. She understands that a lot of innocent children who fled starvation and violence will spend their Christmas in Trump and Miller’s concentration camps.
The evangelical friend I mentioned, above, doesn’t just do this kind of thing once in a blue moon. It’s a life-long thing for her, week after week, service to others. Extraordinary.
I’m very happy to read that these Mormon women have seen the truth. I was disappointed to know that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang at Trump’s inauguration.
…………………………..
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will sing at Trump’s inauguration
Dec. 22, 2016 at 10:06 a.m. CST
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the grandiose 360-member singing group known for its lofty renditions of patriotic and religious music, will perform at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration next month.
The Salt Lake City-based choir, whose weekly performances are broadcast on TV stations across the country, has performed at five previous presidential inaugurations: the swearing-in ceremonies of Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and George H.W. Bush; and in the parades of both Bushes and Ronald Reagan, according to the choir…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/12/22/the-mormon-tabernacle-choir-will-sing-at-trumps-inauguration/
If we are rightly going to praise this statement and who it came from, can we stop the occasional denigrating remarks about Mormons from now on?
But, as always, I reserve the right to be hypocritical to condemn scientology.
I shall gladly join you in that, GregB. I have some hair-raising personal stories to tell about those charlatans and their brainwashing techniques. Hubbard, ofc, was in the space opera B-grade novel biz and then the Sex Magick Cult biz before he hit on the BIG Dianetics/Scientology SCAM. Lawrence Wright’s book about Hubbard is a great read.
THANK YOU!!! A few commenters in the past have done exactly that, and there are several Mormons, including me, that are regulars on here.
I have been guilty of this, and I sincerely apologize. My parents converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints years ago, and I’ve met a lot of young people from the church. And they were invariably warm, generous, decent people. I hope that the Church will evolve with regard to some of its positions. This seems entirely possible.
It’s cool. I’m glad your experiences with members have been positive. It’s not always that way.
TOW
Is there significance to the name you selected -“threatened”?
Yep. It was from a situation in the school in which I teach a few years ago. I can’t say more than that. It’s fine now, but I still use the name.
Sorry to hear this. Far too common.
My past is also not free of guilt. It changed a few decades ago when I worked with a number of Mormons and many recent experiences have educated me more. Also, I’d highly recommend Wallace Stegner’s history of the Mormon Trail, The Gather of Zion to understand the human side of the religion: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2202323344
Thanks for the suggestion, Greg. And happy holidays to you and yours!
The Gathering of Zion
Thanks, Bob. Wishing all the best for you and yours this holiday season. Let’s hope we have some things to celebrate in 2020.
To you and yours as well, Brother Greg.
Yay.
Thanks for this post, Diane.
The letter is a heartening and powerful statement that puts to shame women of other religions who do not call on their senators by name, to put country before party. With hope, the next woman elected to the Senate will be an “ethical” member of LDS.
Will an organization of white, Catholic women issue a statement renouncing Trump?
The broader umbrella of Pastors for Texas Children have protestant female pastors fighting for the common good.
Overwhelmingly, Jewish women vote Democratic.
Not only do women face subjugation in some of their religious institutions, they have lost voice and representation under GOP rule. In a 2020 projection, there will only be 11 Republican women in the U.S. House (187 men).
Peter Thiel, Robert P. George and female Republicans are a threat to women’s rights.
The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity
Support for Trump comes at a high cost for Christian witness.
JULY 5, 2019
Peter Wehner
Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC
…He adds, “The Church is in one of its deepest moments of crisis—not because of some election result or not, but because of what has been exposed to be the poverty of the American Church in its capacity to be able to see and love and serve and engage in ways in which we simply fail to do. And that vocation is the vocation that must be recovered and must be made real in tangible action.”
There are countless examples of how such tangible action can be manifest. But as a starting point, evangelical Christians should acknowledge the profound damage that’s being done to their movement by its braided political relationship—its love affair, to bring us back to the words of Ralph Reed—with a president who is an ethical and moral wreck. Until that is undone—until followers of Jesus are once again willing to speak truth to power rather than act like court pastors—the crisis in American Christianity will only deepen, its public testimony only dim, its effort to be a healing agent in a broken world only weaken.
At this point, I can’t help but wonder whether that really matters to many of Donald Trump’s besotted evangelical supporters.
Read More:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/evangelical-christians-face-deepening-crisis/593353/?utm_source=atl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share
I personally know Carol and love her postings above.
Concerning the Mormon choir, I wrote to Mack Wilberg, one of the best choral conductors of our day – his work is breathtaking, to beg him not to sing for Trump;s inauguration. I wrote to to the president of the church, posted on their facbook page and wrote a letter to the choir also.
I used to love to watch their Sunday morning program, Music and the spoken word, and their Christmas program but told them that if that is what the church stood for then they have lost me as a listener. SAD because they are a great choir but there were good choirs who stood for Hitler also.
I remember the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who when Hitler came to power, returned to Germany to be with his people. When the pastors got together to decide what to do; whether to go along and work with their parishioners or fight against ;Hittler, it wasn’t an easy decision, he stood up quietly and said, words I had posted on the mirror in my bedroom:
One man asks what is right,
the other what is to come
and that is the difference
between the free man and the slave.
.]
After saying this, he then sat down., said nothing more.
As many will know he was hung for his anti Hitler work just before the Allies got to that region.
Thank you for these thoughts, Mr. Wilder, and for your efforts! Awesome.
There were quite a few Mormons, including me, that were not happy with the Tabernacle Choir’s decision, although the Choir has performed for several Inaugurations in the past.
My LDS cousin described singing in the tab choir as one of the greatest experiences of his life. We went to a Sunday singing when we had our family reunion there. It was really good.
People were so nice to us around those parts that I began to,wish someone would snub me or cuss me. They also have the biggest smile picnic tables ever in their campgrounds.
Thank you Gordon,
The difference between a free man and a slave…
GOP politicians are slaves.
Get Ready for a Stop-Bernie Onslaught Like You’ve Never Seen
By Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
27 December 19
A central premise of conventional media wisdom has collapsed. On Thursday, both The New York Times and Politico published major articles reporting that Bernie Sanders really could win the Democratic presidential nomination. Such acknowledgments will add to the momentum of the Bernie 2020 campaign as the new year begins – but they foreshadow a massive escalation of anti-Sanders misinformation and invective.
Throughout 2019, corporate media routinely asserted that the Sanders campaign had little chance of winning the nomination. As is so often the case, journalists were echoing each other more than paying attention to grassroots realities. But now, polling numbers and other indicators on the ground are finally sparking very different headlines from the media establishment.
From the Times: “Why Bernie Sanders Is Tough to Beat.” From Politico: “Democratic Insiders: Bernie Could Win the Nomination.”
Those stories, and others likely to follow in copycat news outlets, will heighten the energies of Sanders supporters and draw in many wavering voters. But the shift in media narratives about the Bernie campaign’s chances will surely boost the decibels of alarm bells in elite circles where dousing the fires of progressive populism is a top priority.
For corporate Democrats and their profuse media allies, the approach of disparaging and minimizing Bernie Sanders in 2019 didn’t work. In 2020, the next step will be to trash him with a vast array of full-bore attacks.
Along the way, the corporate media will occasionally give voice to some Sanders defenders and supporters. A few establishment Democrats will decide to make nice with him early in the year. But the overwhelming bulk of Sanders media coverage – synced up with the likes of such prominent corporate flunkies as Rahm Emanuel and Neera Tanden as well as Wall Street Democrats accustomed to ruling the roost in the party – will range from condescending to savage.
When the Bernie campaign wasn’t being ignored by corporate media during 2019, innuendos and mud often flew in his direction. But we ain’t seen nothing yet.
With so much at stake – including the presidency and the top leadership of the Democratic Party – no holds will be barred. For the forces of corporate greed and the military-industrial complex, it’ll be an all-out propaganda war on the Bernie campaign.
While reasons for pessimism are abundant, so are ample reasons to understand that a Sanders presidency is a real possibility. The last places we should look for political realism are corporate media outlets that distort options and encourage passivity.
Bernie is fond of quoting a statement from Nelson Mandela: “It always seems impossible until it is done.”
From the grassroots, as 2020 gets underway, the solution should be clear: All left hands on deck.
This was sent to me from a Muslim/Islamic friend who lives in Kuala Lumpur. It is the view they have of Mary and Jesus.
The Birth of Jesus عليه السلام
Dec 23, 2019
FreeQuranEducation