Congratulations, Utah. You blew it.

Congratulations, Utah. You blew it. You had a chance to make a difference in this election, with your 6 electoral votes. But you chickened out.

As of this morning, with two states still uncounted, Donald Trump had exactly 276 electoral votes. That's six more than he needed to win. Six electoral votes. That's Utah.

If Arizona and Michigan swing for Hillary Clinton, Trump will have won by only six votes. If one other state, say Arizona or Idaho, had swung for Clinton, and Utah had voted for a third party, it would have forced an Amendment 12 election and we would have been spared both of these losers.

This election was a squeaker. Neither major political party can claim a mandate. Trump won by the slimmest of margins, the Republicans hold a slim majority (18 seats) in the House and only a one-seat majority in the Senate. It was more or less a coin toss.

Whether Clinton or Trump won, either way, we would have awakened to despair on Wednesday morning. There had been a glimmer of hope from the Rocky Mountains. This was a race in which a third party could have made a real difference. Instead, the Mormon majority in Utah decided to align with the Evangelical Christians in the Deep South, to abandon their principles and vote for what was expedient instead of what was right. They wanted to save their precious conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

You people have it all wrong. Haven't you seen how Donald Trump has used, abused, and manipulated the justice system for his personal gain, since 1973? Nothing's going to change. Trump is going to appoint judges who will enrich him, who will help him to amass wealth and power, and who will help him to punish his enemies, even those whose only crime was to speak out against him.

Let me put it in words you Mormons will understand: You have elected King Noah. (Now is a good time for everybody else to go and read the book of Mormon.) Of course, your other choice was the Gadianton robbers - but again, that's only if you buy into the fallacy that the election was an either/or, two-option choice.

Again for the Mormons, there are two scriptures that matter, although it's too late for you to apply them to this election:

From Doctrine and Covenants, 98:8-10:

I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore ye are free indeed; and the law also maketh you free.
Nevertheless, when the wicked rule the people mourn.
Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.

And from Doctrine and Covenants, 121:39:

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

Utah (and Idaho, and Arizona), you could have taken a moral stand, however futile it might have appeared. You could have stood on principle. And, in hindsight, now that the numbers are in, you would have made a difference in this election. But you abandoned your principles in favor of expediency, thus joining the evangelical Christians, who threw in the towel months ago. You're no better than them.

And you have reinforced the tautology that a third-party candidate will never win an election because nobody will vote for him, and nobody will vote for a third-party candidate because he will never win an election.

Let's all try again in four years, okay? Stay tuned for the next two posts.

This Church is All About Love

The Mormon church found itself under the harsh spotlight of national scrutiny during the 2012 presidential campaign. Most of the scrutiny involved people who were curious and, for the first time in their lives, wanted to know what Mormons believed, why they believed, how they lived, and so on.

Some of the scrutiny came from people who had already made up their minds about the Mormons, and were looking for evidence to support their preconceptions. One of these false notions is the idea that Mormon men hold onto power in the church by keeping the priesthood for themselves and by maintaining a strict hierarchy.

Because the church doesn't have a paid clergy, members serve voluntarily and without pay in leadership positions. Members do not campaign or lobby for positions; rather, they are asked, or "called," to serve in these positions after considerable prayer and meditation by their leaders. They are expected to serve for only a few months or a few years in any given position.

I have served for three years in the leadership councils of our local stake - a collection of congregations, similar to a Catholic diocese. In all the stake councils and meetings that I have attended, I have been constantly impressed at how the focus is always on the individuals in the stake, how the leaders of the stake know them all by name, and how much they love them.

They love these people with the pure love that Christ had for the Samaritan woman at the well, for the woman taken in adultery, for the woman who touched the hem of his robe as he walked by, and for his beloved friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. The leaders of the Mormon church, all these men in their business suits, white shirts and ties, wielding the priesthood of God, are motivated by only one thing: love.

Power has nothing to do with it. Here is an illustration of the love that motivates these men.

In a recent meeting of the local stake, over 1200 people gathered to see a new stake president installed. The night before the meeting, a woman in the stake had her feelings deeply hurt by some other women in the stake.

I'm certain that the offenders did not mean to offend. In fact, I'm certain that they didn't even know that they had hurt this woman. Nobody is to blame; they did not know her situation, and had they known, I'm sure that they would have held their tongues. There is no need to confront them or hold them accountable.

However it happened, this poor sister went home on Saturday night so hurt that she could not bring herself to attend the meeting the next day. She had wanted to participate in the program, to show her honor and love for the outgoing stake president; but instead, she stayed home.

She did not make a big deal out of it. But her absence was noted, a friend made inquiries, and word of her hurt made its way quietly - and confidentially - and swiftly - to the very top of  the stake. The leaders made arrangements to quietly visit this woman in her home, and to make sure that she knew firsthand of their love for her.

Do you remember what Jesus said to the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' robe as he walked by? "Daughter, be of good comfort." And do you remember what Jesus said about giving alms to the poor? "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." Without fanfare or publicity, these leaders simply "[go] about doing good," following the example of their Master, Him for whom the church is named.

You see, "Mormon" is just a nickname. The true name of the Mormon church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

Stay tuned.

Election predictions

It's too early to predict who's going to win the presidential election in November. But I can make some predictions about the movements of the voting public. Here are my predictions:

• Led by evangelicals, many (if not most) Christians will vote against Romney because he's a Mormon.
• In a similar fashion, many (if not most) Mormons will vote for Romney because he's a Mormon.

Both groups will give other lame excuses to justify their votes, but when it comes down to it, they will vote for or against Romney because he's a Mormon.

So much for religious tolerance in this country. But it gets better.

• Many people will vote against Obama because (they say) he wasn't born in the United States.
• Other people will vote against Obama because (they say) he's a Muslim.
• Many (if not most) blacks will vote for Obama because he's black.
• Many (but definitely not most) whites will vote against Obama because he's black.
• Many (way too many) Republicans will vote for Romney simply because he's a Republican.
• Many (way too many) Democrats will vote for Obama simply because he's a Democrat.

Who does that leave? Oh, the free thinkers, right? Let's look at what the free thinkers will do in November:

• Many of them will vote against Romney because the negative ads about him were so convincing.
• Many of them will vote against Obama because the negative ads about him were so convincing.
• Many of them will vote for the candidate they saw or met in person, just because of that personal contact.
• Many of them will vote for the last candidate whose ad they saw on the TV before heading to the polls.

Does that leave anybody who's actually going to think before they vote? Anybody who's going to use logic and reasoning, to figure out for themselves who will be the best president for the next four years? Please tell me you are in this final group, and not one of the other groups I've listed!

On Paying Tithes and Throwing Stones: Judgement and Morality in American Politics

Now that Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has made his tax documents for 2010 and 2011 public, the press has latched on to the statements therein about his payment of tithes.

Romney is a faithful Mormon, or at least says he is. Faithful Mormons follow the Biblical commandment to tithe, that is, to donate 10% of their income to their church. Tithing, or payment of the tithe, is one of the items on the checklist that gives you access into the LDS temples.

Some pundits have done the math and determined that Romney's 2010 contributions fall short of the 10% mark. I'm not sure what kind of conclusion they intend to draw from this calculation. Let's follow a few logical trails, shall we?

First, there's the "A bad Mormon will be a bad president" line of reasoning: Mitt isn't a full tithe payer, therefore he's not a good Mormon, and therefore he's unworthy to be president. That's pretty funny, considering how many people out there say that a devout Mormon is also unworthy to be president. The poor guy is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't.

Then there's the "The Mormon church will exert undue influence on the president" line of reasoning. I tried to follow this one, but it broke down somewhere in the middle. I think it goes like this: The Mormon church exerts this degree of financial "control" over Mitt's life, and therefore (this is the part where I got lost) the church exerts control over other areas of his life, and will tell him what to do as president. Hey, this isn't Scientology, guys. Stop trying to paint it as such.

Third is the "What a waste of money" line of reasoning.  The idea that Romney pays tithes at all really bothers some people, who feel that he is deluded or misguided in his support of an institution that, in and of itself, doesn't deserve to exist. These people feel that Romney's $2 million per year, give or take a bit, would have been better used elsewhere, and that it's a real shame to see him throwing it away like he did.

(Personally, knowing what the LDS church does with the tithes it collects, I can't think of a better use for his money. There's good info on lds.org or mormon.org, telling about it from the official LDS point of view. For an outsider's view, you can look up that old investigative report from the Arizona Republic: "Counting Its Blessings", June 30, 1991. The thesis of the AzRep article was "Well, we set out to do a hatchet job on the LDS church, to uncover evidence of rampant fiscal irresponsibility. However, in everything we dug up, we couldn't find any sign of wrongdoing. We did find lots of do-gooding, though. We were really disappointed.")

Payment of tithing has always been voluntary, and it has always been confidential. At the end of the year, those who pay tithing get a summary statement, for use in preparing their state and federal income taxes - this is the same thing that other charitable organizations provide for their donors - it's required by law. And the leader of the local congregation meets in private with each member of the congregation, points to the bottom line on the statement - the total contribution - and asks one question: "Does that represent a complete and full tithe?" The parishioner's answer is kept confidential.

The church doesn't even care how big the number is. And the member isn't audited or fact-checked; his word is trusted. How much a member pays, and whether it represents a full tithe, is NOBODY ELSE'S BUSINESS.

I also find it funny that anyone would sit in judgement of Romney and whether he's a good Mormon or a bad Mormon because of this. The Fraser Institute reports that 1999, the average Californian gave less than 2% of their income to any charity, and in 2007 it wasn't any better. With only two or three exceptions, the rest of the country followed the same patterns as California. And the average Canadian was even stingier than the average American. Within religions themselves, according to an article online yesterday, the average Christian in the U.S. donates between 2% and 4.6% to his church or local congregation, and a large percentage of Christians donate nothing. Ever.

I find it even funnier that this may be used as ammunition by Romney's opponents or their proxies (including certain members of the press corps) to judge him as a bad candidate for president. This is where the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" thing comes in. I don't think anybody in the world is qualified to pass such a judgement. Moreover, Romney's tithe donations are handled through his charitable foundation, which also gives away millions of his dollars to other charitable causes, besides the LDS church.

I think that people are trying to find chinks in the White Knight's armor. They can't zing him for sexual harassment, like Herman Cain, or for divorce or infidelity, like Newt Gingrich. (Come to think of it, a majority of the voting public are overlooking Gingrich's divorces and infidelity. What's that all about?) They can't hit him for bigotry or intolerance, although he has been the victim thereof. They can't even call him stupid, ignorant, or uninformed, as they have done to Sarah Palin - or forgetful, like Rick Perry. He doesn't even come across as arrogant or out of touch, like Gingrich and Ron Paul.

They can't find anything illegal or unethical about the way he made his millions. They haven't found any evidence (yet) of bribery, influence peddling, or shady dealings during his terms as governor of Massachusetts, chairman of the SLC Olympics, or partner at Bain Capital.

They can't even find anything wrong with the way he calculated his taxes. (If they did, the IRS would have been all over his case, and they're completely ignoring him in public.) People seem to resent the fact that Romney is so rich, and that of all the money he made last year, he only gave 15% of it back to the government - all that he was legally required to give back, according to the IRS.

So they have to find some weakness somewhere. And this is the closest they've gotten: a private and confidential religious practice, which affects only his standing before his church and his God, and which came to light only because of the quirks of the U.S. tax code (which requires charitable contributions to be reported) and the U.S. political system (which requires - not by law, but by public acclamation - that candidates for political office make their tax records public).

Postscript: For the record, I am still not an official supporter of Mitt Romney. I keep my religious affiliation separate from my political preferences. (So does Romney - or at least he would, if people would let him.) It really bugs me to see these politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, putting their religion on their sleeves, like a secret signal to fellow believers or an endorsement from God. While other candidates tell reporters where they're going to church on Sunday, and even invite reporters to accompany them, Mitt quietly slips away for three hours to perform his devotions, away from the public eye. And it amuses me to hear so many of them (I think the count is up to four, and Romney's not one of them) claim that God told them to run for president. If I vote for Mitt Romney, it will be because I think he is the best qualified candidate for the office, regardless of his religious affiliation.