Here’s the editorial. Sorry that our blog doesn’t have a section for just linking articles. That’s what I’m doing here, just linking an article of interest. For those who don’t know, the National Review is the most prominent conservative magazine around.

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Anybody interested in Islam and the role of Muslims in a pluralistic society should read this fascinating interview with M. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Most of us should be able to agree that we need more Muslims speaking out against people trying to hijack their religion for violent causes. The interesting thing is that Jasser does so in such an eminently reasonable way without sounding like an anti-militant militant.

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..take a look at this frightening video from the McLaughlin group. Lawrence O’Donnell describes himself as a “practical European socialist.” He plays a character on “Big Love.” He completely lost it when describing Mormonism, saying it is a “racist religion” and claiming incorrectly that Joseph Smith was “pro-slavery.” The bile and hatred coming from this character has to be seen to be believed. He made Pat Buchanan (an embarrassment to conservatism) seem sane in comparison. Not everybody on the left hates us as much as this guy: Eleanor Clift made encouraging comments, and there is a long line of liberals who have commented favorably about the Church in the last week.

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G.K. Chesterton’s excellent Father Brown series is a collection of short stories that are superficially mystery tales, but often contain fairly deep social and religious commentary. For example, I think one of the early Father Brown tales - “The Invisible Man” - is one of the most profound short stories in English literature.

In the tale “The Vampire of the Village” the mystery hinges on the demeanor of a priest, and while I won’t give away the ending, I am going to quote from Father Brown’s explanation of how he realized the truth behind a murder:

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Harry Reid is a political partisan, and his job is to promote his party. He has a unique wit that sometimes doesn’t translate well in print. Still, I find this kind of language offensive and divisive, and I’m going to call him on it:

Not only did Mr. Reid have no advice to offer but he also said that he had no particular desire to ever meet Mr. Romney face to face.

“Well,” Mr. Reid said, “I believe Mitt Romney, who’s a man I’ve never met — don’t particularly want to — a man I’ve never met, that I would hope that his running for president would be determined on his politics and not his religion.”

Mr. Reid added: “He can give his speech and handle it however he wants. I can’t give him any advice in that regard.” Further proof, as if there was any doubt, that political beliefs are the ties that bind in the spiritual center known as Washington.

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I have not seen much discussion in the Bloggernacle on California SB 777, which was recently signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger. Advocates of the bill call it an anti-discrimination measure to protect homosexuals and others. Opponents of the bill say it will inevitably involve politicization of the schools in favor of a pro-homosexual agenda and will involve the schools getting rid of terms such as “mom and dad” in favor of “partner 1 and partner 2.”

This article indicates many parents are pulling their kids out of the public schools and homeschooling them. I’m curious to hear from people in the Bloggernacle, especially those in California, regarding their reactions to the bill. This discussion will be respectful. Any disrespectful language will be deleted.

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The following is a guest post from Rob Taber, who describes himself as…

“A proud native Delawarean, now a history grad student at the University of Florida. I spend most of my time researching seventeenth-century pirates, but I have an addiction to politics that expresses itself strongly in my attachment to The West Wing.”

By: Ron Taber

In the fall of 1637, a long-brewing storm of theological controversy unleashed itself upon the Massachusetts Bay Colony. For a multitude of reasons, some political, some religious, the Colony banished Anne Hutchinson and two others. Four months later, the Boston congregation excommunicated her. Her ideas had proved too dangerous, too heretical to the hardline religious establishment, too threatening to the fragile government. A mother of fifteen, she had devoted herself to her family and her religion, only to be cast out. For reasons only known to her and to God, she refused to bend to authority.

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For those of you closely watching the 2008 election, it is impossible to miss the rise in the polls of Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister. Huckabee will probably win the Iowa caucuses, and just might win in South Carolina as well. I still predict the Mitt Romney will win New Hampshire, Michigan and Nevada (and Giuliani will win Florida, New York and New Jersey), but Huckabee is eating into the alternative-to-Giuliani wing of the party and confusing things mightily.

From the perspective of this conservative Mormon, it does not help things that Huckabee is not a conservative and that he is succeeding with thinly-veiled anti-Mormonism.

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General Conference talks have some sort of scriptural status, as you’ve no doubt heard many times in Sunday School. This leads to puzzles about the status of quotes such as the inspiring line from the play Shenandoah, “If we don’t try, then we don’t do; and if we don’t do, then why are we here?” Was it scripture as soon as Peter Udell wrote it, or only when Brother Monson cites it? Is the rest of the play scriptural, or just that line?

I’m a couple months behind on the latest crisis in scripturosity. I missed some of the last General Conference, and the appearance of the December Ensign prodded me to open the November issue. In the Saturday morning session, Bishop Richard Edgley spoke about wards pulling together to help their members through hardships. The first third of his talk came from a humor column that Robert Kirby wrote for the Salt Lake Tribune two years ago. This must be terribly disturbing for an ornery cynic like Brother Kirby. All his contrarian credibility is now shot. When one of the presiding bishop’s counselors likes a writer’s stuff and approvingly reads long passages over the pulpit to the whole church to illustrate a valuable principle, well, time has dulled whatever edginess the writer may have once possessed. He may as well devote his future writing hours to poetry about babies descending from heaven trailing clouds of glory.

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Last year I attended a couple of presentations at the Oliver Cowdery Symposium. I planned to blog about the experience, but I had not yet been accepted as a permabore here at M*. Now I think I will hold off on a review until Dr. Sammy Baugh gets the articles ready for publication through the Religious Studies Center. However Larry Morris appears to have expanded his lecture in the latest Journal of Book of Mormon Stories and I hope to have something to add to Oliver’s story.

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