{"id":952,"date":"2009-04-28T17:45:24","date_gmt":"2009-04-29T00:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/?p=952"},"modified":"2020-01-09T05:15:36","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T12:15:36","slug":"mormon-wingnuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2009\/04\/mormon-wingnuts\/952\/","title":{"rendered":"Mormon Wingnuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

By now surely you’ve heard the term wingnut<\/a>. It is the snarky term for people with hard line right wing political views. (I was interested to learn that the left wing equivalent of a wingnut is called a moonbat<\/a>). Anyhow, Mormons more often than not lean to the right politically and with millions of us in America it should be no surprise that there are plenty of wingnuts in our ranks. Heck, in the last 50 years we’ve even had some serious wingnuts in our top leadership at times.
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\nBased on my observations, it seems like in the church wingnuts often find direct support for their sometimes extreme views in the explicit or implicit policies of the church. No doubt there is real comfort in feeling that God himself endorses ones political views (I know I like to think that about my views). And wingnuts often are able to use modern prophets to bludgeon church members with whom they disagree. So Mormons on the left of a political issue or even political moderates learn to deal with being beaten over the head with claims of “follow the prophet” whenever such debates start. <\/p>\n

So with that history the recent debates over the church’s stand on undocumented immigrants<\/a> has been really amusing. Wingnuts who are used to battering their opponents with prophets are finding themselves bludgeoned by quotes from apostles. I had a great time making all kinds of snarky comments in a recent thread<\/a> over at BCC. The sad thing with that sprawling online debate was that some faithful Mormon wingnuts seemed to join forces with anti-Mormons in criticizing the church over its position regarding its undocumented members. <\/p>\n

Anyhow, as a political independent and a moderate I will be happy if the general population of the church drifts more toward the political center on lots of issues. Even if that doesn’t happen, it is always a good time to harass wingnuts on occasion — I recommend the practice to everyone.