In 1977 Elder Packer gave an address at BYU against intermarriage with people different than typical white Mormons. This has recently been discussed at the MAD forum. A poster Koakaipo has given a moving reply to our own Why Me that I would like to share:
WHY ME: I think you missed "why" I cringe. Not because I'm looking at it today. But that those statements were used against me in alienating and marginalizing ways growing up in the church--from the time I was a child in the early 80's but in a more pronounced way once I hit high school. This isn't some sort of obscure remark that seems stuck in the past-it's a part of my experience as a member. I earned the right to cringe, not from some intellectual distaste, but from personal memories of how they affected my experience early on.
If I was used as an example by a seminary teacher as the only non-Caucasian in the class as someone who shouldn't date anyone IN that room(and why? "cause Mexicans marry mexicans..."), that's cringe inducing. And when I mentioned the improper tone of this "example"-I was told to leave if I was going to be a baby.If I had parents of boys who were interested in literally give me long letters documenting statements like these along with their spin on scriptural references as a way to get me to go along with their wishes to not encourage the attentions of their son....that's cringe inducing. I have so many more of these instances I could throw out, but I'll leave it at just two.
The point is this-people are assuming that these statements were made in a vacuum and didn't have real impact. That somehow they are just frozen in time. They aren't. They still linger because some people allow them to.
People need to realize people sometimes jumped on statements like this with ridiculous glee to use as a cloak for their own prejudices. And that even for those who didn't use it as a front but as a literal warning, that as a mixed kid from a mixed marriage, I was seen as threatening by many people.
This is how prejudice works in terms of not wanting intermarriage. In order to not even have intermarriage be a possibility, alienation or social segregation is often instilled as a sort of protective buffer. When I was a kid, I was not a threat for the most part. Once I became a teenager, for many who truly believed my lineage would sully their lineages with "the mixing of the seed"(or even those who are just prejudiced), I became a threat. And at times I was treated accordingly.
This is not something that is odd for my ethnicity or age group in the church(Latino/Polynesian, 35 yo). When I went to BYU-H, the running joke among many Polynesian friends and me was the "2nephi 5" play or the Packer tag team with the 2Nephi 5 combo. Cause all of us had been given that riot act at some point.
So, please understand, I think I'm very reasonable about this issue. But I find it awfully patronizing when people attempt to tell me how to process all of this-because it affected me directly in ways that were not right. And to be honest, I'll be darned if I smooth it over completely so that my own mixed babies have to deal with this stuff too. The problem of smoothing this over completely is that the real impact of how these statements can be used to breed contention and division within our community is being completely ignored.
I was amazed at the number of people that supported Packer's position, finding all sorts of reasons why it was good (including citing studies from an African island nation and Slovakia - all terribly relevant, I'm sure).
I want to know why people won't call juliann on her erroneous use of statistics. She says:
The remedy today is Temple marriage..something I doubt was factored in 30 years ago. Temple marriages have a 6 or 7% divorce rate. So if you are going to engage in a higher risk interracial/national marriage that would give you a better chance than any marriage.
What she fails to mention is that the ridiculously low divorce rate she cites is for "temple divorces", where people go through the trouble of having the sealing canceled. (see http://www.religioustolerance.org/lds_divo.htm). The FAIR site even carries a guess at a much higher divorce rate (from a 2002 conference):
So if we put together a series of guesses about an LDS husband and wife who both attend church regularly, the lifetime divorce rate may be around 25% to 30%. I would guess the temple divorce rate is in that range. It's pretty high, but it's still a lot lower than the national 50% rate.
I've continued following this thread. I sure wish I could reply on MADB, but since I can't, I'll post a reply here.
RenegadeOfPunk is now getting hammered because he(?) admitted that he's an atheist/agnostic. Apparently that has disqualified him from taking a moral stance on things. Can anybody explain to me how that works? Are agnostics or atheists not permitted to be "moral" or have ideas of morality? Am I missing something there?
I sure wish more people would come to RoP's defense. He's made some very good points, and has suffered innumerable personal attacks as a result.
My two cents.
I may be going to hell in a bucket, babe / But at least I'm enjoying the ride.
-Grateful Dead (lyrics by John Perry Barlow)
skippy the dead wrote:I was amazed at the number of people that supported Packer's position, finding all sorts of reasons why it was good (including citing studies from an African island nation and Slovakia - all terribly relevant, I'm sure).
It's amazing how difficult it is for a TBM to simply say, "I don't agree with that" when it comes to statements from "The Brethren". Typically what happens is they first deny the teaching was ever official doctrine, then they go ahead and defend the statement anyway. There's some weird psychology at work that prevents the TBM from outright disagreeing with the statement. The way TBMs defend the indefensible - polygamy, Mountain Meadows Massacre, sexism and racism, there is nothing in Mormonism that is too outrageous to defend.
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks
I don't agree with what Elder Packer said and what other older leaders have said on this subject. I didn't agree with it when I heard it thirty years ago either. I don't see any reason for supporting them in their statements other than to say that they were giving their own opinions, and not the Lord's.
I can understand their reasoning, but I believe it comes from a position of fear. Plenty of factors make marriage hard. Race doesn't have to be one of them...unless you have to deal with bigoted attitudes within a community. I'm hoping this attitude will die out with the older generation which was indoctrinated with it and we can start to truly become a world-wide church of all colors, cultures and nationalities.