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_Rollo Tomasi
_Emeritus
Posts: 4085
Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:27 pm

Post by _Rollo Tomasi »

Pahoran wrote:The title of the conference was, "God, Humanity and Revelation: Perspectives from Mormon Philosophy and History." Clearly the "history" in view is a history of LDS theological thought, not the history of the "hierarchy" or "magical world views" or "same sex dynamics."

But it does say "history," and no one is better qualified to discuss Mormon history than Quinn.

As I previously also wrote, and you silently snipped, "this could hardly be a requirement when there ain't no such animal. He listed a number of participants who weren't even LDS."

But, yet, BYU throws a tantrum about the evil Quinn's participation. Go figure ....

Please note that, according to Dan, none of the conference participants were "professional LDS theologians" and some weren't even LDS. Thus, your claim that he was using "professional LDS theologian" as a "criterion... to exclude Quinn" is a blatant falsehood.

DCP said Quinn wasn't qualified to present, which was laughable on its face.

Neither the Church nor BYU has any financial obligation to provide a bully pulpit for our opponents.

How is Quinn an "opponent"? He has a stronger testimony of Mormonism than you do.

Excuse me, but how many times must I quote Dan's actual words to you before you will admit that he said them?

DCP wrote:There was no "vendetta" against Michael Quinn. But there was a genuine and justified concern that Mike Quinn might use the platform of the Yale Conference to mount yet another direct or indirect attack on the institutional Church. And, since BYU and FARMS were co-sponsoring and helping to fund the event at Yale, we thought that we should have some say about whether or not the conference should be used for such attacks.

Note that Dan gives utterly no evidence that Quinn planned to "attack" the Church -- he just assumed such was the case because it was Quinn. There was no "justified concern"; it was blackballing, pure and simple.

Here's a news flash for you, Rollo: not every believing Latter-day Saint is an "apologist," and not every apologist is a believing Latter-day Saint.

Agreed.

For example you, Rollo, are certainly an apologist for your rather slimy brand of anti-Mormonism, but you are not a Latter-day Saint in any meaningful sense.

Wrong on both counts.

Nevertheless, it's what the record shows. Do I need to prove it?

Please do. I can no longer access FAIR.

My "grenades" had nothing to do with it -- DCP's own words damned him.

No, they did not.

Yes, they did.

Discussion in one form or another is how things become known in the first place.

Are you saying that gossip is ok, since it is really just 'spreading knowledge'?

Dan explicitly said that he didn't know who brought the subject up in the discussion.

But he did admit that his "friend" discussed Quinn's sexual orientation with Quinn's SP. It's gossip, no matter how you cut it.

... but in The Church of Jesus Christ, if someone has a serious moral problem, their priesthood leaders are regarded as the people best placed to help them.

Do you honestly believe that DCP's "friend" discussed Quinn's private sex life with the SP purely out of that "friend's" desire to "help" Quinn? That's way over the top, even for you.

by the way, Quinn was not ex'ed until September 1993.

That's right, he wasn't. And so?

I was simply correcting your error.

Do you think that having a homosexual "orientation" is even a transgression at all? It isn't.

That's the most open-minded thing I've ever seen you write. Well done.

Please note, by the way, that the only reason anybody discussed when Quinn's homosexuality became known is because you brought it up, thus:
Rollo Tomasi Apr 10 2006, 02:18 PM wrote:I don't believe Quinn's excommunication in September 1993 had anything to with his homosexuality, because Quinn didn't "come out" until around the time his "Same-Sex Dynamics" book was published in 1996.

That's how the issue came into the discussion. You opened that door, Rollo.

No, I was simply responding to someone who said that Quinn was excommunicated because of homosexuality. He wasn't (his excommunication was nearly 3 years before he 'came out').

And what made you mad about Dan's response was not what you so self-righteously--and hypocritically--denounce as "rumor-mongering," but the fact that he showed that Quinn's interview in "Out" was not the first anyone heard of his proclivities.

Wrong. I couldn't care less about that. I simply pointed out DCP's disclosure that he and his "circle" had been gossiping about Quinn's sexual orientation for years.

Private sex life? No, you fabricated that one too. Dan said that his known orientation was discussed. Perhaps you'd prefer if a kind of Victorian prudery was imposed upon such matters, so that someone's publicly paraded unorthodoxy is simply never mentioned in polite company.

Discussing one's sexual orientation behind his back (and with his Church leader) doesn't relate to that person's "private sex life"? Where do you come up with this stuff?

Besides, you have no problem at all speculating about Joseph Smith's private sex life.

Most of the evidence for that came from affidavits obtained and publicized by the LDS Church during the Temple Lot case. How's that for 'sauce'?

DCP's "friend" also told him of his conversation with Quinn's SP about the topic (before the SP even knew the inactive Quinn had moved into his stake).

But the SP certainly knew who Quinn was.

But not that Quinn was in his stake (Quinn had recently moved to Salt Lake and had been completely inactive when the SP visited his apartment for the first time).

Again, there is no indication of any discussion of anyone's "private sex life."

What would you call talking about a person's sexual orientation behind that person's back?

That is purely the product of your own rather salacious imagination.

The only "salacious" thing here was the very un-Christian rumor-mongering about Quinn.

One participant mentioned that Quinn brought his then-current boyfriend to a rather public academic gathering in the 1980's. That's not a matter of his "private sex life" but of his public behaviour.

That was bogus. No one else has ever made such a claim. And if it were true, do you really think BYU would have let the troublesome Quinn stick around as a full prof until 1988?

"Unwittingly?" He freely and frankly disclosed that it was discussed.

DCP had no idea the firestorm his disclosures would cause.

"Gossiping?" How does it constitute gossip? You bring it up yourself from time to time. Are you "gossiping" when you do?

Speaking of one's sexual orientation behind his back (including his Church leader) is gossip, pure and simple.

Quinn is gay. In the late 80's he was publicly parading his homosexuality.

The "claim" was that it occurred in the early 80's (1981 or 1982) at a Mormon History Association conference.
"Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words -- they mince the truth."

-- Mike Quinn, writing of the FARMSboys, in "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," p. x (Rev. ed. 1998)
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