The Kids are All Right

Well, except for the "Mormon Republican" thing.

Protests at BYU over planned Cheney visit.

But this is the funniest thing anyone has unintentionally said in a while:

“The problem is this is a morally dubious man,” said Andrew Christensen, a 22-year-old Republican from Salt Lake City. “It’s challenging the morality and integrity of this institution.”

Hey, Andrew:

Brigham Young dedicated his life to the teachings of a crazy man, Joseph Smith, who thought God revealed his word through golden plates that could only be read with your face buried in a hat while wearing "magic" spectacles.

I enjoy these two skeptical passages from an online article, "Mormonism: Anatomy of a Colossal Fraud":

When the first "translations" by Smith were lost and he couldn't reproduce them:

"At first Smith was lost, and claimed the gift of translation had been taken away from him for the sin of not protecting the manuscript. But he eventually resolved the problem as best he could. He claimed, in another one of his frequent "revelations," that he'd been instructed not to retranslate the plates he'd already worked on. These were the plates of Lehi. Some of the yet untranslated plates had an account of the same history by Nephi. Thus he could retell the story without worrying about it being identical.

Smith suggested that the "stolen" manuscript, should it ever turn up, would prove to be altered rather than being actually divergent, in an attempt to make him look like a fraud. Smith switched scribes (new man, Oliver Cowdery), and continued.

Meanwhile, Martin Harris obtained a handwritten copy of text written in the "reformed Egyptian caractors" and took it to one of America's leading experts in antiquities, Charles Anthon of Columbia University. It was a "singular medley" of Greek and Hebrew characters copied from a dictionary. along with inverted Roman letters, stars, and half moons. Anthon told him the text contained "anything else but Egyptian characters," and that he thought someone was trying to perpetrate a hoax.

Harris, however, concluded that this only proved Smith was a better translator than the noted academic, and must be working under Divine impulse. He returned claiming that Anthon had originally certified the translation, but withdrew it when informed it was for religious purposes. Anthon vehemently denied approving the translation, and is considered a liar by Mormons to this day."

And this charming bit about the fates of the first 3 people to "see" the golden plates, before God changed his mind and added, oh, let's say 8 more:

"Oliver Cowdery was excommunicated in 1838 after accusing Joseph Smith of adultery. He'd also come to believe that the translation was entirely Joseph Smith's work, and not God's. (Furthermore, the angelic voice he'd heard at his baptism, on retrospect, sounded a lot like a certain Sidney Rigdon.) David Whitmer was also excommunicated and Martin Harris left the faith. But the testimony of all three men is still reprinted in every Book of Mormon, attesting to the existence of the golden plates they'd never actually seen. And despite Smith's "revelation" that the vision would be granted to "three and no more," eight witnesses were later added, and their testimony is printed below that of the original three."

Anyway, the point is, Andrew Christensen of Salt Lake City, who you callin' "morally dubious"? WHAT "integrity," exactly, do you think BYU has?

And by the way, Brigham Young ran Utah as an autocrat for most of its early history including exiling unorthodox Mormons into the desert, preying upon native populations, defying the authority of the federal government in judicial and military matters, and overseeing the murder of numerous outsiders passing through "his" territory.

He also had over 50 wives.

"Morally dubious," indeed. Republicans are so fucking stupid.