Mormons refuse to join other churches in condemning torture

[Ian David]

Monday, November 28, 2005

Put his Shoulder in the Wheel...{a Mormon hymn, revised}



President Gordon B. Hinckley
Prophet, Seer, and Revelator
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints


Dear President Hinckley,

I was very pleased to read in the Deseret News that the Church refused to join other Christians in calling on our government to forego the use of torture. It's the right thing to do. I'm sure our Lord and Savior approves.

Certainly, there will be those who will question this decision. They'll wonder why the Church so eagerly involves itself in the issue of homosexual marriage yet ignores the state sanctioned torture of our fellow man. They don't understand that we believe in a gospel of love, a love so precious that it must be preserved for those who deserve it most, heterosexual Chistians like ourselves. To paraphrase the words of our Lord in 1st Nephi 4:13: "It is better that thousands are anally raped with glowsticks than that two men or two women be allowed to bind their love in matrimony."

Perhaps the Church could combine its lust for torture and its hatred of homosexuals to support a bill to torture sodomites. Such a bill could also provide faith-based funding so that the Church might profit. Heck, it could become a regular youth activity like being baptised for the dead. We might even combine the two by filling the baptismal font with the blood of those we torture.

I'd be honored if you would set me apart to do this work.

Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot

More:
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2005_11_27_patriotboy_archive.html#113312808113187703

[Dr.Phool]

1. Maybe he thinks that torture

Is being made to wear that funny looking Mormon underwear.

[Ian David]

2. A key author of Bush's torture policy memo is a Mormon- Jay S. Bybee

<snip>

The document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, analyzed how far U.S. interrogators could go to extract intelligence from those captured in the war on terror before being guilty of war crimes. Known as the "Bybee memo," it was signed by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, who now sits on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and participated in discussions on the use of torture with Gonzales.

Bybee is also an active member of the LDS Church, and his participation in producing what some call the "torture memo" has been debated by both public policy groups and Internet bloggers ever since.

<snip>

The memo outlined that to qualify as torture, physical pain must be "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Gonzales and others discussed several abusive techniques that could be used, including "waterboarding," which involves strapping a person to a board, raising his feet above his head, wrapping his face and nose in a wet towel, and dripping water onto the head, simulating the suffocating effects of drowning.

Several bloggers wondered why the LDS Church has never issued a formal statement condemning torture. Bills said he couldn't comment any further than the statement offered Wednesday by the church.

More:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635163735,00.html