Talk:National Organization for Marriage

"no moral right to such marriage"

Although NG's edit is an improvement, this framing seems like a tricky issue. If I understand NOM's argument correctly (and I admit I'm mostly familiar with George's writings, and a little of MG's, rather than NOM's publications, so I may be erroneously extrapolating from that) they argue that marriage is inherently male-female (that is, that same-sex relationships can't be "marriages"). In that sense, it seems like it misstates their argument to say "there is no moral right to such marriages," because the "such marriages" language assumes the very point they're disputing in their argument. Would it be safer to quote the actual language of some published piece of theirs? Of course, there may be a cite for the current language that I'm not aware of; NOM's arguments obviously need not be George's, and I haven't studied them much. Footnote 1 doesn't seem to support this description of NOM's argument, at least not unambiguously, and footnote 2 is inaccessible (I've tried to find the AP story to which it's trying to link, both via google and via the website to which it links, but have been unable to. I am afraid I'll mess something up if I try to edit the footnote; I'm just learning this formatting stuff.) Sorry so many parentheticals in this comment. Teaforthetillerman (talk) 19:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

What about "argues that same-sex couples do not have a moral right to have their relationships recognized as marriages."? Awkward phrasing, I'm just putting it out there for suggestions... I also wonder if this descriptor of one of their arguments should go further down in the introduction (this is one of their arguments, I suppose, but their raison d'etre is to prevent legal recognition of SSM--just as a stylistic matter, it's weird to combine the two into a single sentence.) Teaforthetillerman (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

NOM chairman Robert P. George, evangelical former Watergate felon Chuck Colson, and Baptist divinity professor Timothy George, are the authors of the Manhattan Declaration. (I'm not certain if Robert & Timothy are related or not.) To publicize it, they hired the DeMoss Group, a "PR firm exclusively representing faith-based leaders, organizations, and causes." Maggie Gallagher, Charles "Chuck" Stetson, Robert P. George, Luiz Tellez, and Brian Brown, all of them NOM officials, are 5 of the 176 "Religious Leaders" signatories to the Manhattan Declaration. Mormons were excluded from signing, but "the signatories are happy to stand alongside our LDS brothers and sisters" and those of other faiths in other respects.

Read it [1] and see if you still think the religious and moral nature of their argumentation should be downplayed/soft-pedaled/de-emphasized. - Outerlimits (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You seem to equivocate here between "religious" and "moral," and I'm not sure what you're getting at. I haven't argued that any aspect of their argumentation should be downplayed/soft-pedaled/de-emphasized. Is there an argument here? I'm reluctant to try to read between the lines. Teaforthetillerman (talk) 04:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You've argued both that they are not a Christian organization and that their sole purpose is legal opposition to marriage equality; they've signed an exclusively Christian document and their opposition on moral and religious ground rather than exclusively legal argumentation is also manifested there. - Outerlimits (talk) 04:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Who is "they" in this comment? NOM? Teaforthetillerman (talk) 15:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I have not argued that NOM's sole purpose is legal opposition to SSM, but neither do I see how the personal stance of part of the board would contradict that position. I guess I don't understand what view of the article you're trying to attribute to me or what you propose as a case against it! Does all of some portion of the board's positions necessarily dictate the mission of the organization? (So George, for example, believes same-sex relationships can't be marriage both for secular natural-law reasons and for revalatory religious reasons; when he's talking to religious people he appeals to revelation, and when he's participating in the public policy arena he offers more publicly accessible reasons; why couldn't he engage in different efforts for different purposes? I think I must not understand what you're trying to say.) Teaforthetillerman (talk) 15:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I understand that you may not see an organization headed by "religious leaders" as a religious organization; I think most people would differ with you. This is an organization that has prepared different lists of talking points for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; they're clearly religious in a way you seem to want to downplay. - Outerlimits (talk) 03:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Would you call "Americans United for the Separation of Church and State" a religious organization, since Barry Lynn is a religious leader? (Or is it a particular ratio of "religious leaders" to others that makes an organization religious?) I can't figure out what standard you're trying to apply. Are you arguing now that it's a generally religious organization instead of a definitionally Christian organization? Teaforthetillerman (talk) 15:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the majority of the board of AUSCS religious leaders? In any case, National Organization for Marriage certainly seems to be a front group for the religious right. Now, perhaps they want to downplay that, and perhaps you'd like to help them out on that, but it remains true. - Outerlimits (talk) 01:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so your standard is whether a majority of the board are religious leaders? I don't know what you mean by "front group for the religious right." You know what a front group is? How is this allegation relevant? Teaforthetillerman (talk) 05:26, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It's clear that the publishers of the Manhattan Declaration see NOM as a religious organization; that's why someone like Maggie is on their list of religious leaders, and her credential to support that religious leadership is her role in NOM. - Nat Gertler (talk) 17:11, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

It may well suggest that they think this, but I'm not sure it's "clear." I suspect that someone might call Jesse Jackson a religious leader, listing his work for the Rainbow/PUSH coalition. That is, he's termed a "religious leader" because he's an openly religious person taking a prominent role in a moral battle, rather than because the group for which he's known is itself institutionally religious.

"Religious leader," as the MD people use it, is itself a confusing term; presumably every pastor-type person is in some sense a religious leader, but they don't list them all on that page. They seem to mean something like "Christian public intellectuals." OTOH the other affiliations listed on that page are largely religious affiliations. But it still doesn't seem clear to me that the MD signers' perspective on NOM is that it's a Christian organization. (Especially since apparently the MD signers don't see LDS people as Christian...) Teaforthetillerman (talk) 00:18, 18 December 2009 (UTC), who just learned that "Mormon" can be considered pejorative.

I'm not sure how "Christian public intellectuals" could have sounded accurate.

"If the courts or the legislators redefine marriage, our children will be taught that gay marriage is a great good and it will become very difficult to do what we have to do: transmit an authentically Christian marriage culture to our own children," ::said Gallagher. "Our children are being relentlessly propagandized even as our own voices are being silenced and repressed." http://www.nationformarriage.org/site/c.omL2KeN0LzH/b.5075687/apps/s/content.asp?ct=6648937

Directly from Maggie Gallagher on NOM's very own website. There are other examples. And I don't see how one could not find the Manhattan Declaration a purely religious document, nor can I even comprehend how NOM doesn't exist for the sole purpose of preventing same-sex couples from marrying. Your burden of proof is far and above wikipedia's, judging from all of the comments I've seen from you over time on wiki. NOM should also be given the accurate "Christian" descriptor once more. 98.168.192.162 (talk) 07:33, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Latter-day Saint/Mormon

I reverted a change that switched reference to Orson Scott Card from being a "Mormon novelist" to being a "Latter-day Saint novelist". The person who had made a change referred to the "LDS style guide"; I thought he was referring to this church document, but he may have been referring to WP:MOSLDS. If the former, it's an inappropriate basis for shaping the reference (organizations do not get to dictate how we refer to their members); if the latter, it's a misreading of that policy (which recommends the label of Later-day Saint for the church, not for its members). Both documents indicate that "Mormon" is an acceptable descriptor of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Later-day Saints, and references that appear to cast Card as a "Saint" would violate the goal of NPOV. - Nat Gertler (talk) 22:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm referring to WP:LDSMOS. "Latter-day Saint" is not POV, and I've never seen anyone claim that it is before. It's the preferred term for an adherent, "Mormon" being considered a mild pejorative. I'm going to restore it with "Mormon" as a parenthetical. Cool Hand Luke 02:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course calling someone a "saint" is POV. Card himself embraces the Mormon descriptor. Mormon is also the more generally recognized term outside of LDS circles, making it more straightforward. The current version you have up, using "LDS", goes against WP:MOSLDS, which calls for avoiding that abbreviation for the first invocation of the church on a page. I am returning to Mormon, but leaving in your link to the LDS church page. - Nat Gertler (talk) 04:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

They're not being called a "saint," but are called "Later-day Saints" which is a specific term meaning members of the LDS Church. That's simply what members are called, as in Category:American Latter Day Saints (note that Category:Mormons redirects to this page). It's not negative or positive.

Can you explain to me why Card is alone in having his religion identified? Cool Hand Luke 04:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The fact that they choose to call themselves Saints does not make it NPOV; and when there is an NPOV term available such as Mormon, it seems wiser to go with that. No, I cannot explain to you why Card is alone in having his religion identified; I have neither introduced that specification into the article nor deleted any references to the religions of the other board members. - Nat Gertler (talk) 05:35, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

And to follow that up - the Mormon belief is that LDS followers are truly small-s saints (in contrast with, say, New Orleans Saints, whose use of the capital-S Saint does not reflect any belief that they are small-s saints). They use the term "saint" in a somewhat different sense than its more common use in the larger culture (the worker of miracles), but it's a term still best avoided as a descriptor of an individual, particularly when there's an acceptable alternative. - Nat Gertler (talk) 15:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Has it occurred to you that I might have some idea what I'm talking about? Members of the LDS Church have not used small-s "saints" since they moved to Utah because multiple denominations claim this heritage. Only the term "Latter-day Saint" (not "Saint," but "Latter-day Saint" with a hyphen and small 'd') is unique to members of the LDS Church.

"Mormon" is considered a pejorative, and it has been since the term was coined. It's also imprecise because it applies to members of several churches—some of which hate each other. "Latter-day Saint" is not a neologism, but is in fact the preferred usage in several newspaper style guides as you can see with a simple google search.[2] The term is capitalized and is also the preferred term on Wikipedia (hence the category and even article names).

Would we use the label "queer" to describe every gay man who had ever embraced the term? I doubt it. And if I were to argue that we should call people "homosexuals" and not use the term "gay" because it's not a NPOV term and we shouldn't defer to what "they choose to call themselves," what kind of argument would I be making? I tend to think it would be a bigoted and ignorant argument.

How about we simply remove the adjective. No other officer's religion is identified, and it's clear to me that it's only mentioned to advance the "Mormon front group" theory (which actually is POV). If you insist on naming his religion, let's use the syntax that virtually all politician's articles use—call him a a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("Mormon"), which puts the pejorative in quotation marks, where it belongs. Cool Hand Luke 03:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they use Saint to separate themselves from other saints, but it does not appear to intended to distance themselves from being a saint. It seems to be more a trademarked brand of saint, if you will. As to the pejorative nature of "Mormon", the church itself deems it an acceptable way to refer to a members of the church (“Mormons” is acceptable.) Wikipedia policy does not presume that what people prefer to have themselves called is always acceptable. There are people who view the term "Jew" as a pejorative; that does not mean that we shouldn't use it to refer to Jews... even in cases where we could be more precise and call someone a kohen or a Karaite, because Jew is a more common term and more apt to be understood. And if someone prefered to see them refered to as The Chosen People, it would be quite reasonable to claim that that is unnecessarily POV language.

Having said that, I have no objection to the removal of the references to OSC's religion (which should not be taken as a statement for any other editor of this article.) - Nat Gertler (talk) 05:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree with this. Teaforthetillerman (talk) 05:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

No, they don't use "Saint" at all; they use the complete term "Latter-day Saint," but this sounds like a good solution. What I found most concerning is using the bare pejorative term for the religion in conjunction with identifying the religion of none of the other directors. If that problem is fixed, I think the article will be more NPOV. Cool Hand Luke 18:20, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You may want to explain that to the folks at LDS.org; they seem to disagree. "Let’s be honest with ourselves: The Saints really do cry a lot." "There is safety in being a Saint." As to whether they consider themselves"Through the ordinance of baptism, we take upon ourselves the name of the Lord and covenant to be saints in these latter days." - Nat Gertler (talk) 19:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

No, not really. [3] did you notice that this is a speech based on a Billy Joel lyric (a lame parody claiming that members of the church do a lot of crying, or something) and that the term "Latter-day Saint" is used several times for members (even though the audience is presumptively Mormon)? [4] Did you notice that the use of lower-case "saints" here is actually a scripture quote, followed by an alliterative phrase and then clarification that members are known as "Latter-day Saints," a term which is used 7 times? As for the last one you cite: [5]

The last word in the title is Saints. I smile when I remember a comment made after my call to the Quorum of the Twelve. A doctor friend relayed a report made at a professional meeting that “Dr. Nelson was no longer practicing cardiac surgery because his church had made him ‘a saint.’ ”

Such a comment was not only amusing but revealing. It evidenced unfamiliarity with the language of the Bible, in which the word saint is used much more frequently than is the term Christian.

He then goes on to explain how the term is not actually an honorific. It's not. Mormons do not identify themselves as "saints," nor does anyone else; the Commonwealth census forms categorize them as "Latter Day Saints," which is the broader affiliation that Mormons mark.

The term is used throughout this site; every LDS member is categorized as a "Latter Day Saint." I have edited LDS topic for over five years, and I've been in a lot of nomenclature disputes. I've argued, for example, that "Mormon fundamentalist" is a description for polygamist sects, even though the LDS Church positively loathes the term; I'm not an LDS apologist. This is the first time I've ever seen anyone claim that 'Latter-day Saint ("Mormon")' is POV—even though this nomenclature it includes both the academic and the popular name for LDS adherents. I'm just surprised by the claim. Cool Hand Luke 15:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This is the first time I've ever seen anyone claim that 'Latter-day Saint ("Mormon")' is POV—even though this nomenclature it includes both the academic and the popular name for LDS adherents. ??? You're saying that as if I had made some specific complaint about that combination, which I neither recall doing nor find myself doing in this thread. The logic that by using the term "Latter-day Saint" they are not using the term "Saint" eludes me - it is right there in the phrase, and meant to be taken as the noun. It's like saying that if I say something is a blue whale, I'm not saying that it's a whale. If this is the first time you've seen someone complain about folks being labeled Saints, then welcome to another perspective. - Nat Gertler (talk) 17:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The capital letters tend to tip off most readers that it's a term of art (namely, the academic name for adherents). To use one of your examples, I doubt you would argue that the "New Orleans Saints" are POV. At any rate, you're right that I never asked (although that was one of the versions I edited). Do you see a POV problem with using Latter-day Saint ("Mormon")? If his faith is again identified, it should be in that form, or the more cumbersome "member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("Mormon"). Cool Hand Luke 19:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)