Andrew Sullivan looks at the issue of whether Mormons are Christians here.

For my part, I don’t much care one way or the other, but I don’t think there can be a great deal of doubt about it. In the course of two thousand years Christianity has long since come to mean much more than those texts that some of its early leaders chose to regard as definitive. Naturally, there are many outgrowths of this now wildly varied religion that some Christians will find wanting. And they are perfectly entitled to do so. Those, however, are issues best left to the sectarians. To an outsider, at least, Mormonism is clearly a part of the greater Christian family.

Mormon church

I posted last night over on the Corner on the topic of Utah’s immigration mess. Full post here, but basically the nub is well set out in this paragraph from a LA Times report:

Gov. Gary Herbert last week signed a bill that would give illegal immigrants who do not commit serious crimes and are working in Utah documents that, in the state’s eyes at least, make them legal residents. For the law to work, however, the Obama administration would have to permit Utah to make it legal to employ people who entered the United States illegally — a federal crime. Even the law’s proponents acknowledge that’s an uphill battle.

Herbert and the rest of those who supported this measure should be voted out of office at the earliest possible opportunity.

An extra twist to the story comes from what the LA Times sees as Mormon influence:

Utah has long had softer laws on illegal immigration than even states such as California. It allows illegal-immigrant students to pay in-state tuition at public universities and gives “driving privilege cards” to undocumented migrants to allow them to obtain insurance.The dynamic is partly explained by the number of people in Utah who have performed missions in other countries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and are sympathetic to the plight of outsiders.

The Church’s declaration of support for the “Utah Compact” (the declaration that lies at the root of the new laws) can be found here. For the most part it is made up of the usual pulpit pap, but it concludes with some doubletalk on the rule of law:

We acknowledge that every nation has the right to enforce its laws and secure its borders. All persons subject to a nation’s laws are accountable for their acts in relation to them.

Good, but….

Public officials should create and administer laws that reflect the best of our aspirations as a just and caring society. Such laws will properly balance love for neighbors, family cohesion, and the observance of just and enforceable laws.

Real translation: the state of Utah should feel free to ignore federal immigration laws.

illegal immigration · Mormon church · Utah · Utah Compact

• Ann Althouse on Bill O’Reilly and the Washington atheist sign:
  

  Atheist Christmas sign

  Another December, another battle in the “War on Christmas.” I think the sensible people don’t want to fight about religion, but there are always extremists — pro-religion and anti-religion — who seek glory in the fighting. Tolerance and peace is the better path. Please take it.

  Earlier discussion here and, generally, here.

• Current laws in most states protect the Roman Catholic Church’s right to turn away abortion-seekers even as it accepts public funds to provide other ob/gyn services at its vast network of hospitals. Now the church hierarchy vows to behave like an Ayn Rand hero (hey, I meant that as a compliment) and close down (not sell) the hospitals, no matter how grave the consequences for patients, if the pending, Obama-endorsed Freedom of Choice Act winds up knocking out such laws. As one much interested in the law of religious accommodation, I’ll say that I’m strongly inclined to defend the current laws that excuse the Catholic hospitals from having to perform abortions. At the same time, I’m equally strongly opposed to newer Religious-Right-backed proposals for the law to create opt-out rights within organizations, thus enabling devout employees of secular clinics and hospitals to announce to their startled supervisors that they will no longer perform their job duties when that means facilitating abortions (or sterilization, contraception, in vitro fertilization for unmarried women, or whatever). It seems to me a relevant factor that nearly everywhere in the country the publicly funded patient can choose from among an ample variety of secular health care options, while likewise the committed opponent of contraception has a great many possible job options other than working behind a Walgreen’s pharmacy counter. But I suspect that many commenters will favor policies that are more absolutist in one direction or the other.
• Aside to some of the usual suspects: I know you dearly love to feel that churches are being persecuted and driven into the catacombs over their social-conservative political activism, but when even big-league separationist Barry Lynn says the Mormon and Roman Catholic churches are in no danger of losing their tax exemption over their promotion of Prop 8, maybe it’s time to just admit that they’re in no danger of losing it. Kthxbai.

abortion · catacomb theory · Christmas and other holidays · contraception · health and medicine · Mormon church · religious accommodation law · reproductive technology · Roman Catholicism · taxes