Monday 10 November 2008

Golden Spectacles

The Mormons are under pressure from militant homosexualists (who were hardly likely to turn up to their services anyway) for funding the recent re-affirmation of traditional marriage in three states, two of which, let the reader understand, voted that very day for Obama.

But the Mormons are on difficult ground here: they believe in traditional marriage in practice but polygamy in principle. By contrast, it was the black churches and the Catholics who carried the day both for Obama and for traditional marriage (money is one thing, but there are not many Mormon votes in California or Florida, although I grant you that there are in Arizona). They - we - have no such problem.

The coastal media’s problem with Mormonism is that it is so Western, so much of that vast space between Chicago and California which they cannot even begin to comprehend. They can cope with the South, which they know about, even if they only know that they viscerally detest it. But the West is a different world. And Mormonism is very much of the West.

Last night, though, Stephen Fry gave it a good go, remarking on how Las Vegas was such a centre both of vice and of Mormonism. Yet even he failed to see the connection.

There are so many Mormon facilities in Las Vegas that one might reasonably assume half its population to be at least nominally Mormon, and a sizeable proportion to be a great deal more active than that. Yet well over half the population of Las Vegas is employed one way or another by either or both of gambling and prostitution. As Americans themselves say, go figure.

Not least, go figure not only that Romney won Nevada, but that so did Clinton, a very “understanding” wife…

6 comments:

  1. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a Democrat (obviously), is a Senator from Nevada, and is an active member of the LDS Church.

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  2. Quite so.

    This is now a fight to the death for control of the Democratic Party, just as surely as there is now such a fight for control of the Republican Party.

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  3. Obama himself is against gay marriage.

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  4. It's not over until the fat lady sings!

    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9551.html

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-protest10-2008nov10,0,4429002.story

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  5. She has sung. This has no chance. Obama himself believes in traditional marriage, and Harry Reid is a practising Mormon.

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