Perhaps the absence of any substantive progress on environmental issues in the past eight years, thus an absence of government-approved good news, is partly to blame? It's not like they're emboldened to cover what's actually happening, after all.
The [http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-081203abbott-youtube,0,1919085.story Chicago Tribune] reports that Abbott Laboratories "will embed safety information about its Xience heart device into a YouTube video spot. ... Abbott said the videos are linked to safety information, but a spokesman said the company was in the process of embedding the information into the videos. Abbott said it had done nothing wrong."
Please look at the website www.fight4spellissy.com Another appeal was filed in this case to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on 5 Dec 08. Spellissy was prosecuted because he refused to hide $20M dollars for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in his classified procurement accounts at the United States Special Operations Command. As a private consultant he refused to give Lobyists money for political contributions. He knows where hundreds of millions of dollars were fraudulently wasted by Rumsfeld and Congressmen Young and Lewis. 80% of his criminal case has been thrown out because of no evidence. He has found additional fraud upon the court and is appealing. It should be interesting if he gets exonerated. His new attorney, John McGuire, has really been a pain to the Feds. His latest appeal brief put the Assistant U.S. Attorney on notice that he colluded with Special Agent Robert Calvert and both are accused of Prosecutorial Misconduct. Calvert worked for Rumsfeld.
I believe that the only marriage the government should recognize is one performed by the government. The problem we have is that the state accepts marriages performed by churches. The legal standard for marriage should be the civil union. In other words, the problem is caused by the fact that the separation between the state and religion in the matter of marriage is blurred.
After the civil union procedure, religious couples could have their unions blessed in a church ceremony in accordance with their personal beliefs. Couples in Europe have done this for decades and, as a consequence, Europe has no conflict with same-sex marriage.
Scrutiny of any religion will reveal skeletons - with whatever truths there may be, there will also be an abundance of input from its human adherents. I believe in Christianity it is called "the teachings of men." I am glad I do not have to make the judgments - I leave that to God - and am happy to have everyone in this country enjoy their religious freedom.
In the Mormon church the family bond between a father, a mother, and their children is considered eternal, as established through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is an elemental and prominent component of the Mormon religion and lifestyle. It is unacceptable for anyone to marry a same sex partner, whether he or she is gay or straight, bi-sexual, Spanish, German, etc. The campaign against gay marriage is and was not so much motivated by HATE of gay people, but by FEAR of losing the right to uncompromisingly practice their religion.
To put things in the proper perspective, I think we need to start recognizing that the whole problem is exacerbated by a lack of separation between religion and the government in the matter of marriage. Perhaps we should all spend energy on changing that.
I don't ever recall Mormons telling jokes about angels in lesser kingdoms of heaven, but other than that I agree with your assessment.
Regarding the number of temple marriages that were performed by proxy for black Mormons prior to 1978, I think the number was actually zero. (I'm not 100% sure on that point, but that's what I would expect.) The point is not that a black Mormon who died in, say, 1964, could expect that someone would go do the ordinances for him in 1965. Rather, he would have to wait until whenever the priesthood ban was lifted (which turned out to be 1978) before he could get his ordinances done. This would mean that there was a backlog of dead black Mormons, none of whom got their temple marriages performed until after the "revelation." However, it probably wasn't a very large backlog. Only a few blacks joined the church back when the Negro doctrine was in force, for reasons that I think are self-evident.
Wikipedia has an article that discusses some of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacks_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints#Temple_marriages_denied
Apparently someone has made a documentary about black Mormons, titled "Nobody Knows":
http://www.untoldstoryofblackmormons.com/trailer_lg.html
Judging from the trailer, it looks to me like the movie is largely pro-Mormon in tone, but it still seems to have some interesting insights and perspectives. One of the people involved in the project is [[w:Richard Dutcher]], who was seen until recently as a leading Mormon filmmaker. Last year, Dutcher announced publicly that he has stopped believing and practicing Mormonism, but I think he's still still pretty friendly to the church.
Perhaps the absence of any substantive progress on environmental issues in the past eight years, thus an absence of government-approved good news, is partly to blame? It's not like they're emboldened to cover what's actually happening, after all.
The [http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-081203abbott-youtube,0,1919085.story Chicago Tribune] reports that Abbott Laboratories "will embed safety information about its Xience heart device into a YouTube video spot. ... Abbott said the videos are linked to safety information, but a spokesman said the company was in the process of embedding the information into the videos. Abbott said it had done nothing wrong."
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