The "don't shoot the little birdies" talk convinced my dad to give up bird hunting. He took me deer hunting a couple of times, but I don't think his heart was in it anymore - he never fired his rifle.

The church doesn't even follow that.

lol! Great reference!

How to vote.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=282003

They didn't tell them how to vote.

Aaah, Indy - you rose to the bait too easily.

Of course, the non-profit LDS church wouldn't tell people what their political opinions should be . . . no . . .never. That would conflict with the church's non-profit status.

LDS leaders just want the members to "express themselves." Sure, as long as their expressions don't conflict with what they want.

Ask Jeff Nielsen, a BYU adjunct professor who "expressed himself" in the form of an op-ed that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune on June 4, 2006. Nielsen considered an amendment against gay marriage immoral - completely in accordance with his training in ethics as a prof. of philosophy.

Although I'm too cheap to buy the archived version of Nielsen's op-ed from the Trib., you can get the gist of it through the story originally reported by the SL Tribune, available at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1649439/posts

Nielsen was terminated by the BYU philosophy department, his termination letter reading in part, "Since you have chosen to contradict and oppose the church in an area of great concern to church leaders . . . in a public forum."
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon449.htm

Granted, Hinckley didn't fire this guy, but the significance stems from the fact that everyone seems to have been able to read between the lines, while the church maintained plausible deniability that it ever "told" someone how to vote.

Clever.

I find what BYU did acceptable and what Nielsen did as dumb. To me, it was an employer/employee issue, not a free speech or church related issue.

He publicly critisized the Church bringing it into disrepute. If you critisize your employer publicly you are likely to be censored or fired.

And academically, would you be comfortable relying upon the representations of one party in a dispute? In the legal field, it's not a very sound position to take.

I don't know that it is as sinister as you suggest. I suspect The Church saw encouraging members to vote on this particular issue as a fairly safe endeavor. Sure there would be a few that would vote counter to The Church's wishes, but most would vote "correctly," not because The Church instructed them to do so, but because they honestly felt it was the correct thing to do.

While related, Nielsen's editorial and subsequent not being picked up by BYU, is a different matter. By promoting his position (on any matter) that was counter to the sponsoring organization of the university, didn't he violate his contract, or at least make himself much less employable by the university?

I would agree that by encouraging members to vote on something, it is fairly clear which way The Church hopes they vote. But it is not an order accompanied by punitive action if one fails to obey.

If these are perilous moral times, why does the church value non-profit status over speaking the truth?

Do you have any idea how much it would cost to operate as a for-profit organization?

I realize economics is not your forte, but are you trolling on your own board? It is not hard to understand that these "sacred" funds must be used as prudently as possible.