What's the most evil/controversial thing the Prophet has asked you to do?

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Solon

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 read Nielsen's op-ed piece when it was freely available online and the biggest problem with it wasn't that he disagreed with the leadership of the church, it was the shoddy logic used and the factual errors it contained.

As an employer, I would hope that a representative of the university would have produced higher quality work than that.