Talk:LaVar Christensen

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[edit] POV Violation?

The following section: "A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Christensen wrote a paper supporting his Constitutional Amendment for The Sutherland Institue. In this document, Christensen outlined his argument for Utah's successful Constitutional Amendment in support of marriage. Drawing upon The Family: A Proclamation to the World, Christensen outlined his strong support for traditional marriage and family values"

This seems to pose a problem that I think needs to be addressed. The problem I see is assertion A that Christensen is a member of the LDS Church, followed by assertion B that he wrote a paper supporting a Constitutional Amendment, which is then followed by assertion C that he drew upon The Family: A Proclamation to the Word implies that his position is consistent with the LDS Church. This is in direct contradiction of the position of the Church that "Candidates for public office should not imply that their candidacy is endorsed by the Church or its leaders, and Church leaders and members should avoid statements or conduct that may be interpreted as Church endorsement of any political party, political platform, or candidate. In addition, members who hold public office should not give the impression they represent the Church as they work for solutions to social problems." It concerns me that the only mention in this article about Mr. Christensen's membership in the LDS Church is in relation to a political issue and that there is an attempt to tie his membership and his position to that of the Church. As a member of the LDS Church myself I am personally appalled and this is why I have chosen not to edit this section as I am biased against this statement but I would hope that someone who is not LDS would be able to weigh in on this issue. Edward Lalone 01:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no problem, simply a case where an individual, probably not a political supporter of Representative Christensen, is being hypersensitive; if a public official is prohibited from agreeing with his own Church on a matter of crucial importance, especially where such agreement leads to a successful state constitutional amendment, and we are prohibited from reporting this fact, than we enter a realm where we become intolerant of all discussion of religious issues. There is no impression that LaVar Christensen represents The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and no such connection can realistically be drawn by a sane person. The fact remains that Mr. Christensen's views are in sync with his church, and that is to be expected, but not hidden. Reporting this fact is not implying anything other than that Mr. Christensen agrees with his church, and did something notable about it. Is he not allowed to do so, and are we not allowed to know the facts? It would seem that some are more interested in removing facts about a candidate that they have already beaten is more important than the truth and educating interested persons about the facts of the matter. Wikipedia is designed to inform. Let us all choose to allow the truth to be told in all things, and not try to hide the truth if we personally disagree with individual politicians or their faith.

In the Sutherland Institute paper, which the article links to, Christensen himself says that his views on the matter come from his faith. That is why I placed his religious background in context of that statement: because Christensen says it is pertinent. You are right though, that his religion should also be listed elsewhere in the article, outside of the "controversy" section.

I also just added the weasel tag to the 2006 race section. That paragraph makes several assertions about what "critics" think, but does not cite any of them... Please ignore the many many typos I made in the edit summary, though. Jeez I'm smart... :) -Porlob 18:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)