My Comment on One Utah today...

WP Says:
NOVEMBER 9TH, 2008 AT 11:43 AM
To Scott, regarding your comment: “Please. All church discipline is left up to local leaders.” Your understanding is not accurate as there have been numerous incidents, excommunications, where the word has come down from the Brethren to go after a particular intellectual, dissident or group. Mark E. Peterson while a member of the Twelve took it upon himself to call stake presidents of members who wrote for Dialogue Magazine or participated in Sunstone Symposia. Though he was reigned in, the process has continued. Joseph Fielding Smith wanted Professor McMurrin excommunicated but he was thwarted by then President McKay. I suggest there are a few readers of this blog who have been singled out and disciplined because of pressure from Salt Lake.
What about the two members of the Orchestra on Temple Square whose religious lives were altered by Tabernacle Choir President Mr. Mac and others from Salt lake as they were forced to resign or face disciplinary council?
Just understand something and it might help with your approach to these kinds of questions — The leadership of the LDS Church have very strong and well defined opinions about a range of topics and it should be left at that. Their statements and actions are subjective, sometimes wrong and not always inspired in my opinion. There are too too many documented flubs in the diaries and histories of those present and past.
I regret that such an organization, that is so powerful and can be such a force for good in humanitarian ways, can and does stoop so low as to single out some, like the September Six, or this fellow from Nebraska for excommunication.
Having been an LDS bishop I was never asked by anyone above me to torch anyone’s papers but then D. Michael Quinn or anyone like him ever lived here in Centerville either. I was probably the most liberal Mormon and still am in my neighborhood though now I give my time at a Hispanic branch in West Bountiful. I should observe that the political leanings of most branch members are very much of the Democratic Party tradition which I find very refreshing.