Which Christians? About fifty Christian activists from the anti-abortion group Operation Save America who are in town for the next four days. Here’s how the local paper reported yesterday’s activities: “The Kansas-based anti-abortion group Operation Save America displays graphic images of dead fetuses Wednesday on Town Square.” In the morning, they line the streets leading up to the local high school and elementary school with signs showing bloody fetuses and biblical slogans. This weekend they will target the annual Boy Scout elk antler auction held in the center of town. It is fair to conclude they are focusing their graphic and offensive (but legal) message at the youth and children of the town. They are an obnoxious bunch of Christians. Their activities are problematic on so many levels.

1. They are actually promoting abortion. The protesters are too busy offending people to notice, but the end result of their activity is to create support for the doctor in town who performs abortions — apparently the only such doctor in the state of Wyoming and who is called out by name on their signs — and to unite the community against the Christian protesters. A local blog piece, “abortion crazies met with humor, love,” about sums it up. But there is also anxiety and wariness: the doctor’s clinic here in town was bombed a few years ago (no injuries).

2. They are uniting the community. Jackson Hole United is a local group that has formed to combat the visiting Christians. Its motto: We are pro-life and pro-choice citizens of Jackson Hole standing for civility, compassion and love, united to protect our community and our children. Bumper stickers and banners sporting the slogan “civility, compassion, and love” have shown up all over town this week. Ironic, isn’t it? Diverse townsfolk uniting around civility, compassion, and love while conservative Christians line the streets promoting incivility, division, and anger.

3. This kind of puts local Christians in a tricky situation. Local churches have actually tried to defuse the situation. Here’s a quotation from another report in the local paper:

Leaders called on Paul Hayden, the pastor at Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole, to respond to questions about Operation Save America’s intentions.
 
Hayden said he and other religious leaders in Jackson met with representatives from the anti-abortion group in an attempt to compromise. He said the local leaders explained various churches’ efforts to counsel and assist women facing unplanned pregnancies to give them options to abortion.
 
“They rejected us and our work,” he said. “They basically said, ‘We don’t care about you. We care about us and our agenda.’”

It’s natural to try and distance yourself from these protesters. Hence the sign a community member is holding in the abortion crazies article: “Obscenity and hatred do not live here.” But I haven’t seen any local Christians out there with signs reading, “These people aren’t Christian.” From a Mormon perspective, that’s an interesting omission.

4. They’re still fellow Christians, aren’t they? I haven’t had the chance to strike up a conversation on this topic with any of the local ministers yet, but I am afraid it might go something like this: I am a local Latter-day Saint who opposes elective abortion in general but, in line with LDS policy, I recognize that abortion may be appropriate in some circumstances. I oppose the intentionally offensive tactics used by the protesters and applaud the firm but measured response of the community. The minister then responds: I’m glad to hear that you support our approach and share our goals. We need more people like you in our community. It’s just too bad you belong to a non-Christian cult. Those protesters are doing everything wrong and are hurting the good Christian work we are doing in this town. But at the end of the day, they are still fellow Christians, aren’t they?

Now maybe I’m wrong. Maybe some ministers would conclude that the actions of the protesters are so inconsistent with Christian ethical norms that they are deemed to be outside the fold and that I, despite being a Latter-day Saint well within those norms, might be seen as falling within the fold. But I suspect not.

It seems like there is something wrong with that likely response. My sense is that it is inconsistent to reject any connection to the views and actions of the Christian protesters, yet at the same time affirm religious fellowship with them. That is an odd inversion of the position of accepting the similar moral views and practical actions of Latter-day Saints, yet rejecting religious fellowship with Mormons. Or perhaps those seemingly inconsistent positions are tenable for political purposes (where coalitions of diverse groups are necessary to achieve desired political ends) but not for religious purposes (where fellowship or communion are defined in religious terms, not for political or social ends).

So here’s the central question: What consequences are there to how one draws the boundaries of religious fellowship or membership? Am I wrong to think that local Christians who draw the boundaries of Christian fellowship to include the obnoxious protesters (but exclude Latter-day Saints) are, by so doing, implicitly expressing support for what the protesters are doing, despite verbal statements to the contrary?

Douthat’s point in the essay is that the religious center or “religious mainstream” doesn’t really exist anymore in America and that this year’s crop of presidential candidates reflects this development: “In 2012, we finally have a presidential field whose diversity mirrors the diversity of American Christianity as a whole. Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum all identify as Christians, but their theological traditions and personal experiences of faith diverge more starkly than any group of presidential contenders in recent memory.”

He goes on to describe what is often called religious diversity but sounds more like religious anarchy:

These divergences reflect America as it actually is: We’re neither traditionally Christian nor straightforwardly secular. Instead, we’re a nation of heretics in which most people still associate themselves with Christianity but revise its doctrines as they see fit, and nobody can agree on even the most basic definitions of what Christian faith should mean.

There is no shortage of pressing domestic and foreign policy issues, yet Douthat thinks we are likely to get campaign rhetoric full of religious “division, demonization and polarization.” I hope for better, but I fear the worst. It’s going to be a long election year.

I saw part of Ken Burns’s documentary on Prohibition the other day, and one thing really stood out to me: the 18th Amendment was made possible by . . . the 16th. See, prior to 1913, some 30-40 percent of the government’s revenue came from excise taxes on alcohol. But the income tax provided an alternate (and effective) manner of raising revenue for the federal government. (In fact, Prohibitionists were big supporters of the introduction of an income tax.[fn2]) With the alternate source of revenue, the government had no compelling reason to oppose Prohibition.

When Prohibition ended, it ended over President Grant’s objection. Why did it end? I imagine that, among other things, people wanted to drink and were tired of the violence. But it also ended shortly after the Great Depression, when income tax revenues plummeted and the government realized that it was leaving a significant revenue stream on the table.

—

[fn1] Yes, I know that today is April 17. When the 15th falls on a weekend, income taxes are due the first subsequent business day. And April 16, which was Monday, is Emancipation Day, a holiday in D.C. So today is Tax Day, at least for federal purposes. (Illinois taxes, on the other hand, were due yesterday.)

[fn2] Note that, notwithstanding the connection between Prohibitionists and the federal income tax, either Utahns weren’t Prohibitionists in 1913, didn’t understand the connection between Prohibition and the nice tax, or didn’t care. Utah was one of four states that rejected the 16th Amendment and never subsequently ratified it.

Before I look at that sentence, though, a couple disclaimers. First, I haven’t been to Utah in at least four years. As far as I know, the City Creek development plans hadn’t been developed yet.[fn1] Second, I can’t convince myself to care about City Creek. I’m neither from Utah, nor do I live there.[fn2] I don’t know the flow of Salt Lake, so I don’t have any idea if this development complements or ruins the city.[fn3]

In her piece, Jana says:

Moreover, such profits [from the sale of condos and lease of retail space] are tax-exempt.

To support that claim, she links to this KUTV story. That didn’t feel right to me, so I thought I’d run down the claim. And, it turns out, City Creek Reserve, Inc. (“CCRI”) may well not be taxable on rents it receives from retail tenants.[fn4] But the KUTV story doesn’t give us a good sense of why. So here’s what I can piece together:

You can read CCRI’s 2009 Business Income Tax Return here. Among other things, it tells us that, like the Church and the university for which I work, CCRI is a 501(c)(3) organization and, as such, is generally exempt from paying taxes.[fn5]

There are two big exceptions to this tax exemption, and those two exceptions apply to all 501(c)(3) organizations. First, if a tax-exempt organization borrows money to fund an investment, it will pay taxes on a portion of its return from that investment at ordinary corporate rates.[fn6] So if CCRI borrowed money, the KUTV story is wrong, and CCRI is liable for federal income taxes.

But that’s not terribly interesting, so let’s pretend that CCRI didn’t borrow any money to do the development. The other major way that a 501(c)(3) could owe income taxes is if it earns “unrelated business taxable income.”

Basically, unrelated business taxable income is income earned by a tax-exempt organization from participating in a business unrelated to its exempt purpose. So, for example, if the Church were to start manufacturing and selling macaroni, it would be taxable on its profits from those macaroni sales in the same manner as a taxable macaroni manufacturer.

The line between businesses related and unrelated to a tax-exempt’s exempt purpose can be a difficult one, on the margins, to parse. So, for example, advertising revenue the NCAA receives from the programs it sells at the NCAA tournament is not taxable as unrelated business taxable income, even though the ads may be the same ones that would appear in Sports Illustrated. Ad income from a monthly medical journal run by a tax-exempt organization, on the other hand, is taxable as unrelated business taxable income.

Intuitively, rent from commercial real estate tenants doesn’t seem to come close to the line.  And actually, it doesn’t. Section 512(b)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code explicitly exempts from UBTI rents from real property. There is one exception to this exemption that may apply: if the rent is based on income or profits derived from the property, CCRI would be taxable on the rent.

Taubman says that it owns the property under a “participating lease” with CCRI. I don’t have any details on how that participating lease is structured but, if CCRI participates in Taubman’s income or profits, it will pay taxes on the rent it receives. On the other hand, if that participation is based on a fixed percentage of gross receipts or sales, CCRI will not be taxable on that income.

My ultimate conclusion: CCRI will probably not be taxable on the rent it receives from Taubman. If, however, CCRI borrowed money to invest in City Creek or if its participating lease is structured in a specific way, it will owe federal income tax on that rent.

—

[fn1] And, if they had, I wasn’t aware of them at the time.

[fn2] I don’t mean this to be a subtle or not-so-subtle dig at Utah. I just don’t have any roots there, and I have very little family there, so development of Salt Lake’s downtown isn’t terribly high on my list of things to pay attention to.

[fn3] I will say, when in doubt, I don’t like malls. That said, I have a hard time objecting to the glitziness of the stores at City Creek. Its tenants read like a pretty standard list of mid-range chain retailers. But that may be because I work a block away from Chicago’s Magnificent Mile (and across the street from a Bentley dealership) and, before, I worked about five blocks from Times Square (which is not, by the way, home to upscale retailers, either). But that’s entirely to the side of the point of this post.

[fn4] I could be wrong, of course—all of the information I have about this deal is what’s publicly available on teh Internets, so there are undoubtedly details I’m not aware of. Interestingly enough (to me, anyway), CCRI wasn’t formed to do this deal: it was founded and received its tax-exempt status in 1941. (Which leads me to the question: is City Creek a geographical location in Salt Lake? or is the development named after CCRI (which seems kind of weird to me)? or is this just serendipitous naming?)

[fn5] Donors to CCRI can also take a deduction for their donations, though I’m not sure whether CCRI takes donations.

[fn6] As an example, let’s say that CCRI borrows $1 million, and invests that $1 million with $1 million of its own income in Apple stock. Apple pays a $200,000 dividend. CCRI will have to pay taxes, at ordinary corporate rates, on $100,000 of the dividend, but the other $100,000 will be exempt from taxation.

Which is why, last summer, on vacation, when my wife saw an older couple wearing missionary name-tags, we decided to confirm when and where the church met. Turns out that they weren’t assigned to that particular area.[fn1] Still, we started talking. At one point, the husband mentioned something he’d been asked to do, and said, “You don’t say no to a Seventy.”

Let me interrupt myself right here to emphasize that it was a throw-away line. They had been asked to report on establishing some program or committee or something. He was not implying that, if a Seventy asked him to do something immoral or illegal or even questionable, he would mindlessly obey. I assume that, if pressed, he would admit that he would say no in that situation, except that he couldn’t imagine that situation actually happening. But we were in a pleasant social situation, he was a pleasant missionary, and there was no point in pressing him on a laugh-line.

I’d been thinking about writing this post for a while,[fn2] but in light of Ronan’s excellent post, which makes clear that some people seem to believe that Mormons literally do not say no to a leader,[fn3] it seemed like an opportune time.

See, I suspect that the attitude of we don’t say no is fairly prevalent in the Church. Not, of course, because we’re mindless zombies,[fn4] but because of some combination of belief that our leaders are inspired in their choices and an aversion to conflict. But that seems like a bad organizational trait, if it’s true. Not bad because we’ll commit every evil asked of us, but bad because the Seventies (stake presidents, bishops, RS presidents, etc.), though inspired, are human too. And if we just do whatever is asked of us, and accept that they have all knowledge and inspiration, they won’t get decent feedback to know what works, what doesn’t work, and how the average person will respond to their requests/ideas.

So let me know:

(a) Do we say no to Seventies (or better, is there a level at which we stop providing honest feedback)?

(b) Should we ever say no to Seventies or whomever (with the caveat that I’m assuming we won’t be asked to do anything immoral, though we may be asked to do something inefficient)?

(c) If we ever should, how should we go about saying no?

—

[fn1] Actually, they weren’t even assigned to the mission we were in; they were, however, headed home in a week or two, and were doing some sight-seeing before they left.

[fn2] About nine months now, actually.

[fn3] If you’re one of those people, btw, this may not be the comments section for you. If you actually believe that we will obey every edict that comes out of Salt Lake, you either don’t know us very well (see, e.g., many wards’ home and visiting teaching numbers contra this), you’re an ideologue, or you’re an idiot. (Sorry—as my daughter tells me whenever she hears me say “idiot,” that’s really not a nice thing to say.)

[fn4] Though that could be kind of cool.

Yeah Samake

We’re all familiar with unintended consequences. Recent news reports claim that the unintended consequence of last year’s Libyan civil war, which resulted in the death of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. According to these reports, many of Gaddafi’s trained warriors were ethnic Tuaregs from northern Mali. When they returned after the Libyan war, these fighters joined the long-simmering Tuareg rebellion, which heated up suddenly in January.

The result? Last week a group of Malian soldiers staged a coup, ousted the Malian government, and cancelled the forthcoming elections. Yes, the same elections that featured an LDS candidate, Yeah Samake.

Samake’s campaign has been popular both in Mormon sources and in western sources in general, where he has served as an interesting contrast to Mitt Romney. Some sources claimed that Samake was a front runner in the election, although as far as I can tell there was never any evidence to support that claim. [My Internet searches of Malian and other news websites (mainly in French) failed to turn up ANY poll data or assessment of who was ahead in the race. But Samake's outsider position and the fact that he formed his own political party instead of representing one of the established parties led me to believe frontrunner status was unlikely.]

Still, for Mormons in the U. S. (and perhaps elsewhere), the idea that a Mormon might win a presidential election in another country was very appealing. As I understand it, like any good politician, Samake raised funds in the U.S. from the contacts he made as a student at BYU and through the Utah-based Ouelessebougou Alliance, a charity that has supported Samake’s home town and where he is currently the mayor. I suspect this funding gave Samake a financial bump that other candidates couldn’t match, although again a lack of western-style financial data about the election makes it hard to know how much of an impact this financial support might have had.

Getting foreign financial support, while sometimes seen as suspicious, isn’t that unusual. My neighborhood here in New York City always sees campaign visits from presidential candidates from the Dominican Republic, who seek financial support and votes from Dominican expatriates who live here. I’m quite sure that these candidates accept donations from anyone willing to give them, Dominican citizen or not.

Perhaps the main differences between Dominicans in New York City and  Mormons supporting Samake is that the Mormons can’t vote in Mali and may not have very much independent information about the situation in Mali. I wonder how much of the time this support comes simply because Samake is Mormon. Which begs the question: Should Mormons even be getting involved in this election?

For now, of course, this question is moot. The soldiers behind the coup have cancelled the elections scheduled for April 29th, and while they claim (as coup leaders always do) that the country will return to democracy, no date for elections has been set yet.

So, the perhaps unrealistic hope that Samake could win the election has become a mirage disrupted, like those ephemeral images in deserts like that in Mali, which often simply reflect what may, or may not, be farther off.

Near as I can tell, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of humans have died without even having heard the gospel of any western religion. If your religion consigns them to hell, what are you doing about it?

Just looking at Christian religions, perhaps as many as 80% of Christians believe that baptism is necessary for salvation. Yet, despite this belief, the LDS Church is the only Christian religion that practices posthumous baptism. Given that the practice is even mentioned in the New Testament (1 Cor. 15:29), how is it possible that other Christian Churches have ignored this issue?

If you don’t think posthumous baptism is necessary, then aren’t you either saying that baptism isn’t necessary or that God is a respecter of persons? Or, do you simply not care what happens to those who haven’t heard of Christ and been baptized?

Now, lest my comments come across as too harsh, strident or divisive, I am NOT suggesting that other Christians don’t care about those who weren’t baptized. Nor am I suggesting that their theologies don’t account for this problem. Many, if not all, of other Christian faiths have accounted for this problem in their theology, suggesting that Christ’s atonement takes care of those who died without the opportunity of baptism or making some other accommodation for this issue. I’m not familiar with the details of their theology, so I can’t really address it. But I do know that theologians of other Christian faiths have addressed the question.

However, this theological question has been lost in the criticism of our practice somehow. Commentators like Andrew Sullivan (a Catholic, as I understand it) feel free to criticize our practice, but not address what should be done for those who weren’t baptized and therefore can’t enter the Kingdom of God. Sullivan is hardly alone. Many critics who belong to faiths that require baptism have also criticized our practice, and as far as I’ve seen, not one has addressed the theological problem or acknowledged that their own religion also faces it.

As I wrote recently, I do think Church policy should be followed and that our best policy is to respect the concerns of Jews in the case of holocaust victims. There may be other groups that also deserve this respect. But that is really beside the point. I’m suggesting that in the public debate over our practice we’ve been giving critics a free pass. We should be saying to them:

OK, if posthumous baptism is so offensive, then, under your theology, what should be done for those who haven’t been baptized or who didn’t know the truth?

(Poll inspiration here.)

And, apparently, the Church has now sent out a strongly-worded letter to be read in Sacrament meetings.[fn2] In the letter, the Church (strongly) reiterates the prohibition on submitting celebrity and Holocaust victim names, with potential penalties to follow for improper submissions.

Will this work? Hopefully.[fn3] But I’ve been thinking about possible ways to police the submissions as a backstop.[fn4] Note that I’m perfectly aware that there is debate over whether we should, as a normative matter, care about others’ perception of baptisms for the dead.[fn5] And there’s debate among those not of our faith about whether proxy baptisms are, in fact, offensive. I have no interest in rehashing those arguments, though. Let’s assume that the Church is serious about its policy statement (which I believe it is), and, just for fun, let’s brainstorm how it can implement the policy. A couple ground rules:[fn6]

1. Any solution needs to be administratively feasible. Having a bureaucratic level that looks at every name submission is not administratively feasible.
2. The solution shouldn’t unreasonably burden people who are submitting names in accordance with the Church’s current policy and otherwise participating in temple worship.
3. The enforcement procedure should be effective both with respect to people aware of the policy and with respect to those unaware (because people constantly join the Church, get older, etc.)
4. I’d just as soon that the enforcement be prophylactic; I’m not a big fan of threatening discipline for violations, if we can prevent the violations from happening.

My proposal has two parts. Step one would be to only permit people to submit their direct ancestors for proxy baptism. Until recently, this probably wasn’t technologically feasible, but I suspect it is today. On the new FamilySearch, when I’m logged in, I can only see my direct line of ancestors. I can’t even see my wife’s; if I wanted to look at her family tree, I would need to log in as her.

Step two would be to time-limit this limitation. If a person has been dead for, say, 100 or 150 years (or however many years the Church determines is appropriate), a member could submit even a non-ancestor’s name for temple work.

Step one is in line with the First Presidency letter, which states that our “preeminent obligation is to seek out and identify our own ancestors. Those whose names are submitted for proxy temple ordinances should be related to the submitter.” If that’s the program—and it’s how I understand the program to be—then such a limitation (again, that wasn’t technologically feasible until recently) doesn’t impinge on our spiritual duties or growth.[fn7]

Step 2 provides two things. First, time. Time to educate members, and time for the celebrities to no longer burn as brightly in our minds. And time to educate our neighbors about what we understand baptism for the dead to represent. It also gives us time to make affirmative statements, ones that might be taken seriously, rather than defensive statements, when an improper name is discovered and the Church is forced to respond. Second, it meets the needs of temple attendees. Most of us (meaning, me, and I’m universalizing my experience) don’t submit enough names to the temple.[fn8] In order to provide a temple experience to all of the patrons who come, the Family History of the Church extracts names from old records.[fn9] Step 2 will allow this extraction work to continue; it would make ineligible a swath of names, but a new group would become available every year.

It’s clearly not foolproof; if you really wanted to do the 10th baptism for Anne Frank, you could find a way. But it would force you to be affirmatively deceptive, and to work to run counter to Church policy; that provides a mens rea that, in my mind, is more conducive to loss of privileges or discipline or some other stick.

So what do you think?
—

[fn1] Yes, I know Gandhi isn’t a Holocaust victim, so he’s not technically covered by the agreement.

[fn2] I say “apparently” because the letter doesn’t seem to have reached Chicago yet; still, I assume it’s coming.

[fn3] At least in the short-term. Letters are read, and then disappear (seriously, there’s no archive that I know of, although the existence of the Newsroom may be changing that for the future). So if you’re not in Sacrament meeting the week it’s read, or your kids are noisy, it may not stick. Moreover, remember that this comes 17 years after the prior letter: in 17 years, we may have people submitting who were those noisy kids when it was originally read.

[fn4] And I’m not the only one.

[fn5] Illustration: read some of the comments.

[fn6] Note that these are my criteria, not the Church’s.

[fn7] With luck, it would also limit the number of times ordinances are performed for the same person.

[fn8] Yes, I know some people do, but I imagine it’s a relatively small percentage of the overall Church membership.

[fn9] You can do it too, if you’d like.

Randy Bott

Since Wednesday, when I read the Washington Post article that cited BYU Professor Randy Bott, I have been surprised at two elements of the news and commentary I’ve read about it. First, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the unanimity of the response—no one that I’ve seen has tried to defend the ideas that Bott expressed. Second, I’ve been surprised at the speed of the official response. If it is possible, the response makes the views expressed by Bott seem anachronistic to Mormonism today. And I hope this response will make clear to those who still maintain some version of these racist views that they are no longer tolerated among Mormons.

In order to gain some sense of how these events occurred, I’ve put together a chronology of the events, and in the process, I think I’ve learned a little about how the reaction to news items like this and who is reacting. I’ll let you make your own conclusions about this chronology, except for two observations that seem important:

First, I am very favorably impressed with FAIR and Mike Parker, who were apparently either first or very early in publishing their reactions to the publication of the article on Tuesday. In addition, the response was quite comprehensive. Best of all, my impression of FAIR was that they usually sought to correct non-Mormons or apostates, not those who would normally be considered orthodox, so the response to the ideas Bott expressed was a very pleasant and welcome surprise.

Second, the online reaction to the article seems to be confined to the bloggernacle and BYU students. I haven’t seen reactions on other blogs, or in many facebook posts or twitter feeds that weren’t somehow also connected to the bloggernacle. While I assume others at BYU and elsewhere noticed the issue and made complaints, they didn’t seem to talk about it online.

[FWIW, I've chosen to call this a "gaffe" because I think the term best fits the events. On twitter the hash tag has been "Bottgate," but I think that term is unnecessarily harsh, giving a sense of intentional criminality that is certainly not here.]

Please feel free to add to the information below in the comments, and I’ll try to update the post as I can.

Background

• Bott has expressed these ideas before on his blog. (see ldskyr.blogspot.com on Blacks and the Priesthood – pdf of blog post from Bott’s “Know Your Religion” blog from 2008)
• Bott will retire in 2 1/2 months
• A 2008 Deseret News article reports that as many as 10% of all BYU students take his classes, especially his popular Mission Prep class.
• The same article indicates that in 2008 he led the nation in ratings on the Rate My Professor service (link is to Bott’s page).

Chronology

[Times are those stated on the item as I saw it, or on the comments or replies to that item when a time isn't given. I have ignored time zones.]

• BYU Religion Professor Randy Bott gives an interview (reportedly 2 hours long) to Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post.

28 February 2012

• 9:37 am: Washington Post publishes Horowitz’ article
• 12:43 pm: David Heap posts link to the article on Facebook without comment [added 3 Mar 2012 00:02 am]
• 3:40 pm: Nate Oman criticizes the article in a Facebook post [added 2 Mar 2012 11:48 pm]
• 3:59 pm: Tamara Kemsley calls Bott’s reasoning “unfortunate” in a Facebook post [added 3 Mar 2012 00:05 am]
• 4:17 pm: BYU Professor Margaret Young says Bott is “dead wrong” in a Facebook post [added 3 Mar 2012 00:25 am]
• 4:43 pm: Joseph Trevor Antley links to the article in a Facebook post [added 3 Mar 2012 00:08 am]
• 4:51 pm: Post on Feminist Mormon Housewives Society Facebook group calls attention to the Washington Post article [added 2 Mar 2012 11:59 pm]
• 5:35 pm: Post on Mormon Stories Podcast Community Facebook group calls Bott “a racist moron.” [added 2 Mar 2012 11:54 pm]
• 5:35 pm: Post on Feminist Mormon Housewives Society Facebook group points to Botts views on women and the priesthood as found in a post on his blog. [added 2 Mar 2012 11:57 pm]
• 5:43 pm: Mike Parker makes a point-by-point rejection of Bott’s reasoning on the FAIR blog.
• abt 10:00pm: Sam Brunson posts My Cri de Coeur to Randy Bott on Times & Seasons
• abt 10:00 pm: ByCommonConsent posts excerpt from Lester Bush’s article on the priesthood ban.
• 10:53 pm: Fellow BYU Professor Daniel C. Peterson writes a blog post strongly disagreeing with Bott’s comments and calling them an “unfortunate attempt to explain the priesthood ban.”
• 10:55 pm: SLC’s ABC4 reports on controversy
• before 11:52 pm: BYU student Joseph Trevor Antley reports that BYU students are planing a protest against Bott’s statements.

29 February 2012

• 2:48 am: Student Review tweets about controversy, creating #bottgate hash tag
• 7:56 am: Joanna Brooks reports on the controversy on Religion Dispatches.
• morning: Bott is replying with a generic email messages to those complaining, saying that his comments were misinterpreted.
• morning: Armand Mauss replies to Bott’s comments on ByCommonConsent
• before 10:52 am: Guest post by BYU professor Rachel Cope on Juvenile Instructor mentions the controversy [added 3 Mar 2012 00:13 am]
• 11:09 am: Tweet from Hunter Schwartz: Best post I’ve seen re: #Bottgate #BYU: I wrote this man a two page email while I was in his class to keep his opinions to himself and just teach the scriptures… he told me to be more humble…. guess he should have listened…
• 11:22 am: BYU student Craig Magnum reports that Bott’s comments had become the topic of discussion in his illustration class.
• afternoon: LDS Church responds to controversy by disavowing Bott’s comments and issuing a statement on Church doctrine about race.
• afternoon: Bott’s email replies on the subject now simply refer to the Church’s statement.
• afternoon: Bott’s blog, “Know Your Religion” goes off-line.
• 1:46 pm: Salt Lake City’s ABC4 reports on the Church’s response.
• 2:52 pm: Nate Oman’s column on the controversy published in the Deseret News‘ website.
• 3:17 pm: In the Salt Lake Tribune’s On Faith blog, Peggy Stack reports on the controversy.
• 3:31 pm: McKay Coppins reports on the controversy on BuzzFeed. [added 6 Mar 2012 9:42 pm]
• 5:15 pm: BYU’s Student Review reports on reaction to Bott’s statement.
• 5:17 pm: On the Huffington Post, Sam Brown sees the potential death of a “Racist Mormon Fringe.” [added 3 Mar 2012 00:22 am]
• 5:34 pm: Fox 13 Salt Lake City reports on the criticism of Bott [added 3 Mar 2012 00:15 am]
• 6:12 pm: Post in Mormon Stories Podcast Community Facebook group suggests Church’s statement condemns past Church racism. [added 2 Mar 2012 11:52 pm]
• 6:34 pm: Salt Lake Tribune reports on LDS Church’s statements
• before 7:40 pm: This Week in Mormons podcast covers the controversy.
• 9:57 pm: KSL TV reports on LDS Church’s statements [added 3 Mar 2012 00:17 am]
• 10:18 pm: BYU’s Daily Universe reports that Bott didn’t follow BYU policy when he talked to the Washington Post reporter.
• evening: ByCommonConsent looks at what Bott controversy means for members.
• 11:25 pm: Brazilian blog Vozes Mórmons reports on the controversy in Portuguese.
• sometime: Australian blog at all times and in all things, and in all places comments on the controversy. [added 3 Mar 2012 00:11 am]
• night: Jana Reiss summaries the controversy on Religion News Service. [added 3 Mar 2012 08:10 am]

1 March 2012

• 1:22 am: Provo Daily Herald blogger Randy Wright says the controversy is a “question of clarity.” [added 3 Mar 2012 00:47 am]
• before 8:21 am: Doves and Serpents has fantasy press releases from the Church on the priesthood ban—what would you write in such a release? [added 4 Mar 2012 11:26 am]
• morning: 4th ByCommonConsent post on Bott blames correlation for the fact that Bott could continue to teach his ideas on the priesthood ban.
• 11:07 am: BYU student newspaper The Universe posts article about Bott’s blog going down and continued controversy, but the article is soon removed for unknown reasons (cache of the article here). [added 4 March 2012 11:33 am]
• 1:04 pm: Huffington Post reports on LDS Church’s statements [added 3 Mar 2012 00:19 am]
• 1:28 pm: Joanna Brooks on Religion Dispatches discusses the Church’s statements and reactions to the Bott controversy. [added 3 Mar 2012 01:19 am]
• before 3:00 pm: FMH observes that the Church’s statement about Bott’s comments arrived at the end of Black History Month and just before Women’s History Month begins — and makes some points from this coincidence.
• before 3:45 pm: Ogden Standard Examiner says Bott’s ideas have been taught for decades.
• 4:40 pm: Joseph Trevor Antley reports BYU student protest planned for tomorrow.
• 8:07 pm: UPI reports on Church statement rejecting Bott’s remarks [added 3 Mar 2012 00:40 am]
• before 9:13 pm: Juvenile Instructor Guest Paul Reeve discusses Elijah Abel’s experiences in response to Bott’s comments. [added 3 Mar 2012 o1:03 am]
• evening: Ben Park sees difficulties in how Mormons understand an open canon in the controversy. [added 3 Mar 2012 08:02 am]

2 March 2012

[all added after 3 Mar 2012 00:30 am]

• before 4:04 am: Ronan Head looks at how another faith apologized for historical racism. [added 4 March 2012 11:22 am]
• 8:30 am: Academic Max Perry Mueller reviews the controversy on Slate.
• before 10:16 am: Kevin Barney takes a strategic look at disavowal of the priesthood ban. [added 4 March 2012 11:22 am]
• before 10:26 am: A guest post on Keepapitchinin by Gabriel Gomes Fidalgo looks at the cost to black Church members of racist attitudes and former teachings.
• 11:43 am: Juvenile Instructor adds a Black Latter-day Saint’s Response.
• 3:01 pm: KSL reports on BYU student group Provo Peace Forum which protested by handing out flyers.
• 5:56 pm: Deseret News columnist Vai Sikahema discusses the controversy.
• sometime: As Sistas in Zion gives a very charitable response to the controversy. [added 4 Mar 2012 11:15 am]

3 March 2012

[all added after 4 Mar 2012 11:10 am]

• before 1:51 am: John C. at BCC talks about “How I learned to stop worrying and love Mormon racism.”
• 12:06 am: Ray of Things of My Soul says “God bless you, Bro. Bott – even as I condemn your words and beliefs regarding this particular issue.”

5 March 2012

[all added after 6 Mar 2012 9:30 pm]

• 11:03 pm: Ohio State University newspaper sees discomfort among African Americans there connecting Bott controversy to Romney campaign.

6 March 2012

[all added after 6 Mar 2012 9:30 pm]

• 1:15 am: Dave Banack reviews who were the winners and who were the losers in the controversy.
• 9:00 am: Deseret News reports on response of Genesis members to the controversy.
• 2:32 pm: Kaimi Wenger sees similarities between the Bott affair and writings of fellow BYU Professor Ralph Hancock reacting to Joanna Brooks.