{"id":19239,"date":"2012-03-02T10:00:42","date_gmt":"2012-03-02T15:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=19239"},"modified":"2012-03-06T21:41:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T02:41:37","slug":"the-bott-gaffe-a-chronology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2012\/03\/the-bott-gaffe-a-chronology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bott Gaffe: A Chronology [Updated 6Mar12 9:45p]"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Randy<\/a>
Randy Bott<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2014no 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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[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.]<\/p>\n

Please feel free to add to the information below in the comments, and I’ll try to update the post as I can.<\/p>\n

Background<\/h2>\n