Christians to the Lions

This is as close to a political cartoon as you're going to get on this website--and it is only a couple of months late! In early June the Department of Defense revised the number of religious affiliations it recognizes from over 200 to 31. When the Department first presented its revised list, it failed to list the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Christian faith. This caused enough of an uproar that the Department of Defense revised its list again, this time removing the "Christian" designation altogether (rather than including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in that designation). 

I have got so many thoughts on this story, but nobody's coming to this website to hear the political rantings of a cartoonist. So I'll just end with this: beware anyone who argues that the United States should be a "Christian" nation because chances are the person making that argument doesn't view you as a Christian at all.

Campaign Trail

Speaking of the campaign trail, can't we just hold the 2020 elections right now? I mean we've already pretty much decided who we're voting for (or against) already, right?

Every Good Gift

At a young age, this little girl can already wrest the scriptures to excuse her bad behavior. I sense a future in politics for her!

Soccer, er, Football

Can we all acknowledge that the United States has it wrong and the rest of the world has it right when it comes to the sport the U.S. refers to as soccer and the rest of the world rightly calls football?

I mean, in the game we call football a foot touches a ball in three different scenarios: kickoff, field-goal/extra point, or punt. And in one of those scenarios the team doing the kicking isn't happy. I suggest we cede the name football to soccer and call it something that better captures the sport. Something like, I don't know, concussion ball.

Publicans Verses Republicans

Today's gag is likely as political as I'll ever get on this blog. I do wonder, though, if publicans will soon be more popular than republicans given Donald Trump's boorish behavior.

And now that I've effectively lost half of my readership with the previous sentence, I'll quickly change the subject.

This is the fifth gag featuring this particular set of missionaries. I feel like I should give the two of them names that match the philosophical and skeptic nature of the pair. But seeing as how Calvin and Hobbs are already taken, I'll have to keep working on that.

Foreign Trade Policy

As a missionary, I'd occasionally get a talking to about politics. Some very well-informed folks would raise some serious questions and concerns about the state of US foreign affairs. The problem was, I was a young 19 to 20-year-old who cared little about any of that stuff. I've become more engaged since then, but it still strikes me funny that some folks expected anything to come out of talking to this US citizen.

Election Night Recap

So Mitt Romney won't be President after all. I've read all sorts of explanations as to why he lost and Barack Obama won and the one that stood out to me was that Romney's loose association with the Tea Party cost him the Election.

I can buy that. I mean why wouldn't a political movement named after a hot drink prohibited in the Word of Wisdom be problematic to the Mormon candidate?

Civic Duty

I've pretty much steered clear of Presidential politics on this blog these past months despite the Mormon elephant in the room.* This is mostly because I haven't been able to come up with anything clever to say.**

I still don't have anything clever to say, but I do want to express my gratitude over the fact that in this election where all number of nasty things were said about each candidate, by in large, it never stooped to an attack on the candidates' religion. If anything, the President has ceded that Mitt Romney's faith is a good thing--while attacking everything else about him.

Seeing the Church dragged through the mud was my greatest fear this election so whatever tomorrow's outcome, I'm at least grateful that it never came to that.

(Here's today's non-political strip over at deseretnews.com.)

*See what I did there?

**I know, I know, this hasn't stopped me before.