Item Detail
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22447
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0
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0
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English
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Mormon Fundamentalism
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Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law : Obama's Challenge to Patriarchy's Threat to Democracy
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New York
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Cambridge University Press
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193-209
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The author argues that religions (including the Mormon religion) assume and carry forward patriarchal ideas and practices which are a threat to democracy. Borrowing his difinition of patriarchy from another scholar, Richards defines it as 'a hierarcy--a rule of priests--in which the priest, the hieros, is a father. It describes an order of living that elevates fathers, separating fathers from sons (the men from the boys) and men from women, and placing both children and women under a father's authority.' Richards states that patriarcy denies all under its rule equal respect and a democracy of equal human rights, including rights to voice. Richards argues that Mormon fundamentalism, like Catholic and Protestant fundamentalism, threatens human rights by subordinating women and by acting politically to force moral standards about the wrongness of contraception, abortion, and nonprocreational sex on others.