Monday, February 12, 2018

LET’S FACE IT—ROB PORTER SHOULD NOT HAVE RESIGNED

Probably Makeup
Commentary by Calvin Best

All of this news about Rob Porter, who I am sure is a good, upstanding member of the church, should cause all of us to pause and reflect. What could have led to this situation? What is going on in our society and government that is causing such a stir?

I don’t know Brother Porter personally, but he served both Senator Hatch and Mike Lee. These are two powerful, righteous men of God who only surround themselves with other righteous men of God. Porter has toiled side-by-side with our duly elected Commander-in-Chief, working tirelessly to make America great again. So, given those facts, what should we make of this situation? I think that any reasonable person would agree that Brother Porter should not have resigned, should not have stopped doing America’s important work, especially since we can be sure that if something happened in the past, it is past and was properly addressed.

The first thing to remember, as members of the church, is that if Brother Porter had been guilty of any of this stuff, inspired church leaders would have already handled it. If the wives went to the bishops, those men would have got to the bottom of all of it. If there were “crimes” committed, then they would have made sure justice was served. We all know that, especially with men, mercy cannot rob justice. If it was true that he made some mistakes, like all of us do, then, if Brother Porter is now a temple-recommend holder, he must have repented. How can we continue to hold against him what he has repented of? If it was not true, which I think we can all see is probably the real truth, then why would these reports cause such a stir? I think we can all see that forces of the deep state and liberal media, the modern day Gadianton robbers that the Book of Mormon warns us about, are still trying to stick their puny arm out and stop the work of the Lord and his earthly servants!

The second thing to remember is that not only are all church leaders wise, inspired men who would be removed from their office before God would allow them to make a serious mistake, but that some powerful men are passionate. That passion can be misunderstood by people, especially women. It is good that brother Porter’s bishop, bishopric, and stake presidency are also all men, since men understand the true intent and meaning, the true hearts of other men. Here again women in disciplinary councils would only misunderstand, might overly believe the women, and would gum up the whole divine process. Also, we know that a very large percent of accusations are things women are mistaken about in their reports. This is especially true now when so many women are talking about a few bad men doing a few things, usually a long time ago. This has just about every woman wanting to be part of what is going on, so they have extra encouragement to exaggerate stuff from the past. That is probably the case with Porter and those women. This is all just that MeToo stuff taken too far!

The thing to keep in mind with the Porter thing is that all of it really gets at the heart of how an attack on Trump and his virtuous leadership is an attack on the church and on what we hold sacred. Porter is just the first person who could be forced to stop doing what God put him in the White House to do if we let wild accusations and stories by women about “abuse” in the past get too much attention. Seen properly, all of this stuff is just the Adversary causing conflict and chaos. We can rise above this and persist.

If we let righteous people like Porter be forced out, a man who obviously cleared everything up with inspired church leaders, then you and I can count on the fact that we will probably be next, and the small thread holding up the constitution may snap completely!