Horse’s Mouth: “Yep, We’re Bigots!”
October 8th, 2008Tonight, Mormons were encouraged to support Prop. 8 in California.
LDS authority explains church’s support of gay marriage ban
Nugget:
“‘The issue for us is what will children be taught in school about marriage…What does it mean if homosexual and heterosexual relationships are treated as the same?’ L. Whitney Clayton, a member of the LDS Presidency of the Seventy, said in an interview. ‘Freedom of religion is at risk’ because children will be forced hear views that contradict Mormon teachings.”
Children are already “forced” to hear views that contradict Mormon teachings. Every day. Lame argument. FAIL.
Here’s the story in the LDS Church owned paper.
A church can lobby. I just don’t want them exempt from paying taxes if they choose to support legislated bigotry. o
Tags: bigotry, church and state, gay marriage, mormon politics
I don’t understand how people, even, or especially, religious people, can claim that it is wrong to explain to a child that there are different kinds of families out there, and we should embrace them all. Regardless of one’s belief about homosexuality, aren’t we supposed to love everyone?
I think people are having trouble coming up with any reason to vote yes on 8 that is not directly tied to religion, so they are bringing up these scare tactics that if 8 is defeated, it is taking our rights as parents away from us.
Depressing really.
The Mormon’s support of Prop 8 convinced me to finally break away completely from the church. I mailed my resignation letter yesterday. Sorry for posting this twice (also on your previous post about this issue), but it’s liberating to share!
What pushed me over the edge was my mom, who is pretty much a social Mormon, telling me about the phone call she received from a longtime friend and member. Sister So-and-So called and asked her if she would vote YES on 8. My mom told her no, she was going to vote against it, and she didn’t think it was right for the church to be endorsing it. Sister S&S then said, well we don’t want you to vote at all on it if you are planning on voting no!
Can you freaking believe that?
So yeah, I’ve been waiting for 20+ years to write the goodbye letter…I just needed a little nudge.
The thing that gives me mental whiplash with that statement is that school was never the place I learned about marriage. Even in Utah. Calculus, geometry, German, art, biology, chemistry, architectural drafting, fencing, drama, English, history, yes. Marriage? Not so much.
Anyway, “think of the kids” is always trotted out as a rallying cry. The response should be, “I am thinking about them. I’m teaching them that bigotry is bigotry and shouldn’t be enshrined by the state.” (They never seem to realise that 1 in 10 kids is probably going to discover they are gay. But gay kids apparently don’t exist in certain mindsets.)
Christine: Congrats on your exit. I got mine done two years back, and it was a bit of a relief. (Although everytime I have explained to my parents I am no longer LDS, it always seems to fall through the cracks. My mom called me up to tell me that General Conference was on.)
i will preface this with i am ardently in favor of gay marriage and think that the mormon church’s argument hides behind children rather than protects them.
but i need help! i’m surrounded by conservatives in my life, and one argument i consistently hear against gay marriage is if we change the definition once, what is to stop every person who wants to declare themselves legally bound to someone or something outside of the definition from having a precedent for changing it again? what about polygamists whose definition of marraige has been denied legally for years and years? what about a pair of 58 year old inseparable identicle twins who never married before and decide they want to be each other’s legal companions? what about a woman like leona helmsly, who probably would have married the dog to whom she willed her entire fortune? what about the passionate environmentalist, who wants to marry a tree in the center of a rainforest to keep it from being cut down?
and i say, but marraige is between people, not between a person and a tree, and they say, no, right now, it’s between a man and a woman, and we want to change it to two people. if we change the definition once, what grounds to we have to continue denying the groups that want it to say “one man and several women” or “two or more people” or “two beings” or “two entities”?
and as many times as i can reply with BUT LEGALIZING GAY MARRAIGE IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO AND YOU KNOW IT… i need a better argument.
For what it’s worth, the Bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles had a press conferences in favor of same sex marriages and the defeat of Prop 8.
We’re trying. I work with teens and so many of them see this as a non-issue. It’s just not a non-issue yet. Register the young vote. There are problems with today’s youth, but compassion & intolerance aren’t them…
Have you seen these nicknames?
Grampy McSame & Caribou Barbie
I’ve been dying to share them with someone, I chuckle every time about Caribou Barbie…
I’ve had a huge problem with this even being an issue ever since THEY made it an issue in the run-up to the ‘04 election. It’s nothing short of blatant bigotry.
But this effort goes way beyond the mormon church and into the religious right itself. You should see the ads they’re running here in California. They all have that doomsday tone warning us that “they’re going to teach this to our children in schools”… and when you read between the lines, what it says is, ‘your children may grow up to be just like them”
On the surface, everyone says the issue is that legalizing gay marriage somehow diminishes the meaning of heterosexual unions… but what they’re really saying is legalizing it legitimizes homosexuality, which (obviously) scares the hell out of the religious right.
@lallalooly, those types of arguments are my pet peeve. First and foremost, they are not the issue at hand. Remind them that Prop 8 has to do with two PEOPLE wanting to get married, period, full stop. That eliminates every possibility you brought up, save the two identical twins. And if someone is so blinded that they think that homosexuality and incest are on the same level, you aren’t going to be able to get through to them anyway so don’t even bother trying.
I cannot even express how angry I am at the church right now.
It’s not enough that they teach their members to dehumanise gays, but they also have to blatantly lie to hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people who will do whatever the church leaders tell them to and will believe anything the church leaders say, despite ridiculous amounts of evidence to the contrary. And then these people, armed with the lies of their church leaders, merrily go about trying to take away the rights of fellow humans because they don’t believe in the same religion.
The members are afraid that all civilisation will become degenerate and evil, because everything homo/bi/transsexual is satanic (obviously), that their children will become gay (too bad that the ones that will be gay are already gay, and you can’t stop it), and that all the lies the church leaders are telling them will actually come true, which of course the won’t, because, well, they’re all lies. The leaders on the other hand, are afraid of losing power and influence, and are afraid their sexist, homophobic doctrines will no longer inspire people to join their church and donate scads of money if the rest of society is showing them that it is ok to treat all people equally and that all humans deserve the same rights, and are created equal, and that real tolerance means that unless someone is harming someone else, you let them do what ever the hell the want.
And that is why I am angry.
Oh so angry.
I cannot even express how angry I am at the church right now.
It’s not enough that they teach their members to dehumanise gays, but they also have to blatantly lie to hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people who will do whatever the church leaders tell them to and will believe anything the church leaders say, despite ridiculous amounts of evidence to the contrary. And then these people, armed with the lies of their church leaders, merrily go about trying to take away the rights of fellow humans because they don’t believe in the same religion.
The members are afraid that all civilisation will become degenerate and evil, because everything homo/bi/transsexual is satanic (obviously), that their children will become gay (too bad that the ones that will be gay are already gay, and you can’t stop it), and that all the lies the church leaders are telling them will actually come true, which of course the won’t, because, well, they’re all lies. The leaders on the other hand, are afraid of losing power and influence, and are afraid their sexist, homophobic doctrines will no longer inspire people to join their church and donate scads of money if the rest of society is showing them that it is ok to treat all people equally and that all humans deserve the same rights, and are created equal, and that real tolerance means that unless someone is harming someone else, you let them do what ever the hell the want.
And that is why I am angry.
well, at least the church will be a little busy hitting up CT for votes as well…in case you haven’t heard:
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hcu-gaymarriage-1010,0,7812756.story
yahoooooooo for sound constitutional judgments!
Thought you might like to read this.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10797630
This looks interesting as well.
http://Mormonsformarriage.org
Hey Jon, I just saw this post at John August’s Web site and thought it might interest you, as it’s about Prop 8:
http://johnaugust.com/archives/2008/i-voted
You can try and get their tax-exempt status revoked:
http://lds501c3.wordpress.com/