(Chicago, Illinois) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says that an Illinois bishop was acting alone in sending an e-mail to members of his ward urging them to oppose a civil union bill before the state legislators.

But the Utah-based denomination has not ruled out becoming involved in the issue in the future.

The e-mail, sent to at least one LDS ward in Illinois, was authorized by Bishop Chris Church of the Nauvoo, Illinois, 3rd Ward, and was sent out by that website’s ward administrator.  

It urges members of the church to call their local legislators and tell them to oppose the bill.  The e-mail claims that civil unions would “empower the public schools to begin teaching this lifestyle to our young children regardless of parental requests otherwise.”  It goes on to also claim that “it will also create grounds for rewriting all social mores.” 

The e-mail raised the concerns of national LGBT civil rights groups.  The Mormon Church was instrumental in the passage of anti-gay measures in a number of states.

It was heavily involved in the Proposition 8 campaign in California, a voter-based initiative that prohibits same-sex marriage in that state, a similar constitutional amendment in Arizona and the defeat this year of a package of LGBT rights bills in Utah called the Common Ground Initiative.

The e-mail prompted the Human Rights Campaign to issue an alert to its members.

See Mormon church says bishop acting alone in civil union fight

365Gay.com -

The day after Proposition 8, a Mormon supported ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage, passed in California, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints released a formal statement saying, “the church does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.”

Last week however, a Utah bill that would have allowed two people who live together and who are mutually dependent and named in a will or trust to a wrongful death court action if a tragedy occurred, was defeated in a state senate committee after opponents of the bill argued that offering any legal recognition to same-sex couples, including the right to sue when a breadwinner suffers a wrongful death, could lead to a court decision legalizing gay marriage.

This week in an effort to sway voters in that state and prevent other of Equality Utah’s legislative initiative’s remaining bills from going down in flames, Equality Utah has come out swinging with a major multimedia ad blitz that turn the tables and proclaims…

“The Church does not object to rights for same-sex couples …”

In a press statement Equality Utah said…

Several polls have indicated that the majority of Utahns support the reasonable and basic protections provided for in the legislation of the Common Ground
Initiative.

Yet lawmakers rebuffed one of the Common Ground Initiative bills last week, recalling tired arguments that the proposals are somehow an attack on traditional marriage.

Far from pessimistic about the ability of Utah legislators see passed the tired arguments that surfaced during last week’s hearing, Equality Utah has launched a media campaign to help raise awareness of the reasonableness and broad public support of the basic ideals of the Common Ground Initiative.

“We’ve modeled our legislative proposals directly from the statements of the LDS Church,” said Mike Thompson, Equality Utah’s Executive Director. “We’re talking about basic rights that have broad public support and have nothing to do with marriage. We hope this media campaign will help Utahns see passed the fear-based arguments used against this legislation.”

More of Equality Utah uses the LDS own words in a new campaign for Gay Rights
Lez Get Real – Washington DC,District of Columbia,USA

A Utah Senate committee voted down 4-2 the first in a series of Common Ground Initiatives that support basic rights for the gay and lesbian people of Utah. The reasons given were that this is a “slippery slope” and that this legislation may lead to the “chipping away [of] the definition of marriage.” But this is not about marriage.

It is about civil rights. This is about a recognized group of people, accomplished and contributing, who are not protected by the law of this land. The rights to fair housing and employment protections, inheritance and hospitalization visits are basic civil liberties that are being denied to our neighbors, teachers, business owners, families and friends.

It’s not about marriage; it’s about finding common ground. I am a teacher in the valley and I know as well as anyone that students are products of their environments: their families, churches, neighbors and legislators. In a classroom activity about stereotypes, a third of my students replied that homosexual people are “deformed, horrifying.” That they are “scary people,” “rapists” and they are “insane” or have “a mental condition.” Allowing these misinformed attitudes to go unchecked is a slippery slope.

This is not about marriage; this is about what students are learning.

This is about raising future generations of people who, despite their differences, can see and respect all people for who they are. If our legislators are not willing to grant

 See Children learn bigotry at home, in their neighborhoods
Salt Lake Tribune, United States -

President Thomas S. Monson: You have mail – boxes of it.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) delivered 27,000 letters to LDS Church headquarters Monday – all of them asking the Mormon leader to support legal protections for gay and transgender Utahns.

The national gay-rights group has endorsed Equality Utah’s Common Ground Initiative, a collection of bills that would, among other things, provide rights to fair housing and employment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Utahns and domestic-partner benefits for same-sex couples.

The movement was born in response to statements the LDS Church made in the wake of California’s Proposition 8 – which eliminated gay marriage in the Golden State – that the church “does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights or probate rights.”

Monson and other LDS leaders helped to get the gay-marriage ban enacted, urging members to donate their time and money to the campaign and, later, igniting opponents’ protests at LDS temples and calls for boycotts of Utah.

“The reason there’s such an uproar is every LGBT person in the United States was affected by it,” since Proposition 8 stripped away rights that had been granted to gay couples, said Jerry Rapier, a Salt Lake City resident and member of the HRC’s board of governors.

 See 27000 letters urge LDS leader to back rights of gay Utahns
Salt Lake Tribune, United States -