Mormon right responds to Church
“America Forever” faxed its members a screed decrying the Church’s support for an LGBT law.
Tags: Mormon Church, ScreedFilm documents Mormon role in gay marriage debate
(Salt Lake City) Reed Cowan’s reasons for making a film about the Mormon church’s activism against gay marriage in California are personal.
Himself gay and Mormon, Cowan clashed with his family over his sexual orientation and the beliefs of their faith, but it was a conversation between him and a sibling …
Tags: Activism, California Personal, Faith, Film Documents, Film Gay, Gay California, Gay Marriage Debate, Gay Marriage In California, Gay Personal, marriage, Mormon Church, Personal Gay, Reed Cowan, Salt Lake City, Sexual Orientation, SiblingDustin Lance Black: ‘I’m thrilled’ with Mormon gay rights news
Check out the interview with ex-Mormon and Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black on how the latest move by the Mormon Church may be a signal the religion is shifting on gay rights:
Tags: Black Gay, Ex Mormon, Gay News, gay rights, Milk, Mormon Church, Religion, Rights NewsHRC statement on Mormon church and gay rights
From HRC:
Today the LDS church announced its support for an inclusive anti-discrimination law in Salt Lake City.
STATEMENT FROM HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN RELIGION AND FAITH PROGRAM DIRECTOR HARRY KNOX:
“This has happened in the LDS Church because people are telling their clergy leaders they believe the church should be about lifting people …
Salt Lake OKs gay rights laws with Mormon backing
(Salt Lake City) The Mormon church for the first time has announced its support of gay rights legislation, an endorsement that helped gain unanimous approval for Salt Lake city laws banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment.
The Utah-based church’s support ahead of Tuesday night’s vote came despite its steadfast …
Tags: Discrimination, Endorsement, Gay Rights Legislation, Gays, Mormon Church, Salt Lake City, Tuesday Night, Unanimous Approval, VoteGay marriage fight, `kiss-ins’ smack Mormon image
(Salt Lake City) The Mormon church’s vigorous, well-heeled support for Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California last year, has turned the Utah-based faith into a lightning rod for gay rights activism, including a nationwide “kiss-in” Saturday.
The event comes after gay couples here and in San Antonio and El …
Tags: Faith, Gay Couples, Gay Kiss, Gay Marriage In California, Gay Rights Activism, Image, Ins, Lightning Rod, marriage, Mormon Church, Nationwide, Salt Lake City, San AntonioGay Kiss Arrests In Utah Defended By Mormon Church
In the wake of one “kiss-in” protest carried out last Sunday and ahead of another one planned for this Sunday, the LDS Church issued a statement Friday defending its Main Street Plaza property rights and its actions involving a pair of men cited there last week for their public displays of affection.
Echoing previous comments made by a church spokeswoman following the July 9 incident, Friday’s statement said the pair were asked “to stop engaging in behavior deemed inappropriate for any couple of the plaza,” which was “more involved than a simple kiss on the cheek.”
“They engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language and had obviously been using alcohol,” the statement continued. “They were politely told that the plaza was not the place for such behavior and asked to stop. When they became belligerent, the two individuals were asked to leave church property.”
The two — Derek Jones and Matthew Aune — were detained by church security, cited by Salt Lake police for trespassing, an infraction of city ordinances, and later released.
The police report stated that Aune said the two had been drinking earlier at the Gallivan Center. After leaving and passing through the plaza, they sat down and he kissed Jones. Aune told police that when the two were confronted by church security and asked to leave, he refused, and he was slammed to the ground as security detained the pair with handcuffs.
See Gay Kiss Arrests In Utah Defended By Mormon Church
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LDS Church calls cops on gays
After seeing a gay couple kissing, Mormon Church security had them arrested for trespassing.
Tags: Cops, Couple Kissing, Gay Couple, Gays, Lds Church, Mormon ChurchHow Far Will Mormons Go to Fight Gay Marriage?
If a gay marriage question is put on the California ballot in 2010, it will put the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at a seriously interesting crossroads.
It has been three or four decades since the Mormon Church chose a low profile in American politics, after its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and theological hostility to black Americans, spurred an anti-Mormon backlash. The Mormons are among the most persecuted of American sects, and highly sensitive to criticism.
The church’s low-key strategy seemed to work. There are still some Mormon-haters in evangelical Christian circles, but for the most part the Mormons are accepted and admired, and church membership has soared. Mormon politicians like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman are regarded by mainstream America as legitimate presidential timber.
Mormon watchers were surprised, then, when the church hierarchy took such an active role in the passage of Proposition 8 in California, limiting marriage to a man and a woman. Gay Americans were surprised as well. They didn’t expect the church to embrace gay marriage, but neither did they predict that the Mormon Church would emerge as a resolute and politically-active foe, whose support for Prop 8 was perhaps determinative. Some of the resultant anti-Mormon rhetoric has been vicious.
Now that Prop 8 has been upheld by the California Supreme Court, gay rights groups say they will put gay marriage on the ballot in California again, and mount a full scale effort to win public approval, perhaps as soon as 2010.
That will put the ball back in the church’s court. The family is at the center of Mormon theology. But the national political trends are running against the church. Younger Americans—even young evangelicals—are more than willing to see their gay friends get married.
Opposing gay marriage in Utah (as the church did in 2004) is one thing, but taking a lead public role in a national campaign to deprive a persecuted minority of a right shared by all other Americans is another. It would be seen as a sign that the days of low-key tactics are over, and that the current Mormon leaders are prepared to give, and get, the political bruising that occurs when religion mixes with politics in America.
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As more states take up…
As more states take up the debate on same-sex marriage, some advocates of legalization are taking a very specific lesson from California, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominated both fundraising and door-knocking to pass a ballot initiative that barred such unions. With the battle moving east, some advocates are shouting that fact in the streets, calculating that on an issue that eventually comes down to comfort levels, more people harbor apprehensions about Mormons than about homosexuality. “The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!” warned ads placed on newspaper Web sites in three Eastern states last month. The ad was rejected by sites in three other states, including Maine, where the Kennebec Journal informed Californians Against Hate that the copy “borders on insulting and denigrating a whole set of people based on their religion.” “I’m not intending it to harm the religion. I think they do wonderful things. Nicest people,” said Fred Karger, a former Republican campaign consultant who established Californians Against Hate. “My single goal is to get them out of the same-sex marriage business and back to helping hurricane victims.”
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