Mormon Mark Janssen Involved in Ridiculous Yes on 8 Intimidation Attempts
A few days ago, the Yes on 8 campaign sent out letters to businesses that had donated to Equality California, implying that their business’s name was being tarnished by association, and basically threatening to “out” them as gay-rights supporters if they didn’t donate an equal amount to Yes on 8.
You can read the entire text of one of the letters on the No on 8 website. Notice that Yes on 8 obtained these business’s names directly from the donor page on the Equality Utah site, which makes their threat to “publish” a list of “companies and organizations that choose not to donate in like manner to ProtectMarriage.com but have given to Equality California” an empty one. Also note the infelicitous phrasing. Can no one at Yes on 8 write a reasonable business letter?
Further note the signatures at the end of the letter: Ron Prentice, Yes on 8 campaign chair; Edward Dolesji, executive director of the California Catholic Conference; Andrew Pugno, attorney for the Yes on 8 campaign . . . and Mark Janssen, who is identified in several news articles, including this Associate Press article, as a member of the Mormon church.
This is the same Mormon church that has poured millions of dollars into the Yes on 8 campaign, pressured its members to donate their time and energy to the cause, and openly spread lies and half-truths in an attempt to win support for the proposition.
For shame, Mark Janssen. For shame, Mormon president Thomas Monson. If your cause really were just, if your motives really were pure, if your god really were behind you, you would not need to stoop to lying and intimidation to convince people to join you. Give up these tactics and follow the tenets of your own religion, or everyone will know what a bunch of hating hypocrites you are. And that’s not a threat, it’s simply a fact.
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October 25th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I heard about this. How awful! You’d think corporate blackmail would be illegal.
My husband wrote up a post about this situation and said he has a problem with the way this campaign of Yes on 8 is being funded. He said whether or not you believe it’s right, he can’t imagine that Christ, were he to come back to earth right now, would condone mudslinging campaign tactics.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
For shame indeed. Unfortunately, I don’t think many of these people feel shame.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Bigotry begets all its evil cousins. The Mormon Church has really come to represent all that is wrong with religious zealousness when it comes to the affiars of government. It is all about power play and positioning…there is nothing inspired at all.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:46 am
Ramen.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I am sad that gay marriage supporters are so angry against Mormons who are exercising their right to vote and speak according to the dictates of their conscience in support of something sacred to them.
I am an LDS member who mourns hatred and mistreatment of gays. I stand with you in advocating respect and tolerance of all people.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
“Exercised their right to vote” is a mealy-mouthed euphemism. Why don’t we call it what it really was: “violated the rights of millions of people based on misplaced religious conviction.”
I’m glad you mourn hatred and mistreatment of gays. I just hope you realize what an unjust, intolerant measure Prop 8 was.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
In fact, Mormons, African Americans, Latinos, and people of many other faiths and ethnicities did what all U.S. citizens should – voice what they believe to be true regardless of the potential consequences. This includes supporters of gay marriage; I respect their right to speak and vote in favor of their views – In fact, I expect them to. But in addition to speaking, there must be understanding on both sides. Unfortunately, many are now classifying disagreement as bigotry and denying others the right to disagree and express their views.
As far as prop 8 goes, I support gays having the rights they desire and need, and this means that if civil unions do not currently allow for such rights, I support their expansion. But this doesn’t mean that heterosexual and homosexual relationships need be legally classified as the same thing. In reality, they do not play the same roles in bearing and rearing new generations of children.
Regardless of my position on prop 8, however, I believe change can happen which will bring about the respect gays deserve, and it can be done without promoting further hatred. I understand gays want and need respect, but it need not be at the expense of the democratic process. Again, I stand with people of all faiths, all ethnicities, and all sexual orientations in advocating respect, tolerance, and understanding.
November 8th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
“voice what they believe to be true”
“disagreement”
“disagree and express their views”
Again with the euphemisms. Whatever the secondary effects were, Prop 8 had one primary effect: to take away the right of marriage from gay couples, a right that is guaranteed by the California State Constitution. This is what anyone who voted for Prop 8 was doing: stripping a constitutional right from a segment of the population. However constitutionally sacrosanct the right to vote is, the fact is that in this case their vote was for intolerance, bigotry and oppression. That, along with the hateful, misleading, slanderous ads and rhetoric thrown about by the Yes on 8 campaign is quite enough reason in and of itself for us to get angry. Very angry.
As for your magnanimous offer on the one hand to allow us to expand the rights and privileges of civil unions, while withholding marriage on the other hand: Thanks but no thanks. “Separate but equal” is not equal. If you are going to deny us the right to equal status, you are going to have to do better than an unfounded assertion like “[straight marriages and gay unions] do not play the same roles in bearing and rearing new generations of children,” especially in the face of all the gay couples that are raising children in exactly the same way as straight couples. Go to utahcog.blogspot.com and tell Scot and Rob all about their deviant gay parenting. I dare you.
You are being arrogant and condescending, Willard. As pleased as we are to have any allies, this is not your fight, and you do not get to speak for us or to define the terms of the battle. Check your privilege at the door or leave.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I have not intended to display arrogance or to make you feel belittled. If I have, I apologize and ask you to forgive me. As for your charge that this is not my fight, may I remind you that this post is about my religion.
May I also clarify that gays can be excellent parents, just as heterosexuals can be awful ones. I was not trying to suggest that gays make worse parents but was trying to point out that heterosexual couples provide, on a large scale, entire generations of new children, where as homosexuals can only become parents through very costly means such as adoption or medically supervised fertilization. This does not make heterosexual people better than homosexual ones, but it means that these relationships mean different things to our civilization.
Again, though, I apologize if I have offended you. I have not intended to suggest that my ideas are the only ones which should be heard but am merely trying to open sincere, earnest communication. I hope you will continue to make your ideas heard but that you will do so with the understanding that people who disagree with you deserve to be respected and represented honestly as well.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Again your reasoning is faulty. This is 21st-century America, not the Dark Ages—fertility has nothing to do with a couple being granted a marriage license. If infertility isn’t held against millions of heterosexual couples who want to get married, why should it be held against gay couples? You are also ignoring the fact that many lesbian couples are raising children they bore by the usual method. The fact that these children are from a previous (heterosexual) union shouldn’t be held against them any more than it is held against most stepparents who want to marry and adopt their partner’s children. You are holding gay unions to a double standard. That is what is offensive. You are condescendingly offering compromises you wouldn’t accept for yourself. That is what is offensive. Truly try to put yourself in the shoes of a gay person and you’ll see why your arguments are infuriating and unacceptable.
And of course I was speaking of the fight for gay rights and gay marriage, not a fight against Mormons. So no, it is not your fight.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
You find my arguments flawed because, instead of really considering them, you reduce them to straw men. I see what you mean about it not being my fight, and yet aren’t I as important a person to communicate with as anyone? Shouldn’t you be glad to have found someone eager to talk about this issue? Here I am, ready to talk, but you seem to want to talk only with people who already agree with you. This makes me wonder if, instead of wishing to bring people into genuine agreement with you, you want to simply force them to give in.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
No, I’m considering what you’ve written. If you have stronger arguments to make as to why gays should not be allowed full legal marriage than the two flimsy versions already on the table, feel free to make them. I will excerpt your previous claims below:
“In reality, they [gay unions and straight marriages] do not play the same roles in bearing and rearing new generations of children”
and
“Heterosexual couples provide, on a large scale, entire generations of new children, where as homosexuals can only become parents through very costly means such as adoption or medically supervised fertilization.”
I find these arguments offensively weak, as if you couldn’t even be bothered to defend them properly. I am out of patience with people who think they can take my rights and then hide behind religious devotion or “let’s all be civil.” I have no respect for religion as religion and I am done being civil on this subject. I will do my best not to make personal attacks, but I will be blunt and I will not spare your feelings or your religious beliefs.
So. Defend your thesis as to why your rights should be intact while mine are not. Stop whining and have at it.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Do gays not have rights through domestic partnerships? Why should gay relationships be considered the same as heterosexual ones when, in fact, civilizations need heterosexual relationships to provide numerous offspring. Consider the problems growing in European countries that have legalized gay marriage, Italy, for one, which is now offering women 15,000 dollars to bear children because it is facing a declining population with greater need for service providers as well as lessening demand for goods which is further weakening their economy.
Also, there is the issue of children being raised in a home which is truly diverse – which provides as many children as possible with experience of the only real categorical difference between human beings – male and female.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Why are gays not content to have rights? They can obtain all the rights they desire through domestic partnerships, and yet they push and push to call two different things the same. When others don’t go along, they are targeted as bigots.
November 8th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
OOOOooooookay, Willard. That was the line, and you just crossed it. All of your previous comments have been wrong-headed, illogical, arrogant and unsupported, but the sheer arrogance and offensiveness of this last one is simply not acceptable.
You are now no longer allowed to leave comments on this site. Any further comments will be deleted unread. I’m sorry you aren’t interested in intelligent discussion, and have instead descended to this level. Goodbye.
November 9th, 2008 at 8:07 am
A few months back, at a celebration of our ruling which required recognition of same-sex marriages in NY State, I gave a speech which addresses civil union versus marriage. In part:
…the fact is that marriage DOES matter and what we call it matters as well. When it was suggested that he “go slow,” “settle for less,” or “compromise,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:
What is implied here is the amazing assumption that society has a right to bargain with the Negro for the freedom which inherently belongs to him. Some of the most vocal liberals believe they have a valid basis for demanding that, in order to gain certain rights, the Negro ought to pay for them out of the funds of patience and passivity… to accept half a loaf and to pay for that half by waiting willingly for the other half to be distributed in crumbs over a hard and protracted winter of injustice….
Civil unions are a consolation prize, offered by those who would deny us the basic human dignity of marriage but who, for whatever reason, are trying to ease their own guilt in having supported that discrimination.
The ruling requiring recognition of our marriage is a positive step forward but there is still much work to be done. We must all work together to form one very LOUD voice in Albany, telling our state lawmakers that we will not accept that half loaf of bread.