Dallin Oaks Reaches a New Low in His Crusade Against Teh Gays, and Satan, and Reality
I’ve featured Mormon ‘apostle’ Dallin Oaks and his, er, peculiar take on sexuality and family relations on this blog before ([1], [2]). In some ways, Oaks has become the go-to guy when the Mormon church needs a ponderous, intolerant statement about the homosexuals, perhaps because of his talent for sounding authoritative and paternal even when he’s at his most insane. Such as in a speech he plans on giving at BYU-Idaho (formerly Ricks College), a Mormon-owned school in Rexburg, Idaho. In the speech (according to a copy obtained by the AP), Oaks “refers to gay marriage as an ‘alleged civil right’” and says “[t]he anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern blacks during the civil rights movement.”
W. T. F. He did not just go there. But OH YES HE DID. And he’s standing by it, too!
In an interview Monday before the speech, Oaks said he did not consider it provocative to compare the treatment of Mormons in the election’s aftermath to that of blacks in the civil rights era, and said he stands by the analogy.
“It may be offensive to some—maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era,” he said.
The “anti-Mormon backlash” is exactly what the Mormon church deserved for spending so much time, money and effort taking rights away from an already-oppressed segment of the population. This is a democracy; free speech—including free speech you don’t like!—is everyone’s right. Including Dallin Oaks’s right to stick his foot so far in his mouth it comes out his ass.
EDITED (23:18): Somehow the SL Trib article I linked to in the body of the post changed from the AP story to a related one; I’ve changed the link to the AP story on Fox 13 News Channel’s website.
[SL Trib article] [AP article (on Fox News)]
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October 13th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
They are the ones trying to limit religious freedom. ‘New low’ is exactly right. I understand that he is talking about more than the free speech aspect of the backlash (also vandalism and people losing jobs, etc, and I’m not condoning that) but for him to compare themselves to Southern blacks in the civil rights era is just appalling. Delusional even.
chosha´s last blog ..blasphemer!
October 13th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Did you read the article at all? First off, in regards to post proposition 8 aftermath, Elder Oaks said that the “vandalism of church facilities and harassment of church members by firings and boycotts of member businesses and by retaliation against donors. Mormons were the targets of most of this, but it also hit other churches in the pro-8 coalition and other persons who could be identified as supporters.”
That is what he described as what happened. He then went on to classify the after affects, saying; “As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South”
He is not saying those that speak out against the LDS Church are in the wrong, or comparing that to anti-democratic movements, but what happened to those who voted on Proposition 8 and the destruction of property. That is what he was referring to. He is not comparing the church to the blacks of the South, but that the efforts used against them are the same used against those who supported proposition 8.
The effects are the same, mistreatment for the way they voted. That is what Dallin H. Oaks was saying. Not that the Church was being treated unfairly (apart from the vandalism), but that those who supported and voted for Proposition 8 are the ones who suffered.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Sam, first of all, I’m going to ask you not to link to the Mormon church’s website from my blog. The less traffic LDS.org gets from my website, the better.
Second: yes, thank you, I did read the article, and I think you are being utterly disingenuous in claiming that Oaks didn’t mean to say that Mormons or the Mormon church were “being treated unfairly” or didn’t mean to compare “the church to the blacks of the South”—that’s exactly what he did, in comparing the post-Prop-8 backlash to the vicious and sustained intimidation black voters have faced.
Third, no matter what exact parallels Oaks is drawing, comparing the actions of a privileged group against a minority group (i.e., whites against blacks in the South) to the actions of an unprivileged, oppressed group against a privileged one (i.e., the gay community against the religious community) is invidious, offensive and backwards on its face.
It is also HILARIOUS. I hope the Mormon leaders keep up this ridiculous tear they’re on—by making themselves a laughingstock, they’re doing my job for me. So, so much fun.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:02 am
He’s not comparing the gay community to whites of the south, he’s comparing the actions of what happened. He’s not saying that the LDS Church should be pitied or is the victim. Like a few smears and vandalized property mean that much.
If you noticed, his address was to students at BYU-Idaho, telling them not to fear in voicing their opinions, not saying that the Church is right because of post-prop 8 stuff. So he’s addressing a legitimate concern, to not give up or be silenced just because of people losing jobs, endorsements being lost and all.
Was what he said poorly stated? Yeah, probably. But the point is still true, that regardless of politics and the mood, you should still voice your opinion about politics and the like.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Once again, you are being disingenuous (or rather, you are re-stating your previous disingenuous position). By creating a parallel between the actions of two groups, he is perforce comparing the two groups. You can’t really separate the two!
I’m not even sure what your second paragraph means. It does not seem to be to the point. No one here has said or even implied that Oaks told those BYU-I students “that the Church was right because of post-prop 8 stuff” (my emphasis). So… you should probably explain yourself there.
As for Oaks “addressing a legitimate concern”… no. I won’t even give you that. Mormons (and religious people in general) have a persecution complex. They LOVE to feel persecuted—so much so that they maximize and exaggerate what negative pressure exists and manufacture/imagine up negative pressure when there is none. As Oaks is doing in this talk. This is the United States of America, the most religious industrialized nation in the world. There’s so much de facto respect for and authority given to religion that we’re drowning in it. This potential loss of religious freedom he’s talking about is all in his head. It’s a classic case of a privileged person railing against the loss of undeserved privilege. It is not in any sense a “legitimate concern.”
There’s nothing “probably poorly stated” about his speech. Oaks is no dummy; he knew exactly what he was doing. But he is also an overprivileged patriarchal white male with delusions of divine right. He knows that the young people in the Mormon church are the most vulnerable to seeing their religion for the bullshit-fest it is, so he’s doing his best to placate them with more sweet, conscience-deadening, “I’m the victim here” bullshit. Sure, everyone should speak their minds freely in a democratic society. But that doesn’t mean his talk was about free speech in any real sense, and it doesn’t make his points and comparisons and assertions any less bullshit.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:17 am
[...] Many of these put some satirical effort into deciding what to call it: Is Mormon the new black?, Dallin Oaks Reaches a New Low in His Crusade Against Teh Gays, and Satan, and Reality, Irony, thy name is Dallin H. Oaks, Mormon Leader Calls Kettle Black, and especially Moroni’s [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
First off, I point you to an article that I think is written fairly well on a Mormon Blog. (Not the lds website).
That in part answers the statement of Mormons loving to feel persecution; because it is a part of their past and all that the Church did was ask its members to contribute democratically to Prop 8, which many did. And because of that, because of deciding to define marriage in California as between a man and a women. No rights were lost (No legal or civil rights anyways) and all that was done was vote and donate according to their conscience.
Yes, Elder Oaks shouldn’t have made that comparison to civil rights movement for African Americans to gain the vote, but the comparison between rights being squelched with rights being squelched is not completely uncalled for.
It’s not the same of course, but as things stands and depending on how things go, religious rights are in danger of being threatened. There is potential to drastically change how the LDS Church operates, if it becomes illegal to prevent gays from marrying, then that opens the LDS Temple up to law suits. If it becomes illegal to say on the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin, then that threatens many religions. The boundaries haven’t been drawn and so there is reason to fear for religious rights and autonomy.
The Church has said before in official statements, ignoring Elder Oaks’ statement of “alleged civil rights”, that it doesn’t oppose same gendered couples having the same civil rights as heterosexual couples. Heck, the whole Prop 8 thing was about a definition of marriage, a “social right”, being applied or not applied to same gendered couples.
So yeah, Dallin H. Oaks did stick his foot in his mouth, but there is reason to fear for religious rights.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
You are so grossly misinformed about First Amendment rights that I just don’t know where to start. Religious rights in this country are in no danger. Religions are so protected and double-protected and triple-protected against any kind of government interference that it would be next to impossible for any of the doomsday scenarios you paint to come to pass—and well before that, GODLESS LIBERALS would be throwing up a ruckus to protect the churches yet again! Go inform yourself. It’s not my job to educate you.
You are also completely wrong when it comes to “no rights being lost.” Of course rights were lost! For a few precious months, gay couples were allowed the right to MARRY legally in California, and then that right was stripped from them. You cannot look at the vast effort social conservatives have engaged in for the past decade to deny and deprive gay couples of that right and then say nothing was lost.
I’m afraid I’m going to ask you not to comment here again, Sam. You do nothing but apologize for a church that has done its very best to legislate me and my kind out of existence; to deny the personhood of those of us among its own ranks; and to peddle vicious falsehoods about us on a national scale. It has stooped to allying itself with even worse groups in order to brings its agenda about.
In the future, all comments—from “Sam the Nanti-SARRM” or anyone else—that support, minimize or otherwise attempt to justify the Mormon church’s homophobic behavior will be deleted and the commenters banned. Mormons are welcome as long as they are respectful, but this is not a space for Mormon apologists.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I have a comment, you keep looking at stuff that the Mormon Church and their leaders have said, but what about the stuff that they haven’t said?
Yes, obviously Oak’s comparison between blacks and mormons was very poor in taste, that much is obvious.
But what about all that the church hasn’t said about the states in the east allowing gay marriage, such as Maine? The Mormons haven’t commented on the goings on in Maine, or the other 4 states; Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont. So maybe that’s something to hope for, that they’re slowly changing their response?
Just a thought.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Also, how would you feel about true ‘Separation of Church and State’? Something like how Mexico marries their people, everyone has to be married/civilly joined before a magistrate. Everyone. The Mexican government doesn’t recognize the legality of any religious marriage, so Catholics, Mormon’s, other Christians and everyone else who wants to get married by their religious custom has to be married first civilly, and then they can marry in their religion.
If we applied this, it would solve all manner of griping and put everyone on a level playing field.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
It’s true that the Mormon church higher-ups haven’t made any official comments about the marriage equality fight in New England, Iowa and elsewhere—but I’ve heard anecdotal stories that local Mormon congregations are still heavily involved in those areas. Still, I suppose that’s better than the all-out frontal assault they waged during Prop 8.
On the other hand, I will believe the Mormon church isn’t still funding NOM when that hate organization’s financial info is finally cracked open and laid bare before the world. And even then I would probably suspect underhanded support of some kind.
I’m all for completely dividing civil and religious marriage, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon—the religious community would rage and roar and organize against it, and besides, I don’t really see that it would solve anything, at least as far as gay marriage is concerned. All the bleating about religious rights potentially being curtailed or churches maybe being forced to perform gay marriages is a red herring. If religions can discriminate as much as they want against interracial couples and nonmember couples and so on and so forth, why would they ever be compelled to marry a gay couple? It’s a made-up controversy to cover up their homophobia.
But yes, if I agree that it would result in a more level playing field if everyone had to get the same boring, nonexclusive, nonreligious marriage as everyone else. :D
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:24 am
Weird thing: a few days ago, I was riding in my dad’s car with him and he was listening to this very speech on the radio. It was right at the point where Oaks was talking about how atheists are perpetuating religious intolerance (or something, I don’t really remember). It was only later that I realized it was the same speech.
I agree with you on all points, and I think that Oaks was beyond stupid (to the point of delusional) to compare prop-8 backlash to what civil rights workers have faced. It’s just another example of the Mormon persecution mania.
angryyoungwoman´s last blog ..The same old story
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:25 am
Ha! It says my Twitter is your Twitter! Fixed.
angryyoungwoman´s last blog ..The same old story
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:01 am
Yeah, I’m continually amazed that many people’s first response to our disbelieving horror at Oaks’s remarks is, “You need to read the whole speech. You’re blowing a small part of it out of proportion.”
First, I don’t think it would be possible to “blow out of proportion” such an insenstive, self-centered racist whine. I mean, it’s quite enough by itself.
Second, adding the rest of the speech makes it worse! He is openly doing his best to fuel his Mormon listeners’ paranoia about atheists and gays, to reinforce their persecution complex and to distort their understanding of the constitutional protections offered to religious belief and practice.
I have no respect for the man. He’s either a smooth-talking, conscienceless liar or a complete ignoramus about EVERY SUBJECT I’VE EVER HEARD HIM SPEAK ON. And he was once on the Utah Supreme Court! Unbelievable.