You’ve probably already heard about the gay couple who was confronted, thrown to the ground, handcuffed and ejected from Mormon-owned Main Street Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City with a trespassing citation—for a kiss on the cheek. Per the couple, they were also told by disgusted Mormon security guards that their behavior was gross and unnatural.
Here is the Mormon church’s response, via ksl.com (website of the Mormon-owned KSL television channel):
Two individuals came on Church property and were politely asked to stop engaging in inappropriate behavior—just as any other couple would have been. They became argumentative and used profanity and refused to leave the property. They were arrested and then given a citation for criminal trespass by SLPD.
—Mormon spokesperson Kim Farah
“Any other couple,” Mormon spokesperson Kim Farah? So when a heterosexual couple walks across Main Street Plaza holding hands, and one happens to give the other a peck on the cheek, they are routinely confronted by security guards and kicked off Mormon property? What about the heterosexual couples who take engagement or wedding photos on the plaza, photos in which many of them are caught on film kissing and hugging on your church’s property? Do you send your minions to round them up as well for engaging in “inappropriate behavior”?
No, you don’t, and you know you don’t. This couple was approached and kicked out because they were gay and had the audacity to show affection on Mormon church property.
Now, the Mormon church does own Main Street Plaza, and they have the right to refuse entrance to or to eject whomever they please. And maybe this unpleasantness really comes down to a handful of bigoted security guards, and is not official Mormon church policy. But the Mormon church wants to have it both ways: it wants to campaign openly and fiercely against gay rights on a national level, and still pretend to love the gays. Don’t believe them for a second. If an organization that really loved the gays were involved in a situation like this one, they would immediately clarify the behavior policy governing their property (something Farah reportedly has refused to do), apologize for the actions of a few security guards in singling out a gay couple, and announce that those security guards have now either been fired or are undergoing training on how to deal with homosexual couples.
The Mormon church is homophobic. Homophobia is behind all of its anti-gay actions—not love, not tolerance, not high-mindedness, but hate and bigotry. Don’t let them get away with sugar-coating it any longer.
“Why not just shut the he!! up about your sexual proclivity and become productive members of society.” (online comment on a recent news article about marriage equality)
Gays and gay-rights activists hear it all the time. “Why do you talk about your sexual preference all the time? You guys are sex-obsessed. You don’t hear us [heterosexuals] talking about that stuff!”
There are two responses to that: heterosexuals exhibit their sexual preference constantly, all the time, but don’t notice it; and in other cases, heterosexuals don’t need to make their sexual preference clear because theirs is the default/assumed orientation. American society (like most/all societies the world over) is deeply, fundamentally heteronormative. As with other kinds of privilege and bias, it is invisible to the majority, and may even be invisible to many in the homosexual minority. But think about it for a minute.
If you are heterosexual, you may have had to make a decision about when to tell people you are married/seeing someone. But if you are homosexual, talking about your significant other to people who don’t know you are gay is coming out. (In some places, such as the wonderful state I live in, it can get you fired or evicted. For instance.) Ditto to putting photos of your family on your desk at work or bringing your significant other to social functions.
If you are heterosexual, you grew up listening to stories and music that reaffirmed your sexual orientation again and again. If you are homosexual, you almost certainly did not. Love songs are overwhelmingly about heterosexual love. So are fairy tales. So are romance novels, and the love stories in films, and the love stories/marriages in religious texts.
If you are heterosexual, you have never worried about whether it’s safe to hold hands with your significant other in public because of his/her gender. If you are homosexual, that may be all you could think about the first time you went out on a date.
If you are heterosexual, your parents probably have the same sexual orientation you do. In fact, almost everyone you’ve known since you were a baby has had that same sexual orientation. If you are homosexual, this is almost certainly not the case.
If you are heterosexual, you probably have never been asked when you chose to be that way, or been told/had it implied that your sexual orientation is a choice and/or a sin. (If you have, it was probably a gay person ironically turning the tables on you.)
If you are heterosexual, you’ve probably never had to “come out” about your sexual orientation. If you have, those situation are probably few and far between (say, at a predominately gay party). If you are homosexual and you want to be out, you must constantly come out.
Gay people will always be a minority, wild-eyed religious/conservative rhetoric notwithstanding, which means that society will always be mostly heterosexual. But that doesn’t mean society needs to be heteronormative and heterosexist. And the way to try to achieve a mostly-heterosexual-but-not-heteronormative society is if gay people and gay allies make themselves known and make themselves heard.
Happy LGBT Pride Month. Come out as gay or as a gay ally today. Speak out. Make a difference.
Mormon sci-fi/fantasy author Orson Scott Card has made absolutely no secret of three things:
He opposes the gay rights movement (claiming that “by and large homosexuals already have” civil rights), supports criminalization of homosexual activity and opposes gay marriage.
He advocates overthrowing any government that institutes gay marriage.
He does not consider himself a homophobe.
And now he has joined the board of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the group behind the campy “coming storm/rainbow coalition” ad and the hilarious 2M4M.org misfire. NOM claims not to be homophobic as well, but are they willing to embrace Card’s extremist, “non-homophobic” philosophy?
I have personally struggled with being uninsured and underinsured, having to forgo preventive care because I couldn’t afford it and having to turn down prescriptions because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fill them. Being un- or underinsured is a nightmare without end that I would not wish on my worst enemy, but the sad truth is, there are millions of Americans in that situation right now. It is a travesty.
I just signed MoveOn.org Political Action’s petition stating :
Give America a choice. We support health care reform that allows individual Americans to choose either a universally available public health care option like Medicare or for-profit private insurance. A public option is the only way to guarantee health care for all Americans and its inclusion is non-negotiable.
Any legislation without the choice of a public option is only insurance reform and not the health care reform America needs.
Please support President Obama’s health reform. Make sure every American–families, individuals and children–have the medical attention they need. No one should be forced to choose between rent and food and health care.
I just got word from a friend on the Hill that the anti-gay hordes have been pummeling the Governor’s Office with phone calls ever since he came out as supporting the Common Ground Initiatives and civil unions for gay couples. We need to let him know that he has supporters here in Utah—not all of us are crazy-eyed gay-hating nutjobs like Buttars & Ruzicka!
Call the Governor’s Office at 801-538-1000 and tell him you support his pro-gay positions, and thank him for being an ally.
Get out the word—chief anti-gay harpy Gayle Ruzicka has phone trees on her side, but we have the internets!
Thanks to the eightmaps website I just found out that my dad donated $200 dollars to the Yes on 8 anti-marriage campaign last August. Yay for family togetherness, DAD. (And Mom, because we all know who writes the checks and balances the budget, and it certainly isn’t Dad.)
Edited to add: Also discovered that almost all of the Yes on 8 donations from my hometown came from Mormons that I used to know personally, many of them people I considered friends and role models when I was growing up.
According to the ANTI- Label Blog, for every blog that reposts the link to Neko Case’s new single, “People Have a Lot of Nerve,” ANTI- and Neko will donate five dollars to Best Friends Animal Society.
You can either listen to the single on the ANTI- Label Blog or download it directly from ANTI-.
Latest in the popular series “Things Patrons Do and Say that Annoy the Shit out of Me” is an episode that happened last night.
Presumptuous Patron: I have a pronunciation question for you. Me: In which language? PP: English. First, though—are you gay? Me: …yes. PP: I thought so. I work with a wonderful gay man. He’s happily partnered, though, so you can’t have him. [Cracks up at her own wit.] Me: Oookay… PP: When he is doing business, the way he pronounces his words, his preference isn’t obvious. When he talks with other gay men it is, but not at work. Me: Um… PP: Sometimes, when you talk, the way you pronounce things, your preference is really obvious. Me: You know what? I’m not comfortable with this discussion. PP: Well, do you want your preference to be obvious? Me: I’m not comfortable with this discussion. PP: All I’m saying is… Me: I’m not comfortable with this discussion. [I walk away.] PP: [Called after me] I didn’t mean to offend or make you angry!
This patron apparently had good intentions. She only meant to be helpful, after all! And of course she couldn’t know my history of repression, the years of trying and failing to pass as straight, to be straight, and how I finally came out of the closet and learned to accept myself for who I am. In short, she doesn’t know me—which is exactly why she shouldn’t have brought up the subject at all.
An hour later, I was watching the wonderful new Gus van Sant movie, MILK, in which Harvey Milk calls for all American gays and lesbians to come out of the closet, to stop hiding who they are, to make their presence known. The film is truly excellent, and timely as well: Milk’s main fight was against Prop 6, a referendum that would have allowed schools to fire gay teachers as well as those who supported gays or gay rights. Prop 6 failed, against all odds. Three weeks ago, we lost the fight against California’s Prop 8, in which a lot of the same rhetoric about “protecting the children” and “recruiting” and “teaching homosexuality in schools” returned to haunt us. Milk’s example is inspiring, and the movie reminds us never to stop fighting.
My name is Sean Tibbitts, and I am here to recruit you!
In honor of Transgender Awareness Day, I’d like to take this opportunity to come out of the closet.
I am a supporter of transgender rights. First, I support the existence of transgender people. The gender binary—where everyone is slotted into either “male” or “female” roles, with societally approved modes of expression and activities—is false. It does not describe reality, no matter how much certain religions talk about the sacred eternal nature of the gendered soul. Being transgender is not a disease, it is not a perversion, and it is not a disorder.
Second, I support the equality of transgender people. In many states and jurisdictions (including my own) it is still legal to fire transgender people from their job or evict them from their homes simply because of their gender identity or gender expression. Trangender people are many times more likely to be murdered than a cisgender person, and they are also far more likely to be poor, unemployed, depressed and homeless.
I would also like to come out in another sense: I am transgender. I do not consider myself exclusively male or exclusively female, and I never have. It’s time for me to be open about that. Some days, sometimes, I feel very masculine; some days, sometimes, I feel very feminine; and most of the time I feel pretty androgynous. Sure, I usually wear what our society deems “male” clothing, and I have a “male” haircut and hairstyle, and people use the pronouns “he,” “him” and “his” to describe me. But a lot of that is me trying to cover up who I really am: a person with a fairly fluid, non-traditional gender identity.
What is your gender identity? What are your thoughts on transgender issues? Will you come out today as an ally or as a transgendered individual?
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