Alone and Unobserved

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)]

Mormon sci-fi/fantasy author Orson Scott Card has made absolutely no secret of three things:

1. 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.
2. He advocates overthrowing any government that institutes gay marriage.
3. 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?

Read more about Orson Scott Card’s non-homophobia and his position on the NOM board in this People For the American Way press release.

That I’m in contact with any of my old friends is a miracle—specifically a Facebook miracle. It’s thanks to Facebook that I’m still in touch with former roommates, former BYU friends, former dance partners, former fellow grad students, former coworkers, former professors and former boyfriends, as well as cousins, aunts, online acquaintances, fellow atheists, fellow ex-Mormons, fellow gays and so on and so forth.

I’m beginning to wonder if this is really a good thing. I just lost a friend, primarily because of what each of us has posted openly online (see the comments on this post). She is a practicing, faithful Mormon who supported Prop 8 and who opposes same-sex marriage because she believes homosexual sex is a sin. In fact, like many other Mormons and many fundamentalist Christians, she doesn’t even believe homosexuality exists, per se. She has written a great deal about her views on her blog.

I, on the other hand, am a confirmed atheist ex-Mormon gay man who believes the Mormon church is a man-made organization that is characterized by bigotry, lies and self-righteousness. I believe Proposition 8 was motivated by intolerance and deception and homophobia, and that the Mormon church bears a great deal of the blame for its passing. Just last weekend I participated in a protest against the Mormon church’s opposition to gay rights and support of Prop 8. I have also made no secret of any of these things on my blog.

So she found my blog and was horrified and upset by what she found here, and I found her blog and was horrified and upset in my turn. I wrote a blog post in which I speculated cynically about the true reasons behind the Mormon church and its members’ opposition to gay marriage. She wrote a hurtful comment in response, in which she questioned my integrity and called me bitter and closed-minded. I wrote a cold rebuttal, which I closed by stating that I didn’t feel much friendship for her anymore. She agreed.

Are there some former acquaintanceships that are worth preserving, at least for nostalgia’s sake, but which are too fragile to handle the constant barrage of truth and stream-of-consciousness honesty that accompany an online relationship? Would Summer and I still consider ourselves “friends” if neither of us had a blog and neither of us was on Facebook? Is it possible to preserve a friendship by willfully refusing to know the truth about another person?

Just a few years ago, Summer’s devotion to the Mormon church and opposition to same-sex marriage would have been things we had in common, not things that drove us apart or set us at odds. People change. Our ideas of what friendship is also change.

And then there is my family. I don’t really discuss these subjects with them, but I’m Facebook friends with several of my siblings, and I’ve seen their status updates and the causes they’ve joined. And I’m sure they’ve seen my statuses and notes and causes. How is it possible to preserve a relationship, knowing what we know about each other?

[Updated with photos and new fave signs!]

“In their statement on Prop 8, the LDS Church said they aren’t against domestic partnerships, hospital visitation rights, anti-discrimination laws. Well, we’re going to go up on the Hill and start fighting for you, for those issues. If it’s good enough for our brothers and sisters in California, it’s good enough for us right here in Utah.”

I went to the gay rights protest at Temple Square last night, and it was one of the most amazing single experiences of my life. I’ve only ever been to one other protest—an anti-war protest three years ago—and somehow, despite the massive popularity of Gay Pride every year, I never expected to be involved in such an enormous gay-rights protest in the heart of Salt Lake City. Thousands of people showed up. The Tribune says at least 3,000, the Deseret news says 3,500. My friend Craig was interviewed on ABC4 evening news (you can watch the video on his blog). We rallied at City Creek Park—kitty-corner from the Church Office Building—and then marched around Temple Square twice, waving our signs and chanting.

Signs I liked:

• [Craig's sign] Keep your doctrine out of our covenants!
• [My sign] Not here to get even—here to get EQUAL
• Thanks a lot, Mormon Church—now we have to have pre-marital sex.
• Joseph Smith had 34 wives—I only want 1 husband!
• D&C 134:4: We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others
• I pay taxes. The LDS Church does not. I’m who should be represented.

“I grew up a Mormon boy in Salt Lake, Logan and Ogden, Utah, and there were many things I treasure from my upbringing. I learned that community is important. I learned that we need to care for and love each other. . . . Unfortunately, there were other things I learned as a Mormon boy. I learned that African-Americans were inferior because the color of their skin was the Mark of Cain, given to them because of sins they committed in the previous life. I learned that gay and lesbian people (we called them “homosexuals” then) were inferior people involved in perversion. But I have overcome those bigotries, largely because of the wonderful people of your community I have come to know over the years.”

The atmosphere at the rally was electric. Three out gay state legislators spoke—Senator Scott McCoy and Reps. Jackie Biskupski and Christine Johnson—as well as former mayor Rocky Anderson. All three were inspirational, urging us not to hate but to use our fire to effect change.

I would not have believed that this many people would come out to support gay equality in Utah. But it happened. And that gives me a great deal of hope.

Proposition 8 just passed in California, amending the state constitution to take the right to marry away from gay couples. And I will be blunt: I blame the Mormon church.

When the fight was just gearing up this summer it seemed like official Mormon involvement would be minimal, limited to a letter the Mormon prophet sent out to congregations, which stated the church’s position on gay marriage—guess what? they’re against it!—and urged members to “do all they could” to support the proposition. The letter caused a minor furor in online Mormon-adjacent communities, especially among ex-Mormons and those who supported gay rights, or who at least thought the Mormon church should keep its nose out of politics. Looking back at the post I wrote at the time, all I can think is how naïve I was to allow something so small upset me! Because what followed was much, much worse.

On October 8, 2008, the Mormon church really entered the fray with an anti-gay-marriage broadcast shown to BYU students and to congregations all over California. Involved in this thinly disguised political rally were four high-ranking Mormon “general authorities”:

• Russell Ballard, a former car salesman, who is now one of twelve “apostles” in the Mormon church leadership
• Quentin Cook, a former attorney, also an “apostle”
• David Bednar, a former business professor and educator, also an “apostle”
• Whitney Clayton, a former attorney and “President of the Seventy” in the Mormon church (basically one step below “apostle”)

During the broadcast, all four men made it clear that they were not interested in truth, regurgitating falsehoods that had already been debunked, trotting out the old conservative whine about activist judges, and repeating a definition of “tolerance” that you won’t find in any dictionary except the one in Mr. Ballard’s head. And then the kicker: the Mormon church would be asking thirty people in each California congregation to donate at least four hours a week for Yes on 8 grassroots efforts. With 1,367 congregations, that’s 41,010 volunteers! (
You can read a full transcript of the broadcast here.)

And they were as good as their word. Members were pressured to donate to Yes on 8, with many of the richer members being asked for a specific figure, usually at least a thousand dollars. (Estimates of what percentage of the Yes on 8 campaign was funded by Mormons range from 40% to 77%.) There is anecdotal evidence that Mormon leaders threatened to withhold temple recommends from members who didn’t support Prop 8, and at least one Mormon has been excommunicated for speaking out against it.

The slander, misrepresentations and lies continued throughout the campaign, both from Mormon pulpits and from the Mormon-bankrolled Yes on 8 campaign. And it worked! Five million people went to the polls in California two days ago and voted against full equality for their gay and lesbian co-citizens.

I am convinced that Mormon support and pressure made all the difference in the Prop 8 campaign. And now that it seems the Mormon church has won, now that they’ve managed to wrest the right to marry away from those presumptuous, uppity homosexuals, now that they’ve successfully enshrined anti-gay prejudice in the constitution of the State of California? Now they are asking for “civility, respect and love.” “We hope that everyone would treat [each other] that way no matter which side of this issue they were on,” Whitney Clayton was quoted as saying today in the Salt Lake Tribune. “We’re not anti-gay, we’re pro marriage between a man and a woman.”

Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Clayton. You don’t get to ask for civility and respect and love now. You may not have ever raised your voice and you may not have ever called us faggots, but your actions and the actions of your cronies have been so egregiously wrong, so devastating to the lives of thousands, including children, that you don’t get to ask for anything anymore.

I don’t really blame individual members for believing what their leaders told them, or even for their involvement in canvassing and other grassroots efforts. I blame the Mormon leaders themselves. These are not stupid men. Many of them were practicing attorneys and law professors—they cannot possibly believe their own lying rhetoric when it comes to the legal and social consequences gay marriage would supposedly have. They cannot possibly be so blind, and they cannot possibly be so confused.

And so I have no other option but to believe that they are willfully misleading the faithful for their own ends. They are lying to and manipulating millions of people who look up to them as inspired spokesmen of god. And that is my definition of evil.

By now you’ve all heard the arguments the Yes on 8 or Yes on 102 or Yes on Amendment 2 folks have made for why gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry. And you’ve also heard that the Mormon church has once again entered the fray in California, pouring thousands of dollars and thousands of volunteer hours into the Yes on 8 campaign and preaching against gay marriage at every possibility.

Here is why Mormons shouldn’t care about gay marriage, and here also is why they really do.

Reasons Mormons Shouldn’t Care about Gay Marriage

Reason #1: Mormons believe the only real marriages are called “sealings” and are contracted in Mormon temples between a worthy Mormon man and a worthy Mormon woman. According to Mormon doctrine, sealings were instituted by god in the Garden of Eden, when he married Adam and Eve “for time and all eternity.” So every single other marriage in the world—civil or religious—is a “redefinition” of marriage, from the Mormon viewpoint. And yet Mormons aren’t campaigning to take away non-Mormon straight marriage.

Reason #2: Mormons have totally been on the other side of this issue. Remember polygamy? Remember how today the Mormon church totally tries to distance itself from polygamy in every way, but how they were totally all about it until, like, 1910? And how the Republican Party was founded on the twin-plank platform of getting rid of slavery… and polygamy? And how an army invaded Utah when the Mormon church wouldn’t capitulate? Yeah.

Reason #3: Mormons believe in religious freedom and in the separation of church and state. Or at least they should, according to their own scriptures, penned by Mormonism founder Joseph Smith. Read Doctrine and Covenants Section 102 of you don’t believe me. Also the Eleventh Article of Faith.

We believe that religion is instituted of God, and that men are amenable to him and to him only for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinion opinions prompts them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul. . . .

We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil Government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.
(D&C 102:4,9)

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let the worship how, where, or what they may.
(11th Article of Faith)

Why Mormons REALLY Care about Gay Marriage

Because their church has told them to care. Also, for many of them, because they find the idea of gay sex icky. Per Green Dads:

The next time you hear anyone speak in opposition to gay marriage, take every word that comes out of their mouth and replace it with “penis, penis, penis” or “vagina, vagina, vagina” because that is exactly what they are really thinking. We all know it and so do they; and sooner or later we’re all going to have to admit the truth of what’s really going on here. Opponents of gay marriage should be ashamed of themselves; they are the real perverts here. (full article)

Why does the Mormon church care? Well… it doesn’t. It couldn’t care less about gays getting married, per se. What the Mormon church cares about is gays being fully accepted in society.

And why does the Mormon church care about social acceptance of gays and their relationships? Because, as a patriarchy, it is so deeply invested in the idea of “traditional” ’50s-style gender roles that it has no choice but to be homophobic. Gays and their relationships threaten the Cleaver-family model by their very existence.

And why does the Mormon church care about the acceptance of gays in California, when it hasn’t intervened on this scale in Massachusetts or Connecticut or anywhere else? Because California has something those other places doesn’t: masses and masses of Mormons, which means masses and masses of relatives and friends of Utahns. And if there’s one thing that scares and mobilizes the Mormon church, it’s the idea of gays gaining any kind of traction in Utah.

Oppose homophobia, even if it’s wrapped up in lies about “protecting the family.” If you are in a state with an anti-gay-marriage measure on the ballot, VOTE AGAINST IT. If you live elsewhere, or can’t vote, add your voice to those speaking out against such measures.

But most importantly, whatever your beliefs (but especially if you agree with me), get out and vote.

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.

The Courage Campaign, a progressive California PAC, has written an open letter to Mormon church president Thomas Monson, decrying the lies that have filled the Mormon-funded and -backed Proposition 8 and urging him to withdraw support for the proposition and to stop meddling in California politics.

Go read the letter at couragecampaign.org and, if you agree with it, sign your name! The letter will be delivered to the Mormon Los Angeles temple on Tuesday, which… well, I don’t know why they’re taking it there, or if it will ever actually get to Monson. But it’s a great letter!

If you are a Mormon who wants to come out against Prop 8, consider writing a letter of your own and posting it at SigningforSomething.org or including your personal story at MormonsforMarriage.com.

My friend Craig (of yes, i am) has officially entered his Angry Bitter Gay Ex-Mormon phase. We all saw the signs: the growing circle of gay/ex-mo friends he was amassing; his forceful blog posts speaking out against religion, Mormonism and homophobia; his increasing frustration with his conservative Mormon acquaintances and their stubborn insistence that he respect their beliefs in silence; the friction with his parents and siblings; and his attendance at the Exmormon Foundation Conference this last weekend. Angry! Gay! Bitter!

A couple weeks ago he finally snapped. After a frustrating Facebook chat on the subject of gay rights/marriage with a former roommate—the Mormoniest of all of his Mormony BYU roommates—Craig went on a Facebook rampage, cutting his virtual ties with all the closet bigots of his acquaintance. He is no longer connected to anyone who has posted a “Yes on 8!” status, joined a Prop 8 group, or publicly sided with the “Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman” cause.

When he told me about his crusade I made sympathetic noises, because of course he is angry, of course he is frustrated, and you have to do something or you’ll explode. But as much as I sympathized, I didn’t join him, even as I watched more and more of my Facebook friends line up behind Proposition 8. I figured information was bound to flow both ways; it was worth it to stay connected to these acquaintances and bear the sting of their small virtual betrayals, as long as they were willing to put up with my 500 “queerosexual” status updates on National Coming Out Day.

Well, a few days ago one of my distant, conservative Mormon acquaintances posted a long, incoherent rant in support of Proposition 8 on her Facebook profile, in which she cribbed heavily from Mormon-run preservemarriage.com. To whit: she had at first been against the proposition, but when she found out that it wouldn’t take any rights away from homosexuals, and that gay marriage would put her own religious rights in danger!!!, she knew she had to speak out.

Do not even get me started on the subject of religious rights.

Oops. Too late!

The United States is one of the most religious industrialized nations in the world. The overwhelming majority of Americans identifies not just as religious but as Christian, and the insidious idea that America is a “Christian nation” is rooted even in many non-religious breasts. “American” implies Christian, god-fearing, wholesome, Bible-believing, salt-of-the-earth and (mostly) white and straight. By their very nature, non-Christian, non-white and non-straight citizens are marginalized as non-American. So please explain to me how, in a nation like the one I live in today, religious rights are in any danger… from anyone but Christians?

That’s right. A certain subset of the Christian majority is trying its level best to do away with the religious rights of the minority, by voting a specific set of moral and religious views not just into law but into the state and federal constitutions. This is not just. This is not equitable. This is not moral.

It is also not true, by the way, that Proposition 8 would not take any rights away from California homosexuals. The most obvious right it would remove is the right of same-sex couples to marry (that’s the whole point of the proposition, of course), but it would also push homosexuals another step back from achieving full equality under the law and in society. These are not trivial losses, trivial wounds, trivial semantic games.

When I responded to my Facebook friend’s post, politely pointing out the flaws in her argument and raising the concerns I have noted above, she deleted my comment and sent it back to me, basically saying she didn’t want it polluting her Pro-8 Facebook page. But she still wanted to be my friend, because she remembered me as being cool from college, exclamation point, heart, lol.

After I sent a final response explaining why her friendship was no longer wanted or needed, Craig had to show me how to defriend her. He’s had a lot of experience with that lately, fortunately for me.

I won’t be going on any kind of friend-list-cleansing rampage of my own, but let this serve as a notice to any of my so-called Facebook friends who support Prop 8: before you post that ill-considered anti-homosexual rant on your Facebook page, do me the favor of de-friending me first so it doesn’t pollute my Facebook experience. It’s what a true friend would do.

I have no words for how disgusted I am at the Mormon church and its despicable hate- and fearmongering on the topic of Proposition 8, which would amend the California state constitution to take marriage rights away from same-sex couples.

During a Wednesday satellite broadcast, young Mormons were fed the same tired lies and misleading spin that have proven so effective in the “Yes on 8″ campaign*. They were also urged to to “go viral” on their online social networks and blogs. “I must admit I don’t know how all this works,” wrinkled, out-of-touch and irrelevant Mormon ‘apostle’ Russell Ballard said, “but you do.”

If Ballard knew anything about anything at all (i.e., if he were relevant), he would know that faithful Mormons have already “gone viral” with their church’s message of hate and intolerance. (He would also know better than to use the phrase “go viral.” It’s SO 2003.) But one can always do more, and try harder! Accordingly, Facebook “Yes on 8″ groups have proliferated, and half of my BYU friends’ Facebook statuses are “is following the prophet & voting Yes on Prop 8!!” (I’m wondering which of us will un-friend the other first.)

My opinion on the subject is very simple: if marriage is a religious institution (which Mormons will tell you was established in the Garden of Eden, when God married Adam and Eve), then why is the government involved in it at all? If, instead, marriage is a civil institution as far as the government is concerned, why do we give a flying fuck how a group of closed-minded religious bigots say it should be handled?

Today is National Coming Out Day in the U.S. This is an excellent opportunity to come out to someone—or everyone—around you as queer or as a queer ally—and a great way to do that is by publicly opposing Prop 8. In Ballard’s words, “I hope you will go viral. I hope you will engage.”

* See MormonsforMarriage.com for an essay-length discussion and refutation of the principle arguments against same-sex marriage used by Mormon leaders and the Yes on 8 campaign.