Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

By Sheldon Rampton, Center for Media and Democracy. Posted December 3, 2008.

An ex-Mormon explains how a church with mostly good values can promote hatred and intolerance.



I recently wrote about the PR nightmare facing the Mormon Church as a result of the prominent role it played this year promoting Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage in California. At the urging of church leaders, Mormons spent about $20 million on the effort, which probably provided the margin that enabled the measure to pass.

There is some irony in the fact that Mormon pollster Gary Lawrence, who led the Proposition 8 grassroots campaign for the church in California, has a gay son, Matthew, who publicly resigned from the church to protest its anti-gay campaign. Matthew says that after his father's participation in "two anti-gay initiatives in eight years, it's impossible not to feel attacked."

Adding to the irony, Gary Lawrence has a new book out, titled How Americans View Mormonism: Seven Steps to Improve Our Image. His advice to Mormons who want to be better liked is, "Simply be yourself" -- advice that drew a sharp response from one blogger, who pointed out that being yourself "is a poor prescription for winning friends when 'who you are' is someone willing to lead a campaign to strip your own child of his civil rights."

The anti-Mormon backlash continues, and some people who have Mormon friends are rising to their defense, including Kaliya Hamlin (also known as "Identity Woman" for her work on issues related to online identity). In a recent blog post, Hamlin complains that "Web mobs" are engaged in "blacklisting and subsequent public harassment and targeting of specific people and specific religious groups for their beliefs and support of 'Yes on Prop. 8.' " She continues:

I take this personally, I have and do work with people who are Mormon -- when I played water polo in university and in the Identity field). I respect the LDS church and the people in it -- they have good values. ...

I think what is going on with the blacklists that are directly targeting people in their private life is wrong. I think targeting specific religious institutions for protest is wrong.

These people and these religious institutions are not propagating HATE, they are just not agreeing that marriage can be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. This is a cultural difference of opinion.

With all due respect, I think Hamlin fails to understand the intensity, seriousness, and yes, hatred underlying Mormon opposition to gay rights. I actually have more personal experience with Mormons than she does. I was raised in a Mormon family and even served a two-year Mormon mission in Japan, from 1976 to 1978. Although I no longer believe in or practice its teachings, my extended family includes many active members. It's true that individual Mormons are mostly nice people -- as generous, thoughtful, intelligent and considerate as people from any other religion or belief system. Unfortunately, it is actually possible to possess all of those positive attributes and still promote hatred and intolerance. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/109586/mormon_homophobia%3A_up_close_and_personal/

[TlalocW]

1. Oh, boo hoo hoo

If my neighbor were active in trying to or succeeding in taking away my rights, I would not do business with him; I would tell other people not to do business with him, and I would do everything in my legal rights to make his life hell. The Mormons raised an incredible amount of money to target people in their private lives, and now they're getting their magic underwear wet with tears that they're being targeted back. Well, wah wah wah.

TlalocW

[HillWilliam]

2. I see no difference between white sheets

and white magic underdrores. They're only whining about "privacy" because they thought they could go about stealing other people's rights without getting caught or called out on it.

Well guess friggin' what.

If you contrive to steal something from someone else, whether overtly or covertly, you deserve to be called out and punished for it. Moreover, people deserved to be warned not to give you their hard-earned dollars so you can turn them around and use those dollars against them.

Sauce for the goose is gravy for the gander. Now wear that motherf*cker home.

Maybe we should be asking what other seditious or just plain vile craftiness is going on in those "we won't let anyone see into our secret ritual" so-called temples. Hmm? Just sayin'. If they want to see some "turnaround" we can really hand it back them. We haven't played rough yet. We can. They really don't want to go there. But we can.

Let's examine the other end of this, while we're on about it. The established pattern over the last decade or so with nutball fringe "churches" has been to start attacking GLBTQ people, then whup-up fear of black then brown people, and "furriners", then all sorts of hate-crimes and dumbass, knee-jerk legislation has followed. Gays are always first and easy-pickings because no one defends us. The precedent for rescinding rights goes into place and the wackogelicals have no idea what they give up; cutting their own noses to spite their faces.

The wackogelicals have been played like fiddles for nigh-on 8 years now into throwing their rights away and calling it "patriotic". Only a damn fool will ever give up a single right and be crazy enough to call that patriotic. A true patriot will die before giving a fraction of an inch on any right; not just the 2nd, the 4th, the 5th Amendments -- ANY enumerated, reserved, or implied right. No patriot would ever steal some other citizen's rights away either. Every bastard who poured money into promoting Prop 8 deserves both to go bankrupt and to lose their citizenship, just on principle alone.

It's bad enough the Mormons have led the fight to steal someone else's rights away. They've let themselves become willing tools of those who would eventually take all rights away from everyone.

Stupid, short-sighted fools. They deserve punishment as fools and they deserve punishment as the willing seditionists they are.

Don't sit back and say, "Oh, it can't happen to me."

If Prop 8 stands, the precedent for removing any civil right from any group is set. You're next.

[2BNMDLTR]

3. comment

I added this comment to her site...

I am astonished at your comments. You say, "I think what is going on with the blacklists - that are directly targeting people in their private life is wrong. I think targeting specific religious institutions for protest is wrong. "

You do understand that these people took it upon themselves to promote and support legislation that DIRECTLY TARGETS PEOPLE IN THEIR PRIVATE LIVES. 18,000 people who got married had that right taken away. Imagine if someone legislated your marriage away. Your marriage. You say someone who only donated a 100 dollars should not be targeted. How would you feel if someone donated money to dissolve your marriage? Convitions have prices. If these people felt so strongly about prop 8 then they should stand behind their convictions even if that means getting protested or blacklisted. I do not feel one bit of sympathy for someone who felt they had the right to deny people in love the right to marry. If they don't want people in their private lives perhaps they should stay out of others.