What Could They Have Been Thinking?
Gosh, this story about the LDS (i.e., Mormon Church) and their opposition to California's proposition 8 — you remember, the one to strip same-sex couples of their already established right to marry — just keeps getting more interesting. I'm not sure I need to fill you in on the details since protests have been breaking out nationwide over the issue, many staged at local Mormon temples.
Oddly, the LDS is not happy about all the exposure they are getting for compelling their membership to fund the "yes on 2" organization to the tune of some $25 million, the escalation that made it the most costly ballot initiative campaign in our nation's history.
Just after election day the LDS put out a press release in which they called on "those involved in the debate over same-sex marriage to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other." (See, for example, here.) After the vitriol of the anti-gay rhetoric their money bankrolled, that's as amusingly ironic as Republicans who spend an entire election calling democrats traitors, socialists, whatever and then calling for a spirit of bipartisanship. Civility is as civility does.
Now a memo has turned up that reveals that the LDS has been planning a political campaign for the last decade with the objective of defeating, nationwide, progress towards marriage equality for same-sex couples. (See here and here.) One interesting feature of that memo was the realization from the beginning that the LDS might suffer a public-relations nightmare from leading on this issue unless they worked with another large organization. It's unfolding as they had feared, and I'm not upset in the least.
Although the LDS tried to avert scrutiny of their tax-exempt status and federal prohibition against trying to influence elections by "strongly urging" their membership to contribute the $27 million rather than giving it directly themselves, it seems that their many non-monetary actions in direct aid to the cause, and directly contacting California voters, may have contravened California law. (See here.)
Their actions and these revelations have led to quite a few discussions about how to renew the separation of church and state, and a discussion about the undesirability of churches meddling in politics. I encourage those discussions most heartily.
Of course, it's not just the LDS that finds itself in the situation of being held accountable for its homophobic actions. Several organizations and business are already feeling the bite of backlash, as they should for being proud sponsors of this despicable initiative. For inexplicable reasons they seem surprised that their gay and lesbian patrons should be upset when they were merely trying to "protect the traditional meaning of marriage". It's a story that grows with new developments each day, but I'm with Jim Burroway when it comes to being mystified at how naive some of these bigots are to think no one would notice:
Those who voted to disenfranchise their gay and lesbian neighbors have been stunned at the outpouring of anger over the passage of Propositions 8, 102 and 2 (in California, Arizona and Florida, respectively).
It’s mystifying to me, but they seemed genuinely surprised that people that they thought they knew and loved would be angry to see their rights put up to a vote and defeated. It mystifies me because I wonder how many straight people would put up with the idea that their right to marry should be subject to a vote — and they lose that vote? How would they react?
And now many of those people who voted against us and who gave money to a cause to render us second-class citizens, they fall back on the defense that “many of my best friends are gay.”
Well, that doesn’t work anymore. Here’s a news flash: All those gay friends you have? If you supported Prop 8 (or Prop 102 or Amendment 2), they are no longer your friends. You can safely drop that line of defense.
–Jim Burroway, "All Of Those Gay Friends You Say You Have? They Are No Longer Your Friends", Box Turtle Bulletin, 13 November 2008.
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Friday, 14 November 2008 at 01.34
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Not much for the Golden Rule, these oh so proactive Christians who have so much money to throw around. What a shame they couldn't throw some of that money into making things better for unwed mothers and kids whose parents are both absent and/or unfit.
One of these days, some sharp lawyer, quite possibly a really motivated gay or lesbian, is going to nail one of these religious groups to the wall, costing it plenty in tax exemptions and maybe other breaks. If and when that happens, I suspect other religious groups with a bad habit of meddling in other people's lives will suddenly discover the virtue of minding their own damned business.