I've always been puzzled by the Mormon church. On one hand, it's incredibly conservative, anti-woman, racist, and anti-gay. Yet I have met so many individual Mormons who are the opposite of that. I guess maybe their church gives them a bad name...?

Horseshit, I'm not buying it. It's political and designed to make Romney more seem more tolerant. I know that sounds ignorant and maybe I'm wrong, but why suddenly now?

It's not horseshit. More and more Mormon families have a child/family member who is gay and cannot find it in themselves to shun those relatives who have been excommunicated, which has been the church's unofficial policy. The (former) bishop down the road from my SLC residence had a major internal struggle when his youngest son came out. He came to the conclusion that the church was wrong, hence the reason he is now a FORMER bishop, as the church admins relieved him of his position right away. He was one of those who marched in the Salt Lake Pride Parade in support of his son. It's been slowly building for awhile.

The church and those old white men who run the upper echelons are the hideously hateful ones. They do a great job putting a snow job on the faithful. The sheep are encouraged not to question, to obey and be faithful - hence the reason 1) so many Mo's get taken in by cons and 2) why they don't think about what the old white men are actually doing (a quiet, patient takeover of the world).
Those who question are marginalized (sent off somewhere or removed from a position) and oftentimes the threat of losing all friends and routines of life are enough to make them shut up. The old white men are the ones working themselves into a lather over the possibility of a Mo as Prez, seeing it as legitimizing their religion and increasing the the number of sheep and the money in their coffers from tithing. They are the ones pulling the puppet strings of the Romney campaign, and they won't let Mittens be OK for gay.

If you do the right thing for the wrong reason, you're still doing the right thing.

That said...I really don't think this was calculated. I was thrilled to see those guys marching today.

I think both Catholic and Mormon laity realize they have to start speaking up and showing that the hierarchy of their churches do not necessarily represent the beliefs of their constituents. There was also a Catholics for Marriage Equality group in the parade.

" More and more Mormon families have a child/family member who is gay..."
I doubt there are any more gay children/family members now than there have always been. The good news seems to be that more and more are now willing to come out rather than suffering through sham marriages or killing themselves.

Inoculate or inculcate?

If these people were marching in Salt Lake and not Seattle I wouldn't immediately think that this is just another case of Mormons doing their part to make Mormonism look good. It's like the Rock n' Roll Church that is actually ultra conservative and nearly a cult. Mars cough cough Hill.
If the Mormons marching today wanted to make a change in the Mormon church, they'd be marching outside the LDS temple in Bellevue. Anything else is PR, whether that's what they really intended or not.

I have a crazy idea: If you want to help the cause of gay rights, stop donating 10% of your annual earnings to an institution that spends that money suppressing gay rights.

I marched today with Mormons for Marriage Equality. I am also voting for Obama. I have been working for GBLT rights since 1993. I stopped attending the Mormon Church several years ago but it is my heritage. When I saw the group was marching, we decided to march with them. I am glad that many Mormons are starting to stand up for what is right. I can assure you that this was sincere and not PR for Romney (who opposes gay marriage). Why would we do PR for a guy that is against what we are standing for?

"Decrees against gay marriage aren't even part of the formal religion, these Mormons told me. Only the scriptures are canon, not anti-gay proclamations from church presidents."

That's not true at all. Mormons believe in continuing revelation through prophets, and that the current prophet was chosen by God to be the mouthpiece here on Earth. It's really cool they were marching, but the church is very clear that prophets' proclamations (including the "pro-family", anti-gay Proclamation to the World circa 1999) are basically divine writ. They've really painted themselves into a corner on this one -- it'll be interesting to see how it all ends up.

When you are a member of the KKK, marching for racial equality doesn't make everything all right.

Here's a more effective way to protest your church's position on civil rights: quit.

I was marching in the Mormon's for Marriage Equality contingent today.
Just like any group, we (Mormon's) have our stereotypes. And they're always some (or a lot of truth) that can be found in a stereotype.....and plenty that cannot. I'm sure the gay community can understand that well. But with that said, my community, the Mormon community, has not earned the trust of the gay community. I get that. I really do. It's unfortunate. It's something I am personally saddened by.
But one thing I can speak to is the idea that our message is some subversive pro-Romney conspiracy. What a joke! Romney is a prick - I won't be apologizing for that statement. I would feel confident guessing that everyone marching with me voted for Obama in 2008 and will be doing so again in November. Judging by the wards (congregations) I've attended growing up, there've always been a few, if not a lot of LDS liberals in the Pacific Northwest. My LDS brothers and sisters that are pro-Romney wouldn't be caught dead marching in today's pride parade, and you would have seen it in there body language (just like wooden/robo Romney himself) and they would have been completely uncomfortable in the pride parade atmosphere. The people I marched along side today were completely comfortable in an atmosphere that celebrates our LGBT brothers and sisters. We have friends and family members..... some of us are LGBT as well.
Those of us that were there today were sincere. I only wish there were more of us. That will take time. But the tides are turning. It's not too late to get on the right side of history.
Love and Apologetics

More evidence of a shift:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/17…

http://mormonstories.org/lds-bishop-kevi…

@16, You may not be intending to be a PR front for Romney, but you are being a clear PR piece for your religion. A religion that indoctrinates its members to be homophobes and to actively work against the community you say you are a part of. I'm glad that you're not falling lockstep in line with the rest of the LDS, but by marching AS mormons you are promoting the LDS. If you weren't trying to show the LDS in a better light you would have just been marching as yourself and not promoting your church.
If you wanted to affect change within the LDS, I think it would be more effective to do it inside the LDS. Go get em!

@11 is so dead on.

If it's Mormon it just HAS to be about Romney right? Seriously? This is actually an argument at this point? Then everything the Catholics did in 1960 must have clearly had everything to do with JFK.

@18, I don't think it's fair to blast @16 the way you did. There are two very good reasons I can think of to march while loudly and proudly declaring yourself a member of the LDS church: 1) It's a message to the church that all of their members don't all fall in line with the official message or doctrine of the church and 2) It's a message to the outside community that not every Mormon falls in line with the official message and doctrine of the LDS church. It's the same as the Catholics who are standing up and saying "that's Church doctrine but not MY doctrine and I'll live and vote according to my doctrine". It's a way to, hopefully, push those churches in the right direction without the members having to leave the life they know behind. Plenty of people belong to organizations that they largely, but not completely, agree with. And they work to change the things they don't agree with from the inside rather than the outside.

@18 What on earth makes you think that the Mormons marching for marriage equality aren't ALSO working to change their church from within? Or even that marching in the pride parade itself isn't part of changing the church from within?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Mormons who support marriage equality probably don't have any interest in taking y'all's advice to quit the church. That's because in general they believe in the Mormon theology and think that most of what the church does with tithe money is good. They also think that their church is currently misguided on the issue of civil marriage equality, and are doing their best to think of ways to help change the attitudes of other Mormons (and, perhaps even more importantly to them, express their love and support for same-sex couples who want civil marriage).

I guess you can go ahead and scorn their efforts - it kind of makes you look churlish and probably discourages some other support - but whatever.

@21 has it right. That was largely a message to the LDS church, not from it.

For fuck's sake people...take yes for an answer. We need all the allies we can get, here.

Who here can cite an example of "changing the church from within?" Anybody? I certainly can't. The Catholic hierarchy in particular is an excellent case study. American Catholics are at odds with official doctrine on a number of significant points (abortion, birth control, gay rights, child abuse, female clergy, etc), and yet the hierarchy just doesn't give a damn. You know why? Because it doesn't matter to the hierarchy if they have millions of followers who disagree with orthodoxy.

But what does matter to them is the number of followers they have. That's how they measure themselves. That's how they influence policy. That's how they fill their coffers. Membership. That's what it all comes down to. This is why schism is always the force behind change in religion: reformation comes after large groups bail on the church to form their own group. If you want to change your religion, quit, do it loudly, let them know why, and take as many people with you as you can.

Thisbe @22:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Mormons who support marriage equality probably don't have any interest in taking y'all's advice to quit the church. That's because in general they believe in the Mormon theology and think that most of what the church does with tithe money is good.

You really think the average Mormon is a Mormon because he spent a lot of time considering theology and policy? You think the average religious person does a big cost-benefit analysis and compares his religion to others and decides that way? I think that's a shockingly naive point of view. Religious people overwhelmingly have the religion they grew up with. It's not a rational choice, it's a lifestyle that they learned from their parents in the majority of cases. That's the inertia that lets religions push their retrograde social beliefs on the rest of us even when their members disagree. It's what makes members of religions that push evil agendas (no condoms in Africa, no abortion in any case, no civil equality for sodomites) complicit in those evils.

"I'm a Mormon who supports gay marriage." 95% of the power in that sentence is in the first three words. The rest is icing.

Have these people stopped paying tithes to their church? If not, they should just go home because their tithes are helping to pay for assaults on gay rights in Maine, Minnesota, Maryland and, yes, Washington. It's certainly debatable whether their actions are sponsored by the LDS, but what's not debatable is that the LDS is still actively campaigning against the very group of people these marchers purport to be support.

Decreasing ignorance and acting on evidence is a valuable way to make and recognize change. If you are not in the LDS Church, you would unlikely be able to observe how things are changing around this topic, and rapidly. Is there inertia, yes, but there has been inertia around many things that have changed in the Church. Our doctrine is broad, grand and beautiful. It is for everyone. It can survive and adapt without selling out. It can self-correct for major human mistakes. Unfortunately, this may not take the time we would like it to take (kind of like the US government), but it can change.
But the majority of the above comments make it seem like people do not want the Church to change. Why wouldn't you have full support for those who marched yesterday? Those I know who participated did it with one intention: love for their neighbor. That's it, that's all. And yes, most if many of them voted and are voting for Obama, but that really doesn't matter.
And why would you want forward thinking people to leave the Church? It is a lay Church with no one making money on their service to it. They are the ones who create the culture for change.
When making change, you usually don't throw out the growing baby with the bathwater.
The more you find out, the more you know...

And why would you want forward thinking people to leave the Church?

How about to continue their intellectual liberation from superstition and the tyranny of being told what to think? Until recently they supported denying civil rights to people because of their religion. But now they're still cozying up to that religion, the same one that told them that denying civil rights is a good thing. That's ridiculous.

Our doctrine is broad, grand and beautiful. It is for everyone.

Interesting theory. But you're not in charge, and odds are you never will be. You don't get to make it "broad, grand and beautiful" just by saying so, and you don't get to reverse your church's abysmal record on human rights by writing about how wonderful it is on the internet. Tell me how broad, grand, and beautiful it is when the mormon church is donating money to support gay marriage amendments. Until then, it's as ugly as sin.

Decreasing ignorance and acting on evidence is a valuable way to make and recognize change.

I agree. But religion is based on belief, not evidence. Most people who oppose gay marriage oppose it because of what they read in a book that was written thousands of years ago by humans, and edited and translated many times over those thousands of years by other humans. They want to make policy based on that. Show me the evidence there. Show me how broad, grand and beautiful it is to tell an entire class of people that they're inhuman because you read it in a book.

Maybe I read in a book that all mormons are polygamists. Maybe my religion is that because I read in a book that you don't understand that marriage is between one man and one woman, that you shouldn't be allowed to get married at all, and maybe we'll let you have civil unions if you get real uppity about it, but NO KIDS ever, not even adopted. Do I have evidence to support any of this? No, fuck no, but it's what I believe. I've got faith that it's true, and it's in a book that I like, and that's what matters, and you better respect my faith.

Fuck that, and fuck your "broad, grand and beautiful." Don't try to feed me that horseshit while your "broad, grand and beautiful" is telling people they're less equal than others. You've got a lot of fucking nerve singing the praises of your church here. What an asshole.

@29 I don't think anything could make you happy. You might want to listen to your own advice.

There are plenty of things I disagree with concerning the Mormon faith, but to see ~75 of their members march in support of marriage equality yesterday at Pride is fantastic. I personally know a married couple who are Mormon and were in the parade with their two kids and strongly believe in the right for gays to be married.

@24,29--Mike, if winning the "culture wars" depends on mass conversion of (generally conservative) religious folks into liberal atheist rationalists, then we've already lost.

People reconciling a more liberal outlook within the context of their faith is a good thing, if you care about liberal values. Churches moving (however slowly) in a more liberal direction is a good thing, if you care about liberal values.

I say this as a former Christian who left my faith behind largely because I could not make such a reconciliation, myself. (There was also the small matter that I did not and could not believe in God, anymore.)

I'd love to see a world without religion. I believe, as I imagine that you do, that would be a much better place. But it ain't gonna happen anytime soon, or likely ever. And to try to force the issue is not only pointless, it's generally counter-productive. Don't alienate allies.

I don't have a problem with Mormons marching in pride or declaring that they're "allies." I just think they're kidding themselves (and some of you, it seems), if they think they're "changing the church from the inside" by marching in pride. If they really want to effect change, they can vote with their feet. Churches don't give a damn about members who disagree with their doctrines, but they care about membership.

Nic @30: "I don't think anything could make you happy." Here's what would make me happy: people not telling me how beautiful their religion is when it lobbies hard against civil equality. I don't care if shcaba wants to be a Mormon. I just don't want to hear the "It's beautiful because I've chosen to ignore the component that the majority of my fellow Mormons still endorse" swill.

Let me roll out an equivalent statement: "The KKK is a fine organization, and its beliefs are broad, grand, and beautiful. I don't agree with the doctrine of white supremacy, but it's enlightened Klansmen like me who are pushing forward with the agenda of change. Don't you want the KKK to become better?" In fact, if you take shcaba's post and replace "Church" with "KKK," then you'll have some idea of how I feel about it.

Man, some of you are hard fuckers. I have LDS friends who are adamantly opposed to the church's donations to Prop Hate and proclamations against the LGBT community. Some of those friends marched in that contingent. It takes courage to do that, knowing the stake is going to send people to your house to counsel you on the error of your ways, knowing the pressure you're likely to get. The one thing I can do is support their efforts to change their religion's dogma. This made me cry, happy tears. Even a baby step forward is progress, people.

"Sorry we're late"

That was the sign that killed me. Let's assume good faith on the part of these people. It's very brave of them to march openly in support of their friends and family and fellow citizens in opposition to their church doctrine. I'm not religious and never have been, but I see the silencing efforts and effects of organized religion all the time, and these people are taking a HUGE step going against that culture. Yay for them!

Just another propaganda message in the wake of the Mormon Prop 8 Hate the Gay campaign. Mormons and the Romney campaign are using these gay pride events as damage control.

The Mormons new policy towards gays and lesbians is that, OK, you can want to be gay, we will allow you to even say that you are gay - - BUT, you can't act on any of your sexual orientation feelings - you can't have a life, you can't have a partner, you can't date - and married or not married - you can't have sex.

These 60 marchers are dedicated Mormon Romney campaign workers; no more, no less. Sure, officially they are not connected to the campaign. Just a coincidence that a Mormon bigot is running for President, and Mormons need to appear gay-friendly.

Mike, it doesn't matter if Mormons made a rational audit of all religious choices and chose Mormonism, or if they had it instilled in their infant brains. Or whatever.

The point is that they are Mormon, and presumably like something or several somethings about that. They are probably not going to quit. You may already know this, but churches play a role in providing community structure in modern American life that it can be difficult to replace - so people tend not to consider quitting a church as an easy decision.

Anyways, since they probably won't be leaving the church, telling them that the only way for them to offer their support to marriage equality and have you accept it is by leaving the church just means that you are telling them you don't accept their support. Which is absolutely your choice to make - just one of questionable wisdom in my opinion.

Fortunately, they will probably continue to offer their support in all the ways they think practicable because they aren't doing it to make you happy, they are doing it out of conviction that it is right.

"The Mormons new policy towards gays and lesbians is that, OK, you can want to be gay, we will allow you to even say that you are gay - - BUT, you can't act on any of your sexual orientation feelings - you can't have a life, you can't have a partner, you can't date - and married or not married - you can't have sex."

This. This is not acceptance--this is nonsense. Almost more harmful than people who are openly against it, because these people will tell you they're accepting, tell you kind words, and then deny you the same opportunities they have. These people try to lower your guard and then stab you in the back instead of attacking you head on. It's sad and, in a morbid way, almost amusing how long, winding, and complicated of a road many self-proclaimed Christians are electing to take over accepting a simple truth.

I have a little more faith in these people who marched though. The Church of Later Day Saints, like every other group of people, is made up of individuals. It is possible to be Mormon and truly accepting. Its never a good idea to try to paint entire groups of people with a single brush stroke. Not every Mormon agrees with the official views of their church in the same way that not every Catholic agrees with the pope.

Thisbe @37: "telling them that the only way for them to offer their support to marriage equality and have you accept it is by leaving the church just means that you are telling them you don't accept their support."

I suppose it would be, if I had actually told anybody that. But if you read the actual words that I wrote, I think you'll find that what I actually posted was "Here's a more effective way to protest your church's position on civil rights: quit." and 'I just think they're kidding themselves (and some of you, it seems), if they think they're "changing the church from the inside" by marching in pride.'

I don't imagine that any Mormon gives a damn about what I accept in any event, but I accept their desire to march in Pride. I just don't think it helps anybody at all. It won't stop their church from funding anti-equality crusades, and it won't stop them from tithing to that church. It's just a way for them to march in a parade and say "I support your rights while contributing my financial power to an organization that fights like a wildcat to suppress those rights."

If some gay basher spray paints his baseball bat pink, it doesn't make him any more my friend. Likewise, if some insignificant percentage of mormons choose to pay lip service to equality while continuing to donate their money and membership to an anti-gay church, their net contribution to gay rights is still negative.

Damn, I guess my ten plus years of not paying tithing, my speaking up and/or walking out of countless sacrament meetings, sunday schools, and relief societies is all for naught ;) It was amazing to participate in the pride parade, and I am grateful that it seemed to mean a lot to my Mormon LGBT family and friends. I am sorry if it was offensive to anyone.

I, too, marched in the Seattle Pride Parade. It was the right thing to do. For the record I am an active, tithe-paying, temple-going 52-year-old Mormon. I have never voted for a Republican. I think Mitt Romney's platform is of the devil. Seriously. A big part of the LDS doctrine on political engagement is that we are each responsible to study the issues and make our own decisions. Why is Romney polling at 65% in Utah? I don't know, maybe nobody in Utah has actually read the Book of Mormon.

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Please stop putting gay rights with civil rights. Before you were gay you were black , white or of other races. I don't knock your movement just quit riding the backs of Black who fought for racial equality whether they gay or not. Blacks couldn't vote put the gay white guy or woman did . Please Respect My Hertiage