Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Homo / Religion How Many Mormons Were Lynched After Prop 8? How Many Mormon Temples Were Firebombed?
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 4:00 PM
The anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern blacks during the civil rights movement, a high-ranking leader in the LDS Church says in a speech to be delivered Tuesday.
The same people who insist that gays and lesbians can't compare our movement for equality to the African American Civil Rights Movement—even when its gay and lesbian African Americans who make the comparison—are going jump down the Mormons' throats for this one.
Right?
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2
They have a lot of nerve invoking the plight of black people in this country, considering the Mormon church's own history of racial bigotry. Goddamn, what an appalling speech.
I cannot stand these conservative religious people who feel like they should be immune from criticism or scrutiny whenever they choose to participate in the political process. Height of idiocy, that's what it is.
I cannot stand these conservative religious people who feel like they should be immune from criticism or scrutiny whenever they choose to participate in the political process. Height of idiocy, that's what it is.
5
The Salt Lake City-based church, has shied from politics historically but was a key player in the pro-Proposition 8 coalition.
After the measure prevailed, its opponents focused much of their ire on Latter-day Saints, organizing boycotts of businesses with LDS ties and protests at LDS worship places. Church windows were shattered and slurs were hurled at the church's founding fathers.
Elder Oaks said that while "aggressive intimidation" connected to Proposition 8 was primarily directed at religious people and symbols, "it was not anti-religious as such." He called the incidents "expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest."
"As such, these incidents of 'violence and intimidation' are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic," he said. "In their effect they are like well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation."
After the measure prevailed, its opponents focused much of their ire on Latter-day Saints, organizing boycotts of businesses with LDS ties and protests at LDS worship places. Church windows were shattered and slurs were hurled at the church's founding fathers.
Elder Oaks said that while "aggressive intimidation" connected to Proposition 8 was primarily directed at religious people and symbols, "it was not anti-religious as such." He called the incidents "expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest."
"As such, these incidents of 'violence and intimidation' are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic," he said. "In their effect they are like well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation."
10
Isn't this the same "religion" that, during the civil rights movement, insisted that black men could not serve in the priesthood...that taught for nearly 150 years that all black people were cursed because in their pre-existence they'd sided with Lucifer and that was why god turned their skin black in the first place...? That religion?
They really want to go there do they...? Swell!
They really want to go there do they...? Swell!
11
Yes.
The fact that i agree with them on the sanctity of the institution of marriage wont make me give them a pass on this one. And while they're right when they say that they have received threats and harassment from gays in the aftermath of Prop 8 they need to be reminded that it wasn't just them who where the target for the hatred coming out from some radical homosexual groups but it was all people of faith and the African American community in California. They also need to know that disenfranchisement and killings of African Americans from slavery up to the Jim Crow era is not in anyway parallel in the scope, the persistence and time with which gays have seek to intimidate Mormons in the present.
By the same token you mr Savage need also to be corrected in the statement you made about African Americans who engage in the same type lifestyle that you do. In my conversations with some I have found none, let me repeat, none that have even agreed with the types of comparisons that you and the rest of the gay white elite have tried to make between the African American experience and the types of demands that you seek to bring into fruition.
The fact that i agree with them on the sanctity of the institution of marriage wont make me give them a pass on this one. And while they're right when they say that they have received threats and harassment from gays in the aftermath of Prop 8 they need to be reminded that it wasn't just them who where the target for the hatred coming out from some radical homosexual groups but it was all people of faith and the African American community in California. They also need to know that disenfranchisement and killings of African Americans from slavery up to the Jim Crow era is not in anyway parallel in the scope, the persistence and time with which gays have seek to intimidate Mormons in the present.
By the same token you mr Savage need also to be corrected in the statement you made about African Americans who engage in the same type lifestyle that you do. In my conversations with some I have found none, let me repeat, none that have even agreed with the types of comparisons that you and the rest of the gay white elite have tried to make between the African American experience and the types of demands that you seek to bring into fruition.
12
Funny.
"Church windows were shattered and slurs were hurled at the church's founding fathers."
I live in Utah so I see a news report EVERY time something happens at a Mormon ward. There were maybe five churches vandalized.
And how do you hurl an insult at the church's founding fathers? Were they appearing in Temple Square?
And is what was hurled at them worse than what Mormons refer to non-believers as?
Mormons - You fought this battle and you won. Quit bitching, own up to it and stop trying to convince people you're victims.
"Church windows were shattered and slurs were hurled at the church's founding fathers."
I live in Utah so I see a news report EVERY time something happens at a Mormon ward. There were maybe five churches vandalized.
And how do you hurl an insult at the church's founding fathers? Were they appearing in Temple Square?
And is what was hurled at them worse than what Mormons refer to non-believers as?
Mormons - You fought this battle and you won. Quit bitching, own up to it and stop trying to convince people you're victims.
13
Loveschild, I'm straight, but I'd like you to know that I wear your epithet of "radical homosexual" with pride.
Seriously, though, what's a "radical" homosexual? How is it different from a normal, run-of-the-mill homosexual? Attaching the word "radical" to something doesn't automatically form a phrase that makes sense, you know.
Seriously, though, what's a "radical" homosexual? How is it different from a normal, run-of-the-mill homosexual? Attaching the word "radical" to something doesn't automatically form a phrase that makes sense, you know.
14
A non radical homosexual sucks off Mormons and doesn't cop to it, balderdash. And they probably give money to the HRC using a pseudonym.
15
@13: Maybe we're like the Ninja Turtles?
NO-LONGER-TEENAGE MUTANT HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS
NO-LONGER-TEENAGE MUTANT HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS
NO-LONGER-TEENAGE MUTANT HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS
QUEEROES IN A GAYBAR, HOMO POWER!
NO-LONGER-TEENAGE MUTANT HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS
NO-LONGER-TEENAGE MUTANT HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS
NO-LONGER-TEENAGE MUTANT HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS
QUEEROES IN A GAYBAR, HOMO POWER!
17
I suppose at one point in history (back in the 1800s) Mormons were the underdog and tarred and feathered for their beliefs. Which makes it hard for me to understand why they are trying to stop others from following their beliefs now. With plural marriages and all, Mormons were the original American polys. They need to quit with the persecution of others.
19
Loveschild, I just realized that your avatar looks like a coat hanger hovering over a family. One could only wish there had been one present at your "birth".
20
I get really annoyed when I keep seeing "organizing boycotts of businesses" lumped in with violent attacks. If I can see, based on donor records, who dislikes me, I think I have every right to patronize or not patronize their business. Or maybe you are going to say that it will be illegal for me to avoid eating at certain restaurants. No, not just illegal but a violent backlash.
24
Reminds me of the bitching I heard from straight Catholics about supposed Catholic bashing, probably when ACT UP was out and vocal in Boston. I replied to one guy, "how many Catholics in Boston have physically been hurt...for being Catholic? Zero?"
26
I just don't see what the fuss is.
I mean, so I post all the signers names and addresses and whatever else they wrote on the petitions - how does this harm them, especially since God said unto them "And ye shall be known by that which is attested to unto thy name, and the truth shall be thy witness."
Unless they hate God.
I mean, so I post all the signers names and addresses and whatever else they wrote on the petitions - how does this harm them, especially since God said unto them "And ye shall be known by that which is attested to unto thy name, and the truth shall be thy witness."
Unless they hate God.
27
(actually, if you use electric forges, it does spark a little bit - a useful trick from back when I smelted alloys)
28
Mormon leaders really speak from a place of moral authority when they compare their struggle to the Civil Rights movement. They have a long history of supporting civil rights.. Who can forget quotes like this from Aposlte Mark E. Petersen:?
"I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the negro is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. ... From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the negro seeks absorbtion with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace.'."
"Now let's talk about segregation again for a few moments. Was segregation a wrong principle? when the Lord chose the nations to which the spirits were to come, determining that some would be Japanese and some would be Chinese and some Negroes and some Americans, He engaged in an act of segregation.
"I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the negro is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. ... From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the negro seeks absorbtion with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace.'."
"Now let's talk about segregation again for a few moments. Was segregation a wrong principle? when the Lord chose the nations to which the spirits were to come, determining that some would be Japanese and some would be Chinese and some Negroes and some Americans, He engaged in an act of segregation.
29
these are the same mormons who think that American Indian and people of the African diaspora look like they do because of some imaginary creature's curse? those racists?
30
It is really funny watching the empowered bigots cry "victim."
Almost as funny as watching Glenn Beck cry.
Almost as funny as watching Glenn Beck cry.
31
How ironic that Loveschild's avatar contains a Christian symbol. I believe her Lord would be deeply ashamed of her and her attitude. The sheer evil perpetrated in the name of Christ continues, from vile leaders like Elder Oaks and sick haters like Loveschild to his Holiness in Rome. Disgusting and pitiful.
32
@29 - you should hear what they think about African-Americans ... Obama must really freak them out.
34
Hopefully this link will work.
Does this bullshit happen to asshole Christians? Until it does on a regular basis, you can all go fuck yourselves with your lies and whimpering about your religious freedom. LGBT people defend your fucking rights in the military when they aren't tossed out on their asses and others have the shit kicked out of them on the street in a country you have ruined with your bigoted superstitions and horseshit fantasies about gawd and the children of gawd.
You don't uphold any biblical standards; you use them to justify your supremacy, evil and greed.
http://www.ktla.com/videobeta/watch/?wat…
Liars and charlatans all of you. Hell will be lined with your slimy disingenuous corpses. "Religious" scum bags.
Does this bullshit happen to asshole Christians? Until it does on a regular basis, you can all go fuck yourselves with your lies and whimpering about your religious freedom. LGBT people defend your fucking rights in the military when they aren't tossed out on their asses and others have the shit kicked out of them on the street in a country you have ruined with your bigoted superstitions and horseshit fantasies about gawd and the children of gawd.
You don't uphold any biblical standards; you use them to justify your supremacy, evil and greed.
http://www.ktla.com/videobeta/watch/?wat…
Liars and charlatans all of you. Hell will be lined with your slimy disingenuous corpses. "Religious" scum bags.
35
How dare a group use the long struggle for civil rights by African-Americans to try to generate sympathy for their own cause.
36
@17 homosexuality is not a religious belief, the last I checked.
@30 Being against gay marriage does not necessarily mean bigotry.
@29 Not all Mormons believe that.
People seem to be under the mistaken impression anti-gay marriage=hate or no love. Havn't you ever heard of tough love?
@30 Being against gay marriage does not necessarily mean bigotry.
@29 Not all Mormons believe that.
People seem to be under the mistaken impression anti-gay marriage=hate or no love. Havn't you ever heard of tough love?
37
Anti-gay marriage isn't necessarily about hate and it has nothing to do with love whatsoever - neither does pro-marriage equality have anything to do with love.
Attempts to prevent same-sex couples from being married or having separate pseudo equal status (like in CA) is about supremacy.
Attempts to prevent same-sex couples from being married or having separate pseudo equal status (like in CA) is about supremacy.
38
The social conservatives are trying to draw lines in their ethical sand here with 71, and in CA with the nasty situation there, because they know they will have zero--I repeat, zero--political value or clout with the institutional Republican leadership if gay marriage becomes the norm.
How so?
Simple: Abortion is legal. Women's biological rights are legally protected, and the odds of any Supreme Court undoing that are nil. The Church will never have a foothold in the classic legal system. That leaves their Gay Problem, and once the Republicans no longer have a value to court the social conservative base, the Focus on the Family types, that smaller subset of the Right has no more value or political standing.
This isn't about religion, gay marriage, or the state of what goes in Dan's arse. It's about the Christian Right's only remaining claim to political power in the modern political state of the union: gay marriage is their last card to play, today.
How so?
Simple: Abortion is legal. Women's biological rights are legally protected, and the odds of any Supreme Court undoing that are nil. The Church will never have a foothold in the classic legal system. That leaves their Gay Problem, and once the Republicans no longer have a value to court the social conservative base, the Focus on the Family types, that smaller subset of the Right has no more value or political standing.
This isn't about religion, gay marriage, or the state of what goes in Dan's arse. It's about the Christian Right's only remaining claim to political power in the modern political state of the union: gay marriage is their last card to play, today.
39
Hey, people: Glen Beck = Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Bill O'Reilly supports the KKK. Who is the far right but the KKK? If Obama is a Nazi, then Fox is the KKK. Right?
41
There is actually quite a history of the Mormons getting run out of their homes and lynched back in the 19th century, but that probably has more to do with their penchant for counterfeiting and thievery than anything having to do with their faith.
They don't do that anymore, of course.
But they did.
They don't do that anymore, of course.
But they did.
42
You need at least a +3 weapon to penetrate the mormon magical temple garments. You guys are trying to cleave through it with insignificant +1 flame tongues. You should try a frost brand or +3 luck blade, at the very least. A sword of sharpness or vorpal sword would be preferred.
43
@36
Please provide me with one single plausible rationale for opposing equal civil rights for all couples that doesn't stem from bigotry. Please exercise common sense and don't equivocate over what is or isn't hate.
Please provide me with one single plausible rationale for opposing equal civil rights for all couples that doesn't stem from bigotry. Please exercise common sense and don't equivocate over what is or isn't hate.
44
Now we are generous with the Negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world. But let them enjoy these things among themselves. I think the Lord segregated the Negro and who is man to change that segregation? It reminds me of the scripture on marriage, "what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Only here we have the reverse of the thing -- what God hath separated, let not man bring together again."
Elder MARK E. PETERSON (Quorum of the Twelve Apostles)
Race Problems -- As They Affect The Church
Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level,
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954
Elder MARK E. PETERSON (Quorum of the Twelve Apostles)
Race Problems -- As They Affect The Church
Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level,
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, August 27, 1954
45
@ Loveschild, I know several black gay men who make explicit parallels between the Civil Rights Movement and the gay liberation movement. Just because you don't know any doesn't mean they don't exist.
46
Whoever these "they" are, they should be assraped. They're already so sure of themselves, why not prove it to them that they're right.
47
Um. Loveschild, Julian Bond, http://www.naacp.org/about/leadership/di… a black civil rights leader, says the gay right's movement is absolutely equivalent to black civil rights movement. I watched him in person at the Equality March in Washington DC, a historic day in the gay civil rights movement.
http://www.queerty.com/even-julian-bond-…
Have you heard of Wanda Sykes? Psst, She's not only for gay marriage, she's in one. She also views gay rights as civil rights. http://jezebel.com/5133162/wanda-sykes-t…
Do you ever tire of being caught up in ignorance, hypocrisy, lies, and being just flat out wrong? I hope not, because you sure are entertaining.
http://www.queerty.com/even-julian-bond-…
Have you heard of Wanda Sykes? Psst, She's not only for gay marriage, she's in one. She also views gay rights as civil rights. http://jezebel.com/5133162/wanda-sykes-t…
Do you ever tire of being caught up in ignorance, hypocrisy, lies, and being just flat out wrong? I hope not, because you sure are entertaining.
48
36, People use there religious beliefs to say that homosexuality is morally wrong, and they try to push their religion onto gay people via the government.
Religious wackos say gay marriage is against their religion, therefor gay people of any religious belief and even non-believers must not be allowed to get married.
Gay people on the other hand just want to follow their own beliefs, and get married. They don't want to stop religious people from going to their churches and temples. They don't want to stop people of other beliefs from getting married, nor do they want to force straight people into same sex marriages.
Being against gay marriage is absolutely bigotry. To say that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married is to say that gay people are less deserving than others merely for who they are.
Religious wackos say gay marriage is against their religion, therefor gay people of any religious belief and even non-believers must not be allowed to get married.
Gay people on the other hand just want to follow their own beliefs, and get married. They don't want to stop religious people from going to their churches and temples. They don't want to stop people of other beliefs from getting married, nor do they want to force straight people into same sex marriages.
Being against gay marriage is absolutely bigotry. To say that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married is to say that gay people are less deserving than others merely for who they are.
49
Coretta Scott King, Widow of Martin Luther King Jr. : ""Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood""
50
I despise the Mormon religion most of all. Of course, adherents of this cult are the people that told my darling child that he was wrong, sick, and evil for being gay - to the point that he tried to commit suicide as a teen. He has escaped that upbringing and is a proud "radical homosexual." And yes, Loveschild, he is my family in spite of the fact that I'm not related to him by blood. The Mormons are still liars in my opinion.... witness this proposed speech.
51
Three comments:
First, read what Elder Oaks actually said with reference to the intimidation post-Prop 8 that was directed toward LDS and other supporters of the measure, "As such, these incidents of 'violence and intimidation' are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. . . . In their effect they are like well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation." He compared the anti-democratic EFFECT of the incidents to be similar to the voter-intimidation of blacks. He did not state that the ACTS of intimidation were similar. If you are going to criticize, at least be accurate in what you are criticizing.
Second, despite your loud protests to the contrary, some on this very message board are spewing hatred and intolerance that, at least verbally, are equivalent to those who fought against civil rights in this country. It is ironic that those who scream loudest for their "rights" are the first to deny those to others.
Finally, if there is a people that collectively understand what denial of civil rights and violent persecution means, it is the Mormons. Just retrace their history and you will see that most Mormons today have had ancestors who were forced from their homes, beaten, killed, raped and driven across the snowy plains of Iowa and Nebraska - all because of their faith. Thankfully, those aggregious intolerances are in the past, but they are all driven by the same motive - a desire to suppress and control good people who are trying to live as they believe God wants them to.
I'm aware of no incidents in the Prop. 8 battle where Mormon's were accused of tactics the anti-Prop 8 forces engaged in. It was a political campaign! Let's debate the issues and the policies and get away from attacking one's beliefs!
More...
First, read what Elder Oaks actually said with reference to the intimidation post-Prop 8 that was directed toward LDS and other supporters of the measure, "As such, these incidents of 'violence and intimidation' are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. . . . In their effect they are like well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation." He compared the anti-democratic EFFECT of the incidents to be similar to the voter-intimidation of blacks. He did not state that the ACTS of intimidation were similar. If you are going to criticize, at least be accurate in what you are criticizing.
Second, despite your loud protests to the contrary, some on this very message board are spewing hatred and intolerance that, at least verbally, are equivalent to those who fought against civil rights in this country. It is ironic that those who scream loudest for their "rights" are the first to deny those to others.
Finally, if there is a people that collectively understand what denial of civil rights and violent persecution means, it is the Mormons. Just retrace their history and you will see that most Mormons today have had ancestors who were forced from their homes, beaten, killed, raped and driven across the snowy plains of Iowa and Nebraska - all because of their faith. Thankfully, those aggregious intolerances are in the past, but they are all driven by the same motive - a desire to suppress and control good people who are trying to live as they believe God wants them to.
I'm aware of no incidents in the Prop. 8 battle where Mormon's were accused of tactics the anti-Prop 8 forces engaged in. It was a political campaign! Let's debate the issues and the policies and get away from attacking one's beliefs!
52
Fist of all, he called it a "less serious" version of the intimidation African American's faced in the civil rights ... not that that's going to stop the blogs and media from freaking out that he would speak about the two in the same sentence ... but he did not say they were the same.
Also, just because the media didn't cover the amount of intimidation and vandalism faced by Mormons after the vote doesn't mean it didn't happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YMrZxY5H…
Also, just because the media didn't cover the amount of intimidation and vandalism faced by Mormons after the vote doesn't mean it didn't happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YMrZxY5H…
53
Myth: Mormons are responsible for prop 8
Truth: Mormons are a tiny minority in CA. It was the majority of Californians who voted for Prop 8. So instead of vandalizing your local LDS Church or intimidating your local mormon small business owner, throw a few rocks in your neighbor's window and force him to lose his job. He's the one who voted for prop 8.
Truth: Mormons are a tiny minority in CA. It was the majority of Californians who voted for Prop 8. So instead of vandalizing your local LDS Church or intimidating your local mormon small business owner, throw a few rocks in your neighbor's window and force him to lose his job. He's the one who voted for prop 8.
54
Myth: Mormons are responsible for prop 8
Truth: Mormons are a tiny minority in CA. It was the majority of Californians who voted for Prop 8. So instead of vandalizing your local LDS Church or intimidating your local mormon small business owner, throw a few rocks in your neighbor's window and force him to lose his job. He's the one who voted for prop 8.
Truth: Mormons are a tiny minority in CA. It was the majority of Californians who voted for Prop 8. So instead of vandalizing your local LDS Church or intimidating your local mormon small business owner, throw a few rocks in your neighbor's window and force him to lose his job. He's the one who voted for prop 8.
55
Mormons are 1% of California.
Homosexuals are 11%.
Anti Prop8 outspent Pro Prop8 by $Millions.
Dan and teh Gays are still Buttsore over Prop 8 but can't face the fact that they screwed themselves....
Homosexuals are 11%.
Anti Prop8 outspent Pro Prop8 by $Millions.
Dan and teh Gays are still Buttsore over Prop 8 but can't face the fact that they screwed themselves....
56
I was raised Mormon.
I fit the clean-cut, nice, married-to-a-guy, skinny white chick, nothing "unusual" (whatever the fetch that means) about me archetype that the Mormons would love me to fit. I have three children. I don't cuss.
I quit the church because of their sheer hypocrisy about perfectly innocent people being allegedly lesser because *gasp* they weren't born heterosexual...I revolted in junior high school when my best friend told me she was a lesbian and her family tortured her for it. My parents turned on the logic of it to the LDS Church and were told that we'd no longer be welcome.
My best friend lived with us through college because her family shunned her, stating that the Church told them to. My parents were shunned in American Fork; we moved to Ogden. Three of my five siblings turned out to be gay; one particularly vengeful person told my mother it was because she took an "evil homosexual" into her home. That "evil homosexual" is my cute, adorable, cheery BFF. She's like another sister to us, and yet the LDS Church thinks her a punishment. They think my brother and two sisters who are gay are "punishments."
I don't get how any person is a punishment, much less people as awesome as my sibs. I don't get how the LDS Church tells these lies, and I don't get how anyone can be threatened by my best friend and her loving wife being married. I don't get how her children are any less worthy than mine. I don't get how they have the gall to compare firebombings of innocent children and worshippers to lynchings of thousands of similarly innocent oppressed Africans. I don't get who the fet...oh, heck, who the fuck believes these lies.
Once, an LDS scaremonger asked me what I would think if one of my children turned out gay. I drew a blank because that's just how little I care. They deserve this intimidation, they deserve every damn boycott they have coming, they deserve the fierce loathing they've gotten, and they should be shamed to the ends of the earth.
More...
I fit the clean-cut, nice, married-to-a-guy, skinny white chick, nothing "unusual" (whatever the fetch that means) about me archetype that the Mormons would love me to fit. I have three children. I don't cuss.
I quit the church because of their sheer hypocrisy about perfectly innocent people being allegedly lesser because *gasp* they weren't born heterosexual...I revolted in junior high school when my best friend told me she was a lesbian and her family tortured her for it. My parents turned on the logic of it to the LDS Church and were told that we'd no longer be welcome.
My best friend lived with us through college because her family shunned her, stating that the Church told them to. My parents were shunned in American Fork; we moved to Ogden. Three of my five siblings turned out to be gay; one particularly vengeful person told my mother it was because she took an "evil homosexual" into her home. That "evil homosexual" is my cute, adorable, cheery BFF. She's like another sister to us, and yet the LDS Church thinks her a punishment. They think my brother and two sisters who are gay are "punishments."
I don't get how any person is a punishment, much less people as awesome as my sibs. I don't get how the LDS Church tells these lies, and I don't get how anyone can be threatened by my best friend and her loving wife being married. I don't get how her children are any less worthy than mine. I don't get how they have the gall to compare firebombings of innocent children and worshippers to lynchings of thousands of similarly innocent oppressed Africans. I don't get who the fet...oh, heck, who the fuck believes these lies.
Once, an LDS scaremonger asked me what I would think if one of my children turned out gay. I drew a blank because that's just how little I care. They deserve this intimidation, they deserve every damn boycott they have coming, they deserve the fierce loathing they've gotten, and they should be shamed to the ends of the earth.
57
Some people say that the Mormons should be more understanding becasue they were persecuted in the 19th century. The thing is, the Mormons were persecuted in the 19th century for their religious beliefs. The same reason they are being persecuted today. Standing up for moral principles is not something new. What is new is the rapid rise in what we used to call immorality, which includes active homosexuality.
61
Calling someone bad names on a blog is not equivalent to lynching them from a tree. Boycotting a place of business or picketing a church is not equivalent to dragging someone behind your truck until they come apart.
62
@61, see my post above @51. That is not what he said. Boycotting, picketing, targeting for verbal abuse, pressuring arts organizations to fire someone who supported Prop 8 does, indeed, have the EFFECT of intimidation similar to that felt in prior eras. Let's stop misreading the quote simply so we can rant.
63
I hope they're intimidated. I really do. They deserve it, and they should damn well be named, shamed, and shunned. Their hatred hurts and kills innocent gay folks. Damn skippy they should be fired...they openly and notoriously support hatred and hurt.
As for the gay being contagious, I'm apparently immune, in denial (much as I think that appeals to my husband on some level), or, oh yeah, it's not. As for the head lice, we should probably talk about the awful case of crabs my "nice clean-cut Mormon" boyfriend gave me. And he said he was a virgin...
As for the gay being contagious, I'm apparently immune, in denial (much as I think that appeals to my husband on some level), or, oh yeah, it's not. As for the head lice, we should probably talk about the awful case of crabs my "nice clean-cut Mormon" boyfriend gave me. And he said he was a virgin...
64
Please @62, that person wasn't fired - he quit. He was shamed into doing it, sure. And I think it's fair to call shaming someone (for viewing most the people he works with as implicitly less deserving of his own rights) intimidation.
Still, is that equal to lynching? That quote remains preposterous.
Still, is that equal to lynching? That quote remains preposterous.
66
It also absolutely diminishes the horrible history of lynching and is deeply insulting to the historical horror of lynching.
68
Mormons have never been persecuted for their religious beliefs-- that is a lie.
The religious beliefs of Mormons are simply so sexist, so racist, so sociopathic that people have justly fought back against them. This is why all Mormon rituals are shrouded in secrecy. That and the fact that they are so stupid that they really do wear magic underwear.
When people know what Mormons really think, they are right to hate them. It is right to hate someone who thinks women exist only to give birth. It is right to hate someone so stupid they believe a professional charlatan found gold plates that contained magical scriptures, despite the fact that he never allowed another human to see them. It is right to hate people so racist they taught that people are born with skin darker than beige because they sinned before they were born.
The Mormons were never massacred-- but Brigham Young's followers ordered 120 people massacred in 1857. In an attempt to start a race war. So Brigham Young is exactly like Charlie Manson, only at least ten times as bad.
The Mormons have consistently been a source of violence, evil, bigotry, stupidity, and avarice in the United States. They deserve less respect than Scientology.
The religious beliefs of Mormons are simply so sexist, so racist, so sociopathic that people have justly fought back against them. This is why all Mormon rituals are shrouded in secrecy. That and the fact that they are so stupid that they really do wear magic underwear.
When people know what Mormons really think, they are right to hate them. It is right to hate someone who thinks women exist only to give birth. It is right to hate someone so stupid they believe a professional charlatan found gold plates that contained magical scriptures, despite the fact that he never allowed another human to see them. It is right to hate people so racist they taught that people are born with skin darker than beige because they sinned before they were born.
The Mormons were never massacred-- but Brigham Young's followers ordered 120 people massacred in 1857. In an attempt to start a race war. So Brigham Young is exactly like Charlie Manson, only at least ten times as bad.
The Mormons have consistently been a source of violence, evil, bigotry, stupidity, and avarice in the United States. They deserve less respect than Scientology.
70
I would much rather associate with my "radical homosexual" friends, then live here in Utah another 6 months. I relocated from the fabulous Pacific Northwest to SLC for a job back in May, and I have never experienced such a backward place in my life.
Mormons (they prefer to be called LDS, by the way) are friendly and willing to include you in their social circle - if they think they'll get you to join. Otherwise, you are pretty much shunned and considered a "bad" influence. For a religion that values education, I'm shocked at how little the LDS really do educate their children on basic life necessities. I can't believe how rude the people are here in Salt Lake. They must be venting repressed anger from sitting in church for so many hours.
Though I'm straight, I absolutely love my gay friends. I don't understand why some people feel so threatened by something that doesn't affect them in any way. My gay friend can't change his sexual orientation any more than he could change the color of his eyes. How does that really affect my LDS neighbor in any way? If they weren't so damn rude, nosy, judgemental, un-educated in this subject, and hadn't already alienated me because I'm such a "bad" influence, maybe we could talk about it over a non-caffienated, non-alcoholic beverage.
Mormons (they prefer to be called LDS, by the way) are friendly and willing to include you in their social circle - if they think they'll get you to join. Otherwise, you are pretty much shunned and considered a "bad" influence. For a religion that values education, I'm shocked at how little the LDS really do educate their children on basic life necessities. I can't believe how rude the people are here in Salt Lake. They must be venting repressed anger from sitting in church for so many hours.
Though I'm straight, I absolutely love my gay friends. I don't understand why some people feel so threatened by something that doesn't affect them in any way. My gay friend can't change his sexual orientation any more than he could change the color of his eyes. How does that really affect my LDS neighbor in any way? If they weren't so damn rude, nosy, judgemental, un-educated in this subject, and hadn't already alienated me because I'm such a "bad" influence, maybe we could talk about it over a non-caffienated, non-alcoholic beverage.
71
If those people get their way they will make me wear special underpants. I have a problem with that.
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