Thursday, November 12, 2009
Homo / Religion Sullivan: "More power to the Mormons."
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 12:33 PM
Andrew reacts to the Mormon Church's backing of a gay rights ordinance in Salt Lake City...
Gays should and must reciprocate. For this is not something that many other churches, including my own, have been able or prepared to do. I wish, of course, that Michael Otterson, who is also a decent and sincere man, had not framed the position in such a defensive way: "The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage." That's a lamentably inflammatory way to describe gay citizens' genuine attempt to seek equality in civil marriage—which we certainly don't see as "violence" in any way at all. But the extremity of that quote may well have been necessary to avoid a backlash among conservative Mormons. And I would much rather focus on the positive gesture than the back-handed swipe that accompanied it.The other thing to say about this is that it speaks very highly of the strategy of Equality Utah, the state's main gay group, who decided to call the LDS bluff when the church said it was merely opposed to civil marriage—and not other protections for gay and lesbian citizens. Equality Utah immediately tried to get the church to endorse civil unions. That was a non-starter, but in response, we have this support for an anti-discrimination ordinance. Treating religious groups as interlocutors to be engaged, rather than as enemies to be attacked, has not been successful in most places. I did my best with the Catholic hierarchy in the 1990s and got little but contempt or terrified silence in response. Imagine the impact if the Pope came out and explicitly endorsed anti-discrimination laws for gay and lesbian people and used those words and expressed the kind of respect the Mormons just have. It would do a huge amount of good—for gay people and for the church. This Pope cannot do that; but the Mormons just did. More power to the Mormons.
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3
Hmmm. Something to ponder. But their actions in California, to me, seem unforgivable. Prop. 8 took away our rights to marry and this hardly seems a fair trade.
5
How noble of the Mormons that they agree to treat other citizens as almost equals. How terribly decent of them.
6
Yes, that is so tolerant of the Mormon Church to agree that gay people have the right to EARN A LIVING and maybe even the right to RENT AN APARTMENT.
I don't see the big news here. Surely most Christian groups don't even argue against those two things do they?
I fear Sullivan and others are giving too much credit here.
I don't see the big news here. Surely most Christian groups don't even argue against those two things do they?
I fear Sullivan and others are giving too much credit here.
8
Reminds me of what happened in the early 80s.... the church didn't allow Black men to hold the priesthood and BYU was starting to get a lot of flack and boycotts of their football team. All of a sudden, the angels came down and told the church to allow Black men to hold the priesthood and magically the problem went away.
Where are the gay angels when you need them? :)
Where are the gay angels when you need them? :)
9
Meanwhile the Catholics are starving the homeless to death while engaging in heterosexual purity tests in DC ....
10
It's not only Mormons, many people of faith would be willing to support fair laws for all regardless of sexuality if gay advocates stopped the inflammatory rhetoric against them and quit the repeated attempts at imposing gay marriage. Why not focus on something that we all can agree in instead? We'll be better off when we decide to meet each other in the middle of the road.
11
My initial reaction to reading this was pretty cynical. That said-- Hopefully Equality Utah will continue to engage the LDS church and find some common ground. The end-game isn't to change the church's mind... it's just to get them to NOT dump truckloads of money to fight marriage equality. Right? I find it hard to believe that the LDS would continue to rigorously finance the opposition if they're actively engaged with the LBGT community-- especially seeing wholesome, decent gay and lesbian couples on a regular basis. I guess my hat's off to Equality Utah... for now.
12
Hey, credit where credit is due. We don't have to say, "Gawrshk, I guess them nasty Mormons were our friends all along!" and move them from our bad books to our little black books. But we can say, "Well, it's a start." Keep fighting where we need to be fighting, keep attacking where the offensive is called for. But hey, look, a teeny tiny little political victory.
14
@10 "We'd give you some rights if you'd only stop bitching about wanting equal rights. It's your uppity-ness that gets in the way of compromise."
15
Blessed are the peacemakers. Seriously...I wish them the best of luck. Or at least, as painless a landing as possible.
16
It's not only Mormons, many people of faith would be willing to support fair laws for all regardless of sexuality...
And you know what fair is...how exactly?
And you know what fair is...how exactly?
17
"We'll be better off when we decide to meet each other in the middle of the road."
Excuse me? Are you saying we can have some of the rights you have but can't have all of them?
Please. Equality is equality. No church can be forced to accept/perform gay marriage thanks to that little thing called freedom of religion. However, meeting in the middle of the road would mean you giving me freedom FROM your religion.
Excuse me? Are you saying we can have some of the rights you have but can't have all of them?
Please. Equality is equality. No church can be forced to accept/perform gay marriage thanks to that little thing called freedom of religion. However, meeting in the middle of the road would mean you giving me freedom FROM your religion.
18
The LDS, the Catholic church and the majority of other religious institutions operating in the world today still don't recognize women as equal beings. So it's hard to imagine the day when they'll recognize sexual minorities as equal beings. Maybe, rather than trying to get these institutions with vested interests in maintaining their intractable, antiquated belief systems to come along into the twenty-first century, effort could more productively be channeled towards pursuing a strict enforcement of the separation between church and state. Seeing as how that's already in the constitution and all.
19
Too true. Did Sullivan have anything to say about the lovely Christian conduct of the RCC in DC?
For this is not something that many other churches, including my own, have been able or prepared to do.
Too true. Did Sullivan have anything to say about the lovely Christian conduct of the RCC in DC?
20
this definitely helps me to be more interested in the mormon's made-up god than any of the other made-up gods.
sincerely,
diggum
sincerely,
diggum
21
I always thought it was weird how people went on and on about how gay people are anti-family, anti-tradition, obsessed with sex, irresponsible, blah blah blah. But as soon as gay people wanted to get married and be pro-family, pro-tradition, and responsible...that's when everyone REALLY freaked out.
You know why? They *want* us to be freaks. They want us to be revolting, to be worse than they are, to be empty, because it reaffirms their world view about us. And once your world view is affirmed in one area, you generally feel better about all the other areas. The problem is, other people don't always play by the same rules. Every time a gay person seems to be decent and dignified, it's an affront because *it's not supposed to be that way.* We're supposed to be dying of AIDS and having sex in toilets, because that's how an abomination should behave. We're just faking it to get a foot in the door and pollute everyone.
It's not a one-way street, though. I have to admit, initially I had the same kind of reaction to the Mormon announcement. I distrust them, I think they're out to harm us, and my first reaction was anger that they would even dare to do something like this. It had to be a trick, a ploy, a cynical PR move. And I surprised myself, because I actually *resented* this initial gesture from them. I just couldn't believe that there might actually be something decent and honorable behind it all.
Maybe I want them to be freaks too.
You know why? They *want* us to be freaks. They want us to be revolting, to be worse than they are, to be empty, because it reaffirms their world view about us. And once your world view is affirmed in one area, you generally feel better about all the other areas. The problem is, other people don't always play by the same rules. Every time a gay person seems to be decent and dignified, it's an affront because *it's not supposed to be that way.* We're supposed to be dying of AIDS and having sex in toilets, because that's how an abomination should behave. We're just faking it to get a foot in the door and pollute everyone.
It's not a one-way street, though. I have to admit, initially I had the same kind of reaction to the Mormon announcement. I distrust them, I think they're out to harm us, and my first reaction was anger that they would even dare to do something like this. It had to be a trick, a ploy, a cynical PR move. And I surprised myself, because I actually *resented* this initial gesture from them. I just couldn't believe that there might actually be something decent and honorable behind it all.
Maybe I want them to be freaks too.
23
Fuck Andrew Sullivan, fer fuck's fucking sake. God I hate when you link to his Christian apologia bullshit.
OMG THE MORMONS ARE SO AWESOME WE SHOULD IGNORE THEIR EFFORTS TO BLOCK SAME-SEX MARRIAGE BECAUSE THEY WILL RENT THEIR TAX-FREE APARTMENT HOLDINGS TO TEH HOMOS
OMG THE MORMONS ARE SO AWESOME WE SHOULD IGNORE THEIR EFFORTS TO BLOCK SAME-SEX MARRIAGE BECAUSE THEY WILL RENT THEIR TAX-FREE APARTMENT HOLDINGS TO TEH HOMOS
24
As a man, I can marry a woman, just like every other man in the country (equal). I can't marry another man, just like every other man in the country. Why isn't that equal?
25
@24 - Exactly. And why did we need interracial marriage when everyone already had equal rights to marry someone of their own race? The way these people talk, you'd think marriage was supposed to be about love and happiness or something.
26
@24: In Taliban run Afghanistan, everyone had the same right to be a Sunni Muslim as everyone else, and no one has a right to be something different. Equal, right? Why are you bitching about it?
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