When you have some kind of personal connection (past or present), it is far easier to receive such news with hope and relief rather than skepticism.

Much of the time, when people disaffiliate with the LDS Church, it’s not because they’re no longer Mormons – it’s because they cannot in good conscience support an organization of people that’s getting overly involved in political matters and taking such a far-right line on sociopolitical and cultural issues. It alienates the progressive wing.

It’s gay rights activists like these who help achieve the most difficult (and sometimes the most miraculous) gay rights progress in places as conservative as Utah. In a place like Utah, where appearances and pleasantries are often instantly judged with a greater weight than being good or right, it’s always been hard to win over anyone’s minds or hearts with brute force – it causes other people only to harden as much as you try.

It’s been strange how the most successful gay rights victories here thus far have involved clandestine meetings (to maintain appearances) ad other gestures that first treat conservative Mormons with respect, dignity and relative sensitivity, rather than with hostility. It’s lost on no one that people of differing sides can have very opposite ideas of how things should be. And even after, people will still believe what they want to believe and not believe what they don’t want to believe. But that’s Utah, a very peculiar place. It’s very culturally distinct, very English, and very, very Victorian. (Not surprising, as the bulk of Utah’s ancestry were immigrants from 19th century Victorian England, and Utah still takes victorian notions of morality more seriously than almost anywhere.) Loud, noisy and rude things tend to alienate the uptight masses as they continue to maintain their perfectly-manicured stepford smiles. Sometimes to get concessions, you have to play ball and maintain the pleasantries, courtesies and etiquette, even if you don’t like each other.

So, if you know Utah Mormon society well enough, you know just why some people react to such news more with hope and relief than with skepticism and suspicion. Not that there isn’t skepticism or suspicion – they’re just more muted. People tend to want to keep up an appearance of niceness, even if they’d rather skin you alive and mount your head as a trophy.