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Loading ...Gay activists rally outside Mormon temple in NYC
11.13.2008 7:45am EST
(New York) Carrying signs reading “Love not H8″ and “Did you cast a ballot or a stone?”, a large crowd of gay-marriage supporters gathered outside a Mormon temple to protest the church’s endorsement of a same-sex marriage ban in California.
The rally Wednesday night outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple came hours after gay couples exchanged vows for the first time in Connecticut amid cheers and tears of joy.The milestone did not ease the sting of a major loss for gay-marriage supporters last week. Gay activists planned protests across the country over the vote that took away their right to wed in California.
In the Upper West Side of Manhattan, demonstrators chanted “Shame on you!” outside the temple. Leaders of the Mormon church had encouraged members to support passage of California’s Proposition 8, a referendum banning same-sex marriage.
“I’m fed up and disgusted with religious institutions taking political stances and calling them moral when it’s nothing but politics,” said Dennis Williams, 36. “Meanwhile they enjoy tax-free status while trying to deny me rights that should be mine at the state and federal level.”
Church spokesman Michael Otterson said that while citizens have the right to protest, he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by the gathering since the majority of California’s voters had approved the amendment.
“This was a very broad-based coalition that defended traditional marriage in a free and democratic election,” Otterson said, referring to the numerous religious and social conservative groups that sponsored Proposition 8.
Organizers of the rally estimated at least 10,000 people participated. Police said they could not give a crowd estimate.
Gay-marriage advocates said they were planning nationwide demonstrations this weekend in more than 175 cities and outside the U.S. Capitol. A Seattle blogger was trying to organize simultaneous protests outside statehouses and city halls in every state Saturday.
Earlier in Connecticut, Jody Mock and Elizabeth Kerrigan emerged from Town Hall in West Hartford to the cheers of about 150 people and waved their marriage license high. The couple led the lawsuit that overturned the state law.
“We feel very fortunate to live in the state of Connecticut, where marriage equality is valued, and hopefully other states will also do what is fair,” Kerrigan said.
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 10 that same-sex couples have the right to wed rather than accept a 2005 civil union law designed to give them the same rights as married couples. A lower-court judge entered a final order permitting same-sex marriage Wednesday morning. Massachusetts is the only other state that allows gay marriages.
Connecticut officials had no information Wednesday on how many marriage licenses were issued to same-sex couples. According to the state public health department, 2,032 civil union licenses were issued between October 2005 and July 2008.
Like the highest courts in Connecticut and Massachusetts, the California Supreme Court ruled this spring that same-sex marriage is legal. After about 18,000 such unions were conducted in California, however, its voters last week approved Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment.
Gay rights groups said Wednesday they may ask California voters to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage if legal challenges to Proposition 8 are unsuccessful.
The California vote has sparked protests in several states, many targeting Mormon churches. Some have been vandalized.
Activists also are aiming boycotts and protests at businesses and individuals who contributed to the campaign to pass Proposition 8.
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I find it a bit dsisturbing that we have “seperated” the chirch and state, but I have been denied my right as a human to marry. But an atheist that has no religious belief can stand before God and be granted their marriage. Where’s the logic in that one?
cm: Nobody is buying your “bridge”. Some oppressed people have been known to sympathize with their oppressors, hesitant to seek redress, even when the evidence was staring at them. If you feel that your energy is better used against the black church, and you want to, for whatever reason, sidestep the measures that are about to be instituted against the Mormons…….knock yourself out.
If being willing to fight for my rights against cults that want to tear up the constitution makes me a virulent proponent of the “gay agenda”; I’ll take that as a compliment.
Don’t fret; your gay membership won’t be forfeit simply because you don’t have the courage to defend your civil rights. Street queens started the Stonewall riots, even as members of the Mattachine Society sat in their oak-paneled room and smoked pipes, trying for all the world to look and behave as their straight oppressors. But, when the dust settled, they benfitted from the riots too.
Burn the mother down!
You all have seen the l997 Mormon memo where they PLANNED the fight against Calif SSM? …and this from Joe S. HRC weekly newsletter:Catholic movement of the early 1800s.
It is chilling to realize the Catholic and Mormon Churches knew they were telling lies – that marriage equality would require children to learn about homosexuality in school – priests would be required to solemnize marriages of same sex couples – and they lied anyway.
For those who feel we shouldn’t be protesting that long time bigoted Church elders forced their congregations to pay for Prop H8 … Well guess what lots of MORMONS agree with US.
Read the letters of Mormons leaving their church over this fiasco at signforsomething.com. They are very moving and sad.
My partner had the privilege of protesting at the Morman church in NYC last night. I’m here in Houston until December, but I’ll be able to protest on Saturday at Houston City Hall. I’ve already made my poster!
Thanks for posting that link cm.
I’m supportive of demonstrations; we need to encourage visibility!
However, I’d really like to hear that HRC had joined with the ACLU in legal action to force the Mormans to pay taxes since they are functioning recently as a gigantic PAC.
If you’re looking for a good list of places to protest, go here: http://www.californiansagainsthate.com/dishonorRoll.html
The Californians Against Hate list of donors to the yes on 8 campaign.
While protesting outside the Mormon is doubtful to do anything to change Mormon beliefs or doctrines, letting these companies know that you will boycott their services while they support prop 8, or their leaders do probably will have an impact!
cm: “There were NO mormons standing with guns pointed at people’s head telling them which way to vote on election day.”
People are angry with the Mormons because the LDS church spent millions and millions of dollars to get folks to vote “Yes” on Prop 8.
As well, folks are also kinda cranky at what they perceive to be hypocrisy: That is, Mormons have allowed polygamy (incidentally, only the type of polygamy wherein one man gets to have many wives (not the kind where one woman can acquire more than one husband)). The Mormons undermined one-man/one-woman long before gay people came to public attention!
Finally, those of us raised in mainstream Protestant denominations see that church as a cult. Mormons are in the minority and – one would have hoped, in the last instance – could have spoken up for other minorities as well.
Ramon – Your remarks sound so much like the “gay agenda” remarks you hear from the other side, that it’s frightening.
Someone else is always bad, someone else is always evil…
There were NO mormons standing with guns pointed at people’s head telling them which way to vote on election day.
Ownership of that belongs to the individual voters. (And for the record – I a gay, atheist, not Mormon. Thank You.)
Sandoval said, “Stop asking why don’t protest black people. You can’t. They didnt promote this at their Mega churches, they didn’t pay for the ads on tv or sent money in mass for prop 8. Gays vs Black people is a fight that only the religious conservatives and antigay people would love to see.”
BUT – Black people DID VOTE FOR IT. Regardless of where the funding for ads came from every African American person in California had a CHOICE to vote for or against gay marriage, and 70% chose to vote FOR it.
TV commercials, and advertising do not make my decisions for me, and I doubt they did for the vast majority of California voters.
The Mormons may have done _______ but the final decision was in the hands of the voters in California, and THEY chose to pull the lever. THEY chose to vote against gay marriage, THEY chose to support hate and bigotry.
Target the Mormon’s all you want, as an easy scapegoat/target. But that will not change the fact that 52% of Californians voted against gay marriage.
It’s time for the citizen’s of California to take ownership of this, stop making excuses, and blaming outside sources.
The choice to cast a ballot was YOURS.
Much like tobacco and alcohol, this “product” (the hate) that the Mormon church was selling would not have had any impact, if there weren’t customer to buy it…
cm: Thanks for the “suggestion”, but we’re targeting the Mormons first because they’ve bankrolled so much of the religious terrorist agenda, and because it will send a clear message to people in other countries where Mormons are doing “missionary” work that their true goals are subversive. Many people, particularly in places such as Latin America do not need to change one master for another. The Mormons are planting the seeds of hate and dissent in people who are now questioning their own intolerant histories.
Dave…my partner and I may just do that since we’re right next door to your state. Massachusetts by the way now permits out of state couples to marry there, it was a recent decision of Governor Duval Patrick who has a lesbian daughter. I’m fearful that current marriage equality legislation in New York state will go the same way as California. Already, conservative dems are gathering to make sure it doesn’t succeed. Its going to be a nasty uphill battle and not one I see us winning easily. The right wing pundits are already on our case as are is the Mormon sect among others. Some of the conservative dems are threatening to defect to the republicans and we all know the dems usually cave in to pressure or don’t have the balls or the guts to do the right thing. Holding my breath.
Jeffrey:
Stephen Colbert asked the same question. Why gays don’t go and protest the “first church of black”.
When 70% of the funds came from the mormons. There is your answer.
Stop asking why don’t protest black people. You can’t. They didnt promote this at their Mega churches, they didn’t pay for the ads on tv or sent money in mass for prop 8. Gays vs Black people is a fight that only the religious conservatives and antigay people would love to see.