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Loading ...Mormon ‘kiss-in’ in Utah leads to shouting match
07.20.2009 8:28am EDT
(Salt Lake City) A mass-kissing protest near the Mormon church temple Sunday drew a shouting match between gay activists and a group of faithful Mormons.
For the second consecutive weekend, about 100 people gathered to stage a “kiss-in” to protest the treatment of two gay men cited for trespassing July 9 after they shared a kiss on the plaza owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both gay and straight couples exchanged kisses during the protest.Demonstrators were greeted at the south entrance by a group of protesters carrying large signs that denounced homosexuality, prompting a heated verbal exchange.
Police say no one was arrested or cited, despite a large group exchanging kisses by a reflecting pool at the plaza’s center.
“We didn’t call the police. We didn’t do anything,” church spokeswoman Kim Farah said.
The church bought one block of Salt Lake City’s Main Street to build a plaza in the 1990s alongside the Temple, where Mormon marriages and other religious rituals take place.
Matt Aune has said he and his partner, Derek Jones, exchanged a modest kiss at the plaza 11 days ago, but church officials contend their behavior was lewd.
“There was much more involved that a simple kiss of the cheek,” Farah said in a statement Friday. “They engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol.”
The men have said they were walking home from a nearby concert and cutting through the plaza on their way home.
A police report said they sat down for a kiss and were approached by a pair of church security guards, who asked them to leave because their behavior was “unwanted.”
Both were handcuffed and Aune was pinned to the ground.
“There was much more involved that a simple kiss of the cheek,” Farah said in a statement Friday. “They engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol.”
Would you believe anything a Mormon said? We know they lie.
I am glad that the agitation continues. The Mormons think they own Utah. We need to fight back.
funny how a simple kiss turns into copulating in public. I can appreciate they don’t condone same gender affection on their church property. nuff said. and we’re the Drama Queens?
I’m not really big on PDA either straight or gay.
Any time I see anyone playing tongue twister on the st. I fell like yelling “get a room”!!
That said, I hate the zealots much more than pda.
Kiss in is good and I think the one thing that should be at the top of the gay agenda is getting ALL the major religions tax exempt status removed.
Kiss in’s wont shut them up but taking their money WILL.
I love PDA. There should be more, straight or gay.
Call for the removal of their tax-exempt status, in fact all religious cults. Why should any religious cult get a free pass, be above the law at our expense and worse yet, vote against our rights, against civil marriage for same-sex couples that has absolutely NOTHING to do with theirs. They think they own marriage, they don’t, and they never will. We must make sure that remains the way it is.
Maybe we should start a movement to get the federal government out of marriage altogether when it confers one thousand or more rights that only come with marriage. Don’t believe Obama and others who say the federal government should not be in the business of defining marriage either. It most certainly DOES when it grants those rights only through straight marriage. Its a crock, of course the government is directly involved and why isn’t anybody going after Obama and others who keep on saying it isn’t? It certainly shouldn’t be supporting religious marriages either. Let those cults who want them issue their own licenses, not the states that shouldn’t be issuing them anyway.
If the bloody Mormons are upset, I’m happy!
I HATE OBAMA BASHERS
There is obviously more to this story…but tell me the last time a straight couple were handcuffed and pinned to the ground for kissing in public…drunk or not. The kiss-in is awesome…what better way to fight homophobia than by demonstrations of same-sex love.
Actually, I wouldn’t believe anything a neurotic individual said who was predisposed to HPD and PAPD, but that’s just me. Religion has nothing to do with it.
Had two peach-fuzz mormon missionaries come to the front door this weekend.
I asked them both if they knew what the word ‘Theocracy’ meant. With complete blank stares they shook their heads ‘no’.
When I told them, their mouths unhinged and they lacked words to respond.
These people are Morons, plain and simple.
I think the bejeweled spectacles caused Mr. Joseph Smith to mispell his cult’s name:
Moronism.
Kiss your loved one today. It is the sweetest revenge of all.
Looking at this purely from a legal point of view, it appears as if the Mormons want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to make the plaza very open to the public, because it’s great PR (it’s also the right thing to do, IMO).
But then they want to turn around and police it according to their religious values.
It’s either a religious area or not. If it’s a religious area, then it shouldn’t be open or public use; only the faithful should be allowed to go there. If it’s public, then follow the state law for “public accommodations.”
One way or the other. Not both.
I find it fitting that if you remove the second ‘m’ from “Mormon” you end up with “Moron”
While I view all organized religion as mythology, the Mormon belief system is especially ridiculous in how it came about.
No one wants to see anyone all over their other. But you have to deal with it. People need to get over being grossed out by PDA. Don’t like homosexual PDA? Don’t engage in it. Or look the other way. Just deal with it.
The Mormon church/all churches want you to believe all this fairy tale crap they preach. “God made the world in seven days. Mary the virgin, Moses into the desert, rising from the dead.” I wonder if they ever really listen to how foolish it all sounds? It’s all about money! And nothing more.