Equal Treatment is the Constitutional RIGHT of every American– Gay or straight, black or white, man or woman–and this right should NEVER be determined by the popular vote.

The Constitution is meant to protect the minority from the prejudicial will of the majority, not give the many (by means of the vote) a way to take away the rights of a disenfranchised few!

Even the LGBT community, by spending huge amounts of money fighting for our rights at the polls, unwittingly legitimizes the idea that our rights should be determined by the majority vote! It is time to change the strategy!

It is time to challenge our President, our Law Makers and Our Representatives to uphold the Constitution.

On February 28, 2008, as a Presidential candidate, Senator Obama stated: “Equality is a moral imperative…As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality…I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans…”

Now– as our President, he tells us that we must be patient because, in his words, “there are those who still need to be convinced”.

With all due respect, Mr. President, if the African American community’s civil rights had been determined on a state by state basis by the popular vote, there are areas in our country to this day, where segregation would be the “will of the people” because “there are those who STILL need to be convinced.”

I am not equating the African American struggle, or the women’s rights struggle, or the struggle for Religious freedom, with the LGBT struggle. Each group has historically faced it’s own unique challenges and discrimination. They are, however, comparable in one way. None should be determined by the “popular vote” and none of them were– EXCEPT the civil rights of LGBT Americans. This is unacceptable!

There is NO legal or socially moral reason to deny FULL EQUALITY to all. This denial is based on a particular religious belief–and no one’s religious interpretations should be allowed to justify denying a group their Civil and Social Rights. To do so is a blatant violation of the separation of church and state.

Mr. President, I would challenge you to show the courage of young Will Phillips. Give him back his Country’s Pledge. Show him that “Liberty and Justice for ALL” is not a lie!

Besides, though I’ve railed against Utah countless times (as I’m not a native Utahn), I also appreciate that…this is Utah, for those others around who actually are Utahns. If there are gay people in every culture, then there are gay people in Utah Mormon culture too. They have roots and benign aspects of culture that they could not and need not alienate. They want to make a life freely and openly among their own roots. Not everyone wants to just transplant from one culture to another and leave absolutely everything behind. That is not to say change is bad – change is very, very good. I’m saying that people need not stop being who they are as a culture and/or as an ethnicity to be true to themselves. Their society can be reformed through steady progress until it becomes one that is more accepting. Sometimes it’s painstakingly slow (Utah is still very 1950s), and I’d really like it to speed up a great deal. But when it comes to any genuine progress, I’ll take whatever comes.

Keep in mind that, when I think about this, it’s not just Mormon societies. I’ve known gay people who live in other deeply conservative societies – those that are Catholic, or Muslim, for instance. I’ve known gay Indonesian Muslims who are still somewhat liberal Muslims, but they are totally positive about being gay. Of course they often have to be discreet and there are public dangers involved, but they’d no sooner stop being Muslim than they’d stop being gay. And they count their blessings – it’s easier to be gay and Muslim in Indonesia than it is in a place like Saudi Arabia.

I think what you’re really talking about, here, are manners. And I’ve noticed a shift during the past five years in regard to how polite it is to question religious belief.

Like it or not, as best I can tell, there is a growing movement of people in the US who feel that it is really important to challenge openly belief in stories that cannot be backed with empirical evidence. I can’t speak for all of us, but, for me, personally, this shift in behavior was triggered by a “more harm than good” perspective that I developed in the wake of the priest abuse scandals in the Boston area, and the strong sense that “religion and spiritual conviction” was behind both the carnage of 9/11 and the neocon, bellicose response to it. Toss in some scapegoating of gay people and marriage equality for the 2004 election, and suddenly it just seemed masochistic and counter-productive NOT to challenge religious belief when it was behind so much pain and suffering.

And you guys who love your individual churches can continue to split hairs between a hierarchy and a congregation, or between a literal interpretation of scripture versus a metaphoric interpretation of scripture, or between canon law versus the actual practices of the people in the pews. But you can’t escape that you’re part of a larger problem: political use of beliefs in stories that have no empirical support are a huge cause of pain and suffering, and we as a species need to move beyond that.

Speaking of “too funny”! Wow!

Yes, I feel so bad for those guys. We’re impinging on their right to smash us in the face. We’re such Blue Meanies. I mean, after we’re done, they will be totally unable to practice their religion. (Not!)

Many African Americans have thrown us major attitude for comparing our struggle to theirs. I wonder what they think about how much Mormons have “suffered” compared to what happened to them in the 50′s and 60′s….

That said, I assume you’re talking about this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander_letter
It was created by Mark Hofmann in 1980.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hofmann
He’s serving a life sentence for murder he committed when he was risk at being discovered irrefutably that he had forged multiple documents in the 1980s. As such, the Salamander letter is not in the slightest bit controversial to me. Its credibility is about up there with Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Anyway, I’m not here to argue points of doctrine. I take a lot of things with a grain of salt anyway, and not in things that violate my conscience (like radicalism, or like disrespecting gay people). These are all intimate to any person of faith, and need not be any cause for concern as long as they don’t try to force them upon other people, including via ballot in a way they know might have that effect.

It could be stranger. I heard something about “aliens” in a previous comment. I mean… I believe in extraterrestrial life, but not that it’s necessarily defined or described in any record – just that it exists somewhere and that its day-to-day affairs have virtually nothing to do with us other than inhabiting the same universe. May not even be sentient, who knows.

*Orthodox* Mormon belief on the subject is that there are worlds without number, some of which are inhabited, but they lead their own existence without interaction from us. It kinda makes sense too – it would take an enormous amount of time to reach any of these possible worlds anyway.

But for the most part, I believe in the scientific method and the virtues of dispassionate empiricism for the sake of learning and research. I have a spirituality, but that is inherently not an empirical issue – it is outside that realm, and I wouldn’t pretend that a creed is science, or vice versa. They’re pretty separate disciplines.

On top of that all, I’m a liberal Democrat who likes social democracy. My background is Mormon, but is very unattached to Utah Mormon culture and its bewilderingly extreme Victorian Republican bend. I mean, Utah can at times be very bizarre and alienating, even if you have a Mormon background from outside the region. It’s like comparing Swedish Lutherans with Latvian Lutherans, or comparing Saudi Muslims with Javanese Muslims, or comparing the U.S. Episcopal Church with the Church of Nigeria. They’re worlds apart with extremely different customs and practices, including in areas of faith.

When I hear personalities like Hafen and Oaks making comments like those they have recently made, they make absolutely no sense from any spiritual basis I have – they do not sound spiritual at all, but instead sound like a cynical preservation of a cosy cultural status quo without having to go to any effort of seriously examining the issues. And in much of Utah (especially places that are most geographically isolated from the rest of the world), this insularity is pervasive in nearly every aspect of life. As former governor Huntsman said, this wholesale disrespect of gay people and their rights is not nearly as severe in the younger generations – people under 40. But the oldest generations (and in the Church organization with famously long lifespans, those with seniority tend to have the highest leadership positions) will probably go to their graves with the prejudices they have. And since Utah tends to be a society where people respect and obey their elders without thinking much about it, the local culture is chronically 50 to 70 years behind the norm. There’s a Mormon saying: “Live in the world but not of the world.” I always understood this to mean “Be self-reliant.” But when people live neither in the world nor of the world, you get places like Utah today.

That Elder Oaks…he’s funny. He seems to have some notion that his not-very-big religious community should have the right to control civil law and civil life. Uhm, Elder Oaks, that’s how you were run out of the Eastern Great Lakes (wanna discuss Kirtland?) and, further west, Nauvoo, Illinois.

Funny thing. I can go 30 miles east to Kirtland, home to one of the two temples of the Community of Christ, previously known as the Reorganized Church of LDS. Last time that place made the news was 20 years ago, when a demented leader of a splinter group murdered a family for defying him. On the other hand, I can go up to my roof deck and look towards downtown. I can make out the cornice of the building where the United Churches of Christ is located. The UCC was the first mainline Protestant church in the US to recognize gay marriages.

Brother Oaks is on the wrong side of history. He knows it, not unlike the late Strom Thurmond or Jesse Helms did. As it happens, there was a man who was a thorough racist, a man named George Wallace, and he proved through his actions that a person can choose to turn away from such malice. Maybe Elder Oaks will follow the example of George Wallace. I’m not waiting, but every day does bring surprises.

A spiritual background tends to be far more complex than mere religious affiliation. It’s not really that kosher to tell people that their very spiritual affiliation is what the problem is, as people often find their spirituality just as personal and inalienable as anything else.

That said, nothing says that there is no room for reform. You speak of cults, but that’s overly simplistic, not to mention something that is often taken as a slur far heavier than its dictionary definition. It may be more appropriate to speak in terms of cult-like obedience and why this can be mentally and spiritually stunting. If someone refuses to cultivate their own conscience in favor of someone else’s pulpit interpretation, then that can be cult-like no matter what the spiritual background or lack thereof is. But I believe that people ought to think for themselves, and make life experiences at least as equal as anything else in terms of figuring out what’s ethical or not, and come co conclusions that are wholly from their own conscience rather than just those that are expected of them from others around them. It’s rather hard to claim to have a conscience when none of one’s own conclusions are one’s own. And my conscience upholds conclusions that give gay people all their full equal rights, equality, dignity and respect, as to deny gay people any of these would be unconscionable in any circumstance.

Additionally, it is almost never helpful or wise to show outright disdain for a spiritual foundation itself or its adherents. You can *criticize* people, you can criticize organizations, you can criticize the wisdom of their scriptures and orthodox positions, etc., etc. – that is someone’s right and is often wise. But it should come with respect for them, who they are, and the quirks of their spiritual lives. When a person shows another person contempt for them or their spirituality, it does not endear them to magically think differently. This has often been the problem with how we approach religious radicals – we condemn them, and they in turn just dig in harder and become more paranoid and more radicalized. There is no convincing through contempt – it only breeds animosity and war. Instead, it is better to try to find common ground, attempt to speak to people respectfully in terms they can intimately understand and relate to, and reconcile differences towards finding peaceful solutions. I simply don’t believe in contempt or war.

Instead of telling people to abandon their foundations, focus instead on helping them reform them into something that is more accepting and nurturing of the differences of all their fellow human beings, while allowing them to maintain their own peaceful differences with your respect and acceptance.

It certainly does not help to treat progressive-hearted movements within Mormon faith as if they were your enemy, especially when they are seeking most of the same fundamental goals you may be seeking. When you condemn people because of associations even when they’re trying to join forces with you, it may end up only having the effect of souring them towards you, and making them feel that you are being petty and abusive to them. And this is wholly unnecessary.

None of us really like the culture war launched by the religious right to try to destroy us. But to practice greater legitimacy, we shouldn’t even dream of seeking to oppose spiritual moderates and progressives as if they were no different from the embittered fanatics. No matter whether they choose to be people of faith or not. Or else we too become fanatics of our own makin, and the struggle becomes a full-on holy war. Holy wars are some of the worst possible kinds of wars human beings can wage.

I for one applaud said impinging and urgently call for MORE!

This isn’t “religious intolerance” Bubba…it’s America waking up to the fact that Theocratic religious fanatics have been trying to take over American politics and turn us into the country of the Christian Taliban.