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Loading ...Petitioners to Mormons: Soften gay marriage stance
06.23.2009 10:45am EDT
(Salt Lake City) A group of current and former Mormons at odds with the church’s position on gay marriage and its political activism to ban it has launched a Web site asking the faith to soften its stance.
The site, http://www.ldsapology.org , includes a petition for reconciliation that calls on leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to end what it says are hurtful anti-gay policies and its involvement in anti-gay politics and fundraising.Janeen Thompson, a site organizer, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the petition is a direct reaction to Mormon church involvement in a coalition that worked last fall to pass Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California’s state constitution.
A May ruling by the California Supreme Court upheld the vote.
“We felt prompted to undertake this project on behalf of the gay community whose rights have been taken away largely because of the LDS involvement in the campaign,” said Thompson, a lifetime Mormon who lives in Boulder Creek, Calif.
Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said Monday that the church had no comment on the site.
As of Monday, 162 individuals had signed the petition. Thompson said signatures will be gathered through the fall and organizers plan to deliver the petition to the church’s Salt Lake City headquarters Nov. 4 – the anniversary of the 2008 Proposition 8 vote.
Like many religions, Mormonism teaches that traditional marriage is an institution ordained by God and that homosexual sex is a sin. Gays are welcome to attend church but must remain celibate to retain service callings.
The church has been consistent in its position and actively worked against marriage equality legislation since the 1990s.
Following the November vote, the church became a target for protests, vandalism and hate speech. Church leaders have called for civility in the discussion of the issues and say the dialogue is not helped when people on both sides demonize each other.
Site organizers – who include Mormons, non-Mormons, gays and heterosexuals living in several states – agree.
Site material includes a chronicle of church involvement in gay marriage legislation, personal stories from gay and lesbian Mormons, the current Mormon pamphlet on the theology related to homosexuality and a list of known gay Mormons who have committed suicide.
The church once taught homosexuality was an illness and offered cures such as electroshock therapy, medication, marriage to heterosexual women and other therapies as treatments. In 2007, Dallin Oaks, of the faith’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, acknowledged the past use of some abusive therapies and said they had been phased out.
Cheryl Nunn of Santa Cruz, Calif., owns the site domain. She said her discomfort with those past practices raised her awareness of gays in the church. Last fall, Nunn and Thompson became active in the campaign against Proposition 8, attending marches and rallies.
Nunn is unequivocal about wanting an apology.
“Most likely that may not happen, but any reduction in aggressive Mormon Church fund raising, sermons to campaign and block vote or to promote anti-gay legislation, would mean the petition message had been heard.”
Mr. said: “This is about protecting the institution of marriage, not hate.”
Marriage doesn’t need protecting from gay couples. There is nothing about homosexuality that will harm marriage. Saying something needs to be protected from gays, does show anti-gay hate, homophobia, and insecurity.
“Mr” says “Protect the institution of Marriage” you sound like George W. Bush! LOL Loser. Protect Marriage from what? The boogeyman. Please.
Go get a life. People like you have turned me into what you consider “mean” O poor lil guy, everyone is picking on you. Its exactly your statement that has us ANGRY! Did I stutter? ANGRY.
So you better back the Fu8k off and go bring your sorry you know what back to your sorry silly goofball, cultist “Church.”
What a silly, psycho “religion” follow some guy who said “god” came down and talked to him and told him to marry as many woman as he wants (since they are property anyways) right? Sounds like someone on LSD. We need to protect our society from you and Nuts like Joseph Smith (young girl molestors) etc. Furthermore, what sickos marry their own neices? Thats what you are trying to “protect”? LOL
Probably if Joseph Smith and Brigham Young told you all to drink Arsenic Lace Kool Aid, you would? We couldnt be that lucky… darn.
Please you can have that “institution!”
Bye Loser.
Where is the Mormon’s apology from the gay community for vandalizing property? Where is their apology for being harassed at their homes and work just for exercising their most basic right as Americans to vote? Where is the Mormons apology from those who threw a bag of urine at one of the temples or sending white powder in the mail? Where is the apology for name-calling and death threats? Same-sex marriage advocates are fond of playing the homophobic card to demonize those who disagree with them, but saying if you do not support gay marriage then you must be a bigot is as silly as saying that if you are pro-life and against prostitution, then you must hate women. Mormons do not hate gays, I have a gay uncle and I do not hate him. This is about protecting the institution of marriage, not hate. All the hate I have seen has been coming from same-sex marriage advocates. If only 2% of Californians are Mormon that means that 98 % of those who voted were not.
Like so many religious right wing groups, they cry about being demonized, when they themselves are the demonizers.
Truth becomes lies, and lies become truths. Conservative Christians with their “we love you gay people” are saying we love you if you do what we tell you to do (forced religious terrorism) and we hate you if you don’t.
The Mormon, Catholic, and So. White Baptists, and some of the independent conservative christian churches are just one step short of being our own taliban. For them, control is what they want, and they will terrorize, and drive gay kids to suicide to get their way. It is all about power, and brainwashing.
I know there are independent Catholic churches that support gay peoples aspirations, and do not cater to the butcher of the vatican, Seig Heil, Meine churchfuhrer.
But you aren’t going to change these churches, it will take a hundred years. The only solution is to join with supportive churches, including those who are struggling but moving in the right direction.
Try Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian USA, MCC, United Churches of Christ, Jewish Reform, Unitarian Universalist, and there are some others.s
And work within these churches to help build a religious movement that recognizes that gay people are also part of God’s creation.
While exposing the houses of bigotry.
Take the Catholic church, who blamed the gay priests for their decades of sexual abuse. It had little to do with anyone being gay. It was almost exactly the same thing as prison rape, where people establish their poweer by raping the weaker. And prison rape is carried out by the strongest and most macho of the crowd, and has little to do with sex, and everything to do with control. Just like the right wing churches.
And why did the catholic church hide their crimes for decades, while allowing their criminals to move and continue their crimes? Only possible explanation – the whole hierarchy is also guilty.
And I wonder about sex abuse in the Mormon church, whose history of control is best described by the multiple wives deal. In history, the man with the most wives was the richest. Greed reigns supreme.
And the southern baptists – the supporters of slavery, and the architects of segregation.
It is incumbent for every single gay person and their str8 supporters to get involved in the politics of solving this problem, exposing the criminals, and supporting the churches that support gay people.
Nick,
I think R & R is right about this. The Old Testament is full of references to polygamy, and really doesn’t limit marriage to one man and one woman. The New Testament presents many different models of family.
The passage you cited unequivocally refers to divorce rather than same-sex marriage: “The Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?’ And he answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read, that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and the two shall be one flesh? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:3-6).
Jesus is prohibiting divorce, not same-sex marriage. He later allows infidelity as the one exception to this rule. He also points out that some people cannot accept this teaching and cites “Eunuchs who were born so from their mother’s womb” (verse 12) as one example. Some biblical scholars believe this refers to people who were born gay.
As you probably know, Jesus never married and neither did most of his disciples. Jesus considered his followers to be his family, and he said so outright several times in the gospels. Paul also never married, and he said that he wished all people would remain single, as he was. So the modern emphasis on marriage between one man and one woman is a recent development and really doesn’t have its roots in the Bible.
Incidentally, the Mormons themselves have a history of polygamy. Their emphasis on one-man one-woman marriage is so recent that the word “hypocrite” springs to mind.
The Associated Press should know better than to let the Mormon leaders decry “demonizing” when they’ve demonized gay people for years. It’s a lie of omission, and so the AP should also have presented the truth.
How naïve can you be? Gay Mormons like Catholic Gays will be ignored. You are wasting your time. get involved with the LGBT community and forget about about religion. Keep your eye on the visible humanity, starting with yourselves.
“The church once taught homosexuality was an illness and offered cures such as electroshock therapy, medication, marriage to heterosexual women and other therapies as treatments.”
OK, so was “the gay” married to a woman or several women? A threesome, foursome, fivesome? Ooh la la! Those traditional values sure are something.
I find it stunning but typical that the Mormons believe they have been “demonized.” They organized to take our freedoms and liberties from us using deception, lies, false rhetoric, lots of cash (which should have gone to help the poor).
The Mormons are SO ARROGANT they believed they would get away with these crimes without backlash. I imagine we’ll see them around Easter dragging their crosses like deadweight; a religion founded upon a hallucinating, sex obsessed lunatic screwing nonstop in a desert. Sounds like the moral highground to me…
@R & R: Biblically, opposite-sex marriage is implied in Matthew 19:4-5: “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?”
There is a very, VERY long discussion on how Mormons view marriage, as it is talked about at length in one of the four Holy Books of the Mormon faith, “Doctrine and Covenants.” The LDS Church supports four books as being the Word of God: The Bible (King James Version), The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. Sections 101, 131, and 132 from Doctrine deal with “Celestial Marriage.”
I’m not a Biblical scholar. I am a proud Goddess-worshipping Witch. It helps to know your enemy.
Let them apologize for the Evergreen Project and the high suicide rate among GLBTQAI Mormons for starters.
Folks, you can’t make peace with the devil. Mormonism is a HOMOPHOBIC PAGAN FERTILITY CULT; Joseph Smith was a HORNY LIAR (or there were some EXCELLENT magic ’shrooms in that cave in upstate New York).
Maybe someone can point to the book, chapter, and verse where God specifically says that marriage is between a man and a women ONLY. And I’m not asking for some extrapolation made by some self appointed representative of God. We have plenty of those.
I’m sorry… I can’t stop laughing. To think they will back off… ba ha ha ha. I just can’t stop laughing at this.
@ Christ Sullivan- you thought exactly the same thing I did when I read that statement. Sure, the church wants to be treated with dignity and respect as it battles against the “sinful” and “evil” gays who are out to destroy their way of life. The truth is that they started the demonizing, but can’t take the heat when it is put back on them. It is called cowardice and hypocrisy.
I like to see stuff like this. Good for these responsible Mormons.
As an ex-mormon myself, I applaud their efforts to dialogue but the “church” has shown repeatedly its hypocritical and bigoted stance towards gays. They claim to support our rights “just not marriage” but at every turn and opportunity they have supported squashing any advancement towards equality even when marriage was not the issue…look at the money, time, and podium reads they’ve done over domestic partner rights, hospital visitation rights, inheretance rights etc. They have scripture that clearly states the church is to not get involved in civic politics and they ignore those texts just as most “Christians” pick and choose what thye believe and what they follow. I could care less that they “soften” their stance – I want all religions to stay the hell out of the political process…sep of church/state!!!!!!
“Church leaders have called for civility in the discussion of the issues and say the dialogue is not helped when people on both sides demonize each other.” – Um, EXCUSE ME – who was doing the “demonizing” first???