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Loading ...Police report sides with Salt Lake City gay couple
07.15.2009 5:00pm EDT
(Salt Lake City) A police report on an incident involving a gay couple kissing appears to side with the detained gay couple. The Salt Lake City couple was cuffed and detained by security guards for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after refusing to follow guard orders.
Matt Aune, 28, and his partner Derek Jones, 25, were walking across the Main Street Plaza, an easement that connects the Mormon Temple to other church sites that belong to the church. The men say they were told to leave after they hugged and kissed. Mormon Church officials claim that the men were given a warning for their behavior and then detained for trespassing after refusing to leave.The report does not mention a warning, saying only that the guard told the pair that “they need to leave [church] property for the behavior and that [it] is unwanted.” The report says that the “unwanted” behavior was kissing and hugging, and that police were called when Jones refused to leave.
Jones claimed during a television interview that as he was being cuffed, one of the guards said, “It’s just gross, it’s just wrong.”
Alcohol was involved in the incident as well. “I could smell alcohol on Matt’s [Aune] breath and he [sic] speech was slightly slurred when he spoke to me,” police officer Eric Moutsos said.
A kiss in occurred the Sunday after the incident in which participants, both gay and straight, wore paper hearts while kissing to show support for Aune and Jones.
Read the full On Top Magazine article here.
There are those that say that the couple should have left the property when asked.
Ok, I will give you that. Then there are those that say that the couple should have had respect. Well that is true also. But it is a give/give situation. The church should have respect for people no matter that you disagree with a persons life or not. That is a “christian” way of life. Now as for the church not meddeling in lives of gays, there was a time back just a few years ago when the church would “buy” memberships to the gay private clubs, so that they could go and spy to see if the guys from BYU would be found in the gay bars, and then expell them for a breach of the Honor Code.
Hey Larry…Why is it that you accuse me of raising my kids in a loveless environment simply because I don’t agree with your lifestyle choices? As I see it we are at different ends of the spectrum but achieving the same results. If I am bringing my children up in a loveless environment because I am teaching them that the LGBT agenda is wrong then you would be bringing your children up in a loveless environment by teaching them that people who don’t support the LBGT agenda are wrong. You can’t define love (or the lack thereof) one way and then not apply it to yourself too. JESUS loved the sinners but not the sin, and that is how I am bringing my children up. I want them to know that they should love ALL of GOD’s children, but that they should not condone or accept anything that goes against the WORD of GOD. The only “control” I exert over my children is the control necessary to ensure that they are brought up in a way that follows the teaching of Jesus Christ and keeps them from getting physically hurt or killed. They are allowed to have their own opinions and beliefs, even if they are different from what I believe. I guess you feel that I am failing to show my children love and sheltering them if I don’t teach them to accept the LGBT lifestyle right? The skyrocketing rate of divorce among married couples has more to do with the moral decay of our society than it does with a lack of love in the home. If you were to study the divorce rate of same-sex couples I am sure you would see that their divorce rates are not much different than those of heterosexual couples. One other thing. You mock me for typing BGLT rather than LGBT, but at least I am trying to open dialogue with people I “know nothing about”. One last comment. Rather than burying my head in the bible I study the bible and work to understand how it applies to today’s society so that I can help my children gain a better understanding too. I see nothing wrong with praying, even if I don’t always get an immediate response, and I do agree that sometimes not getting a response is an answer in and of itself. Please don’t equate my not supporting the LGBT lifestyle with a lack of love for those who do support it. I have many gay friends whom my children love and adore, and I would not have it any other way. Please forgive me if I have given you any other impression.
Hey John..Yes, I’m here sharing my views on a very volatile subject in which people are characterizing my church and those who belong to it in a negative and incorrect way. Regardless of what people may think of the church I belong to they have no idea who I am as a person or what I believe. I am sharing my views in an attempt to let people here know that us Morons as you call us aren’t all bigoted, homophobic, hate mongering people. I could discuss this on a Mormon/LDS blog, but would I really be discussing it since it would only be with people on one side of the issue?
Hey Aaron, I don’t go preaching in your bars because I respect your rights, not because I’m afraid of being outnumbered (It doesn’t matter if you’re outnumbered if you feel you’re right, and I don’t allow fear to keep my from doing anything I believe in.) I’m not ignoring something I find distasteful either, I’m respecting your right to enjoy your life as you see fit. I have no right to come into a gay club and try to enforce my “morality” on you any more than you have the right to come onto the private property of a church I attend and force your morality on myself or my family. Speaking up for what you believe in is not preaching in my mind, and I don’t believe that I am trying to “stomp” over any of your rights or make your life a living hell just because I am taking a stand for something I believe in. The LGBT community has been trying to make life for LDS members hell ever since they supported Prop 8 (h8 as you call it) by protesting outside our places of worship, vandalizing our churches and homes, trespassing onto church private property and acting in a way you know violates our beliefs and publicly posting the names of church members who supported Prop 8 so that people could boycott their places of business and protest outside their homes while mailing letters to their neighbors accusing them of being bigoted and hateful. The kind, gentle members of the LGBT community have even had supporters of prop 8 fired from their jobs for exercising their constitutional rights of freedom of speech. Based on this information who do you REALLY think has been stomping all over who’s happiness, rights, beliefs and families?
Jeff C, the guards didn’t just tell them to stop kissing, they kicked them out for doing it once. And who’s crying? No one’s demanding the right to kiss on church property. The kiss-in was just the public’s colorful way of offering their opinion that kissing is no big deal, and if an organization is that stodgy about one little kiss—an expression of affection—-then they deserve to be placed in front of a kissing squad and pelted with those expressions of until they cheer up. Those are the sentencing guidelines in the court of human love.
I, for one, am working on forwarding the BLT Agenda. (But I’m really hungry at the moment…)
Yes it is private property. That said, having poured in excess of $20 million dollars into California to fight Prop 8 … which could have been used to help families during these difficult times … I say Pull The Tax Exempt Church Status. THIS IS A CULT!
To paraphrase a song from Casablanca…
You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.
It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.
I know it is private property, but it is UNTAXED, subsidized property. Even if not current law, common sense says if we are going to give the purveyors of hate a tax subsidy, we the taxpayers should get something in return such as use of property that is essentially part of the city.
I am so sick and tired of some old facist far right-wing crack pot cunt, who owns that church!!!!
The Mormons have excused their own behavior for years and now wish to demonize others.
Private guards? Making an arrest? If we aren’t vigilant they will soon be our public police force.
Mormons – what a human disgrace. It’s a corporation, not a church.
Don’t stay at Marriott – that is also a Mormon owned business. When will we wake up and realize that we must identify all of their businesses and stay away from them – not a cent.
Read “Christian Fascists” by Chris Hedges – it explains in detail the Christian Taliban and their agenda wants to smooth talk their way into running this country, and then we will be erased – our rights, families, and even our existence will be denied.
Don’t let these churches demoralize you, we can beat them, grind their businesses into bankruptcy. That would teach them a real lesson – it is working in California – one of the hotels that gave 250,000 to Prop 8 is now begging for business – we boycotted them, MONEY TALKS.
I just passed this law:
COLLECTING TAX FROM BIGOTS ACT 2009
(i) any bigoted group or individual person as a bigot who harass, vilify, humiliate or stir-up hatred or serious ridicle on the basis of an individual persons actual or percieved sexual orientation, must by law pay a higher taxation rate regardless of the bigots economic status and must be charged as a minimum an extra 20 percent and up to 50 percent for the taxation on top of that, even if the bigoted group or individual person ceases to exist or gets bankrupt from the GFC.
GFC – means global financal crisis.
Passed: 12.7.2009
Signed: 15.7.2009
Effective: Once signed.
I guess I just don’t get it: how is an organization that has tax-exempt status (i.e. does not pay property taxes), but has full access to police and fire services-paid for by everyone through taxes-able to claim their property is private? If a gay bar could have a tax-exempt status, you could reasonably compare the two, but last time I looked, there is no tax exemption for gay bars. We (tax-paying citizens) really need to reconsider he relationship between “private property” and “tax-exempt status”. The Mormon church has yet again given us a reason why tax exemptions need to be re-evaluated.
Aren’t these the same “people” who justified polygamy for males only????Boy, the Lord sure works in mysterious ways; and they are living proof.
Guards? My church has no guards. The doors are locked at the end of the day and noone bothers the church. My church has nothing to fear, as it serves the community and is kind to all straight and gay alike.
Same-sex coupled partners or spouses can kiss and hug each other at my church, people can smoke a cigarette in the parking lot although most of our congregation doesn’t smoke in general (just out of health awareness of most there) and our church has zero interest in conduct that does not directly hurt it and that is not illegal.