You know, LDS Church leaders are giving me more material than I can keep up with. I still have two more General Conference talks I want to address but the stupid just keeps coming and now I also have a recent talk Dallin H. Oaks gave at BYU-I to discuss (plus the proxy baptism and marriage of a Catholic Saint and more journal posts to do}. I really don’t think I can address all this in a timely manner but I just have to say something about this ridiculousness from Oaks who said:
It is important to note that while this aggressive intimidation in connection with the Proposition 8 election was primarily directed at religious persons and symbols, it was not anti-religious as such. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation.
Oh. my. god. Google.
This is *not* a joke. He actually had the audacity to compare Prop8 backlash (boycotts, protests, and some vandalism*) to the intimidation blacks and white allies faced during the civil rights movement. Hah! Coming from a church with a questionable history regarding persons of color I’m surprised he’s comparing themselves to the *victims* of the civil rights movement, and not the oppressors. But you know, I could spend all day going back on forth on whether the church was really racist or not {hint: as an institution, yes}. But what I really want to talk about is this:
You won {for now}. Your billions of dollars and your preaching and your volunteers and all your efforts to pass Prop 8 succeeded. You stripped the civil right to civil marriage from gays in California. So stop acting so damn persecuted because those of us who don’t feel threatened by our neighbor's love lives aren’t pleased about it.
You can’t make us agree with you.
People can boycott, and badmouth all they want because, thus far, you haven’t stripped that right from them. YOU decided it’d be a good idea to send a letter out to your membership mandating they give their support to the Prop 8 cause. They obeyed. Now own your actions, consequences and all. You sound, at best, absolutely silly whining about how persecuted Mormons are because people are pissed off at them, because people tried to deter the passing of Prop 8. You want to know what persecution looks like?
How about getting the shit pounded out of you for being gay?
As a friend of mine on Facebook pointed out, Mormons have their religious rights protected. It’s built right into the constitution. And despite Oak’s fear-mongering that isn’t about to change. But guess what guys, you don’t have the right to be above criticism, boycotts, or similar actions. Believe whatever the hell you want. But just because your opinions and worldviews are based on faith and scriptures they are no more immune to attack than opinions based on political ideologies, scientific theories, or bedtime stories. YOU may say God agrees with you. YOU may think we should all agree too. But WE think you’re delusional/homophobic/etc. But by all means…whine about how unfair it is for us to say so.
Complain about how it’s so unfair for people to boycott Prop 8 supporters (but it’s totally cool to fund Prop 8). Complain about how unfair it is for people to say you’re bigots (but it’s totally cool to preach that gays are sinners). Complain about how you’re the poor, pathetic victims of the big, bad, bully minorities (LGBT).
You do that.
I’ll be over here at my computer…laughing my ass off…
…Or crying. Whichever.
*Vandalism ain’t cool guys. Find another way to protest. Just sayin’.
ETA:
Former LDS President Ezra Taft Benson was known in the 1950s and '60s for referring to the "so-called civil-rights movement" as a communist plot, said American history scholar D. Michael Quinn, a gay former Mormon. {via The Salt Lake Tribune}
ETA:
Just a reminder...Oaks is the same guy who suggest parents refuse to let their gay children bring their partners home for the holidays or introduce them to their friends. I've mentioned that before.
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