I appreciate the apology.

Steven B -

From my perspective I would describe it as a unifying over a common cause to defend traditional marriage rather than to oppose a common enemy. But I imagine we will have to disagree on that.

I guess my question is: Can one be for traditional marriage without being “extreme”, “bigoted”, and full of hate?

I don’t care who gets to call themselves victim. The HRC and others seem to take great umbrage that they are losing that mantle as the Prop 8 backlash is now getting its own backlash.

The religious right are good at doing the same so I don’t want to get carried away with it. But the point still remains that individuals and a religion are being singled out and facing persecution in various degrees because they support a view that is not that controversial with the majority of Americans.

From the Niedrich paper I mentioned:

http://echols.info/No-More-Excuses.pdf

“From late December 1997 to mid-January 1998, Salt
Lake City protected employees from discrimination based on
their sexual orientation; but the Salt Lake City Council
repealed the ordinance less than a month after its passage.
The Salt Lake City Weekly newspaper even went so far as to
call the short life of the ordinance and its eventual repeal “an
outcome of Mormon politics” because of the documented urgings
of Latter-Day Saint Church Leaders for their followers to
attend the Salt Lake City Council meeting and urge for the
ordinance’s immediate repeal (Biele, 1998).”

That was a decade ago? Has anything changed?

I guess we’ll find out when we see what happens with HB 89 and the rest of the Common Ground Initiative.

http://www.equalityutah.org/CommonGroundInitiative.html

Please inform me on how specifically the Church is opposing the rights they claimed to not object to? (This is a sincere question–I don’t know how they have been objecting to any rights (again, we’re only talking about the rights mentioned in the LDS press releases–hospital, domestic partnerships, etc…). Keeping in mind, of course, that “supporting” and “not objecting to” are not even close to synonymous.

My comment re the Obama headline was out of line and I apologize for it.

Scott -

What I’d like to see Elder Ballard and the rest of the LDS leadership do is this: demonstrate that they were sincere in their statements made during and after California’s Proposition 8 campaign: “we’re not anti-gay” and “the Church does not object to rights for same-sex couples.”

Re specifics, pls refer to Anastasia Niedrich’s excellent paper published this year in the Hinckley Journal of Politics:

“No More Excuses: Making the Case for Equal Employment Laws in Utah (A Comparative Analysis of Laws, Rhetoric and Arguments on ENDA Legislation)”

Or is that asking too much?

What do you want Elder Ballard to do? Condemn the ad (rude and stupid)? Ignore it (rude)? For crying out loud, all he did was say, “Thanks.” There was no talk of future alliances. There was no hint of bridging gaps between anti-mormons and mormons. There was a simple “Thanks.”

I agree that Prop 8 may have been a catalyst for greater unity between Mormons and non-Mormon faiths. But I think it is sad that it takes a common enemy to unite the various sects. No matter how you frame the issue, Prop 8 was about writing discrimination against gays and lesbians into the California constitution.

In my opinion, the Becket Fund ad is simply an example of the aggressors claiming to be victims. Who worked tirelessly and aggressively to strip gay and lesbian citizens of their civil right to marry? Who are the real victims of Prop 8?

This ad is just a further opportunity for the extreme anti-gay signers to foment their discriminatory agenda. It is nice to see the LDS getting a pat on the back and support from their coconspirators, but this ad is really just more homophobia from the extreme right-wing wrapped in a cloak of “religious freedom.”

I’ll take the bait this once but I suggest you lighten up a little.

I thought the Obama smoking story was interesting because he has taken great pains to hide his habit and claimed several times that he was kicking it. That sounded ridiculous as I can’t think of anything more stressful and more unlikely to help to kick the habit than running for president.

But back to the point of this post: a ridiculous amount of Romney campaign coverage was devoted to asking if evangelicals and religious conservatives could accept a Mormon candidate. Although I think the media overplayed the issue it certainly was a factor exploited by Huckabee. But I believe Romney made significant inroads with religious conservatives.

I believe Prop 8 did even more to earn respect for Mormons among the religious right, which certainly hasn’t always been there. In a very concrete and public way, Mormons demonstrated they can be formidable players in the culture wars.

Furthermore, this is all an issue because your “side” won’t accept they lost, won’t recognize what they did wrong but instead prefers to scapegoat a convenient target. Your latest blog post (“Why I’m (still) mad at the Mormon church: a timeline“) demonstrates that clearly.

“OBAMA: Still smoking …”

What a sad little man you are.

Becket and Ballard were BFF long before my side started with the post-election actions.

In other words: enough with the Kabuki. Give it a rest, OK?

Whatever our philosophical differences, the fact is that the Yes on 8 campaign got the job done. Kudos.

That said, when I read suggestions from folks on your side – who are already on familiar terms with the Becket crew – now complimenting that outfit for their “thoughtful and generous gesture” … I gotta repeat my plea:

You won. Why embarrass yourself by pretending you’ve also won a bunch of new friends?