Articles by David H. Sundwall

Most coverage of Elder Oaks’ talk on Religious Freedom has centered on one sentence that analogized the intimidation of those trying to exercise their civil rights in the 1960’s with those of today.

Speaking of the backlash following the passage of Proposition 8, Elder Oaks said [emphasis added]:

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.

That last sentence generated the following lede from the Associated Press which most other news outlets used in their coverage.

The anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern blacks during the civil rights movement, a high-ranking Mormon says in a speech to be delivered Tuesday.

Unfortunately, but perhaps predictably, outrageous outrage ensued that Elder Oaks would dare invoke the civil rights struggle to make his argument.

“Were four little Mormon girls blown up in the church at Sunday school? Were there burning crosses planted on local bishops’ lawns? Were people lynched and their genitals stuffed in their mouths?” asked University of Utah historian Colleen McDannell. “By comparing these two things, it diminishes the real violence that African-Americans experienced in the ’60s, when they were struggling for equal rights. There is no equivalence between the two” . . .

Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP’s Salt Lake branch, said there is “no comparison.”

“I don’t see where the LDS Church has been denied any of their rights,” she said. “What the gay and lesbian communities are fighting for, that is a civil-rights issue.”

These two quote illustrate the exact point of view I believe Elder Oaks is trying to overcome. People of faith are just as entitled to participate democratically as anyone else. Although “civil rights” is often considered synonymous with racial equality it’s much more than that, and includes one of the original rights preserved in the First Amendment: religious freedom.

As you can see in the above interview, Elder Oaks is careful not to equate the suffering experienced by black people in the South to modern-day Mormons. Instead, the intended “effect” behind the intimidation of both was similar in purpose. In both instances, opponents sought to discourage or punish those exercising their rights, regardless of race or religion. The intimidation of both were similar in purpose, not in the form.

I believe Elder Oaks used the analogy to call upon the sympathies of those who may not have may not have been so concerned about the aftereffects of Proposition 8 but recall the great injustices of the 1960’s. That shouldn’t be “controversial.”

Interestingly, Elder Oaks prefaced his remarks:

In this time of the Internet, what we say in one place is instantly put before a wider audience, including many to whom we do not intend to speak. That complicates my task, so I ask your understanding as I speak to a very diverse audience.

Elder Oaks was right to be concerned that his words might not be taken as intended.