Sunday, November 30, 2008

A word or two about the Mormon Church

Lately the conservative blogs have been seething with rightous indignation over the "backlash" against the Mormon Church for their multi-million dollar involvement in the passage of proposition 8 in California. Conservatives are screaming about discrimination against the Mormon Church that was just "practicing their religous beliefs."

Actutally, no.. they were not just practicing their religous beliefs.

Seattle columnist Dan Savage and Americablog's John Aravosis state the truth better that I can:

"Millions of Californians definitely lost their civil rights," says John Aravosis. "But I'm not hearing a lot of concern about any of those victims, only sympathy for their attacker. When you use the power of the state to rip away my civil rights, and force me to live by your 'values,' you are no longer practicing your religion. You're practicing politics."

In the wake of Prop 8 millions of gays and lesbians all over the country have decided that we're no longer going to play by the old rules. We're not going to let people kick our teeth down our throats and then run and hide behind "Nothing personal—just my private religious beliefs!" That game's over."


The Mormon Church chose to expend millions of dollars of church resources in an effort to create public policy. That is not religous practice, that is being a poltical action committee. For the Mormons to engage in political activity that strips away the civil rights of millions of people, and then not expect those same people to fight back shows the Mormon Leadership are not just bigots, but idiots as well.

The great irony of this is how for the Mormon Church it really wasn't even about same sex marriage. It was about proving to the American conservative religous right that the Mormons are "one of them". This was about getting James Dobson and his ilk to not openly oppose a Mitt Romney candidacy in 2012.

If we weren't talking about millions of Americans having their civil rights elminated , I would have to laugh. Because the joke is on the Mormon Church, which could very well lose it's tax exempt status as as result of their direct involvement in political activity while claiming to be a church.

But even funnier still, is the fact that the Christian Right will NEVER welcome the Mormons into the club. While conservative evangelicals may approve of what they did with Prop 8, in the eyes of Dobson, Robertson, Reed and company, the Mormons will always be that goofy non-christian cult from Utah that claims being born black is a punishment from god.




Oh yeah, one more thing ... Prop 8 will likely get tossed out by the California Supreme Court. So I have to ask the Mormon Leadership, when all is said and done, and your millions of dollars spent, in the words of Dr. Phil...

How'd that all work out for you?

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