The Mormon Amendment To The California Constitution
The more people look at what happened in California, the more the vast scope of Mormon involvement in anti-gay politics, both in terms of money and organizational prowess, becomes known. In this article in Today’s New York Times, the bottom line is made perfectly clear: without the vigorous support of the Mormon church, Proposition 8 would have failed. The Mormon church wrote its will into the constitution of the state of California though lies and stealth, and lots and lots of money that its members were ordered to contribute…
Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage
As proponents of same-sex marriage across the country planned protests on Saturday against the ban, interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure showed how close its backers believe it came to defeat — and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.
“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are formally called, in Salt Lake City. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”
…
Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect Marriage, estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts.
The canvass work could be exacting and highly detailed. Many Mormon wards in California, not unlike Roman Catholic parishes, were assigned two ZIP codes to cover. Volunteers in one ward, according to training documents written by a Protect Marriage volunteer, obtained by people opposed to Proposition 8 and shown to The New York Times, had tasks ranging from “walkers,” assigned to knock on doors; to “sellers,” who would work with undecided voters later on; and to “closers,” who would get people to the polls on Election Day.
Suggested talking points were equally precise. If initial contact indicated a prospective voter believed God created marriage, the church volunteers were instructed to emphasize that Proposition 8 would restore the definition of marriage God intended.
But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would roll instead…
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…the “Yes” side also initially faced apathy from middle-of-the-road California voters who were largely unconcerned about same-sex marriage. The overall sense of the voters in the beginning of the campaign, Mr. Schubert said, was “Who cares? I’m not gay.”
To counter that, advertisements for the “Yes” campaign also used hypothetical consequences of same-sex marriage, painting the specter of churches’ losing tax exempt status or people “sued for personal beliefs” or objections to same-sex marriage, claims that were made with little further explanation.
Another of the advertisements used video of an elementary school field trip to a teacher’s same-sex wedding in San Francisco to reinforce the idea that same-sex marriage would be taught to young children.
“We bet the campaign on education,” Mr. Schubert said.
They lied through their teeth and they threw a torrent of hate and Mormon church money into it and they steamrollered over the rights of devoted loving couples so they could become gods in their own universe someday. And now they’re upset that people are taking the fight back to them.
Mr. Ashton described the protests by same-sex marriage advocates as off-putting. “I think that shows colors,” Mr. Ashton said. “By their fruit, ye shall know them.”
And just what would you do, you gutter crawling bigot, if someone cut your ring finger off? Laugh it off? Shake the other guy’s hand? No you wouldn’t. But you expect us to roll over and play dead because we’re homosexuals and homosexuals don’t have feelings, and homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex. There is no reason for us to be angry with you, because you didn’t take anything sacred away from us, because we don’t feel love the way you do, because we’re not human like you are. We’re Satan’s followers, and we don’t have human emotions like you Future Gods In Training do.
Fruit…did you say? Fuck you Ashton. I’ve got your fruit right here. You sow poison in the earth, you get poison back out of it. Now eat it. Or as another gay man, James Baldwin once said…
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
Baldwin wouldn’t have been allowed in one of your churches, even if he wasn’t gay, because according to your…prophets…black people were cursed by God and that’s why their skin is black. Your church has been elevating the cheapshit prejudices of its barstool prophets into holy writ for generations and now and a reckoning is long overdue. This isn’t your private universe, it’s the United States of America and it belongs to all of us, not just you White And Delightsome Gods In Waiting. The United States of America is not your private universe, and you are not gods, however highly you might think of yourselves. So fuck off.
November 15th, 2008 at 3:52 am
I would like to respectfully clear up a matter. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints did not order their members to give money to proposition 8.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Yeah…actually, they did…
Note that it wasn’t just "means" but also "time". The self-styled prophet and his "councilors" told the pews to "donate" money and time and you can argue that wasn’t an order like you can argue telling Californians that homosexuals were going to teach their children about homosexuality in their schools wasn’t hate mongering. If what Mr The Prophet asks of the faithful is only a "request" then why is the church threatening to excommunicate those Mormons who disagree? No. Simply…no. They were Told to give money, And give time. That came right from Mr The Prophet and his inner circle. It was a request for money, like a thief with a gun to your head makes a request for your money.
And that’s exactly how the faithful took it…and for some of them it was a bitter pill. As we have seen in various news reports, such as the case of Marjorie Christoffersen and Scott Eckem, many have had to slap their gay and lesbian friends and neighbors in the face, and then try to explain that it was nothing personal, they were only following orders from their church.
This has been an unmitigated calamity for thousands of people. Families have been torn asunder. Friendships destroyed. Entire communities shattered. But on the other hand, I guess it means the Mormons all get to be gods now…
November 15th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Thats kind of like some of the more wing-nut Baptist ministers telling their congregations that they would go to hell (Or be thrown out of the church, whichever comes first) if they did not vote for Bush. We heard several reports of that in the last two election cycles.
I wonder how that has affected the offering collections, as the BushCo economic disaster has forced people to cut back on everything just to be able to pay their bills?
I’ve been ecomunicated all my life! I wonder what it costs to buy my way back in? Certainly more then the cost of a marriage license.?
November 15th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
The saving grace of being raise as a Baptist is you find the concept of excommunication ridiculous at best, if not blasphemous at worst. I think when all is said and done the thing I detest the most about all these authoritarian religions is they insert themselves between the worshiper and God. They ration God out to people in little miserly spoonfuls that are never enough to fill the spirit, and then tell people their hunger for more is proof if their fallen nature. It’s so ironic considering how authoritarian Baptists, especially Southern Baptists, have become over the decades, but I am so glad I was raised in a Baptist church because now in the bedrock of my soul I know I don’t have to take shit from any clergy.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:20 am
The Mormons planned this for a long time, too. See http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/3/15369/3779/711/651188
I used to disagree with them, and be somewhat angry with them for what they have done to my sister’s family. Yet, they benefit me personally, because of their genealogy work. Now I fucking HATE them, from their blighted Apostle down to their fascist little foot soldiers. That church is evil on Earth.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Say it and say it again. Do not let people forget what the mormon church did here.
The PR disaster will cost them more than any boycott could.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Just perusing your blog here and realized that there are a few points on this issue of the official elimination of the Third Amendment that’s taken place in California and elsewhere, which unfortunately haven’t been brought out to the public. Some of them are presented here:
http://aryobrand.livejournal.com/3837.html
No one seems to be able to understand the greater issue of the violation of Liberty in order to establish a definition of marriage that exists ONLY within the modern American Christian church. Muslims, Buddhists, pagans, Thelemites, Mazda-Yasnians, Taoists, Shinto-ites, etc have never practiced marriage as "between one man and one woman". This style of subterfuge in establishing modern Christianity as the "One Law of The Land" is not Christian, is not Biblical, and is most certainly not American. But what would you expect from the followers of the Bastard Christ?
Aryobrand