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…<\/p>\n
\nMormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage <\/a><\/h4>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would roll instead…<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
…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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“We bet the campaign on education,” Mr. Schubert said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\nMr. 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.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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…<\/p>\n
\nPeople 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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