I think it's interesting that a group of people that have been notoriously discriminated against are now spreading hate about another group of people. I don't agree with the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints on basically everything but you can't blame one group of people [as a whole] for Proposition 8 passing. There are people who are homophobic and don't believe in equality in marriage (basic civil rights) but it's not one sole group of people ascribing to a certain religion. It is bigoted people. There are mormon people who agree and disagree with gay marriage being legalized and to target all of them and say that they are why this didn't pass is futile and childish. This spreads hate and prejudice. It does no good. Thinking of people in groups you put stereotypes to and not as individuals is how hate thrives.
(Let me say, I know most of the funding for Prop 8 came from protectmarriage.com which was heavily supported by mormons. I also know that the church tried to get as many people to donate time and money to Prop 8 and they told their members to go vote. Still, I feel they are being wrongly targeted. I think of people as individuals, or try my best to. These individuals all have differences even if they are members of the same religion. I think throughout history homosexuality has been misunderstood and propaganda, hate, and discrimination make it even more difficult for people to be who they are. (Homosexuality was labeled a mental illness up until fairly recently (1973)) There is a lot of reason to be angry. There is a lot of pressure to find a scapegoat for Proposition 8 passing. I just don't think one group of people is responsible. I think it is the narrow-minded. People so self-righteous they have to take away civil rights of a group of people constantly fighting for what they should already have. People who are fed on hate and lies. People so blinded that they feel it is their duty to "protect" marriage; a right everyone should have no matter their sexual orientation, race, gender, background, etc. Heterosexist people.)
They gay community has had enough hardships in a supposedly open-minded society. It is so easy to place blame on a certain group of people, they know that best. So why are they doing the same thing to others?
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The reason the Mormon church (like other churches) is being targeted is because it has broken the barrier between church and state. It has used religion to influence government. Not cool.
I say targeting them is appropriate.
Yes, and exposing their idiocy is even better!
There is a difference between blaming and asking that someone take responsibility.
Take responsibility for your actions and ask others to do the same. There is nothing wrong with accountability, nothing that threatens equal rights.
Just the opposite in fact.
Do not become or continue to be a member of any group that fights against equal rights and then claim to be an equal rights activists or come to a site that you know disagrees with the actions of your religious group and ask for a pass or a cookie.
In the United States of America, a woman does not have to be a member of any group she does not agree with and support the actions of. If she is a member of a group that is lynching (KKK) spending a million dollars to pass a prop that limits human rights (Mormons) etc., she has the right and the responsibility of her choice to remain a member of said group and change it from within or leave it. Asking for a pass or cookie is ridiculous. When you leave the racist, sexist, homophobic group, then come to a feminist site and ask for that pat on the back you deserve, till then
Puhlease!
Spare us the absurdity and take responsibility for your actions and your affiliations.
signed,
a woman who left her families church at age 12
As Greg House (or his writers anyway) likes to say, "Numbers don't lie."
Making assumptions about individuals based on stereotypes is the wrong thing to do, but that doesn't invalidate the reason for the stereotype itself. Noticing and studying a factual situation cannot be inherently discriminatory or prejudiced. Saying "the category of black people had a stronger tendency to support prop. 8 then other groups." is simply true. Using that to say "all black people hate gay people." is obviously not a valid move.
I'm not quite playing devil's advocate, I just think it's important when we are trying to be objective that we don't just backlash ourselves into being nonobjective in the opposite fashion.
The important thing to do is ask ourselves, "why did black people tend to support prop. 8 more than other groups, and what can we do to reverse that situation?"
In other news, I am fervently opposed to religion in general.
To call someone on their actions is not hatred.
I do not hate any human's be -ing. I also do not appreciate all human behavior. It is my right to hold humans accountable for their behaviors/ choices. It is my right to make other choices and question another humans' choice, especially when that choice limits my friends human rights.
Don't go treading on me or my friends and then ask me to appreciate it.
What I think that the supporters of Prop 8 and some members of the mormon church did was not to force their opinion down people's throats and persuade them with a million-dollar campaign but rather use whatever reservations the majority of California voters still had about gay marriage.
In my opinion, the way for the gay community to win this is not by blaming those who funded the campaign (or protest the Mormon Church altogether) but to work on convincing the people of California that they had voted for a proposition that was discriminatory and wrong. They will not change their minds the next time around (when some religious leaders will surely fund such campaigns again)... There will always be religious fanatics and I believe that the majority of the members of these religious communities will still believe that Prop 8 was the right choice, long after the majority of Californians have been persuaded. But you have to do that, first.
there is that word again, blaming...
Have so many forgotten the meaning of responsibility and accountability?
Well, what meaning do these words hold when the people who are supposed to be held responsible do not think that they are wrong? Trying to hold religious people accountable for anything is just a waste of time.
It's not about holding individuals accountable to their faith, or holding their faith accountable to social justice (not in my argument, anyway), but about hold the church as an institution accountable for their violation of church and state.
The church (of any stripe) should not endorse a candidate or position while maintaining it's tax-exempt status. An individual may endorse, but when an ministry not only endorses, but organizes and financially endorses, that is crossing the line. And that is where you hold them accountable.
And last I checked, the church was whining about all the bad press, so I guess that holding a faith accountable for social injustice isn't all that counter-productive.
But even if it means bad press for the church, does that also imply that it directly helps the purpose of of overturning Prop 8? I think that can really only be achieved by a more positive and contiuous campaign for gay marriage. For me, this is also a bit about taking the high road and focusing on making everybody see this as a civil rights issue and thus support it.
Public pressure can force an institution to rescind previous discretions. It happens all the time, everywhere.
Why are you acting like we cannot campaign for equal marriage, hold an institution accountable for social injustice, and solidify the separation of church and state at the same time? Especially when the campaign for equal marriage was spoiled by the social injustice of an institution and the degradation of church and state? Why is it that you believe we cannot stand firm on our principles of equality while denouncing and rejecting the platform the LDS (and others) have constructed?
How is it that you can at once say this issue is far more complex than this LDS situation, and then state that the solution is as simple as rejuvenating the equal marriage campaign? Why is it that we cannot rejuvenate the campaign, and hold the church accountable for social injustice and weakening an important barrier in the US Constitution?
Many of the Mormon advertisements contained lies and exaggerations. Also, most of the funding for them came from out of state.
The Mormons aren't as responsible as many people make them out to be, prop 8 may very well have passed without them distributing misinformation, but when the difference was 2% and their means were unethical and immoral at best, I don't see anything wrong with assigning some amount of responsibility and, yes, blame for passing the prop.
I think the major objection was not to individual Mormons supporting Prop 8 (which is freedom of speech and we know not all Mormons did so), but the fact that the LDS church as a whole came out in support of it, which violates the boundaries of church and state.
Word. That's all I'm saying. When an institution appeals to people's individual "eternities" or "souls" based on a belief shared by a limited amount of people that affects the lives of all people, it's unethical.
But beyond ethics, controlling a populace at large based on a particular brand(s) of religion demonstrates a vested interest in the matters of government, or state, it's a direct violation of church and state. I say that the LDS church (along with any other church who wants to play this game) lose their tax-exempt status. I mean, the reason they don't now is because they don't "participate" in government, right?
The trouble is, if they lose their tax-exempt status, they will then have the right to do this even MORE-- donate huge amounts of money to a candidate, publicly endorse causes and give causes huge amounts of money, send lobbyists to Washington... they become like any other big business. Besides, most would simply be reclassified as tax-exempt non-profits, unless we started doing it to the megachurches. LDS, for all it's problems, does not exist to make money. So we still wouldn't be punishing them for it, and they would have free reign to infiltrate our government as much as possible. The reason they don't pay taxes now is that a) they are assumed to be nonprofit, and b) if they don't pay taxes we can DENY them the right to participate in the government, if we enforce it.
The answer, I think, is for the police to confiscate all donations to a cause or candidate made from a church's coffers, and donate those to local shelters or other local government-funded causes. And also, to change the law to make it illegal to put up campaign fliers or television ads or anything that say "endorsed by the _____ church" or anything, or fliers that quote scripture to argue campaign positions, and not let the churches put them up. And if they try to violate the law, arrest those who attempted to do so on a misdemeanor charge. Enforce the separation of church and state if they will not enforce it themselves.
I understand all that. File my response under sarcasm. Even if it wasn't brilliant in the execution.
Though, I do think that if they were to lose tax-exemption status for this fiscal year, and then we were to develop a fine system for future infractions this could be more productive. I understand that the LDS doesn't exist to make money, which is why paying taxes this fiscal year would be pretty trying for them. But, that's just me and my atheist idealism.
Wait no: religion doesn't exist in my atheist idealism.
If someone belongs to a homophobic organization, then they bear some degree of responsibility for supporting it. I wouldn't spit in the face of a Mormon, or assume that they are homophobic, but the Mormon church is not homophobic despite it's believers being open-minded and liberal. The individuals may not be homophobic themselves, but they do bear some responsibility for the actions of their church, and the church deserves all of the responsibility for being homophobic.
I find your post offensive. The Mormon church actively hurts an open-minded society, and that is why the gay community dislikes it. We are not being close-minded by feeling this way, and the comparison of a group that hurts no one and is oppressed with a group that hurts people and is disliked for doing so is nothing short of an attempt at false martyrdom. The Mormon church is not oppressed by the gay community, it is the oppressor, and if it wants considering for being oppressed by others, it must stop being a hateful, close-minded organization.
The institutional church is powerless without its followers, those "individuals" you refer to in your blog entry. The church hasn't taken power. It was given power by a mass of people adhering to its structure. Therefore, each individual shares responsibility for changing this because they are a part of the church's power.
History has shown us this change will not come without strong dissent. That means some people- the ones you're talking about who may not agree with the institution- are just going to have to be uncomfortable while this is being worked out.
Because of their willful associations, those individuals are a part of the problem as long as their efforts, tithing and talents support the institution that holds others down.
Those "individuals" may believe differently, but they are a part of the problem nonetheless because their contribution to their institutional church perpetuates the power given freely by its followers. If the current backlash makes them feel bad, then they will need to work that out with their lawfully wedded spouses.
There is a big difference between spreading hatred and reacting to an injustice with anger. This church and many others lied egregiously and guiltlessly to accomplish their goals in order to interfere with others, others who had no desire to interfere with them or their religion.
Ok, here is my problem, everyone here is saying that the reason people are upset at the LDS church is that they broke the church and state thing. Fine, I accept that, but... why aren't we calling for the tax exempt status of the catholic church to be removed, or of all the evangelical congregations that had pastors come out for prop 8. I feel that the LDS church is the one being dirrectly targets, which is undertstandable, but to then not target the other church's too seems to be playing on the averages persons prejudice against the mormons.
Good point. I'm for taxing churches.
Uh, way to pick through. I said every single time I posted that the LDS church, as well as other churches, should be held responsible. The original post cited LDS, which is why LDS was mentioned the most, but I know I always went out of my way to include other churches. The LDS is the center of attention here because they alone donated 25% of the total money collected for support of Prop 8.
No problem. I especially agree with this point when the Roman Catholic Church, my former church, withholds Eucharist from its members based upon their voting choices.
Focus on the Family should also lose their 501(c)3 status for its rank partisanship.
Now, after spending $600,000 grand supporting prop 8, they're laying off a bunch of their staff. Loyal cads.
The Mormon church is not the victims here, can we please get past this people?
I said it in the past "Won't you think of the Mormons?" post and I'll say it here--the Mormon church tithes. If you're a member of the church but disagree with its policies, your money is going to finance hate. It's no different than if you said that you believed in racial equality but belonged to a church tha gave money to the KKK.
And seriously, where does the line between sympathizer end and collaborator begin? I know how hard it is to let go of god, having done it myself, but all the people saying "I'm Mormon but I'm not like them" have a lot of thinking to do.
Ugh, I meant "is not the victim."