8: The Blog
8: The Website
8: The Facebook Page
8: Production Notes
Related Posts
Beyond Conservatism
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“Religious Exemption” in Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Law
I’ve been thinking about how a couple leaders of the LDS Church have vocalized how they wouldn’t mind the 2009 nondiscrimination laws in Salt Lake City (in housing and employment, on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity) be expanded across the state of Utah. Specifically, what they’re interested…
Calling all ex-mormons: the Great Mormon Novel?
So, I’ve been reading a series of articles about the possibility of the Great Mormon Novel (the great fantasy of all Mormons since Chaim Potok came to the Jewish scene or since we all fell in love with that dairyman Tevye and his daughter)…some say that the Great Mormon Novel…
the statement that “it’s better to be dead than homosexual” leapt out at me. It’s a statement that has been made often enough by Mormons, and been heard often enough by gay Mormons.
Factor that statement in to what’s going on in the “Bring Them in From the Plains” video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipXyQGCtCtk
and any claim that the Mormon church does not advocate violence against gays becomes completely disingenuous. The church has advocated and in some ways still DOES advocate violence against gay people–it’s just that it advocates SELF-INFLICTED violence. Plenty of gay Mormons have gotten the message: it’s better to be dead–even by your own hand–than be gay.
So until the church atones for that, and frankly even after, it will have far more blood on its hands in this matter than gay rights advocates. A few spray-painted churches don’t even compare.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I hadn’t seen that “Bring Them in From the Plains video before. The Martin and Willie handcart company example gives a good illustration of a constructive path towards reconciliation.