So, Equality Utah has an EXCELLENT response to the LDS church's coordinated, organized and official campaign to end the rights of marriage for tens of thousands of families, including ours.
As a former-Mormon with many Mormon family and friends and as someone who was just married to his husband of 12 years and children, I've sought a response to the church's support to eliminate my family's rights. There are protests, petitions to eliminate tax-exempt status and boycotts. I've found some to be mean-spirited, others to be counter-productive, some to be good but ultimately ineffectual.
But this one is great and I ask you to join in...
hold the LDS church to their word. (read below and then come back here and SIGN THE PETITION) and pass it on!
Here is the press release in full:
Throughout the recent election cycle, the LDS Church has demonstrated its willingness to participate in political issues by asking its members to do all they can do, including donating their means and their time, to support California's Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution and eliminated same-sex couples right to marry by defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The LDS Church has articulated it is not "anti-gay" but rather pro-marriage and it "does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights." On November 5th, Elder L. Whitney Clayton stated the LDS Church does not oppose "civil unions or domestic partnerships." In response to these statements, Equality Utah is drafting legislation for the 2009 General Session of the Utah Legislature to address each of the issues mentioned by the LDS Church.
During this press conference Equality Utah will be asking the LDS Church to demonstrate its conviction on these statements as well as its willingness to secure such rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Utahns. Today we have a great opportunity before us to begin to bridge the divide between the gay community and the LDS community and to seek out common ground. I take LDS Church leaders at their word that they are not anti-gay and that they sincerely understand that gay and transgender individuals and their families are in need of certain legal protections and basic benefits. I appreciate their statements that they do not oppose legal protections for gay people like those already enacted in California law that do not conflict with their genuinely held beliefs about marriage. This is our chance to come together and work to enact basic legal protections for gay Utahns. I am hopeful that the LDS Church will accept our invitation to heal our communities by bringing its considerable social and political influence to bear in support of laws that prevent discrimination and provide for the legitimate needs of all Utahns and their families.
~Senator Scott McCoy
Excellent, better than protest, better than petitions to eliminate their tax-exempt status.
A constructive use of my anger. If successful, then the rights of families in Utah will be extended. If it fails, then the hypocrisy of the LDS leadership will be exposed and their ANTI-GAY purpose in the open for all to see.
Ask them to stand UP to their words. If they do, then perhaps the rift might start to be healed. If they don't, than the LDS church leadership will be exposed as hypocrites and bigots. They said it was about 'marriage' and not about 'gay' people and that they were willing to allow our families some rights as long as we don't call it marriage (which still.. I think is wrong and discriminatory, but so be it). They are on record as saying so. Let's hold them to their word.