Thursday, October 9, 2008

The Mormons and Prop8

From the San Diego Union Trib (which itself came out against Prop8):
Mormons are being asked by their church leaders to step up their already considerable efforts to pass a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage in California.

Senior elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made a televised appeal to members Wednesday night and laid out a week-by-week strategy for boosting Mormon involvement before the Nov. 4 election.

....Mormons have been active participants in the campaign both as volunteers and financial contributors, giving $8.4 million to the Proposition 8 campaign, according to the Web site mormonsfor8.com.....

During Wednesday's taped satellite broadcast, church leaders asked for 30 members from each California congregation to donate four hours of week to the campaign. They also called on young married couples and single Mormons to use the Internet by text messaging and blogging to help pass the initiative.
and from our side?

A few lonely voices. Check out the new blog from Fr Geoff Farrow, who is waiting to be fired from the RC church for opposing Prop8. Over at James' site, he describes manning the anti-Prop8 booth at a farmer's marker. Susan Russell is feverishly doing local events with characteristic passion. Of course the Episcopal bishops had a nice news conference. But in terms of organized faith communities actively joining together to oppose Prop 8, the hate amendment?

::crickets::

6 comments:

James said...

I am so concerned about this that I have removed my "Impeach Bush" sticker and replaced it with "No on 8" I think I'll visit the local LDS ward this sunday just to park in the lot. :)

IT said...

Thanks James.

From the No on 8 campaign today:

"We got a huge wake up call this week. 60,000 people donated more than $25 million to write discrimination into the California Constitution.

With all that money the opposition is "swiftboating" and smearing us with television ads that tell lies -- that we are attacking children and churches.
...

We’ve launched our new ad, calling out their lies.

Now we need your help to flood the airwaves and make our case! Will you help us fight back by making a donation?

Research shows our messages beat their lies, but only if we can get them on the air enough to have an impact.

Only 30,000 people from the tens of millions of LGBT people and hundreds of millions of allies in this country have donated to protect our equality.


Great, the Mormons and the haters care more than we do---by 2 to 1. How depressing is that?

IT

Cany said...

Oh, IT. This is indeed heartbreaking.

I am going to post on my blog tomorrow about this, and rather continually, as well.

We need to get it on Daily KOS as well... are you a blogger there? If not, please DO blog it. Or write something and I will post it.

I know you read the site.

We have to do better than this, both as supporters and through the lgbt community. ... Needs to go national.

Leonardo... can you get Joe to post something or has he? There needs to be a national funding appeal immediately.

Anonymous said...

Kos put it on the front page here.

But please keep feet to the fire, everyone!

IT

Anonymous said...

The Connecticut Supreme Court just found that the ban on same-sex marraige violates equal protection in a case that appears to be based on similar reasoning to that of the California Supreme Court -- Conn. court overturns same-sex marriage ban. According to the MSNBC story:

"Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making that state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions.

"The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.

***

"Justices overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of the plaintiffs, who said the state's marriage law discriminates against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.

"'Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,' Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the majority opinion that overturned a lower court finding."

Anonymous said...

Father Geoff has, indeed, been fired. :-(

Liberating Lord Christ, vindicate your faithful servants!