Glenden BrownThe Mormon War on Gay People is also a War on Eros
Stories keep crossing my screen about the damaging relationship between the Mormon church and gays and lesbians, especially gay and lesbian Mormons. You’re breaking my heart. And I’m not aloine.
First (I’m reproducing this in it’s entirety):
I was born a 5th generation Mormon. Wilford Woodruff was my Great great grandfather.
Sixteen years ago, while attending grad school in DC, I saw the last complete showing of the AIDS quilt. It was a very enlightening experience for a straight, rural Mormon boy. Homophobia was a part of my culture.
I remember seeing a guy dressed in leather–he was everything I was taught to fear and, yes, hate. He was standing in front of his deceased partner’s panel, crying his heart out. I’ll never forget it. It was obvious that he loved that man, and that he loved him as much as I loved my wife. Sounds silly now, but it was a revelation to my younger self.
As I moved on, I came across another panel. It said, “To all the young LDS men who died alone, anonymously.” It hit me hard, because one of my own cousins was one of those young men. He died alone without his family, because we disapproved of his “lifestyle.” We denied him his family when he needed us most, simply because we did not approve of his love. I will live with that shame forever.
I resigned my membership a few months ago, when the Church officially joined the fight for prop 8 and other measures. I was late in doing so. I had vowed to do it when the Church refused to sign a letter condemning torture because it was “too political.” Seeing them come out for Prop 8 when they had declined to act on torture was all the extra motivation I needed.
I think of it as being a kind of redemption for me. I’ve finally embraced love and buried the hate forever.
And from Andrew Sullivan:
I dated a Mormon man for a few months a while back. What he told me about the LDS church’s psychological warfare on their gay members, the brutality and viciousness and intolerance with which they attack and hound and police the gay children of Mormon families, would make anyone shudder.
They hounded my ex for having HIV and for being gay. They followed him secretly, outed him to his family and persecuted him for his illness. When he was diagnosed with HIV at Brigham Young, he had to run out of the college clinic to escape those who wanted to sequester and punish him. He died a few years ago. Most of his Mormon family didn’t show up for his funeral. You want me to love these people? Let me say it’s my Christian duty to try.
The Mormons are not unique in this persecution of their own gay folk. My own church has recently capitulated to bigotry in its own hiring practices, even as the Vatican is run by so many psychologically scarred gay men. But the Mormons are particularly vicious homophobes. Gay people are rendered invisible, their personhood erased in this church. The cruelty the Mormon church inflicts on its gay members is matched only by the Mormons’ centuries-long demonization and hatred of black people. That African-Americans would seek common cause with a church that only recently still believed they were the product of Satan shows how profound homophobia can be.
Emphasis added.
Then I remembered Ed Firmage’s piece in the Trib:
The Mormon Church is the most retrograde ecclesiastical body in the United States — 100 years dated on civil rights for African-Americans (indeed, worldwide), staunchly opposed to First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press (see, e.g., Main Street Plaza, with all its plastic and plaster of paris). The Mormon Church led the powerful opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment that would have allowed women the full civic participation they obviously deserve and opposed the ordination of women to the clergy, since obviously only men can talk to God. Scores of members were excommunicated for writing true history, not the party line, a good example of inverse Darwinism, the survival of the least fit. And now Mormons have largely led and financed a war to deny marriage between gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. For me, this is not the last straw. Indeed, it is the two-by-four. My spine, devastated by surgeries, can take no more.
You have broken my heart.
Again, from Andrew Sullivan’s place (reproducing a reader’s email to him):
It pains me to see an organization like the Boy Scouts, which has for nearly a century produced young men of character, leadership and good citizenship, painted as a bigoted, Christianist group.
But the reputation the Boy Scouts have rightly earned for calling gay boys and leaders “unclean” and “incapable of being the best kind of citizen” (both official statements regarding their policy to ban “avowed homosexuals”) is driven mainly by the Mormon Church.
The LDS are the largest religious grouping in the Scouts and were able to pressure the BSA’s membership with an ultimatum: come out with a policy banning gay leaders, or we’ll pull all of our members.
Today Scouting’s membership is on the decline, marginalized as a religious organization of the right wing. Younger parents with kids entering the Scouting age are repelled by the prejudicial message of politics that surround Scouting. That’s a real shame, because the program at the local level is still among the finest ways that a child can spend their formative years. But the grip that the Mormon Church holds over Scouting forced the organization all the way to the Supreme Court, and now further toward irrelevancy in a nation the needs Scouting.
Most troubling because of the Mormon Church, Scouting sends a message to 14-year-olds secretly coming to grips with their sexuality that they are the ONE kind of citizen not worthy of being a Scout. I was that young Scout once, and I also witnessed the near devastating impact that message had on another teenage Scout. Scouting professes to be “absolutely non-sectarian”, requiring only that a Scout do his duty to God (in whatever religion or manner the Scout deems fit)… with only this one exception: don’t be gay. And while there are several churches that sponsor Scouting and supported the BSA’s battle to ban gays, only the Mormon Church stood up and demanded the action.
Mormonism has been at war with sexuality for a long time. I once read that homophobia is really erotophobia. IOW, Mormonism’s war against glbt people is motivated by its war on Eros. In Leaving the Saints, Martha Beck paints a picture of the LDS youth resisting masturbation - chubby, doe-eyed, shoveling snacks in with one hand while clutching the Book of Mormon in the other. The ideal Mormon is untroubled by sexual desire, is simply chaste without struggle or thought. Mormon leaders periodically warn against “heavy petting” as if all people are in an Annette Funicello movie. It’s difficult to miss - the ideal model of the young Mormon is sexless - not de-gendered for the lines are bright and clear on that front, but sexless - untroubled by desire, free of yearning and chastely, naively unaware of sexuality.
The casuality, however, abound - you can find them every where in Utah.
Talk with a young gay Mormon man and you hear a sadness, a yearning so sharp it cuts his soul in two. Talk with a young straight Mormon woman whose marriage fell to pieces and you hear a grief without words, a loss she cannot name, a fear that she is fatally flawed beyond redemption. Talk to Mormon parents with a gay child and you hear about hearts torn in two by loyalty to church and love of child and an absolute inability to bridge the chasm. Talk to the Mormon grandmother, suddenly a widow, and you hear a desparate desire to have new love and a terror she will be judged for not loving her deceased husband enough; her sexuality is as surely buried as her husband. Talk to a young Mormon woman who yearns to be more than housewife and you hear fear that she is not woman enough, that she will damage the community by pursuing career. Talk to the single mother and you can hear between her words the believe that she is beyond being loved and can never be truly loved again. Talk to a young Mormon man and you can hear that he is at war with himself and he is afraid his sexual yearnings are nothing more than animal lust and a blemish on his soul.
I know I should say more. Yes, there is much of value in Mormonism. But it so often seems as if institutional Mormonism has declared that the community must be untroubled and placed the burden on the individual. And it seems lately, as if something has changed, as if the wind has shifted. Too many hearts have been broken and they are choosing between loyalty to the General Authorities and loyalty to God.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Glendon, your post made me cry. The church of my youth has broken my heart as well. You expressed it so well–the pain we all have felt.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Glen, I have no doubt that many gays in, and now out, of the Church feel pain. News flash…it’s self-inflicted. I also have no doubt they will continue to feel pain even as they now live “free” lives.
For every one anecdote you could cite, I could gather thousands of narratives from faithful Latter-day Saints (who struggle with mortality no less than any gay) who would say of this sort of gay-persecution imagery: “I’ve never seen it or been a party to it.”
Try another exercise…examine the gay life in its fullest. Go to gay bars and bath houses and ask them how happy they are the morning after. Go to public parks and ask the prowlers there how happy they are.
One big reason your worldview and mine will rarely connect is because yours is based on pure ideology and mine on an idealized reality…your worldview is Marxist (i.e. oppressed versus oppressor), you need an enemy, someone to blame for your misery…and that enemy is always an oppressor. This is why the LDS Church makes such a grand enemy for you…women, blacks, gays, children, intellectuals, etc. All are persecuted by the Church, in your mind.
In your ideologue’s mind, the Church is bigoted. In my realist’s mind, I could say there are bigots in the Church. Can you see this difference? It’s much like you would say America is a racist country, while I would say that there are racists in America.
This whole group of you at One Utah share this same characteristic. Of course, beleive what you want. I just want you to know that you guys are the dangerous ones, not us “bigots.” You are the ones who would use political power to mandate changes to human nature, not us “bigots.”
And, personally, just my opinion alone…what you have shared here is pathetic. I’m sorry that you must live with these sorts of thoughts. How depressing. How sad for you.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Paul, your comment leaves me wondering how many real human lives you’ve witnessed when they are at their most honest (not in Fast and Testimony meeting).
I’m not gay and though there are many close around me who are, I can’t say I know their pain. But I was a woman in the church and I do know that pain. Women in the church are auxiliary to the men in every way. Our role is to serve our God, husbands, our children, our church, the poor and needy, our neighbors, strangers, our community, our country, the world, the universe (did I forget anyone?) and forget ourselves. We sincerely wanted to emulate all the lessons we learned about spirituality and homemaking. We followed all the rules and tried so hard. But life is far from perfect, and no matter how hard we tried, we could NEVER measure up. The harder we tried, the more we failed and the worse we felt about ourselves. The final departure point for me was when the church took a political stand against the Equal Rights Amendment, not unlike it did recently in Prop. 8. I finally acknowledged what I had known in my heart for years–the church is for men, not for women and definitely not for me.
There is a very good reason why Mormon women are some of the worst abusers of prescription drugs. I know. My sister-friends and I had a favorite dentist who would always prescribe percodan for us after most visits if we complained of pain. Yes, we good and faithful little Relief Society sisters who would never touch a drop of alcohol, had no problem hoarding our drugs, and winding down after a tough day with the kids by taking a highly addictive narcotic. For the pain, Paul, for the pain.
Drug use and depression are a rampant problem among Mormon woman. Paul, if you haven’t seen it, you’ve had your eyes shut.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
You’re doing your best to create the perfect scapegoat. You’re dredging up half-truths and rumors to demonize my religion so you’ll feel justified in your own personal religious bigotry. Well…have at it. Just don’t expect any further respect from LDS readers who are trying to be sympathetic to your point of view while remaining faithful to their own religious doctrines and principles. Even those of us who are typically quite socially liberal have only a limited tolerance to this kind of pure bullshit.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
jeremy,
i am assuming you are talking about mero’s spiteful, bigoted and hateful comment above. good for you. we need more lds to call shit what it is … shit!
November 18th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Jeremy, I once thought just like you do. And no wonder. Mormons are taught to never question authority, that the gospel is perfect, and only members are imperfect. What Glendon has written is so achingly true for those who’ve been there. I can’t imagine you aren’t moved by the stories he relates. No scapegoating, but feelings and experiences that are just as valid as your own.
I can be sympathetic to your point of view, although I no longer believe as you do. I realize you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. Yet.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I’m truly sorry for you, Becky. The Church didn’t make you do anything.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
No need to be sorry for me, Paul. I am happy and love my life. Leaving the Mormon church 30 years ago was like losing shackles and chains. I actually felt what free agency was for the first time in my life. I wish all women now in the church could know how that feels.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
“Obama The Paul”,
Just to be clear…No. Glendon Brown’s original post is the pile of the BS I was referring to.
I have little respect for this blog but I always read what Glen has to say because his posts aren’t usually cartoonish and silly as is typical of some other writers here. That can’t be said about this post for the reasons I described in my previous comment.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
paul & jeremy,
what a pity the two of you always having to defend your church. indeed, there is shame in both your voices. maybe the collective conscience thing?
November 18th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Rather…’collective UNconscious..’
November 18th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Religion, the opiate of the masses.
November 19th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Cause of all wars (almost)
November 19th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Paul does have a point, wherein he supposes there is a divide between a sense of idealized realism and an often contrary, yet pure ideology. The divide is set.
‘The ‘church’ (any church), will have its dogma and its congregation. It may well be the responsibility of those in the congregation to correct, debate, comment on, and redefine the creed. I think that has been the effort of those who sometimes impatiently, seek change. ‘Of the body’, doesn’t necessarily indicate submissiveness. The Mormon Church’s hierarchical, paternal, authoritarian structure,makes evolving consciousness more difficult, though not impossible.
Keep after it, my friends. You’ll be forgiven.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I agree, Cav, not impossible. The church has changed before and it will change again. In 1978, once the church began allowing baptism and priesthood for blacks, the rank and file membership immediately dropped all former arguments and objections and supported the decision of the church authorities.
I think we’ll see the same thing happen again. Under extreme social pressure, like in the 60’s and 70’s, the Mormon church will acknowledge that same-sex couples must be allowed the same rights as the rest of us. I’m sure the church will not go so far as to offer nor perform religious ceremonies for same-sex couples. The concession will be couched in a “render unto Caesar” type of position. But it will come. And when it does, most individual objections like we read here in the Comments, will melt away as the membership once again gets behind the decision of the general authorities.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Paul - What you’re suggesting is a sampling problem. Look at it this way: You may not a single woman who has ever been sexually assaulted, but it would be a mistake to conclude from that experience that no woman has ever been sexually assaulted. I know a number of gays and lesbians whose experiences of Mormonism were mostly positive, I know straight people who couldn’t wait to get out of the Mormon church. It’s not just about sexuality - a great many more people find Mormonism unsuitable for their spiritual journeys than have found it suitable to their journeys.
There’s an old joke among Catholic school students - “The one thing I’ve learned about sex is that everything the church says about it is wrong.” When I see statements from LDS leaders, it often feels as if the same thing is true and that however well-meaning, they’re trapped in a contradictory system, a system that simultaneously holds sexual purity and chastity as the highest values while valorizing copious and frequent child bearing, and let’s be honest you have to violate one of those goals to satisfy the other. The contradiction, inherited from our grandparents in the 1950s, who inherited from their great-grandparents in the Victorian age, likes the outcomes of sexual activity but the acts themselves.
When it comes to gay and lesbian lives, you don’t know shit from shinola. All the mainstream medical and mental health organizations have found that gays and lesbians suffer more as a result of other people’s bigotry not because of their sexual orientation. They cite higher rates of depression and substance abuse as outcomes of confronting bias and bigotry on a daily basis, as well as the stress of not being able to be honest in many social settings (i.e. the stress of the closet). You cite cruising the parks and bars as if that is totality of gay life. Louis Crew, founder of Integrity, was once asked of he and his partner “What do you in bed?” He laughed and said, “We’ve been a couple for twenty-five years, we sleep in bed.”
On a final note, just as I’m more likely to hear stories from people whose experiences of Mormonism have been less than happy because they identify me as “safe” (i.e. they believe I won’t judge them for falling short of the tenets of their faith), you are less likely to hear from such people because they would see you as someone who is not a safe listener. I go back to Martha Beck - once people identified her as a safe listener, they poured out their stories to her. It’s the same dynamic.
Jeremy - As I said, there’s is much that’s good in Mormonism - on my father’s side, the family is almost entirely LDS and they find much meaning and richness in their membership. As someone whose roots go back to the pioneers of ‘47 and who grew up in Utah, I can’t help but feel that something is out of balance in Mormonism, as if the peace of the shared community has been valued above individual integrity. If you are offended but what I wrote, you are welcome and encouraged to state your own views and values here at OneUtah. In over two years, I’ve only deleted two comments - one that was an expression of KKK style racism and one that was almost entirely swear words.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Mr. Mero says: Try another exercise…examine the gay life in its fullest. ….”
I had to laugh. To examine gay life in it’s fullest you would have to go into government offices, law firms, union halls, coffee houses, gyms, and homes where couples are sitting on the couch with the dog, watching TV. And, yes, even in the LDS Church office building. To see gay life in its fullest you would have to delve into every occupation, every income level, and every zip code in this country. You would find saints and sinners, healers and teachers, lovers and haters, liberals and conservatives. The happy and the depressed, The fulfilled and the empty. Every facet of humanity. We are both similar to and different from to the straight people around us, in many ways. Hopefully with a splash more style but even that isn’t guaranteed. Welcome to the wide wide world of “the Gays”.
November 19th, 2008 at 10:49 am
It’s sad that Paul’s entire sense of the “gay lifestyle” consists of bath houses and trolling in parks. How sheltered do you have to be to not know any actual gay or lesbian couples? I’ve been fortunate to know three gay couples, and they’re all great people. One couple lives in my neighborhood, and they’ve recently put an addition on their home and built a beautiful new garage. I hate them! I want that garage! :)
I guess it’s easier to deny people their civil rights if you can convince yourself they’re all sexual predators, not people like you who want to find someone they can love and cherish and spend their life with.
[Edit: Mike -- right on.]
November 19th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Becky - Preach it sister!
I heard a great quote recently - men don’t treat women the way they do because they hate them, they treat women the way they do because they fear them.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I find it ludicrous that the gay lifestyle “in its fullest” doesn’t include its fullest to you folks. You are so quick to demonize tradtional marriage and lifestyles…so quick to point out human hypocrisy and failings as it applies to beliefs and people you despise. But when defending your own…all of the sudden…in your self-righteousness…the blinders come on and tunnel-vision ensues.
The bath house, the gay bar, the park in anonymity is a part of gay culture. Saying it aint so doesn’t make it non-existent.
November 19th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Glen, where to begin with your parochial view of…well, everything?
You think in such stereotypes…something rampant in your group…and, of course, project your own condition on your foes. You really are trapped in your Marxist worldview.
It is curious how you can understand that individuals make their own lives (your paragraph one) and then turn around and write as if everyone is locked into some preordained existence (your paragraphs two, three, four, and five).
I have no doubt that gays and lesbians are miserable for a lot of reasons, including that their loved ones and support communities express everything from polite disapproval to explicit disdain for their chosen behaviors. Nor do I doubt that they balme their misery on others as their predominant opinion. So what?
And the “safe listener” thing is a nonsensical argument/justification for you to claim to know the truth any mor ethan anyone else.
And Cliff…wars? I would argue that your Marxist mentors, especially throughout the 20th century, have been responsible for more carnage than any religious people…unless we call atheism a religion. I will say it again, you secular ideologues are the dangerous ones.
Lastly, I remain fascinated by how you all…who hate the LDS Church…claim to speak for its members and to its doctrines. Now that is the “Audacity of Dope.”
November 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Ah Paul! You are nothing if not consistent.
You seem unable or unwilling to grasp the simple concept that sexual orientation is about who one is, not what one does. To claim that people disapprove of gay people because (how did you put it?) their chosen behaviors misses the point. A gay person need never have sex to still receive vast quantities of disapproval. To paraphrase Hairspray, to get a lot of ugly coming from a whole bunch of stupid. Try this again it’s a simple concept: Sexual orientation is an innate part of one’s identity, it is about who one is attracted to. Sexual behavior is what one does. The two are usually congruent, but not always.
I know it’s probably tough for you to believe, but I don’t hate the LDS church, I just hate what it does. You know, I love the sinner, I hate the sin.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
We can debate the existence of sexual orientation if you want to. Unfortunately, for you it seems, the law deals in human behavior. It doesn’t matter what you think you are…it only concerns itself with what you do.
Is that hard to understand?
And don’t BS anyone with the whole “I don’t hate the LDS Church” thing. As a dedicated ideologue, you see the problems of the Church as systemic…that its very nature is antithetical to your worldview. You hate the LDS Church as do your colleagues. Fess up, be a man for once in your life.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Paul - Irony was on life support, you just stepped on it’s oxygen hose.
I don’t hate the LDS church. My criticisms of the LDS church focus on what I see as systemic problems and concerns but I certainly don’t hate it. Just as I can see the good it does without wanting to be a member (which are also part of the system). Let’s take another example: There is absolutely no reason I can think of that makes any sense to deny women leadership roles. Why not have female bishops and stake leaders and why not let girls pray over and serve communion in worship? The skills to lead are not gender based and denying women leadership rolls seems based entirely on sexism, not reason. I can certainly offer such a criticism without hating the Mormon church (or for that matter the Catholic church or a wide array of other denominations).
Since every mainstream medical and mental health organization accepts the idea of sexual orientation, I’m not sure what you think there is to debate. We can’t outlaw sexual orientation, we know that outlawing sexual behaviors doesn’t stop them. The law is behind the curve on same sex marriage - which has been going on for ever in practice without the legal protections granted to heterosexual couples.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
You know, if someone were to legislate away Mero’s right to be an ignorant f*ckwit, you can bet your ass he’d make a lot of noise about it.
But, that’s because he loves him, and only those like him, so much so that he can call himself a Christian with a straight face.
If you don’t his way, you’re a whiner. If you fight for equality, you’re a socialist. If you’re different than he is, you there to picked on and it’s all your fault.
He’s Paul Mero, folks. “Christian.”
Sometimes, Paul, you’re a flaming douche bag.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Glen, your oh-so-calm-decorum belies your ideology. If so non-chalant, why even comment on any organization with which you have no affilliation or affinity?
And without engaging in a, no doubt, lenghty discussion about “official” pronouncements about homosexuality, suffice it to say that every intelligent person knows how those “official” pronouncements came to be: in a sunami of political-correctness beginning in 1973. It has had nothing — zero — to do with science or medicine.
Nobody wants to outlaw something that doesn’t exist…nor that we could easily put into words to codify…like “orientation.”
Now…isn’t a pronouncement of “fact” without scientific evidence really an act of “faith”?…making your cause religious!! Shame on you, you secular snake-oil salesman!!
November 19th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
So JMB…does that make you a whiner, a socialist, and a big puss? I wouldn’t know…we’ve never met.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Paul - Despite your claims to the contrary, the mainstream medical and mental health community actually bases its various statements and positions on science. Your claim to the contrary, a great many intelligent people do not agree with your version of events. The notion that various stripes of doctors, psychiatrists, PhDs, MSW, LCSWs, and so on are in sufficiently in the thrall of “political correctness” to have maintained some sort of conspiracy for decades is laughable.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Glen, you’re delusional. Even your “scientists” have written about how politics has been the sole driver of this charade.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
JMB. Mero is not a Christian, he is a Mormon.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
So seriously, Paul, you’re claiming that vast swaths of America’s medical and mental health communities are in the thrall of political correctnes and have been for decades, have subjugated science and standards of care to political correctness and you’re accusing me of being delusional? Seriously?
November 19th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Glen, yes. Point: where’s the scientific or medical evidence that you were born that way?
November 19th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
What? Huh? Did you say something? I didn’t think so.
You’re a flat-earther, Glen.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Paul Mero, where’s the scientific or medical evidence that you were born the way you are?
JM Bell, I think I’m converted to your religion. Amen!
November 19th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Becky, I was born male. My sexual choices are mine to make. Any other questions?
(In anticipation of your next question…answer: you guys bring out the worst. Congrats.)
November 19th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
You actually made a choice to be heterosexual, Paul? You aren’t that way because you possessed an overwhelming physicial desire at about age x-teen for girls?
November 19th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Becky, I have a bunch of overwhelming physical desires I don’t act on…usually involving my temper. :)
November 19th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Okay, maybe that was too personal. Let me make it easier on you. I assume you were never troubled with a same sex attraction. My point is that everyone experiences what you experienced. We all look around us and see people who attract us and others who don’t. It’s just lucky for you, Paul, that the particular attraction you enjoyed was also the one that society happened to smile on.
It just seems so incredibly arrogant to suggest other people should not be allowed to marry the people they love and are attracted to, just as you were allowed to do.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Becky…”incredibly arrogant”? Gays can marry in every state of the Union in private ceremonies (religious or secular). What they cannot do is have their marriages sanctioned by the state…because they must show how gay marriage benefits society. They haven’t been able to do that in the courts (judicial or public opinion).
So, Becky, let me ask you given that the rest of your posse cannot answer this question: what is the societal benefit of gay marriage?
November 19th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Paul, the societal benefits of gay marriage are all the same ones as for heterosexual marriage. I wondered at your question whether you were referring to the act of reproduction. But I don’t think you would be saying that as that would mean you believe there is no societal benefit in the marriage of any couples who cannot bear children.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
As Paul says contractual arrangements can be made to obligate anyone to anyone. It has been how the smarter polygamists have avoided legal trouble by writing contracts that resemble marriage in all but name.
In large the better part of the fight for gay “marriage” seems to be over a word. Marriage.
The only significant element absent from civil contracts being the carry over of benefits from jobs and insurance converage. In my view this is a very big reason why gay “marriage” has a fight on it’s hands. The cultural conservatives are being used by business to keep a benefit from a rather large group of people that could be quite expensive should it be allowed and state sanctioned.
Reasonable people should be supportive of anyone’s right to couple with all the benefits and obligations. That should be enough. As marriage is inherently a religious institution, please, must the entire issue revolve around a word?
Call it something new, perhaps superior, and then prove it by exercising the practice through the longevity of the union, given “marriage’s” abyssmal failure rate.
November 19th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Mero:
Gay marriages benefit society in every way that hetero marriages benefit society.
Just who the freep do you think you are, mr. mormon goody-two-shoes male seeking exaltation and a planet of your own?
November 19th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Just who the freep do you think you are, mr. mormon goody-two-shoes male seeking exaltation and a planet of your own?
So Apple Jacks has consumed too much sugar? No worries a healthy insulin response will take care of it, though the ingestion of said product is not advised for optimal health, the outburst being proof…enough.
November 19th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Becky, not to be difficult, but if the societal benefits are the same, what are they? What is it about the relationships (hetero/homo) that makes the state want to say, yeah, I love what you’re doing and want to encourage it?
November 19th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Paul, please enumerate the societal benefits of heterosexual marriage.
And why does the state need to love what we’re doing and want to encourage it. We’re talking about rights here not commerce.
November 19th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
In a word, control.
Government, economy(under the state a monopoly), and control, religion being an aspect of the control, the flip side to the government coin. Marriage is just a tool. Personal emotions aside.
Religion serves the goals of the elites control via government, though at one time in human history, the reality was opposite, religion had the upper hand.
So as it once was, so shall it be again, and then it will switch, in the never ending yin and yang of societal manipulation by the elites that run, and feed upon humanity. Like beef on the hoof.
A following of history will describe the unholy union becky.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Glenn,
Huh?
Paul,
As I have suggested before, your argument on this point circles around and around, but never quite gets anywhere. I think it is time to admit, at least to yourself, that but for the inability to procreate, there is no difference between a gay couple and a heterosexual couple.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Ah Jim, you reveal your limited knowledge of history, the aspect of control by elites of the masses by utilizing mumbo jumbo (a real word) is pretty obvious. Get with the program….,
check your intellect at the door. It’s like a gun to the ignorant.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Paul - the claim you making is extraordinary - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. For 35 years we’re supposed to believe that the majority of the medical and mental health communities have allowed themselves and their profession to spend the last thirty five years violating their most basic ethical and professional duties and obligations? That’s a claim so extraordinary and irrational that it collapses of its own weight. The evidence to support your claim does not exist.
And the evidence you want about sexual orientation is all around you - in the lives and experiences of gay and lesbian people and the utter failure of groups like Evergreen to pray away the gay.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Paul, Mero,
The states’ interest in encouraging non-reproductive partnerships is there are more really cool aunts and uncles to protect the sanity of their neices and nephews when their parents fight for years (60-80%) and divorce (50%) and keep on fighting.
Where is the data that says reproductive couples are in the states’ interst?????
November 19th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Before signing off for the night, here’s a little comic relief from my new best friends, Margaret and Helen:
Night all.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Moderated for insulting language.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Becky you really need to learn how to behave.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
What is the trouble? Gays with Guns? They can then well defend themselves from gay bashers. Must I use other means to post, it is after all very easy as you mentioned.
Don’t force it, allow leeway, as I know how to post it my friend. Were you some how offended that GAYS would in some way be whooly protected in defending their ways with the 2nd from transgressors?
Geeze, it’s a bit lame, but I’m used to that from you Cliff.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
So post the original, it is well worthy, and you know it.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Quote of the post goes to Glenden:
November 20th, 2008 at 1:42 am
I’ll bet all you passionate people thought you were safe here, and I wouldn’t be able to bring electronic voting machines into this discussion, didn’t you? Well I can! Both sides of the pity party, (Mormon and Gay), have to pause…
On the Peter B. Collins show from 11/14/2008 {starting at about 2:34 minutes in}, Emily Levy of velvetrevolution.us, (which is responsible for more election integrity then we will ever know), says there are ignominies in the success of Prop 8. The same type of ignominies which reared their ugly heads in the 2004 “election.”
In that election, the results of exit polling didn’t match the voting results either here, (The Greatest Country On The Goddamned Face Of The Earth), or in Kiev Russia. Kiev Russia rose up and demanded another election which resulted in the real winner taking office. America didn’t ask for a recount, even though the Goddamned exit polls here were adjusted to reflect the figures tabulated by the voting machines, or other various forms of “counting”, AFTER THE FACT!
Emily Levy will probably never know what really happened, and has the integrity to say so. As for myself, something smells again!
November 20th, 2008 at 2:58 am
I forgot to mention that Emily notes: many provisional and mail-in votes have not yet been counted. If Salt Lake county had not counted it’s outstanding ballots, we would never had known if the largest county in Utah, (my beloved home), had voted in favor of , the best chance we have; Obama!
Get to work, Gays! Your #1 enemy is the election thieves!
November 20th, 2008 at 8:13 am
I hadn’t read this one until this morning, so I am just catching up, and I can be slow, so please forgive me if I attempt to figure this out…..
Paul, if i understand correctly, you are supporting a theory that says that being gay is a choice, that therefore all of the observed homosexual behavior of huge numbers of animals in the wild is either imagined or made up. That observed differences in brain chemistry and genetic markers are imaginary. That all of science is behind a long conspiracy to make gays socially acceptable so that…… why exactly?
Further Paul, you seem to be claiming the state should only sanction those things that are of benefit to society. Not individuals, society. The state should not be in the habit of protecting individual rights, but should only do what benefits the whole societal structure.
So you are a socialist? Anti-individual?
“So, Becky, let me ask you given that the rest of your posse cannot answer this question: what is the societal benefit of gay marriage?”
So, Paul, let me ask you, since I am curious as hell to know: What is the societal benefit of guns? The Mormon church? Any church? War?
Contrary to your assertions (and as an aside I would love to see your proof of sexuality as a personal choice, please do enlighten me) America has never been in the business of protecting things that are to benefit society. Rather the entire nation is founded on the concept of protecting individuals rights. In fact we have a document, you may have heard of it, that you might want to look into. “Bill of Rights” ring a bell?
November 20th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Shane’s laid it out quite clearly Paul. We are in the business of protecting individual liberty, personal freedom and equality. We don’t restrict the individual rights of others unless there is a compelling state interest in doing so. So, again, I ask you (and Kevin, please feel free to chime in, I’d much rather here from an honest broker such as yourself to tell you the truth) what is the compelling state interest in denying same-sex couples the right to marry?
November 20th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Shane and Don…there is a lot of material you are asking me to cover in a blog. But I’ll try. Maybe I can do it best through sharing a couple of intellectual constructs.
First, to individuality (or, “am I a socialist?”). Conservatism’s primary concern is not the individual or, indeed, individual rights. Conservatism’s primary concern is freedom, which conservative intellectuals would define as a combination of liberty and virtue (that only “good” people can remain truly free). Our freedoms do come from our founding documents but they come more so from within each of us and our institutions of civil society (frankly, the very institutions that you guys seem to hold up to ridicule): family, religion, voluntary organizations, tradition, the marketplace. Our laws are most often a relfection of our collective values…values created and maintained by those institutions of civil society.
A socialist (and I will use that term very broadly to include all sorts of totalitarianism) believes the state should set those values for everyone. Hence, Hitler and Stalin and Mao began their reigns of terror by dismantling civil society…so there was no buffer between the individual and the state…SO the state became the arbiter of values, morality, mores. For instance, this meant that a German father could go to “work” gassing Jews by day and come home as a loving husband and father and not really give it a second thought — because the state dictated that gassing Jews was okay, not immoral.
Without the buffer of civil society, individuals are exposed to the state. So, if I can begin to string concepts together, this is why I have argued that “gay marriage,” a creature or creation of the state, is bad for freedom in the long run. Why not traditional marriage? Because male/female “marriage” is, in very legal terms, “prior to the state.” That is, the state didn’t create traditional marriage; it simply recognizes it for the benefits it offers society. Again, “gay marriage” is wholly a creation of the state.
Our founding documents are really two-fold…the Declaration of Independence and the Consitituion with its Bill of Rights. The notion of raw or abstract individualism within those documents is a favorite chestnut of libertarians and libertines. Conservatives, real ones, don’t believe that those documents are permission slips to do whatever you want to do…and this argument should be easy enough to see in the everyday workings of our lives.
“All men are created equal” is used to justify the same sort of abstract equality…a theory, not a reality. Conservatives believe that “equality” is equality of opportunity, plain and simple, in the pursuit of happiness. Our “equal protection” clause has been, and no doubt will continue to be, interpreted in a myriad of ways depending on the Court at the time. But, again, conservatives view equal protection in the context of substantive due process…that “life, liberty, and property” are significant more so for what they substantively imply than abstract ideals that legal processes simply facilitate. In other words, we are not equally protected to get married…that marriage has a substantive nature to it…and that we, the people, understand that if marriage (like so many other aspects of our lives) includes everything, it means nothing.
BTW, this is why I keep asking the question: if love alone defines a marriage, who then, among consenting adults, should we prohibit from marrying, if anyone?
Both equal protection and (substantive) due process, and their application to the states, arise out of the Slave Amendments. This historical understanding informs debates about things like gay rights. It means we cannot view “civil rights” in the abstract…constantly serving the whims of atomistic individualism…that we must view these rights substantively.
And so we ask…reagrding otherwise private behavior or actions that seek to rise to the level of public approbation: what benefit is it to society? In this current dicussion, what is the substantive benefit to society of gay marriage? So far, all I have heard from you folks is 1) the same as heterosexuals, 2) the same happiness for gays that heteros enjoy, or 3) the question itself is lame.
The fact is that you cannot delineate the substantive benefits to society of gay marriage. Any reasonable person can do so for tradtional marriage: child-bearing and child-rearing…which benefits rise out of the deeper value of the complemetarity between men and women…a deeper value, btw, that no two men or no two women can claim.
From this male/female complementarity that allows child-bearing and child-rearing to manifest itself in optimal ways come the benefits to society: men, women, and children, in the aggregate (and by leaps and bounds) are better off (i.e. heath, safety, income, education, “happiness,” etc.) than in any other “family” structure.
We conservatives understand that other “family” structures exist, and we also believe that we should be careful not to codify structural dysfunction (let alone make public personal dysfunctions).
There is so much empirical research out there on why and how tradtional marriage (more so the complementarity of men and women legally, socially, and morally bound to each other) benefits society that I will not do the work for you.
Now, on to the sexual orientation construct. People who have same-sex relations do not prove a genetic basis any more than people who have heterosexual relations…or any kind of sexual relations. We are born male and female (even the few who have questionable plumbing…many cases where they were raised one or the other only to find out the parents/doctors got it wrong: meaning they really were born either male or female). Our sexual behavior is our choice.
Yes, we are influenced by many factors…but choice it is.
There is no replicable science or medicine that has proven that sexual orientation exists. The professional associations have ultimately come around to it because of political (political-correctness) pressures within their associations, but so what? An opinion doesn’t prove anything scientifically or medically.
Shane, you may certainly want to associate your sexual behavior with animals, but most people understand the difference between a Benobo chimp and their mother, girlfriend, or wife.
Don (and sorry I am trying to cover all the bases you have thrown my way), the compelling state interest is in child-bearing and child-rearing within the complementarity of the male/female relationship…because it benefits society in all the ways I have mentioned. Until gays can prove these sorts of results, there is no compelling state interest in “gay marriage.”
Why don’t I stop there and you guys can chip away at that.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
“Conservatism’s primary concern is not the individual or, indeed, individual rights. Conservatism’s primary concern is freedom, which conservative intellectuals would define as a combination of liberty and virtue”
We can stop there, as that is the only part of the debate that to my mind has any meat.
I understand, very well, the conservative position. The question I have never had answered is how the concern can be with “freedom” and yet be communitarian rather than individual. Even more shocking is that the communitarian values that conservatives espouse don’t seem to be communitarian in the classical way, but rather “we look toward the past” as a general rule. Never the less, (and I admit I love saying this to conservatives) America is founded on individual freedoms. If that isn’t your cup of tea, well, America, love it or leave it.
Secondly, smart ass comments about associating sexual behavior with animals aside, like or not we are indeed members of the animal kingdom, and a good many traits, good and bad, are explained by our shared evolutionary history. We can in fact learn a lot from observations of others. The fact that sexual orientation is not a choice is supported by the fact that we find same sex pairs in the animal kingdom. Attempted rude comments about mates and monkeys won’t change that. This is not opinion as you assert. It is often observed empirical fact.
Genetics also disagree with you. DNA transplants have purposely created gay creatures in the animal kingdom. Differences in brain chemistry and firing patterns have been observed and well documented. Homosexuality is determined by brain structure and genetics. To discriminate based on it is no different from discriminating based on eye color.
“There is no replicable science or medicine that has proven that sexual orientation exists”
And yet I was able to find literally thousands of studies that say you are wrong in only a few minutes at the U of U. You wish to site studies that show that “traditional marriage benefits society” and yet studies that show that homosexuality is perfectly natural are somehow wrong?
The question of a benefit to society is irrelevant. The question is “why should we knowingly curtail the rights of someone based upon their nature if said nature is not a threat to others?”
Or, in short, their relationship, their business. The only reason it becomes a state issue is because we have chosen to attach other rights to a simple cultural ceremony. At that point we need to show just cause to remove the right, not to bestow it. The burden is on those against gay marriage to explain why it is that gay marriage is somehow a threat to their well being and should not be allowed.
November 20th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Shane, you write…
“The question I have never had answered is how the concern can be with “freedom” and yet be communitarian rather than individual.”
Answer: your freedom comes from that intermediate layer of society, in between the individual and the state, called civil society, as I explained, most especially from stable, autonomous families. Your freedom doesn’t come from government.
And, Shane, your comment you so relish…that “America was founded on individual freedom”…is ignorant. America was founded on home and hearth, on religious freedom, on a purposeful life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (again, found in stable and autonomous families)…on a PURPOSEFUL life, not a whimiscal life. Your comment is like saying our FFs fought the Revolutionary War in the name of doing whatever you want, such as bugger at will. The Founders would just shake their heads in disbelief over such immature nonsense.
My so-called “smart-ass comment” about the animal kingdom is because your idea (i.e. your obsessive dependence on drawing a comparison between raw animal instinct and human life) is ridiculous. Why not stamp a label on your point: “May cause cancer in rats…and humans too!!” While I can see you are an self-appointed expert on the similarities, do you not understand the differences between human life and animals?
And genetics shows nothing of the sort you suggest…and the key word in real science is “replicable.” I realize gay scientists have been hard at work to find the gay gene…and have received wide publicity for their “findings.” Problem is no one can ever replicate those studies…hence, not scientific. The silence about a gay gene (or any other biological basis) is deafening. Read real literature, scientific literature, not pseudo-science from the U. or some gay newspaper or chat room.
And the “benefit to society” question is not only relevant, it is central to the legal and public policy question over gay marriage. You can’t see it because your intellectual framework is based on abstract individualism…and you obviously cannot draw the proper distinction (or balance) between private behavior and public policy.
You guys incessantly gripe that the burden is on society to show why “rights” shouldn’t be granted…because you have no answer to the truth: the burden is on gays, and anyone else, claiming such privileges.
If you continue to doubt any of what I’m saying, try a simple intellectual exercise: ask yourself why there are limitations on any behavior…why everything and anything isn’t sanctioned by the state…and why, when you realize the truth of what I’m saying, you simply don’t apologize?
November 21st, 2008 at 12:27 am
I’ll apologize when you convince me of the truth; albeit you have a ways to go, beyond your current tactic of merely preaching what the truth is according to Paul Mero.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:39 am
[...] http://oneutah.org/2008/11/18/the-mormon… [...]
November 21st, 2008 at 11:01 am
Paul, If conservatism is about freedom, somebody needs to update Wikipedia.
The only reference to “freedom” as you define it PAUL, on the entire page is…
So in fact, your idea of freedom has an explicitly and exclusively liberal origin.
Isn’t the Paul Mero version of Conservatism something more akin to “Do and say anything to preserve authority and religious values even if it means stealing ideas from the far left in desperation and claiming them as your own?”
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I was reading this post in my rss reader so I thought I would share my experience with the Mormon faith but then I read Paul’s comments and I am just blown away. I have met Paul in person, he seems like a decent enough human being but reading these comments just makes me want to go nuclear on the guy. I mean he wouldn’t have so much time to write these comments if he was forced to get a real job instead of working for his charity. Yes the Sutherland institute has the same tax status as the United Way, how exactly does that work Paul?
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Marshall, my boy, what’s up with this tax-exempt obesession? IRS non-profits are exempt from sales tax and property tax…it applies to virtually every political leftie group you worship. What’s your point? That advocacy groups, right or left or center, shouldn’t be allowed tax-exemption? If so, then make that point. Why single out me and/or Sutherland?
Oh yeah, because in your Obama world only certain “community organizers” are of value.
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Marshall,
In Paul’s defense he Paul is writing as Paul Jesus Mero. We cannot hold him to whatever restrictions his IRS status may have.
I am in the same position as with respect to boards on which I sit.
Also in Paul’s defense by way of explanation, Paul is a we-are-without-beast kinda guy. His definition of civilization is