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”.

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.

Paul, you’re going to have to expand on that a bit. I’m not even sure exactly what you are saying (maybe you’re being purposefully vague?). My initial take is that you are saying all marriage laws, including those based on race, do not deserve scrutiny under equal protection clauses in the law. That can’t be right . . . can it? What do you mean by “… unless all other standards are met”? Your initial example of restricting family members from marrying isn’t making your point clear, at least not to me.

I don’t think your assertion that the failure of the U.S. auto industry is due to a failure of market forces. Conversely, it is the lack of true market forces and overwhelming governmental regulation that is the likely culprit. In fact most noted economists blame the fact that U.S. automakers have been held hostage by the auto workers unions as the main reason for their failure. U.S. auto makers currently pay twice as much as foreign competitors for their benefits packages alone.

Unlike U.S. industry, unions are not restricted by anti-trust legislation. This allows unions to work cooperatively, while various industries are force to abide by strict ant-trust guidelines. While I do believe anti-trust laws are essential for a true capitalistic system because they ensure competition, not requiring the unions to abide by the same rules have allowed unions to run rough shot over the auto industry and function in an overlord capacity. Unions should instead be treated by law as an employment agency. This would allow various unions to compete with each other and thus would bring down the cost of labor.

Jason Williams at KVNU did write an interesting essay, “Would Universal Healthcare Save GM?” that argued that if the US had a socialized medical program, the big three would not be in trouble because they would not have to pay for the ever increasing cost of medical for their employees. While I disagree with socialized medicine and hold up the VA system as an example of its failure here in the U.S., Jason does bring up an interesting concept that is worth reading and talking about. Also I would like to point to the fact that there are many foreign auto makers that produce cars here in the U.S. that provide employment packages that include non-socialized medical and are still more competitive than the big 3.

Finally, we need to recognize that the price of gas in this country is a leading factor in the decline of the U.S. auto industry as you have suggested. I would agree to some extent but would also like to point out that the big three have long been producing fuel efficient vehicles that have been sold widely around the world. Here in the U.S. efficiency levels are not as high because the price of gas has been relatively low compared to other nations. Now with rising fuel prices the industry has reacted and in short order is producing some of the most fuel efficient cars in the world.

Still the fact that their cost of doing business is so much higher than their competitors has led to the big three cutting corners to save money which has resulted in inferior products at a higher price. Ultimately, it is a myth that the efficiency of U.S. vehicles has led to the current financial troubles. While certainly they may have contributed to the problem, it is in no way considered the root of the problem.

Updated election results released Tuesday show that Salt Lake County voters favored Barack Obama over John McCain — but just barely — marking the first time in decades that a Democratic presidential hopeful won the state’s most populous county.

With the addition of more than 29,000 provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots, President-elect Obama scored a come-from-behind victory over McCain. The county’s official election canvass didn’t change the outcome in any other race.

Obama trailed McCain by about 1,900 votes before the provisionals, cast mostly by people who moved but didn’t change their voter registration, and absentees were added.

The final result gave Obama a 296-vote victory, which equates to less than one-tenth of 1 percent.

A Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless.

And, if you are characterizing young Kevin correctly, my repsonse would be: he’s wrong. There is no restriction, just a requirement to show that gay marriage actually benefis society. Equal protection just doesn’t apply in marriage law unless all other standards are met…for instance, marriage laws do not permit family members from marrying.