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| Re: Gay protest in LA (381633) | |||
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Re: Gay protest in LA |
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Posted by appleton on Fri Nov 7 14:43:10 2008, in response to Re: Gay protest in LA, posted by Olog-hai on Thu Nov 6 02:55:29 2008. I have found that when one resorts to name-calling instead of logic and reasoning that person is wrong. Just look at the previous posts! Doesn't that tell you something?When the Proposition 8 campaign first began I was inclined to vote against it. I felt it was a civil rights issue. But it also looked important enough to find out something about it. I had been told that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the official name of the "Mormon" Church) had been urged to use their means and time to support the proposition. There were also others, of course. On the other hand, the gay and lesbian rights groups across the State (and indeed from other states) were working for its defeat. I decided I'd investigate both just to see what was really behind all this. I visited several "Mormon" congregations, talking with not only the members I met there but also in each case with the bishop (the man in charge of each congregation). What I found was very interesting to me. I found that the Church leaders in Salt Lake City, Utah (where the Church is headquartered) had sent a letter to each congregation and asked that the letter be read in the Sunday worship meeting (now several months ago). I was shown the letter and read it. It simply urged the members to give of their time and means in supporting Proposition 8. I also found that the Church itself gave no money to the campaign. I found no anti-gay feelings or attitude. There were no anti-gay sermons, no anti-gay rallies. In fact, except for reading the letter there seems to have been not even a mention of Proposition 8 in the meetings. Whatever organizing was done, was done in people's individual homes. As opposed to all I see and read about how the Mormon's hate the gays, I found that those I interviewed went out of their way to express love and concern for them. I found no hate and no fear. What I found was that the members had a deep concern that marriage, which they view as the basic building block of our society, was being changed in a very fundamental way that would be detrimental. One of the bishops I interviewed gave me a document called "The Family - A Proclamation to the World". It is a one-page document outlining the Church's views on the family and was published in 1995. For those of you who might be interested I understand that it is readily available on the Church's website at lds.org. That document makes what I thought was a very powerful argument that successful, happy, and well adjusted individuals are most likely to come from homes where mother and father love one another, are faithful to one another, and love their children. I found there are a host of scientific studies supporting that notion. They nearly all conclude that individuals raised with both a male and female role model in the family are much more likely to be successful and well adjusted than those raised without such. That of course speaks to single-parent families as well. The single-parent family is not the ideal. But in those countries where divorce had been outlawed it has been a disaster. But striving for the ideal benefits society. That, in a nutshell, is what I found the so-called "Mormon" position to be. I'll not deny that I met some members who did not have a clue what the issues are, but were only going along for the ride - but not many. Again let me say I found no gay-hate or anti-gay sentiment. I also visited with the Gay and Lesbian Rights leaders and workers to understand their viewpoint. Most of the workers I met with had only some "sound bites" and "talking points" (and some misinformation) that had been fed to them by their leaders and not much of an understanding of the issues. The leaders, however, were very knowledgeable and thoughtful. They knew the campaign was not about marriage "rights". California law has done an overall excellent job in conforming the rights of domestic partnerships with the rights of married couples. Rather, the Gay and Lesbian leaders I spoke with saw this as the next big step in bringing the acceptance of the gay and lesbian lifestyle on a par with the heterosexual lifestyle in all aspects of our society. California voters are not, at least not now, ready to accept that kind of fundamental shift. As I said at the beginning, when all this started I was inclined to vote against Proposition 8 as something curtailing civil rights. I have concluded it is not about civil rights at all, but about the way our families are organized and nurtured. I confess to having changed my mind about the proposition. As we discuss Proposition 8, if we could debate the merits and not stoop to name-calling on either side, our society would be much better served. If you want to dispute the studies, if you feel society would be better served by putting the gay and lesbian lifestyle on a par with the homosexual lifestyle, then make that argument - but let's avoid vilifying and name-calling." |
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