Of all the tragedies in our nation due to the passage of proposition 8 this year, the most significant loss must indeed be the hardening of attitudes on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate.
While equal marriage activists have largely recognized the groups of Mormons who actively opposed their own churches stance on Prop 8, at a more grassroots level the anti-Mormon vitriol his reached ever higher levels. Many pro-queer individuals see the civil rights of LGBT people sacrificed at the alter of The Mormon Church's political agenda. They feel angry at the Church and its members for causing so much hurt.
Meanwhile, Mormon supporters of Prop 8 and the Church see themselves as under attack and are behaving in a manner in which they seek to be seen as the victims. In their mind, they were simply practicing their democratic rights at the ballot box and as a result are now being intimidated with "scare tactics" by LGBT and allied organizers.
These separate mindsets become narratives in the brains of both pro and anti marriage equality people, respectively. They become such an integral part of ones thought process that it often becomes blasphemy to even recognize the differing opinions of others.
Since my audience is largely progressive I'll start first with my message to fellow progressives:
Don't abandon the Mormon Church. The simple fact of the matter is that the Mormon Church is a social force in this country, and we would ultimately be better off not retreating from that fact.
Many of the people in my life have grown very disillusioned with the Mormon Church and organized religion in general. Some have expressed this to me openly on facebook (I decline to identify them in this setting):
"[The Mormon Church] should be crucified. its actions have made it so. same thing with all other bigoted religions."
"organized religion is an obstacle for progression."
I feel that Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi would take issue with both above comments. Rotten, bigoted aspects of contemporary religion does not mean that all religion is an obstacle and an overall negative component of society. Indeed religious institutions have been at the forefront of so many of our world's social justice battles... Regardless of one's individual beliefs, we must recognize that our enemies today could, with a little love and yes with a lot of push for reform, possibly become our allies tomorrow.
It can be said that leaders like MLK, Tutu or Gandhi were inspired by common humanity and basic decency, not religion. Only those individuals know, but it was the vehicle of religion which they chose to deliver their messages and inspire millions. Regardless of what you think of religion, it is a pillar of society whether we like it or not. No large scale movement can progress without religious voices helping to nurture the movement along with other forces. That's the whole idea of coalition building and community. We must reach out to those who do not subscribe to our way of thinking 100%, but where we can find common ground.
For supporters of proposition 8, particularly Mormon supporters:
Your electoral actions will have consequences. If your principles are so holy and benevolent in the eyes of God and morality, surely it can stand the test of time and a few hundreds of thousands of protesters. Build a tough upper lip and welcome to our world of differing ideologies, where questioning and skepticism of established norms only breed progress and eventual advancement for the entire human race.
Organized religion in America has a colored history, but by no means is it uniform. Just as religious differences exist between say Episcopalians and Mormons on LGBT issues, their also exists differences within religions. Many progressive Mormon forces, such as the LGBT Mormon group Affirmation, are creating progressive change in the most inhospitable of places.
I challenge any national LGBT group and our queer organizers to, instead of lambasting the entire Mormon Church, work to strengthen our allies who already exist within the Church. It's easy to criticize, however the critics are rarely the ones who take action for change.
As a final note to pro-prop 8 conservatives, Remember your history. LGBT writer and reporter Lisa Neff reported on it passionately:
My family comes from a place in western Illinois where great efforts have been made to remedy the persecution of a group of people.
My dad grew up on a farm in Ferris, Ill., not far from Nauvoo, a beautiful little town founded by Joseph Smith, who founded the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints.
The town grew as the Mormon population grew.
And around the town, unease about Mormon lifestyle, political influence and religious beliefs grew to open warfare — homes were destroyed, crops were burned, lives were threatened, leaders were jailed. Eventually the Mormons were forced to abandon their homes in Nauvoo — the largest forced migration in U.S. history, 1,300 miles across the plains to Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
The Illinois Legislature, by resolution, apologized for the forced expulsion of a people in 2004, 159 years after the crimes.
The resolution said the "goodness, patriotism, high-moral conduct and generosity" of the LDS church enriched the landscape of the nation.
By supporting bigoted legislation, The Mormon Church has forced their own rich struggle out of the minds of Americans and instead have begun to abuse their own hard fought current place of privilege.
...Mormons know about being targeted for being different. Yet in a full-on offensive, the LDS Church mobilized in favor of California's Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that bans gay marriage. Mormons donated $19 million to the cause -- nearly four out of five dollars raised. And now that the initiative has passed, apparently Mormons want to play nice; an LDS Church leader called Wednesday for members to heal rifts caused by the campaign by treating each other with "civility, with respect and with love."
Neff makes a great point which sums up her entire piece:
Today, I can’t see the goodness, patriotism, high-moral conduct or generosity in a church that has known persecution but continues to persecute a group of people.
The Illinois Legislature’s resolution said "the bias and prejudices of a less enlightened age ... caused unmeasurable hardship and trauma for the community of Latter-day Saints by the distrust, violence, and inhospitable actions of a dark time in our past."
Today, the LDS church is guilty perpetuating bias and prejudices causing unmeasurable hardship and trauma for gays and lesbians.
A note to all, regardless of your stance on equality:
For any individual human being, regardless of religious beliefs or lack thereof, the fact is that the harder path less travelled is the path where we accept our opponents for the commonalities we share and find a basic level path for dialogue. No one ever wins hearts and minds or achieves social justice by ignoring those who they disagree with.
It's that winding, difficult path of expression and eventual reconciliation between differing ideologies that wins out in the course of history.
I know the future, I can taste the future and it is a future of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. My path merges with the path of others, and I hope that in my personal journey to equality, my Mormon brothers and sisters can join me. I will never, never reach my destination, my dream, our future, until my Mormon kin reach it with me.
Until Equality,
Travis