In a stunning move, apostle of the Church of Later Day Saints Dallin H. Oaks likened the backlash of Mormon support and funding of Proposition 8 to the persecution that African Americans endured during the civil-rights struggle.No, really.
Oaks, in a strongly worded defense of the church's efforts opposing same-sex marriage, told students at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg that Latter-day Saints "must not be deterred or coerced into silence" by advocates for "alleged civil rights."
Last year, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urged its followers to donate money and time to pass Prop 8, the successful ballot measure that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to wed in California. Afterward, protests, including several near LDS temples, erupted along with boycotts of business owners who donated to Prop 8 and even some vandalism of LDS meetinghouses.
Just so we're on the same page, Mr. Oaks is comparing his backlash to the 'struggle?' Amazingly, there's no mention of GAY CIVIL RIGHTS in the discussion.
And there also seems to be a lack of understanding that Mormons are spectacular racists. In fact, racism is in their bible:
1 Nephi 12:23 And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.Don't worry, Oaks faces a backlash himself.
(Joseph Smith calls dark skinned people ugly, filthy, lazy, and perverts.)
"Were four little Mormon girls blown up in the church at Sunday school? Were there burning crosses planted on local bishops' lawns? Were people lynched and their genitals stuffed in their mouths?" asked University of Utah historian Colleen McDannell. "By comparing these two things, it diminishes the real violence that African-Americans experienced in the '60s, when they were struggling for equal rights. There is no equivalence between the two."
In the meantime, Mr. Oaks? You're in line for...
BLASPHEMES HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK!
For irony's sake, I'd like to mention that Mormons wouldn't let black people be ministers until 1978, well beyond the actual Civil Rights movement.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints
My irony meter just exploded.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine voted against gay marriage. She's black. I asked her if people voted to go back to slavery if it would make that right too. She didn't want to talk about it. She was so proud to vote for Obama - as was I - because she would now be able to honestly tell her four year old that if he worked hard, one day he could be president. Yet with the same flick of a pen told another people she thought they were an abomination not fit to bear the same rights as her.
What. The. Fuck?
I still really just don't get it.