| No one is telling the church and its membership not to believe whatever they want to believe about same-sex marriage, but they cannot foment discrimination and conflate church and state in their support of Proposition 8. The sole reason for backing the amendment is faith-based. That has nothing to do with civil law or government -- at least not in this country.
If the LDS can, in the minds of its followers, be inspired by God to take away the civil rights of people in another state, then gay and lesbian families (wouldn't they also be children of God, or they not human to the LDS?) and their supporters, inspired by the Constitution, can call for the boycott of the state of Utah, where this hate was fomented and bankrolled. Tourism brings in $6 billion a year to Utah -- the state government and businesses in your state will not look kindly upon this rogue mini-theocracy hitting the bottom line of the state coffers.
And the Catholic church is also lying boldly: Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church was also a target for supporting Proposition 8.
"Proposition 8 is not against any group in our society. Its sole focus is on preserving God's plan for people living upon this earth throughout time," Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles, said in a statement Thursday. WTF? Wait a minute. Prop 8 just removed an existing right from one specific group of people. There's no way to whitewash this. There's no spin that takes away the fact that religious institutions that backed Proposition 8 did so because of their faith -- interfering with the laws of California.
Those laws do not correspond to anything taught from a holy book, or answer to any supreme being these churches preach about.
These extremist statements and positions are nothing less than a call to establish a theocracy. Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be moved to name this behavior of these institutions for what it is -- and question the tax-exempt status of these institutions.
Think of what the millions of dollars poured into California's Prop 8 effort could have done on to help the homeless, the working poor, the people suffering in the imploding economy. Instead, here we see professed people of faith turning a blind eye to the less fortunate to focus on obliterating the separation of church and state using bigotry.
If it's bad PR for the churches, they brought it upon themselves.
Related:
* The N-bomb is dropped on black passersby at Prop 8 protests
* DKos: Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8
* Ballot initiatives provide a wake up call to the LGBT community about race
* The religious right promises more amendments, do we have a plan? |