Proposition 8

So, Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, passed in California. Since, the Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church) has taken much heat from the gay community. The Church encouraged it's members to be active on the issue, to donate time and money, to help get the proposition passed. They also spent about $2,000 to fly some Church leaders to CA to have a meeting about it. As a result, protesters have gathered outside LDS Temples in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, causing the temple in LA to be closed (and preventing LDS church members to practice their religion). There are several different stories here, and as is my way, I will comment on them in a somewhat unorganized way.

What did the LDS Church do that merits protest against it?

First, what atrocity did Mormons (a nickname for members of the LDS Church) commit? One might think that Mormons showed up in droves to vote, and got the measure passed. This seems unlikely. The 1.79% of the CA population that is Mormon may have made a strong showing and the polls, but it was probably not enough to represent 52% of the voting public. What the Mormons did do, however, was to exercise their right to be involved in the political process, by organizing and supporting financially a cause. They voted for something which fell in lines with their values and their system of morality. In short, they disagreed with the gays. Apparently, voting ones values when they are not in line with another group is now something that is not condoned by the gay community in California.

Now, the above treatment is not entirely fair to the gays. If you ask them, I imagine what they would suggest is that the line between the separation between Church and State was crossed, that a tax exempt and 501(c)(3)non-profit organization such as the LDS Church should not be allowed to be involved in politics. This is ridiculous. The ACLU, also a tax exempt organization, as well as many other pro-gay organizations where actively involved. It does not seem to be a problem that a tax exempt entity is fighting in this fight, but rather, that a tax exempt entity that disagrees with the gays (that was only a small part of a much larger coalition) won the fight.

M.J. Sobran (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 58–59) made an amazingly astute point on the demand that religious arguments be left out of politics based on the right to the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. He stated, "What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion."

Neal Maxwell (Ensign, Feb 1979, 69–73) commented similarly in stating "This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened." In the end, the question over gay marriage is defined by moral questions. How can those questions be answered without appeals to some moral framework, which for many (or most) people, is couched in terms of their religious beliefs?

So, the first question is answered: What did the Mormons do that so offended the gay community of California? They held different values and they voted on them.

All of this is made so much more amusing because it a church with a long history be being persecuted. First, speaking of political discrimination, I know of few other groups in the US who has had a religious right of theirs (ironically, related to marriage) made illegal by Congress, and the legislation being upheld by the US Supreme court. Their practice was not only made illegal, but people participating, or who had participated at any time in their lives, were rounded up and jailed. This would be analogous to gay marriage not only be made illegal, but the participants in the 17,000 gay marriages performed in CA in the last several months rounded up and imprisoned.

The Mormons and Persecution

Mormons (at least some of them) have an understanding of persecution not common to many groups. They live in Utah because they were chased from the east, following a trail of persecution and death unheard of in the US in the last 150 years. More recently, (in the last two months here at the University of Michigan), I know of a person who decided to join the Mormon Church who was kicked out of a campus Christian organization. In the last months I know of another Mormon on campus that was not permitted to join a humanitarian mission solely because he was a Mormon. Personally, I believe I was denied admission my top choice of undergraduate universities based upon my religion (a large portion of the pre-admission interview consisted of me being asked to defend my faith, a task not simple for a 17 year old being questioned by a Harvard-educated philosophy professor. After he challenged my Mormonism, he challenged my conservative political beliefs. When I think about the interview, I think how much I would love to have that conversation again).

Further, as most people who served a Mormon mission, I have been spit on, had rocks thrown at me, been yelled and sworn at, and been threatened with violence. In the last two days I have been present as someone called the leader of the LDS church the "head Mormon devil", not in a playful way, and then demonized the leaders of the LDS church for their requests of a famous LDS business scholar. Given all this, to accuse us of patent hate and bigotry towards another group is something meaningful, because we understand hate and bigotry. (When I say we, I mean, some Mormons. Some escape all of this by living their whole lives in predominantly Mormon communities, who sometimes do things they ought not do. Those in CA do not live in predominantly Mormon communities).

The Mormons and California

In reading one of several articles on this issue, one paragraph detailed what kinds of things the protesters had done to the Mormon temple: "Outside the temple, grafitti was scrawled on the walls and signs hung, "Go back to Utah," and "Go to hell Mormons." Their signs said, "No on H8."" This actually made me laugh. Go back to Utah? I am finishing up a book on the history of California, and without the Mormons, the state would not exist as it currently does. James W Marshall, along with his crew that was helping to dig a mill, discovered gold in California at Sutter's Mill in 1848, which started the California Gold Rush, which was a pretty big deal for California. His crew was almost entirely made largely of Mormons. Mormon history and the history of CA are so connected, that to suggest that Mormons go "back" to Utah would be like telling the descendants of fur trappers to get out of Oregon and go back east, or telling the blacks to get out of the South and go back to Africa. Without fur trappers, Oregon would be completly different, and without blacks, the south would not be what it is today.

Who really Supported Prop 8?

First, a majority of voters in CA supported Prop 8. But, more specifically, many, many different religious groups supported it. The NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06marriage.html?_r=2&fta=y&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) reported it this way:

"Supporters of the bans in California, Arizona and Florida benefited from the donations and volunteers mobilized by a broad array of churches and religious groups from across the ethnic spectrum.

The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a pastor in Sacramento and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said the campaign to pass Proposition 8 had begun with white evangelical churches but had spread to more than 1,130 Hispanic churches whose pastors convinced their members that same-sex marriage threatened the traditional family.

"Without the Latino vote," Mr. Rodriguez said, "Proposition 8 would never have succeeded."

Frank Schubert, the campaign manager for Protect Marriage, the leading group behind Proposition 8, agreed that minority votes had put the measure over the top, saying that a strategy of working with conservative black pastors and community leaders had paid off.

"It's a big reason why we won, no doubt about it," he said.

So, why don't gays go out and protest evangelical churches, or demonize black preachers who urged congregation members to vote Yes on 8? Because it is not politically good. For some reason, it is alright to hate, suggest violent action against, lie about, and demonize Mormons. Why? I am not sure. However, about a year ago I read an article on a USA Today Blog (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/08/hollywoods-terr.html) talking about how Hollywood had no problem vilifying Mormons as violent, but since 9/11, had never depicted Muslims in a violent light (it was written in reaction to the movie September Dawn). I thought one part was worthy of quote here:

Mormons won't respond with any comparable rage, no matter how badly September Dawn tarnishes the memory of their faith's founders. In fact, the LDS Church has adopted an official policy of "no comment" regarding the film, and there have been no examples of young Mormons strapping dynamite to their bodies and blowing themselves up to protest perceived insults to their religion. They have cheerfully endured another recent film assault (Jane Fonda's Georgia Rule) that showed Mormons as stupid, petty, sexually repressed losers, and an edgy episode of TV's South Park showing the story of Joseph Smith with a background chorus describing it as "dumb-dumb-dumb."

The measured response to public smears of Mormonism in effect rebuts the September Dawn suggestion that the church represents a relevant example of violent religious fanaticism. Despite the turbulence of their founding generation, Mormons have been conspicuously peaceful, patriotic, hard-working and neighborly for at least the past 117 years.

If Jews, Muslims, Catholics, or any other organized faith were targeted, you would see a public backlash. Lawsuits, the press getting upset, references to past religious persecution and so on. With the Mormons, we see none of this. The Church issued a statement requesting respect, and that is it. We turn the other cheek, and so keep getting slapped. In the end, given the Author of the suggestion to turn the other cheek, this is a good policy on the large scale.

Gay Marriage Banned

So, gay marriage was banned. Reading many news stories about it, one would believe that gays have been happily getting married for years in CA, and abruptly, something happened. This is false. Gay marriage has ALWAYS (at least until last June) been illegal. The state formally illegalized it several years ago, by a majority vote of the citizens. Then, the California Supreme court, with a one justice margin, overturned that law, claiming it violated the state Constitution. That is fine. That is what courts are supposed to do. But, the constitution was amended, again by a majority vote. Gay marriage was legal for five months, and the people then again banned it (but did not criminalize gays, as was done to the Mormons, as was previously mentioned).

Interestingly, California is not the only state to have such bans on gay marriage. Forty other states have such bans, many of them having them based on a constitutional amendment passed by a ballot measure vote. It is clear—the majority of voters in the majority of states do not want gay marriage to be legal.

Democracy

However, I do not suggest that we say, "the people have spoken," and be done with it. Should the people in a democracy have the right to vote on something like this? I was recently chatting with a friend, an opponent of Prop 8, who suggested it was the job of the court to protect minorities from the majority. This is somewhat true. In the end, as I have previously argued on this blog, this argument is centered around the goodness of homosexuality. This also has a lot to do with whether gay is a noun, or a verb, whether it is something you do, or something you are. If it is immoral, is this a "minority", or simply a group of people who chose to do something. If it is wrong, is there such a thing as gay "rights"? No. However, if homosexuality is moral, then the gay community is deserving of the utmost legal and civil protection that can be provided.

So, who decides if homosexuality is good, if it is something that should be fully condoned by the state? That is the real question. Should judges, who are politically appointed, do so? Should legislatures, who, as result of gerrymandering, disproportionally represent segments of the population, do so? Where there is such a slim margin, districting lines for legislatures could easily determine the outcome of a legislative decision. In a democracy, who is to determine what is right? You can think about that. However, I would suggest letting the people vote on it is a pretty good idea.

End

So, like before, I still have a lot to say, but this post is getting to long, and I have used to much time. Left unattended are the real reasons this is such a big deal both to the gay community and to the supporters of prop 8 (I suggest that it has nothing to do with that either party is campaigning on), the connection this has to Obama winning, the difference between a civil union and marriage, the vested interest the state has in what a marriage is defined as, gayness as a noun or as a verb, and other such issues. I believe this is one of the biggest and most important moral issues facing us as a country. I also believe that the current legal state of gay marriage anywhere in the US is not stochastic and that it will move around. If you made it this far, I welcome your comments, and welcome you to send this post to your friends (both supporters and opponents of Proposition 8).