If it’s any consolation, the person with whom I spoke was credible and the magazine is reputable – we’re not talking obscure or shady. Nor was it a “friend of a friend” story – he was the one who was told by the magazine’s legal counsel that they had to fold on the story or the Mormon Church would break them in legal costs.

Running with the commentary was a judgment call and I can accept that you think it was perhaps not my best one. You may be right.

I’m guess I’m just a little disappointed with your decision to propagate this story in this way. One of the things that I really like about this website is that the information is well-sourced and reliable, and that you guys make clear corrections when you’re wrong about something. Maybe you should come up with a new disclaimer for posts that relate unverified gossip so we don’t inadvertently pass them on as true.

I don’t mean that as a bitchy attack, I really think it’s important to make it explicit that this story should be regarded differently than the typical post here. You’ve got a great track record for reliability, I hate to think of people referring back to this post as evidence of the the malicious nature of the LDS leadership when there’s plenty of legitimate and verifiable evidence out there.

Because it is, as you noted, a repeated conversation. The magazine did not run the story, the current editor is probably unaware of the event, and there are no links.

This commentary is not to provide evidence of misdoing or to document an incident of bullying. It is to share how my impression of this particular religious organization has been dramatically impacted by the events surrounding Proposition 8 and also how growing evidence (though this particular instance is anecdotal and second hand) suggests that their actions in this campaign are not out of character or unrepresentative.

I’m prepared to accept the claim that there’s a “culture of bullying” in the Mormon church, but you haven’t actually provided a credible example here.

Would you concede that considering the planning, funding, and implementation of the initiative was overwhelmingly Mormon, that the missionaries ripping up the license is at least a reasonably true alegory? As where the claims about “teaching gay marriage to children” was patently false.

As for the ignorant individuals who are expressing bigotry and fear towards your religion, I don’t think that is either wise or admirable. But they are individuals, not the leadership.

But it was Mormon leadership who attacked my family.

Right. We just show Mormons charging into homes to rip up marriage licenses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28UwAyzUkE

“They played on the base prejudices and fears of the voters to win this thing, and they did it without any compunction.”

Let’s talk about base prejudices and fears:

“I Don’t Want 8 Wives Just 1 Husband”
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4hfeiYr3Zq4/SRucoi5IAwI/AAAAAAAAEYY/W4sNHGT1YC0/s1600-h/3.jpg

“Mormon Love: Sacred?”
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4hfeiYr3Zq4/SRaVtbKxCFI/AAAAAAAAEXA/_vamO2UBsaE/s1600-h/c.jpg

“You Have Two Wives, I Want One Husband”
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4hfeiYr3Zq4/SRaUm02_A3I/AAAAAAAAEWI/Lt4AOUzyH-s/s1600-h/j.jpg

“Vile Mormons”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/malingering/3009947006/in/photostream/

Is this hatemongering too…or just righteous indignation?

Can we ask them to at least be upfront about the fact that they’re doing it on behalf of their religion? Can we ask then to at least stop lying through their teeth as a way of winning votes? Or does having a persecution complex make it easy to throw your moral values overboard in the name of winning at any cost?

In light of how the Yes On 8 Campaign conducted itself, and the fact that nearly all of the money for it came from Mormons, hearing about what a wonderful group of people the Mormons are wears pretty thin. Good people don’t hate monger…and when you wave an image of homosexuals charging into classrooms to recruit children in people’s faces, let alone an image of homosexuals charging into churches to arrest priests, hatemongering is exactly what they did. They played on the base prejudices and fears of the voters to win this thing, and they did it without any compunction. That is the kind of thing that gets gay people killed, but that didn’t matter…they were on a mission from God. Fine. Let them wear what they did to people, whose only crime was falling in love and wanting to get married. Let them wear it.

If the anger gay people feel about proposition 8 and the campaign to get it writing into the California constitution is upsetting Mormons I for one am not sorry in the least. Nobody is campaigning to deny Mormons the right to marry. Nobody is campaigning to deny Mormons the right to raise children. Nobody is trying to prevent Mormon kids from getting a decent education. Gay people haven’t done anything to Mormons to deserve the relentless political gay bashing we’ve been getting from their church for over a decade now, if not longer, judging from the secret church memos that are only now coming to light. Can the Mormon church please get off our backs? Be nice if we could…you know…all just get along. But if not, can they at least acknowledge that other people might get a tad upset when they’re forcibly divorced by a church they don’t even belong to?

1) publication — the statement was published
2) identification — the plaintiff is identifiable from the statement
3) defamation — the statement was defamatory
4) fault — the party being sued was clearly at fault
5) falsity — the claim is untrue
6) damages — the plaintiff incurred damages as a result of the statement

You’re confusing libel with invasion of privacy. However, because Evergreen was an organization offering a service to the public rather than a private individual, and because of the newsworthiness of its involvement with what therapists and researchers consider quackery, there is no way Evergreen could win an invasion-of-privacy case.

One point I have regularly made is that Mormon meddling in Prop 8 is exposing the church to public scrutiny. And of all the larger sects in the US Mormonism is the one that can least afford scrutiny. It has a checkered history, has demonstrably false origins and is very far outside mainstream Christianity (when Mormons say godly they mena they will become actual gods). They spend millions promoting a very specific image to the world, one that is much in conflict with the reality.

When people pay attention that PR image is shattered and that makes recruiting new members more difficult. Membership had stopped growing and in Utah they are losing their majority in county after county. So the image used for their recruiting efforts is very important to them. This was a major error for them. They figured that if the Catholics ran the campaing but Mormons funded it and staffed it that the Catholics would get all the blame. But people followed the money instead.

When the Mormon Church focuses it’s money and energy on denying my civil rights, well then Yes, I am anti-Mormon Church. Just like I’m anti-those evangelical churches that want to limit my rights and anti-Catholic Church that thinks it knows better than me how I should live.

A person can practice their own faith but when they try to make it law of the land – I am against that institution and it’s followers. And if that makes people angry or hurt, they should have thought of that before they tried to mold me into their image. No thank you .