No, it’s no longer a public street. It was supposed to remain so when the sale was first made, but the city council traded the easement (after a HUGH controversy) for land located on 9th South near west Temple. So much for inalienable rights!

http://www.sltrib.com/lds/ci_12946027

Look at the tape and learn something new about the true nature of the Church’s policy against homosexuals.

http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=4348

A kiss helps bring
civil rights to Salt Lake City
By Dan Aiello

“…Carlson was asked if the national publicity over the July arrest of Aune and Jones made the difference between the church’s lack of support last year for EQUT’s Common Ground initiative and what Carlson called the church’s “full support” of the city ordinances this year.

“I definitely think it played a role. It wasn’t decisive, but neither were our conversations with the church last year. Together, it was enough,” Carlson said.”

A couple of decades ago, late at night, there was someone who placed a bomb one of the east doors to the Salt Lake Mormon Temple. It blew off some of the ornate doorknobs, destroyed a mirror and did major damage to a priceless piece of stained-glass artwork. (Note: I’m not talking about the Mark Hofmann incidents. This was way before his time with blowing up cars/buildings/people.) This was in the days when there was no real security and the Main Street ran right past the doors to the Temple. Ever since then, the LDS Church felt their holy temple was vulnerable to pranksters and people who wanted to do major damage to the property of the LDS Church.

And then, there was a statue of pioneer, territorial Governor and leader Brigham Young smack dab in the center of the cross streets: Main Street and South Temple. In 1993 the LDS Church moved the whole monument north 27 feet on Main Street to be between the East Wall of Temple Square and the old Hotel Utah (now an LDS office building).

That was the first indication (for me, anyway) that the LDS Church had something in mind for this section of Main Street. I wasn’t too surprised to hear in 1999 they wanted to buy this section of Main Street and make it a plaza as part of a campus they envisioned for their headquarters.

Primarily, they felt the Temple was too vulnerable to attacks.

The whole process of what transpired is documented in a Salt Lake Tribune article that some people need to read and comprehend.

(You can go to http://www.sltrib.com and find the article: Gay incident reopens Salt Lake City’s Main Street Plaza wounds.) If you want to have a chuckle, I would suggest finding the Pat Bagley political cartoon for Sunday July 19.

You need to read the guest editorial by Karen McCreary and Stephen Clark who are/was part of the Utah ACLU: Kissing incident highlights conflicting rights.

It might make things a little clearer. We, in Utah, have rehashed and haggled over this Main Street affair since before the Winter Olympics came to Utah. It was debated endlessly and vigorously until all legal wrangling came to an end in 2003. The LDS Church got what it wanted.

Then, we have reopened the wound.

And what did this accomplish for us?

Proved that Mormons are bigots. That we know.

Matt Aune and Derek Jones said they were drunk and only got belligerent when confronted by Security on the Plaza. It’s in the police report and there are conflicting reports of just exactly what was said and what happened. I can only speculate but I’m very confident that the LDS Church has some of the finest video surveillance imaginable. They can produce video of the incident if they wanted. Are they holding the video for when the lawsuit ensues and this whole trespassing incident goes to court? I don’t know.

Right now we have Mormons watching local TV reports and reading the news with pictures of gays and lesbians standing on the private property directly in front of the Mormon Temple kissing. This must really endear Mormons to the gays.

The two gay kissing incident and this past Sunday’s Kiss-In may already have cemented in some minds the stereotype of gays intent on drinking and being promiscuous in public.

What is really unfortunate: The anti-gay zealots (do I need to say the: America Forever people) have taken this incident as showing how radical gays have ignored laws and have pushed their way onto the private property of a religious organization. You can see how this will be ammunition for all the anti-gay propaganda they will disseminate.

I bet LaBarbera and that Max guy are just loving this bit of news.

I would expect a person brazen enough to say they would “LOVE” To take me to a bar to get “the shit kicked” out of me to possibly applaud. I usually applaud when I “love” something I see.

And wow, I even put the question in bold and you refuse to answer it, or even acknowledge it. How about I isolate it so that it’s easier to see?

you said:
“Hell, I would love to take you to a popular country/western bar where you would get the shit kicked out of you in the parking lot if you were discovered as being gay.”

my reponse started with this:

“And would that be acceptable?”

You avoided it the first time, deciding to go after my secondary points instead. Then I put it in bold and you still avoided it. Still waiting on that answer. And just in case you forget the question again:

“And would that be acceptable?”

“If everyone is saying I don’t answer the questions, I have one question that doesn’t seem to get an answer: Is this Main Street Plaza private property or not?”

The article states:

“The city sold Main Street Square in 2003 to the LDS church and it is now Mormon property, even though it is readily accessible as a public space.”

Perhaps that’s why nobody answered your question. The fact that this is private property was never up for debate. Whether it should be is up for debate, and whether private property give someone the right to force a relationship out of existence is also up for debate. I’m aware that property owners have a right to decide what happens on their property, but I don’t think that extends onto other people’s bodies in this manner. I could say, for example, that anyone who walks onto my property has to stop breathing, as I object to other people breathing on my property.

Make no mistake. There are plenty of people reading, and even more watching from the side, tracking what is going on in SLC and Utah in general. The manner in which the LDS church gained ownership of this property and the subsequent series of negotiations in which the city relinquished rights of its taxpayers is despicable. The hope for change indeed rests now with the younger generation. As one of a different generation (but not different spirit), I urge you to make your sense of unrest known.

Yes, Main Street Plaza is private property. Yes, property rights are important. But, yes, we are not only suggesting that people kiss on Main Street Property–we’re doing it with today’s kiss-in and the one a week ago.

To those of us who choose to protest, there are much, much more important things than right of an organization that is anti-human in many ways to dictate what people do on an open plaza that they own, maintain, and improved.

Some of these reasons for protesting are:

1. Human affection should be celebrated, not oppressed. An organization that espouses the value of family should not consider kissing a loved one on the cheek to be inappropriate in any context.

2. This is an organization that strongly and successfully opposes the rights of many families who happen to be headed by same sex people to enjoy legal recognition and protection that is available to the rest. This is a far more stinging and invasive denial of rights than is our denial of their right to tell us we can’t kiss each other on their plaza.

3. I’m 18 years old. My generation often feels entitled to live in a world relatively free of bigotry. If we have to break laws for that freedom, we’re going to do it as brazenly as possible.

4. We need to keep up the spirits and sense of community in the face of the bigotry that is LDS in order to alleviate the suffering of young, closeted, or struggling LGBT people. Salt Lake City can be a great place for gays, and our willingness to stand up, stand out, and kiss in is part of that.

5. The laws aren’t right. Civil disobedience is acceptable in that case.

6. The money the LDS church used to buy that plaza is dirty money because of the church’s evils. (Yes, the church is also responsible for the city even being here, but we’ve decided not to tolerate theocracy.) It’s also unfair that government favors religion by making churches tax-exempt and by legislating the moral aesthetic of the dominant group.

Anyone who wants an disagree with this for any reason, and I respect that. I just don’t respect oppression.