Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyDecember 26th, 2012
In June, Erika Munson, a straight church-going Mormon wife and mother decided that saying you love doesn’t mean crap if you don’t show it. So she decided that she would march in Salt Lake City’s Gay Pride March. And after she tossed her idea on the internet, a few other Mormons decided to join her. Three hundred of ’em. They came straight from church in their Sunday clothes with kids in strollers waving gay flags.
Now the Salt Lake Tribune has recognized Mormons Building Bridges as the most impactful Utahns of 2012:
They called themselves Mormons Building Bridges. They were not out to debate politics or doctrine, organizers said, but to promote love and listening. Still, their simple yet potent gesture echoed around the globe, setting an example for fellow believers who then took up the style, if not the name, in 15 other Pride parades. They also attracted national and international media attention, well-known enough even for spoofing in the satirical magazine The Onion.
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customartist
December 27th, 2012
How quickly things change! When it was popular to disallow Blacks, Mormons did so. When it was popular to condemn gays, Mormons did so. History cannot simply be “re-written” with credibility.
“It would be better to be dead than homosexual” – Mormon Leader Boyd K. Packer 10/2010
http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/UPDATE-Packer-makes-changes-to-sermon-regarding/OecTkSc980K76VXGKo2bSg.cspx
johnson
December 27th, 2012
Read what they really say: “It’s not a sin to have gay feelings, but it is to act on them.” In other words, if you’re a gay man, get married to a woman and pretend, otherwise you’re on your own, enjoy a lonely, loveless life.
Michael C
December 27th, 2012
… and the Church officially hopped on board with http://www.mormonsandgays.org/
Open, civil dialogue is totally neat but the official position of the Church has not changed. Johnson is correct, while they have pretty much abandoned therapy for sexual orientation change efforts, they have shifted focus celibacy and mixed orientation marriages.
I think their new tactics cause more harm to LGBT Mormon youth. In the past, excommunication was immediate, leaving LGBTs without family or friends at the moment of outing. This provided gays with the opportunity to begin their lives openly and honestly. They have now found a way to cuddle kids into submission.
Steve
December 27th, 2012
@Michael C
That was a PR move to make up for Prop 8 (which massively damaged their image) and help win Romney the election.
As noted above, the best they can do is “be gay, but either be celibate or enter a sham marriage”. Which isn’t really that much better. See also Josh Weed, the ex-gay therapist who quickly became a poster boy when people told their gay relatives “why can’t you be like him”
Soren456
December 27th, 2012
Anything that offers “hope” for gay members within the Mormon church is both false and cruel.
cowboy
December 27th, 2012
The juxtaposition of mormonsandgays.org and NARTH will prove interesting.
Brynn
December 28th, 2012
It is window dressing. The church technically doesn’t condone mixed orientation marriages anymore, but then you have Josh Weed out there advocating it and the church quietly condoning it.
Then you have “gay but celibate” thing, which is just another form of shame, and attempt to isolate and shame gay people from the outside world, leaving them with nothing but the support of the church. Being non-celibate, well shoot, that’s a moral failing of the highest order.
Not to mention the fact that they have never retracted the remarks of Packer or Dallin Oaks.
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