Box Turtle Bulletin

Employee Fired By LDS-Owned Firm for Opposing Prop 102

I received this email earlier this morning. Portions are reprinted here with permission:

I worked for a Mormon-owned CPA firm… I was fired from my job after admitting that I had voted NO on prop 102.

I was discussing the election on Wednesday with some co workers (who don’t vote) and I asked if you would have voted, what would you have voted on 102? She told me she would have voted no, so I said well at least I’m not the only one on the office that was against it. Then she said wait, what was a no vote for? So I explained 102 to her. She got extremely angry and started saying it was an abomination. So I told her that I had a cousin who was gay that was murdered in a hate crime because he was gay. So I supported it because it was just an equal rights issue. So I just dropped it and didn’t discuss it anymore.

The next day she had a meeting with the owner, and when I came in on Friday they told me that I was being let go. When I asked if it was because of my work performance, the owner said “Let’s just call it a management decision.” I had spoken to the owner just weeks before about the upcoming year and he was telling me he wanted to give me a raise. He had booked me for a tax seminar for the second week of Dec., so I know he was planning on me being employed with him for awhile until this.

This is what we’re up againt: people who act with impunity.

A Culture of Bullying

Today at the El Coyote meeting I had the fortuity to sit at the table of someone who had at one time been the editor of a prominent national gay magazine. He told me a story which I find both believable and relevant.

Some years ago, this magazine sent two persons under cover to Evergreen, the Mormon ex-gay ministry. One had participated before and was thus vetted, the other was his friend.

At the conclusion of their efforts, the news magazine wrote up their experiences. And that’s when the Mormon legal team became engaged. My tablemate told me that there were two New York law firms that swung into action. They made it perfectly clear that the merits of the story were irrelevant; the church would bankrupt the magazine with legal fees.

I can say with certainty that my attitude about members – and especially leaders – of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has changed dramatically in the past six months. And not for the better.

I’ve not seen one individual – within or without the church – whose life has been made better because of the meddling of the Mormon Church’s leadership in the political arena.

1997 Mormon Memo Emerges, Revealing Longstanding Strategy

An eleven year old internal LDS memo has emerged which proves that the Mormon church has been plotting against same-sex marriage for more than a decade.

The memo, dated March 4, 1997, provides insight into the late LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley’s strategy for opposing same-sex marriage. It describes a meeting in which Hinckley gives the go ahead, but urged caution. According to the memo, “he (President Hinckley) also said the (LDS) Church should be in a coalition and not out front by itself.”

In fact, the LDS church has been way out front in its battles against gays and lesbians, both in California and in Arizona.

The memo was addressed to Elder M. Russell Ballard, who has played a central role in the LDS’s fight in Arizona and California. He appeared on several closed-circuit satellite broadcasts to Mormon churches with specific instructions on the California campaign for Prop 8. In one such broadcast in late October, he reminded the faithful that the central doctrine of Celestial Marriage was propelling the church’s drive to impose its theology on state constitutions:

“We know that it is not without controversy, yet let me be clear that at the heart of this issue is the central doctrine of eternal marriage and it’s place in our Father’s plan,” Ballard said.

Parts of the 1997 memo were first published on the DailyKos web site on November 3. Those portions reveal that the LDS leadership has been strategizing for California even back then.

Update: You can see the entire memo by clicking here (PDF: 260KB/8 pages).

What We’re Up Against

Listen here as Michelangelo Signorile talks with Nancy, a Mormon from Texas and a Prop 8 supporter.

Calling The LDS’s Bluff

On the day after election day, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints issued a triumphant press release crowing about their smashing success in stripping gays of their rights in California and permanently assigning gays to second-class citizenship in Arizona and Florida. But they insisted that they weren’t anti-gay, or even opposed to some rights for gays and lesbians:

… the Church does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches.

Well now Equality Utah and Sen. Scott McCoy, Utah’s first openly gay state Senator, is taking the LDS Church at their word and calling their bluff. Using the very same points raised in the Mormons’ press release as their legislative agenda, Utah state Senator Scott McCoy and state Rep. Christine Johnson will introduce five bills for the 2009 general session of the Utah legislature.  They are (PDF: 32KB/3 pages):

1. Hospitalization & Medical Care
   Most gay people with insurance cannot insure their family. This bill will mandate that insurance plans, which extend benefits to an employee’s spouse, also cover an employee’s partner. When insurance plans cover families, they should cover every family member.
2. Fair Housing & Employment
   Currently, it is legal to fire a person from her job or evict a person from his home just for being gay or transgender. The Fair Housing and Workplace bill will expand on HB 89, introduced by Representative Christine Johnson in the 2008 session. It will add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of characteristics employers and landlords may not consider when making employment or housing decisions.
3. Probate Rights – Wrongful Death Amendments
   The death of a loved one is painful. When someone dies, we can protect the family’s financial security by removing barriers to inheritance and insurance. As part of this effort, we will continue to support Senator Scott McCoy’s Wrongful Death Amendments legislation.
4. Domestic Partner Rights & Responsibilities Act
   The term “marriage” has proven to stir up many conflicts. Aside from marriage, we can do much more to help committed couples care for each other. This bill creates a statewide domestic partner registry as exists in California and attaches rights of inheritance, insurance and fair housing.
5. Repeal of part 2 of Utah’s Amendment 3
   A registry that covers inheritance, housing, and insurance is not the legal equivalent of marriage. Yet the second part of Amendment 3 has been misinterpreted to avoid any recognition of gay couples. Laws that deny basic protections under the law should be repealed. This bill will repeal the portion of Amendment 3 which states “no other domestic union; however, denominated, may be recognized as marriage or be given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.”

If the LDS leadership is serious about their rhetoric about not being anti-gay, they have a golden opportunity to try to put some action behind their words. Mike Thompson, Equality Utah’s Executive Director invited the LDS church to do just that by asking these very pointed questions:

The LDS Church has stated that it does not oppose same-sex couples receiving such rights as “hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights?” Will the LDS Church be willing to support efforts to secure these rights?

Is the LDS Church willing to assign a member of its Presidency of the Seventy to lead Church efforts to secure these rights, just as it did with Proposition 8?

As it did in California, will the First Presidency draft a letter to Utah Latter- Day Saints in support of rights and protections for gay couples?

As it did in California, will the First Presidency ask for this letter to be read to all Utah congregations on a specified date?

Will the First Presidency ask that all members of the LDS Church do all they can do, including “donating their means and their time”, to assure that gay couples receive such rights as hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights” — just as it asked its members to do in support of California’s Proposition 8?

Will local Church leaders provide information to its members about how to get involved in supporting such rights, just as it did in California?

Finally, we ask members of the LDS Church, will you ask your church leaders to support these efforts?

In other words, are the LDS leaderships protestations that they aren’t anti-gay real? Or are they just empty words uttered in the face of a backlash?

Boycott Utah?

There’s a move afoot to launch a boycott against the state of Utah in response to the LDS Church’s heavy-handed role in passing California’s Proposition 8 (and please don’t forget their role in Arizona’s Prop 102!):

Gay rights activist John Aravosis, whose well-trafficked AmericaBlog.com is urging the boycott, is unapologetic about targeting Utah rather than California, where voters defined marriage in the state Constitution as a heterosexual act. Utah, Aravosis said, “is a hate state,” and on this issue, “at a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line. . . . They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards. You don’t do that and get away with it.”

Utahans didn’t vote on Prop 8 or Prop 102, not all Utahans are Mormons and many Mormons opposed these marriage amendments, including faithful Mormons in Utah. I can see boycotting Mormon-owned businesses which supported Prop 8 and Prop 102. There’s no shortage of targets there. I can also see the logic of boycotting Mormon-owned businesses which make their LDS connections an integral part of their identity — Marriott, for example.

There are businesses I refuse to patronize on principle, even though I’m sure they don’t miss my dollars much. While I question the effectiveness of boycotts as a tactic, I’m all for it in principle as long as the target is appropriate.  But boycotting an entire state? I’m not so sure what that will accomplish. It seems to me we risk harming those who had nothing to do with this, while letting others — businesses in California, Arizona and elsewhere — off the hook.

What do you think?

Mounting Protests Against Prop 8

Protests continue to mushroom across California in the wake of last week’s passage of Proposition 8, which eliminated the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples.

In Los Angeles:

Police estimated that 12,500 boisterous marchers converged about 6 p.m. at Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards in Silver Lake near the site of the former Black Cat bar, which the city recently designated a historic-cultural monument for its ’60s role as home of the local gay rights movement.  Police guided the demonstrators through the streets for more than three hours without major confrontations. No arrests were reported.

…Steering the crowds, several hundred officers were on scene, riding horses, motorcycles and bicycles. Others on foot were sprinkled through the crowd. Mario Mariscal, 20, and his mother, Delia Perez, a 45-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, stood on the Sunset Boulevard sidewalk. Mariscal came out to his mother as gay when he was 16. She held a sign saying, “Give my son his rights.”

In San Diego:

An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people marched from Hillcrest to North Park behind a giant rainbow flag in protest of Proposition 8. The measure, approved Tuesday by 52 percent of voters, overturns the state Supreme Court ruling in May that legalized gay marriage.

“I don’t want anyone to take away my right to marry,” said Ken Hagen, a University City newlywed who marched down University Avenue alongside his partner, John Young. Chants for equality were sometimes drowned out by drivers honking their horns in support of the passing crowd. Signs waved and bobbed in the air with slogans such as “We Shall Overcome” and “Not Gay, Love You Anyway.”

In San Francisco:

Thousands of demonstrators marched down Market Street in San Francisco on Friday night to protest the passage earlier this week of Proposition 8, which effectively bans same-sex marriage in California.

The march began around 5:30 p.m., as the group worked its way west toward its final destination of Dolores Park. A large group remained around Ninth and Market streets, holding signs, chanting and jamming traffic. About a dozen Muni buses were stuck in the traffic mess.

In Oakland:

Backlash to the passage of an anti-gay-marriage law continued to sweep across California on Sunday, with hundreds of protesters rallying outside the Mormon Temple on Lincoln Avenue in the Oakland Hills. Same-sex marriage supporters carried signs, blew whistles, and passing cars honked in support outside the largest temple in the Bay Area. The Mormon church was among the top contributors to the effort to pass Proposition 8.

…The California Highway Patrol was forced to shut down the nearby Joaquin Miller and Lincoln on and off-ramps to the freeway due to the Oakland protest. A CHP dispatcher said the highway ramps were closed to protect pedestrians from traffic.

In Orange County:

About 300 people gathered in front of Saddleback Church protesting the recently-passed gay marriage ban this morning. Holding signs reading “Shame on Rick Warren” and “Preach Love not Discrimination,” the crowd chanted “Equal rights now.”

…In Orange County, hundreds protested without incident in Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach yesterday. Protests were planned in Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel and Rancho Santa Margarita today.

In Sacramento:

Thousands of Prop 8 opponents demonstrated at the State Capitol Sunday for the latest rally against the measure banning same-sex marriage in California.

By 2:00 p.m., thousands of people had massed in front of the California statehouse. The event was the latest demonstration in Sacramento and across the state since the passage of Proposition 8 Tuesday, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

In Santa Barbara:

Many people at a rally in Santa Barbara Friday night not only oppose Proposition 8, they oppose the fact that it was on the ballot to begin with. “This should not have been a ballot measure, the basic fundamental human rights shouldn’t be voted on by the electorate,” said David Selberg with Pacific Pride Foundation.

In Long Beach:

More than 2,000 demonstrators marched through Long Beach on Friday night, protesting the passage of Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage in California. Fifteen people were arrested.

The march started about 7:30 p.m. and within an hour had taken over Broadway, with protesters shouting and holding signs with such messages as “Did we vote on your marriage?”

See also:
LDS Church Can’t Hide Behind A Temple
Thousands Protest In Salt Lake City’s Temple Square
Protesters Target Mormon Temple in Westwood

Thousands Protest In Salt Lake City’s Temple Square

 An estimated 3,000 people gathered in downtown Salt Lake City to protest Mormon involvement in the campaign for California’s Proposition 8:

A sea of signs in City Creek Park, where the march began, screamed out messages including, “I didn’t vote on your marriage,” “Mormons once persecuted . . . Now persecutors,” and “Jesus said love everyone.” Others read, “Proud of my two moms” and “Protect traditional marriage. Ban divorce.”

Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and three openly gay state legislators, Sen. Scott McCoy and Reps. Jackie Biskupski and Christine Johnson, spoke out in support. At one point, the crowd took up the mantra made famous by the country’s new president-elect: “Yes, we can!”

LDS Church Can’t Hide Behind A Temple

The Mormon church doesn’t like the attention it’s getting in the wake of California’s Prop 8. Church leaders released this statement yesterday:

It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election.

Members of the Church in California and millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation who voted for Proposition 8 exercised the most sacrosanct and individual rights in the United States – that of free expression and voting.

While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.

Once again, we call on those involved in the debate over same-sex marriage to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other. No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information.

Well, the Mormon leadership is right on their last sentence. If only they had heeded that advice during the campaign. Gay couples throughout the state were vilified, harassed and subject to dump truck loads of erroneous information during the campaign that the Mormon church itself played an enormous role in waging. There was no sense of civility during their campaign. Why should they not expect to reap the seeds that they sow?

The leadership of the LDS Church has their hand prints all over the campaigns in Arizona and California:

• We know Arizona state Senators who didn’t want to be present for the vote to place Prop 102 on the ballot, but were coerced and harassed by their bishops and other church members into cutting short their vacations to cast their vote.
• Once on the ballot in California and Arizona, we know that Mormon prophets called on their followers to give of their “time and means,” and that this call went out to all Mormons in California and Arizona, as well as in Utah.
• We also know that the Arizona anti-gay campaign was under the direct leadership of some of the most prominent LDS members in the state.
• By some estimates, more than $20 million of Mormon money went to fund the $36 million California campaign, while an additional estimated $3-7 million funded Arizona’s $8 million campaign.

One thing must be made clear: the leadership of the LDS church has every right to do this. Churches are barred by IRS regulations from endorsing political candidates, but they are fully free to participate in the political process on the issues — including ballot propositions. To claim otherwise would be to deny the LDS Church’s right to speak out on what it sees as important moral issues. It would also deny the rights of LDS members to fully participate in the democratic process.

But exercising those rights in the democratic process brings with it public scrutiny and criticism. That, too, is an integral part of the democratic process from which no one is exempt.

When the Mormon church chose to enter the political sphere, the fact that they are a religious institution became irrelevant. They led non-Mormons in their political campaign, and they exhorted everyone —  regardless of their religious affiliation — to vote on amendments which affected everyone, Mormons and non-Mormons alike. This was a democratic political campaign, not a religious one. We were voting on constitutional amendments, not theology.

Mormon leaders were acting in their role as citizens in the democratic process, a role that they have every right to be proud of — at least from their particular point of view. After all, their political campaign was successful. I don’t like how it all turned out, but such is politics. There are always, by the nature of the beast, winners and losers. And their side won this time in the end.

But as citizens leading a political campaign, they cannot escape public accountability for their public actions, especially when their political actions were seen by many as dirty, degrading, dishonest, and most definitely un-Christian. After all that, the leadership of the LDS cannot suddenly change roles, toss up their hands and say, “You can’t criticize us! We’re a religion!” They forfeited that right when they threw themselves enthusiastically into a non-religious, political campaign. They forfeited that right when they left the temple and entered the world of Caesar. They are politicians now, and they deserve the same scrutiny and criticism due to any other political leader or movement.

It is not scapegoating to point out the facts, nor is it Mormon-bashing to criticize their agenda and tactics. This is all fair game in politics — politics which the Mormon church eagerly entered. Andrew Sullivan is right: gays and lesbians now have every right to regard the LDS leadership as their enemy. After all, gays didn’t wage a campaign to strip Mormons of their civil rights. It was the Mormon leaders who have successfully removed a civil right which had already been granted to gays and lesbians.

This is not bigotry or discrimination against a religion. It is criticism leveled against what is now seen as a powerful political organization. That is perfectly legitimate.

Welcome to the world of politics, LDS. There’s no hiding behind a temple now.

[Updated to attribute the final point to Andrew Sullivan.]

Friday Protests Planned at Salt Lake City Temple and Several California Cities

A protest is planned for 6 p.m. Friday at the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City. The protest is intended to show solidarity with those protesting in California over the Mormon church’s heavy involvement in Prop 8.

The Utah protest is being organized by Jacob Whipple, a 29-year-old former LDS Church member who served a mission in Argentina. Joining the protest will be Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Utah Pride Center.

Update: Other protests are planned for Friday night, including:

• San Francisco: 5:30 p.m., from the San Francisco Civic Center (Market/7th), with a march to Dolores Park.
• Long Beach, CA: 6:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., Broadway and Redondo.
• Santa Barbara, CA: 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., 700-756 De La Guerra Plaza St.

Update: San Diego: 9 p.m., at Laurel and Sixth, with a walk to City Hall.

If you know of any more protests, please let me know either by email or in the comments.

Protesters Target Mormon Temple in Westwood

A crowd of protesters, variously estimated at between 500 to 3,000 strong, gathered outside the Mormon temple on Santa Monica Boulevard in Westwood, CA to protest the church’s involvement in Tuesday’s passage of Proposition 9.

The protest began at about 2 p.m., as people stood in front of the temple, waving banners and screaming “Shame on you” to church members behind the temple’s gates. Police closed portions of Westwood Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard around the temple, leading to massive traffic jams.

There were reports of more protests near the UCLA campus, in which protesters sat down in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard. Another protest is expected at the Los Angeles Federal Building, with possibly additional protests continuing on into the night.

This follows a night of protests in Hollywood and West Hollywood, where thousands of protesters effectively shut down Santa Monica Boulevard. The massive protest caught L.A. police off guard, requiring them to call a tactical alert. At least seven people were arrested. Television cameras caught one protester being struck by batons.

Patronizing B.S.

From LDS Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy:

Now that California voters have outlawed same-sex marriage, an LDS Church leader called Wednesday for members to heal rifts caused by the emotional campaign by treating each other with “civility, with respect and with love.”

“We hope that everyone would treat [each other] that way no matter which side of this issue they were on,” said Elder L. Whitney Clayton, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Presidency of the Seventy.

Civility, respect and love? Bull!

New York Times on Proposition 102

The New York Times looked into Arizona’s Proposition 102, noting that this is the second time in two years in which Arizona voters are being asked to vote on a so-called “marriage amendment.”

Religious conservatives were deeply embarrassed when Arizona became the first in the nation to say no to divisive politics, so they’re throwing everything they have to keep from being embarrassed a second time — turning this year’s attempt into an almost wholly Mormon-funded and managed campaign, driven by their rather unique beliefs in “Celestial Marriage.”

Prop 102 supporters claim that the marriage amendment is needed to “protect marriage from activist judges.” What they fail to say however is that Arizona’s “activist judges” already ruled on this. The Arizona Supreme Court, as recently as 2004, already ruled on Arizona’s 1996 state law which already defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, and unanimously upheld that law. From the Times article:

“Their claim that we have to protect marriage from attack is ridiculous, because there’s no such attack,” said State Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat and chairwoman of Arizona Together, which opposes Proposition 102. “It’s a fake threat.”

The LDS church has played a predominant role in fundraising for the “yes” campaign, and their massive coffers threaten to completely re-shape politics in Arizona. Opponents to Prop 102 are being outspent by more than 10-to-1. While many activists are feeling abandoned by national LGBT activists in this second battle, many of us are still optimistic:

Still, many gay rights activists in Arizona are hoping for a repeat of 2006, when most everyone was surprised by the defeat of the effort to bar same-sex marriage.

Jason Cianciotto, the executive director of Wingspan, which serves the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Tucson, said he vividly remembered watching the 2006 returns come in.

“I called a colleague and I said ‘I think we might pull this out,’ and she said, ‘If we do, I’ll eat my hat,’ and lo and behold we won,” Mr. Cianciotto said of the 2006 vote. “And I look forward to skeptics eating their hats this time as well.”

People often dismiss Arizona as a backwards, conservative state. They don’t know Arizona. The Arizona brand of conservatism is best exemplified by Mr. Conservative himself, former Sen. Barry Goldwater. He was conservative to his core, a conservatism that valued individual liberty above all else. Remember him saying, “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”? He lived it, and was an ardent supporter of equal rights for everyone — and LGBT rights in particular.

“The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they’re gay,” Goldwater asserts. “You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that’s what brings me into it.”

That is Arizona.

Mormon Mothers Are Fierce

From the Salt Lake City Tribune:

Mormon mothers of gay children are staging a candlelight vigil in Salt Lake City to oppose the LDS Church’s support of California’s proposed gay-marriage ban. Co-hosted by Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), Equality Utah, the Utah Pride Center, the Inclusion Center, Affirmation and the Human Rights Campaign, the event will be held Sunday at 6 p.m. at Library Square, 210 E. 400 South. In a news release, organizers invited all allies and members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community — Mormon and non-Mormon — to join the vigil to support civil rights.

If any of you are in the Salt Lake City area, please try to be there and show your support. And let us know how it goes.

Secret Prop 8 Donor Revealed

A few days ago the Yes on 8 campaign announced

“Through the grace of God, one of our most fervent supporters has agreed to make a sacrificial gift to match, dollar for dollar, whatever you and others can donate, up to a total of $1 million. That means that every dollar you give will buy two dollars in advertising time.

But they declined to identify the donor.

Now the No on 8 Campaign has identified the secret donor.

Alan Ashton, of Lindon, Utah, a Mormon and grandson of David O. McKay, President of the Mormon Church from 1951-1970. Ashton made his fortune in software.

Well now there’s a shocker. A Utah Mormon.

Update: That software that Alan Ashton made his fortune in? Wordperfect. Ashton is one of the company’s co-founders.  This matches Bruce Bastian’s donation of $1 million. Bastian is the other Wordperfect co-founder.