Historian D. Michael Quinn draws striking and disturbing historical parallels between the Mormon Church's official oppositon to Gay civil rights and the Mormon Church's official opposition to African-American civil rights:
"From Anti-Black to Anti-Gay
"Just as President Gordon B. Hinckley . . . said that same-sex marriage has no legitimate claim as a 'civil right' in Utah or anywhere else, previous First Presidencies also stated that African-Americans had no legitimate right to unrestricted access to marriage, nor to unrestricted blood transfusions, nor to rent a room in the LDS Church's hotel, nor to reside in Utah's white neighborhoods, nor to live near the Los Angeles Temple, nor to be in a hospital bed next to a white patient. Just as the First Presidency previously condemned interracial marriages as abnormal, it has recently condemned same-sex marriages as abnormal. The LDS Church's opposition to gay rights is consistent with its historical opposition to African-American rights.
"Even when a General Authority publicly apologized in September 2000 for 'the actions and statements of individuals who have been insensitive to the pain suffered by the victims of racism,' he claimed that the LDS leadership had an admirable history of race relations. Elder Alexander B. Morrison said: 'How grateful I am that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has from its beginnings stood strongly against racism in any of its malignant manifestations.' This was a, by now, familiar smoke-screen for the previous behavior of Mormon prophets, seers, and revelators.
"LDS headquarters has never apologized for the legalization of Negro slavery by Brigham Young in pioneer Utah, nor for the official LDS encouragement to lynch Negro males, nor for the racial segregation policies of the First Presidency until 1963, nor for Ezra Taft Benson's 1967 endorsement of a book which implied that decapitating black males was a 'White Alternative.'
"Furthermore, although the Utah press reported hundreds of 'hate' attacks annually against gays and lesbians, the First Presidency in 1992 orchestrated the defeat of proposals to include 'sexual orientation' as a protected category in Utah's law against hate crimes.
"The First Presidency from 1976 onward has also repeatedly published Apostle Boyd K. Packer's talk praising a Mormon missionary for beating up his homosexual companion. This official Church pamphlet, titled 'To Young Men Only,' encourages teenage boys to assault any males 'who entice young men to join them in these immoral acts.' Yet, President Hinckley (who was a senior apostle in 1976) expresse[d] bewilderment regarding the literally thousands of violent attacks against gay males in Utah during the decades since the First Presidency began publishing Apostle Packer's talk. This endorsement of gay bashing continues to be printed in pamphlet form and is currently distributed by LDS headquarters. From 1976 to the present, local LDS leaders have been encouraged to give this pamphlet to young males in their teens and twenties, those most likely to commit hate crimes against gays and lesbians.
"Because it has officially promoted this endorsement of violence against homosexuals for 25 years, I believe the First Presidency has been morally responsible whenever LDS young men have attacked or killed homosexuals from 1976 to the present. This includes the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998. . . .
"LDS headquarters has never promoted a similar distribution of statements opposing violence toward homosexuals.Recent public statements by LDS leaders against gay-bashing have the appearance of a smoke-screen to conceal the ongoing private endorsement of gay bashing in Apostle Packer's pamphlet. Moreover, by repeatedly issuing this pamphlet and other homophobic statements since the beginning of the anti-ERA campaign in 1975, the Mormon Church has encouraged a climate of revulsion which fills most LDS families. Therefore, I believe the First Presidency has also been morally responsible whenever Mormon parents have rejected their children for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
"Even when the LDS Church's 'Ensign' magazine published a statement in 1997 advising parents not 'to disown' their homosexual children, the General Authority merely noted that such tactics 'do not help.' Public-relations statements of such timidity have little hope of undoing the spiritual damage to families caused by decades of stridently homophobic indoctrination by LDS headquarters.
"For example, in its official editorial against allowing Utah's high schools to have clubs for gay and lesbian students, the 'Deseret News' commented in 1996: 'It is still appalling that more than half the identified hate crimes in Utah are aimed at homosexuals.' Again, this has the appearance of a smoke-screen to conceal the anti-gay agenda of LDS headquarters. Four years earlier, the same newspaper had successfully persuaded Utah's legislature not to include gays and lesbians in the state law against hate crimes.
"Moreover, the 1996 editorial then adopted the very attitude which propels these hate crimes it professed to regret: '[H]omosexual activities and practices are an abomination, not just some "alternative lifestyle" no better or worse than others.' Echoing the role of LDS headquarters in preventing Utah from giving homosexuals legal protection from hate crimes, the 'Deseret News' in June 2000 regretted that Utah Senator Orrin G. Hatch was 'unable to stop hate-crime legislation' in Congress.
"There is yet another example of the LDS Church's official homophobia, which subverts its public platitudes about loving those who regard themselves as gay or lesbian. Since 1998, Church headquarters has instructed all local LDS leaders to put notations on the membership record of every Mormon who receives Church discipline for homosexual behavior. Applicable even to teenagers, this ecclesiastical stigma will follow young men and women into every LDS congregation for the rest of their lives.
"For persons who believe that these various actions of the LDS First Presidency were God's will for suppressing minorities, I suggest they rethink a passage in The Book of Mormon: 'For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile' (2 Nephi 26:33). . . .
"LDS president Gordon B. Hinckley . . . dismissed Mormonism's earlier race-based policies as 'those little tricks of history' which are irrelevant now. However, his 25 years of promoting political campaigns against the possibility of gay rights is one more example of the LDS hierarchy's discrimination against minorities who are not its 'kind of people.'
"Furthermore, [First Presidency] Counselor [J. Reuben] Clark told the General Conference of April 1940 that the First Presidency 'is not infallible in our judgment, and we err.' He also instructed LDS educators in 1954 that 'even the President of the Church has not always spoken under the direction of the Holy Ghost.' I believe this applies to the statements and actions of several 'living prophets' and First Presidencies in restricting the civil rights of African-Americans and other minorities. According to LDS doctrine, the statements and actions of the Church's president can be wrong, even sinful, and historically the LDS First Presidency has often been profoundly wrong with regard to the civil rights of American minorities.
"In fact, when an end came to the various tyrannies of the majority against racial groups in America, LDS policies changed as well. What various 'living prophets' had defined as God's doctrine turned out to be a Mormon social policy which reflected the majority's world view. I submit that the same applies to the LDS Church's campaign against any law which benefits or protects gays and lesbians. . . .
"The Sincerity of Prejudice and Civil Discrimination
"LDS leaders have repeatedly opposed civil rights for Blacks and Gays while denying that such action is 'anti-Negro' or 'racist,' 'anti-gay' or 'homophobic.' The previous quotes show that First Presidency counselor J. Reuben Clark, for one, defended wholesale restrictions against the civil rights of African-Americans. Nevertheless, at the same time, he regarded himself as compassionate toward Blacks.
"In this paper, I have tried to acknowledge the sincere beliefs and fears of those who oppose same-sex marriage. However, an 'Appeal to Sincerity' is legitimate only when attempting to understand the personal motivation for various behaviors. Sincerity cannot logically be invoked to assess the legitimacy or ethical value of those behaviors.
"The past and present are filled with actions which most of us condemn, despite the fact that their perpetrators claimed they acted out of their sincere beliefs in a religion, or race, or social class, or country. If we regard slavery as wrong, the sincerity of slave-owners is irrelevant to the issue, even when the slave-owners were our revered national leaders, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. If denial of rights and protections for African-Americans was wrong, the sincerity of the oppressors is irrelevant to the issue, even if we otherwise admire the oppressors as religious leaders. Likewise, the sincerity of the heterosexual majority's anxieties and fears is not an ethical justification for denying rights and protections to the homosexual minority. . . .
"While most gays and lesbians believe we counted for 10 percent of the vote, many homophobes claim that no more than one percent of humanity has homosexual feelings. Therefore, LDS leaders and their religious allies in the political sphere must acknowledge that about a third of California's heterosexual electorate voted against their [pro-defense of Marriage Act] campaign of fear, social hysteria, prejudice, and minority exclusion. This is nearly three times higher than the percentage of white Southerners who opposed segregation in the decades before Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, yet minority rights eventually triumphed there.
"In view of the fears, prejudices, and hatreds which existed both then and now, American society's sense of fairness is far greater today than it was 50 years ago. As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1996 when Romer v. Evans invalidated the LDS church's behind-the-scenes victory against civil rights for gays and lesbians in Colorado, 'a state cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.'
"This Colorado case had nothing to do with marriage. LDS leaders and their allies were attempting to invalidate those laws which protected gays and lesbians from hate crimes, as well as from civil discrimination in housing and employment. Gays and lesbians are the glaring exception to President Hinckley's public-relations statement to the LDS General Conference in 1995: 'We must be willing to defend the rights of others who may become the victims of bigotry.' With regard to homosexuals, this is a slogan which LDS headquarters tries to subvert in every possible way. . . .
"For example, after President Hinckley's statement, Mormon leadership successfully opposed adding sexual orientation to Salt Lake City's anti-discrimination ordinance. This is understandable in light of reports that LDS headquarters actively discriminates against gays and lesbians in employment. With no claim of due process, this discrimination extends to completely secular jobs and requires no proof of 'inappropriate' sexual behavior.
". . . [W]hen the Joseph Smith Memorial Building opened in 1993 as added office-space for the LDS bureaucracy at headquarters, this multi-story building had two fine-dining restaurants for the general public. The human resources director instructed the manager of these Church-owned restaurants not to hire as waiters any males who 'seem gay.' Similar to visual profiling for racial discrimination, LDS headquarters apparently denies employment on the basis of stereotypical views about masculine appearance and homosexual characteristics, or stereotypical views about feminine appearance and lesbian characteristics. . . . [T]his has nothing to do with 'morality' or the actual sexual behavior of persons who are subjected to this discrimination. In fact, completely heterosexual persons may also be misidentified as lesbian or gay on the basis of speech or appearance, and then suffer employment discrimination in Utah,162 This contributes to the climate of fear, which is why anti-discrimination laws are necessary.
"The climate of homophobic antagonism in Mormon-dominated Utah creates constant anxiety for many gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender persons. It is historically similar to being a Christian in pagan Rome, a Protestant Huguenot in Catholic-dominated France, a Quaker in Puritan Massachusetts, a Black in Klan-dominated Mississippi, a Jew in Nazi Germany, a Catholic in Protestant-dominated Belfast, a Muslim in Hindu-dominated Kashmir or a Hindu in Muslim-dominated Islamabad. Its familiarity makes this pattern even more tragic in cultures which claim divine approval for exerting social oppression against their minorities.
"Just as Catholics, Protestants and Mormons once claimed righteousness and God's blessing in denying basic rights to African-Americans and Asian-Americans, they are now claiming righteousness and God's blessing for denying basic rights to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons. It takes a peculiar kind of blindness to currently affirm that the majority's historical discrimination against despised racial minorities was ethically and civilly wrong, yet argue that it is now ethically and civilly right to discriminate against the despised minority of homosexuals and transgender persons.
"'The Right of Each Individual to Be Free'
"Ironically, through its General Authorities, its lesson manuals and its Church-owned newspaper, LDS headquarters has condemned other churches and religious leaders for limiting freedom or civil rights. During the entire 20th century, the LDS Church has criticized leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, of Iran's Shiite Islam, and of the Russian Orthodox Church for limiting the civil rights of various minorities.
"'The attitude of any organization toward this principle of freedom is a pretty good index to its nearness to the teachings of Christ or to those of the evil one.' --David O. McKay
"As David O. McKay instructed the General Conference of April 1950: ]This principle of free agency and the right of each individual to be free[,] not only to think but also to act within bounds that grant to every one else the same privilege, are sometimes violated even by churches that claim to teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ. The attitude of any organization toward this principle of freedom is a pretty good index to its nearness to the teachings of Christ or to those of the evil one.'
"Should the LDS Church and its leaders be exempt from McKay's standard to guarantee freedom and civil rights? . . . McKay's public statement here actually contradicted both his private statements as well as his actions as an executive in the racially-segregated Hotel Utah.
"However, McKay's equivocation has a parallel that is faith-promoting. When slave-owner Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal,' this also did not describe the reality of his own life and culture.165 Yet, later Americans and U.S. presidents found inspiration in Jefferson's idealized statement, and they struggled to change their culture in order to achieve the reality of full civil rights for all its minorities. That struggle continues today. Likewise, President McKay stated an ideal in 1950 that can continue to inspire LDS members and leaders to change their culture in order to grant full civil rights to all its minorities.
"Some will claim that the historical parallel of legal discrimination against race and religion has nothing to do with today's legal restrictions against social protections and marriage options for gays and lesbians. Such denial seems intended to privilege the current campaign in two ways: First, by denying that homosexuals constitute a minority as legitimate as the minorities of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion; and second, by denying that legal limitations on this embattled group's social opportunities involve 'prejudice,' or 'discrimination,' or 'denial of rights.'
"By contrast, various authors have regarded prejudiced discrimination as the unifying characteristic of America's negative responses toward minorities of race, of ethnic group, of physical disability, of religion, and even of Masonic affiliation.166 To exclude sexual orientation from the category of embattled minorities is itself a sign of heterosexism and homophobia.
"Thus, the African-American documentary, 'All God's Children,' has stated: 'African Americans were accused of seeking "special rights" during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Now, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people are accused of seeking 'special rights.' Both populations are simply seeking equal justice under the law.'
"With supporting statements by African-American Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Cecil L. Murray, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, and theologian Cornel West against discrimination based on sexual orientation, the documentary adds: 'These systems of oppression are all cut from the same cloth of dominance and power over others.' . . .
"To deny any minority the full access to marriage is to deny the Declaration of Independence statement that the purpose of government is 'to secure' the right of all its citizens to 'the pursuit of Happiness.' As with the pre-1967 limits on the marriage rights of racial minorities, it also violates the Constitution's 14th Amendment provision for 'equal protection of the laws' when Congress or any state has denied marriage rights to lesbians and gay males.
"Nevertheless, to me, the fact that 39% of Californians voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in March 2000 is FAITH-promoting. I can only HOPE that Congress and the Supreme Court will again guarantee a minority the rights which America's majority refuses to confer. In the meantime, I applaud the CHARITY which individual states (like Vermont) have begun to demonstrate in guaranteeing the civil rights of gays and lesbians. As the Apostle Paul wrote, 'The greatest of these is charity.' (I Cor. 13:13).
"This is a civil manifestation of the religious perspective expressed in the 'Anglican Theological Review': 'When marriage is properly understood--as Martin Bucer argued over four centuries ago--as being primarily for companionship, not for procreation or parenting or 'the avoidance of fornication,' then its grace is operative equally for all couples who wish to enter into a covenanted relationship, whether they are a man and a woman, two women, or two men.'
"'The New Dictionary of Christian Ethics' has also commented: 'It is particularly disturbing to find churches which intensify the homosexual's sense of loneliness and isolation by their judgmental attitudes.' While not endorsing ministerial ceremonies for same-sex couples, this ethical dictionary was emphatic about the denial of civil rights to homosexuals: 'Whenever men and women are victimized because of their sexual orientation, whether formally in the law courts or less formally. . .the Christian duty is clearly to stand alongside the oppressed minority in their struggle for justice.'
"As a gay male and Christian, I hope this kind of religious ethic will eventually triumph for America's minority of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons."
(D. Michael Quinn, "Prelude to the National 'Defense of Marriage' Campaign: Civil Discrimination Against Feared or Despised Minorities," originally published in "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought," 33:3, pp. 1-52,
http://www.affirmation.org/against_marriage_equality/prelude.shtml)
Edited 12 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2013 01:46PM by steve benson.