Mormon Church and Prop 8

The role of the Mormon Church in the passage of Prop 8 is now being uncovered, and it's quite a story.

Click HERE to see a fine NY Times article offering the details.

An interesting piece of the puzzle as well - the sister of chief strategist for Prop 8, Frank Schubert, is a lesbian.

From the article:

For his part, Mr. Schubert said he is neither anti-gay — his sister is a lesbian — nor happy that some same-sex couples’ marriages are now in question. But, he said, he has no regrets about his campaign.

“They had a lot going for them,” Mr. Schubert said of his opponents. “And they couldn’t get it done.”

Was this just a game he was playing, for the fun of it, to see who could win?

Is this not about life and liberty?

I wonder how he sleeps at night?

When the dust settles and folks have had a chance to think about it, many who voted for Prop 8 will come to regret it. The campaign was saturated with lies, and the biggest lie of all: We're not against gays; we're for marriage.

I battled this in the Presbyterian Church some years ago when we passed our "faithfulness in marriage and chastity in singleness" amendment to our constitution - I said then, and say it still, the proponents of this measure were not interested in marriage or sexual purity, but in crafting a device to effectively bar gays and lesbians in a relationship from seeking ordination.

The cause of good is never served by lies, and shame on Frank Schubert and his organization, and shame on the Mormon Church and a variety of evangelical groups, who engaged in falsehood to promote their version of the truth.

A sad day for California.

A sad day for our nation.

Do what you can to overturn the measure.

And, remember, if the popular voice had won the day, interracial marriage would still be illegal in many states, folks of color couldn't buy homes in white neighborhoods, and women would have had to wait many more years to vote.

And it was the people who voted for Hitler and all of his lies.

This is why we have court systems and legislatures - we elect and/or appoint such folks to help us think through the larger issues.

We are a nation of representative democracy - not mob rule.