It’s interesting to note that the church is exempted from the SLC gay rights ordinance the church supported this week. What I find most peculiar is the church’s message that the church must reserve the right for it and its subsidiaries, such as BYU, to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but that the church thinks its members should be prohibited from applying the same standard when hiring employees for their company or choosing tenants for their apartment building.
I’d like to hear what you believe to be the most coherent justifications for the church’s proposition that it’s essential that the church be able to set the moral character of its apartment complexes or enterprises, and choose for itself whether to hire or house gay couples in its properties, and at the same time that it should be illegal for Mormons, who strive to live the standards of the church, to be able to set the moral character of their apartment complexes or enterprises, and choose for themselves whether to hire or house gay couples in their properties.
do you have a link for this development? thanks.
To protect the atmosphere of places like BYU married student housing from what could be major disruption, while sending a message to the members of the church that gays are people too.
I’m personally surprised by the amount of anger that is being shown towards the church for this announcement. It’s actually kind of fun to hear some of the more conservative state politicians in Utah react in such a negative manner. Hopefully, though, the end result will be a change in hearts, for both members and nonmembers alike.
Check the sidebar for links.
Also, here:
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/statement-given-to-salt-lake-city-council-on-nondiscrimination-ordinances
http://www.sltrib.com/lds/ci_13766464
One other note: I know of no private landlords or employers who discriminate against people who have sex before marriage (except for the Church). I’m sure they exist–but I’m pretty sure many more discriminate against practicing homosexuals. A bit of a double-standard there.
I think this is the church’s way of trying to end that double standard.
I think the church doesn’t really know what it wants. They clearly don’t want to treat homosexuals equally if they happen to work for the church, but they don’t think they have the political power to tell others to keep to that standard anymore. Thus the discrepancy.
matt, where has the church expressed a desire to specifically discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation? it’s an honest question.
what i see happening is an exemption being maintained in order to not run afoul of a religious organization’s general right to discriminate based on religious affiliation and religiosity. if i’m not mistaken, the law generally permits this type of discrimination, which is what allows the church to require certain employees to be temple worthy, to follow the honor code, etc. again, i’m not sure where i see the church specifically asking for the right to discriminate based on sexual orientation–maybe you could help.
i’m not necessarily saying i particularly like the fact that the church can discriminate on the basis of religiosity, but i can see how the church might believe it goes a long way towards preserving its organizational focus and autonomy.
mpb, hopefully those who know the BYU housing policy can provide the details of the church’s discrimination there, but I know that BYU employs and houses non-Mormons so, at least at BYU, the discrimination isn’t based on religious affiliation, it’s based on adherence to church moral standards such as not being actively gay.
Tim, you’re ducking the issue. There are certainly property owners who wouldn’t rent to unmarried heterosexual couples (and as far as I know there’s no law that requires them to as cohabitor is probably not a protected class), but the double standard this post is exploring is why the church thinks it should have the right to determine whether gay couples or cohabitating couples live in its housing, but that it should be illegal for Mormons to determine whether gay couples live in their housing.
Having now read more of the materials, the root issue is the church’s decision to endorse a legal distinction between corporate religious belief and speech, and personal religious belief and speech, essentially conceding that the principles of the First Amendment are crucial to corporations (legal entities recognized by government, such as the church and the Boy Scouts) but not to individuals, families or informal groups.
Time will tell whether their decision to sacrifice the religious liberties of individuals and informal groups will enhance or diminish the church’s own religious liberty.
Dan: The Church grants temple recommends to people with homosexual inclinations, that is more than adequate to work for the Church. I can’t imagine there is an active policy to do anything else – the Church has taken a public stand on that issue of religious standing for several years now.
The same thing applies to religiously oriented education and educational housing. Discriminating on the basis of orientation is wrong, but the ability of a religiously sponsored institution to maintain standards of behavior is a key aspect of its very purpose.
That is one of the reasons why religious institutions are explicitly exempted from the requirements of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The secular / religious distinction in civil rights is hardly a new precedent.
An example is a women’s college. Should a religiously oriented women’s college be required to accept men? Should a convent be required to hire male employees? And so on…
Another long standing legal precedent is to exempt very small employers (e.g. less than 10 employees) from various employment laws as well. The merits of the dividing line aside (seems a little high to me), that might be a precedent for letting private owners place restrictions on who they rent their basement apartments to. Should a woman who wants a female tenant be forced to rent to a man?
Unless of course a city had little or nothing but basement apartments…or no employers of a non-trivial size. That should be both a moral and a legal consideration.
Matt:
This ship has sailed a long time ago–Section 702 of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act allows religious entities to discriminate on the basis of religion in their hiring practices. The Supreme Court has found this constitutional. The reason why religious people cannot discriminate against gays while religious entities can is for the same reason religious entities can discriminate against people of different religions–it’s an expressive association issue. The Church is, at its core, an ideological institution, that is, it’s sole purpose is to propagate a message. Because hiring gays would detract from that message, it would interfere with that expressive association right. If any of your hypothetical religious persons have an ideological message that their business is primarily set up to convey, I’d say that they have pretty good grounds for exemption under Hurley and Dale for an exemption from the ordinance.
Where did the Church concede that “the principles of the First Amendment” are not “crucial … to individuals, families or informal groups”? The ordinances passed are not about protecting first amendment rights. They are about protecting a discriminated part of the population (the LGBTQ community) from being discriminated against in some very basic aspects of everyday life. As Michael Otterson noted, these are “common sense rights.” I really do not understand arguments that they somehow undercut the individual’s first amendment rights. What rights contained in the first amendment are violated?
Time will tell whether their decision to sacrifice the religious liberties of individuals and informal groups will enhance or diminish the church’s own religious liberty.
How would this “diminish the church’s own religious liberty”?
Churches and certain other voluntary associations (e.g., BSA) exist primarily to advocate a set of moral and ethical principles, and to assist their members in living according to those principles. Hiring employees who have no intention of supporting those principles to represent the organization, or housing tenants whose very presence disrupts the purpose of the particular living arrangements, nullifies the organization’s reason for being.
The same thing just isn’t true for a company whose chief business is making money, not lives, or for a landlord who accepts tenants of every other moral, political or social character, so long as they pay the rent on time and don’t throw garbage from the balcony.
Churches are not the only organizations exempt from the ordinance. Businesses with few employees and landlords with few units are also exempt.
In response to the specific question as to how the Church might need to discriminate against gays in housing or employment, one only needs to remember that some employment positions require persons to hold a temple recommend and that housing slots require the tenant to adhere to an honor code. By avoiding the issue altogether, the Church avoids the vagaries of litigation which would surely come when the Church dismissed someone or evicted someone for having gay sex.
I doubt this is the only concern … but it’s the one that came immediately to my mind.
One more thing to throw in the mix: The law school at BYU has a written nondiscrimination policy re sexual orientation. This was necessary for it to get accredited. But the school, of course, reserves the right to discriminate on the basis of behavior.
Of course, it’s not the reasons we can think of … but, rather, the reasons we can’t think of. Laws are always put to the test — and plaintiffs and their lawyers are clever clever creatures.
The BYU honor code was rewritten in recent years as well so that it no longer states that being gay (i.e. homosexual tendencies) is against the honor code, but having homosexual relations is, which makes sense in relation to the rest of the honor code, because it would be sex outside of marriage anyway, what with gay marriage not being an option. BYU approved housing is contractually obligated to have specific rules (no people of the opposite gender past midnight/in bedrooms, periodic cleaning checks, even to the point of theoretically requiring institute attendance for people not enrolled in a BYU religion class, though no one enforces that) and one of those rules is ecclesiastical endorsements, etc. Even non-members have to get them from an ecclesiastical leader. So in terms of the Church’s housing, it seems kosher to me because the Church is saying to live in this housing, we expect a higher code of conduct, which we lay out here. Again, as a private religious institution, it has that right, because the school is serving not only secular but religious goals. I agree with Mark D. on this one, citing the examples of the religious women’s school, etc.
But I could see where you’d find it problematic in the idea form. Still, I support the fact that citizens and business organizations be treated differently than religious institutions legally (which is a whole other question, really, if you wanted to say they shouldn’t) because of the vastly different purposes (religions, for example, being non-profit, seeking specific but non-monetary goals).
Matt Evans — You say “[i]t’s interesting to note” that the Church is exempted from the SLC gay rights bill, but non-religious organizations are not. It’s “interesting” to me that you are highlighting the same thing that the Utah Eagle Forum and the Sutherland Institute about the Church’s decision. So, my question: Are you interested because you are in trying to point out that you think the Church’s decision to support the SLC bill is incorrect?
Nate, yes, the law has distinguished religious entities from religious believers for a long time but to my knowledge this is the first time the church has endorsed that view or expressly encouraged government to apply a standard to others that the church doesn’t meet itself. About Dale and Hurley, are individuals not protected, only entities? Could the owner of a 20 unit apartment complex decide they like the culture of BYU housing and emulate it at their property?
Ardis, the question is why individuals should be denied the right of having a “reason for being” that is identical to the church’s. I’m genuinely curious why the church would want to prohibit its members from doing what the church does; determine what kinds of people or behaviors are conducive to the nature of their business, etc. I see no legitimate reason for the church to endorse a law requiring Sounds of Zion to hire active gays, for example, while still insisting that their own companies in the same industry be exempted. Why would the church prohibit Sounds of Zion from adopting the same kinds of employee policies and standards as Deseret Book? Why has the church chosen to prohibit members from fostering BYU-style cultures in their apartment complexes?
Christopher, the tension is in the church’s position that principles of religious liberty require government allow religious entities to practice their religion as they see fit, including the option of banning active gays from housing and church companies, but that those principles of religious liberty do not extend to Mormon members who understand themselves to have the same need to communicate their moral values in the same way the church communicates its moral values.
Matt (7):
26 states make it illegal to discriminate based on marital status in providing housing.
Hunter, my interest was piqued after I read the church’s statement and had read nothing more, and was mostly interested in the highest level issue of what business a private group that’s exempted from a law, and that violates the substantive purpose of the law itself, has speaking in favor of a law. In my house it would be considered very bad form for kids who have been exempted from something, say, doing their chores before school, and that don’t do their chores before school, to tell me I should punish their sisters for not doing their chores before school. I framed the original post as a question because I really was wondering if there’s a legitimate reason for the church to advocate a double standard. Having now read more materials by the church and the city I think the church’s (Michael Otterson’s?) reasoning is poor. I haven’t read any commentaries or statements about this from the Eagle Forum or Sutherland Institute.
The only reaction I’ve seen is Andrew Sullivan’s, and I think he’s right to be happy. By telling its members that their right to communicate their religious beliefs does not extend to excluding active gays from living in their apartment complexes or working at their bookstores, it will become harder for the church to claim that their right to communicate their religious beliefs morally requires them to exclude active gays from living in their apartments or working at their bookstores.
The church should not be agreeing to limit the religious rights of others. “Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me” and all.
Matt (19): Gee, Matt, do I have to look up anti-discrimination law for you? It’s not like you graduated from Harvard Law, right? Your post implies that this statute is sui generis. It isn’t. This statute is not any different from any other anti-discrimination ordinance. The intersection between expressive association and non-discrimination law is well developed, and rather than carefully elucidate it for someone who graduated from a law school far more prestigious than my own, I will just provide you with the following link.
P.S.: How could the Church’s position in Amos not be viewed as an endorsement of the difference between individuals and entities?
Matt (21): And by quoting Martin Niemöller, Godwin’s law has officially been invoked. Don’t forget to turn the lights off on your way out.
Nate, the conversation includes more than you and me, so a two paragraph summary of expressive association law would have benefited everyone, not just the lawyers like me who have never had reason to learn it. I’m looking at the *moral* issue of the church endorsing a double standard — telling SLC to apply a standard to others that it doesn’t live itself; so if your knowledge of the legal framework sheds light on the moral issue at hand, please explain.
Until someone can show the precedent, we should assume this case is in fact sui generis. To my knowledge the church has never endorsed using the hammer of the law to prohibit its members, including the owners of Sounds of Zion or the Missionary Mall, etc., from building a company culture patterned on those companies run by the church. In fact, I suspect this is the first time the church has tried to prohibit their members from considering a potential employee’s adherence to a moral code. They’re cutting new ground.
Let me directly push the analysis the other way. Suppose that individuals should have the right to discriminate in housing or employment on the basis of sexual orientation or conduct because churches do. Should individuals also have to ability to discriminate on the basis of religion because churches do? (Or should individuals have the right to discriminate on the basis of sex or race because churches do?)
With some limited exceptions, many or most LDS Church entities do not employ non-LDS or even LDS non-recommend holders: CES, facilities management (building maintenance), Church architects, Church legal department, etc . . . . Suppose a group of LDS lawyers wish to foster an LDS environment in their law firm. Or architects. Or building maintenance company. Or book publisher. Should they, as individuals, be permitted to start a company that only employs those who are LDS with temple recommends?
(Regarding BYU, I have heard that BYU no longer hires non-LDS faculty, but existing non-LDS faculty are grandfathered. Is that true? If so, should Southern Virginia University be able to do the same?)
Not sure if this qualifies as precedent, but the Church did support laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of race at a time when the Church discriminated on the basis of race in some of its employment–e.g., positions that required an endowed member (temple engineer and other positions). That is, while the Church retained the right to discriminate on the basis of race (via an endowed member requirement), it favored laws that would have prohibited members for favoring endowed members in their own hiring.
Matt,
There’s a difference between delayed exposition and using your readers’ ignorance of the law to mislead them about the status of the law. If you disagree with the state of anti-discrimination law, that’s great, but you have an obligation to at least provide the relevant background rather than acting like the scope of the ordinance’s exemption is something that is new. It is the responsibility of the person who begins the debate to a) be informed with the background of the thing he is going to debate and b) share the background with the audience who, not being the one to bring the topic up, will likely need to be brought up to speed.
Your claim that we should assume that the Church was against anti-discrimination ordinances until they explicitly endorse those laws is also puzzling. Wouldn’t we assume that the Church, being silent, either a) tacitly accepts the state of the law or b) has no real opinion? Those seem like safer assumptions without having the benefit of actual evidence either way. Corporation of the Presiding Bishopric v. Amos also suggests that the Church endorsed the status quo framework of the Civil Rights Act that this ordinance is based on.
Finally, it is not the Church’s place to “prohibit their members from considering a potential employee’s adherence to a moral code,” and so it is unsurprising that the Church would not do that. The Church does not tell people how to run their businesses, beyond the regular exhortations to be honest and to obey the law. Since Missionary Mall or Sounds of Zion, presumably, are already bound by Title VII not to refuse to hire someone because of their religion, it doesn’t appear that the Church had to do any more on that front.
DavidH, my sympathies are libertarian so I prefer giving everyone, including individuals, families and private enterprises, wide latitude to set the cultures of their company or apartment complex. Though I dislike meddling government ordinances like the one in SLC generally, however, what I find most problematic is the church’s endorsing a double standard, that Sounds of Zion should be forced to hire active gays but Deseret Book shouldn’t.
Truly the world is upside down and backwards that I find myself typing this, but Chris Buttars said it well:
“I agree with the church that a person ought to be able to have a roof over their head and have a job,” he said. “I don’t have any problem with that.”
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13766464
Nate, the difference with traditional anti-discrimination law is that homosexual activity, unlike race, religion, age and gender, etc., is not simply a status. It’s a behavior. The church has made much of that distinction over the past decade so it’s surprising to see them retreat on that front and agree to a law that not only ignores the distinction it equates sexual orientation with race and gender, etc.
The church speaks out on specific legislation so infrequently that it’s we can never assume the brethren accept all laws they don’t mention.
I fully agree that the church should not be prohibiting its members from considering the moral standards of their potential employees, which to me means they shouldn’t be encouraging SLC to fine Mormons who consider whether their potential employees comply with the church’s moral standard for homosexual activity.
Sister Blah 2,
That quote encapsulates everything that’s wrong about the church’s position and merely confirms Chris Buttars’ incompetence. If the issue were the church’s concern about active gays having a job and a roof over their head the church would presumably not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or activity when reviewing job and housing applications, but of course the church and BYU do kick active gays from their housing, and fire their actively gay employees. My problem with the church’s position, as they’ve explained in the materials I’ve seen, is that they’re endorsing a double-standard. The church says it’s okay for the church to fire gays or deny them housing, but that privately religious families and companies, even those owned by members of the church attempting to live the same standards of the church, should be fined if they do the same thing.
Why has the church chosen to prohibit members from fostering BYU-style cultures in their apartment complexes?
Not having a clue what “Sounds of Zion” is or are, I can’t respond to that, Matt. As for this part of it, you couldn’t fosture such a culture in your apartment complex even if this recent ordinance were not an issue. Such a structure must have a way to enforce the culture, to evict tenants who didn’t comply. How would you know how often your tenants went to church, or whether they slept with their girlfriends off the premises or whether they drank while on summer vacation? Certainly the church wouldn’t endorse commercial PPIs by someone who isn’t an ecclesiastical officer for purposes that are not church mandated, and neither would the state — you couldn’t set up and maintain such a culture even absent the gay issue, so you haven’t lost anything by this ordinance.
If a person or couple or family is engaging in actual behavior on the premises that interferes with other tenants’ right to quiet enjoyment — but not to an undisturbed imagination; nobody has that guarantee, anytime, anywhere — then you already have grounds for action, again without respect to the question of sexual orientation. This ordinance doesn’t affect you one way or the other — unless you’re a gay man who needs an apartment.
Matt:
Sexual orientation is no more “a behavior” than religion is. That is not to say that either religion or sexual orientation should not be protected: the question is whether these things matter. The law says that people in the business of making money cannot irrationally discriminate on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, sex, age, and now gender identity and sexual orientation, so long as the employee meets the requirements for the job.
The Church’s position seems much more nuanced than you give it credit for, Matt. They draw the line where the government does–ideological organizations are free to discriminate in support of their ideology. If you have no ideology, your discrimination becomes irrational.
Take it from us liberals: it’s hard when you first realize that the Church doesn’t agree with you on every issue. Time and experience make it easier. I can only hope you’ll get plenty of experience as the years go by. :)
Ardis, Sounds of Zion is a privately-owned distributor of Mormon music, books, etc., that also runs a chain of Mormon bookstores that compete with Deseret Book. Now the church wants companies like Sounds of Zion to be fined, exactly as though they’d refused to hire a woman or ethnic minority, if they refuse to hire an active gay man. I believe the owners of Deseret Book should do business by the Golden Rule, and not tell the government to force its competitors to hire people they won’t hire themselves. Michael Otterson should explain what he has against the Golden Rule. : )
There’s no legal reason an apartment complex couldn’t require tenants to agree to an Honor Code similar to BYU’s, and there probably are places that do just that. I know that housing coops sometimes have comprehensive standards the residents must abide by, though I don’t know what legal limits there are on the kinds of requirements they can cover. Presumably they could cover almost any conceivable behavior or status (bicyclists and nonsmokers only, etc.) save those statuses that are legally protected by law like race, gender, religion, etc.
Nate, I have no false hope that the church will ever be consistent with my view of the world! (Though they did eventually remove all evidence from their website of their awful non-position-position on stem cell research that I lambasted for its internal inconsistencies. Not that I think it was me that persuaded them, only that change does happen.) I just like to think that the church can manage to be consistent with itself! So I would of course prefer they not endorse the myth that individuals, families and informal groups don’t and can’t have moral ideologies, since that is the effect of the endorsing the SLC ordinance (according to your explanation of the operation of the law) that denies individuals and companies, like Sounds of Zion, the ability to foster a moral culture, something I consider to be an important element of religious liberty.
““I agree with the church that a person ought to be able to have a roof over their head and have a job,” he said. “I don’t have any problem with that.””
Knowing Buttars background, I’m pretty sure those words wouldn’t have left his mouth a week ago. While I’m happy the church did this, it’s a little disturbing how many politicians will suddenly consider something because of which way the church is pointing. Does it reinforce fears on the national level that Mitt Romney will do whatever the Church says to do?
“While I’m happy the church did this, it’s a little disturbing how many politicians will suddenly consider something because of which way the church is pointing. Does it reinforce fears on the national level that Mitt Romney will do whatever the Church says to do?”
Very likely yes. The bigger problem, they will “predict” what the Church will say and act upon it:
“…Sutherland Institute’s Jeff Reynolds told reporters rumors of the church’s support were both ridiculous and a glaring case of “journalistic fraud.” The church, Reynolds said, simply would proclaim nonopposition to the ordinances. …
“…Sutherland’s argument: Such measures mean “marriage will die by a thousand cuts.” …
“The approved ordinances,” Sutherland continued, “are vague, dangerously broad and unjust to the parties they seek to regulate.” …
Here is this other article:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13782872?source=rss
Matt,
The question is not whether they “endorse the myth that individuals, families and informal groups don’t and can’t have moral ideologies,” but whether they embrace the idea that, for the most part, those moral ideologies have nothing to do with a person’s qualifications as a tenant or employee.
If you want to make the argument that the religious exemption is drawn irrationally broadly, I would probably agree with you. Being a temple recommend holder probably does not have any bearing on your qualifications to be a janitor at Deseret Gym or, to use a more current example, to sell insurance at Beneficial Life or books at Deseret Book. However, just because the exemption is drawn too broadly does not mean that the logic is unalterably flawed.
Chris Buttars is right (I never thought I would ever type that in my entire life): People should have a roof over their head and have a job. And that takes precedence over an employer’s or landlord’s delicate sensibilities if they are large enough to be an entity covered by the statute (incidentally, this is the point of the size requirement–to exempt small family-type businesses). When you run a business of a certain size, you give up the freedom to be a sanctimonious jerk who gets to peer in your employees’ bedrooms.
“When you run a business of a certain size, you give up the freedom to be a sanctimonious jerk who gets to peer in your employees’ bedrooms.”
When you run a smaller business you run the risk of placing employees on more intimate terms than in larger organisations. At some point or other ideologies are bound to clash.
Without getting too deep into the logic, I want to point out another reason the exception was too broadly drawn–when extended to for-profit corporations owned by the Church, it arguably gives them a competitive advantage. “At Beneficial Life, you will always have an agent who shares your values–wink, wink.” The exception should extend only to entities that are central to the Church’s ecclesiastic mission. For-profit corporations do meet that standard.
As others have already stated, there is ample precident for exempting religious organizations from compliance with certain laws. I found this out a couple of years ago when I asked if the Church could accomodate my disability. Though it is LDS Church policy to accomodate for disabilities, the Church is under no legal requirement to comply with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Fortunately for me, my local leaders were willing to make the changes necessary. Unfortunately, many others with disabilities do not get accomodation and are unable to attend church as a result.
I don’t think I have a problem with churches being exempt from this particular ordinance because I think to comply would violate their religious beliefs, much like Catholic and other church owned hospitals can legally refuse to provide certain medical procedures, even when those procedures are legal.
#38– Very well said, I concur 100%.
Sorry to do an end run around the question at hand, but the question posed is irrelevant. This ordinance would have passed anyway, and the Mormon Church simply supported this limited ordinance which it would be exempted from to blunt recent criticism and the well-deserved reputation of being hateful and bigoted against homosexuals, as it was for 150 years against African-Americans. Don’t get too involved in the admittedly fascinating legal intricacies of this decision–this is pure PR and has no meaning whatsoever beyond that. While Prop 8 was won by a slight majority in CA, people seem to forget that close to half of the state–mostly people who are not homosexual–voted against it and are furious about what is perceived to be hypocritical self righteous meddling by a Utah Church in California affairs. If you think this bone thrown by the Mormon Church will do anything to assuage the anger and determination of those who are committed to genuine equality for homosexual Americans then you are very much mistaken.
BTW if Mormons believe that their support of Prop 8 has won them permanent friends among evangelicals and Catholics–guess again. The Evangelicals at least hate Mormons just slightly less than they hate homosexuals, and will throw you under the bus without a thought. Just ask Mitt Romney.
There’s a difference between delayed exposition and using your readers’ ignorance of the law to mislead them about the status of the law.
Nate, you said it better than I would have.
I’ve tried civil rights cases, taken appeals. Have some on my docket right now. Thanks for helping non-lawyers understand the typical, historic issues.
Kind of like churches and exemptions from zoning ordinances. Most religious groups support both (zoning ordinances and their own exemption).
Take it from us liberals: it’s hard when you first realize that the Church doesn’t agree with you on every issue. Time and experience make it easier. I can only hope you’ll get plenty of experience as the years go by. :)
Not sure that is enough of a smile ;)
ExMoHoMoDon — I don’t think the Church expects to have made any permanent friends by either position it has taken. I suspect they understand that some people will always be angry, no matter what happens and will not bend in their efforts to harass or destroy the Church.
Leaving Nauvoo didn’t end the hatred, nor did returning there 150 or so years later.
Not everything is done with an eye towards currying favor with those who would throw us under the bus without a thought.
I don’t have the impression that the Church applies the same hiring standards at its arms-length for-profit companies as it would to working for the Church itself or its direct auxiliaries. Am I wrong?
Overwhelmingly, most people simply don’t care what Mormons do or believe. They just want Mormons to leave them alone and at the most are slightly nauseated by Mormon hypocrisy and smug self righteousness. Once homosexuals have obtained equal protection under the law, you will be amazed at how many of us won’t give Mormons another thought. As for those who hate you, pay close attention to your Evangelical buddies. They believe that they demonstrate their love for Jesus by how much they hate homosexuals and Mormons.
“When you run a business of a certain size, you give up the freedom to be a sanctimonious jerk who gets to peer in your employees’ bedrooms.
Nate, this sentiment naturally follows from the SLC ordinance equating sexual orientation and race, and why it’s so stunning the church would support the rationale. Conceding the equivalence of sexual orientation and race, and thereby acknowledging that the church’s policies against active gays is morally equivalent to racism, will lead the church to abandon its position about homosexuality within the next 20 years. By telling SLC that not only is there no justifiable reason for employers or landlords to discriminate against homosexuality or homosexual behavior, but that they should be legally punished if they do, the church has effectively admitted that those who discriminate against active gays, as the church does, are bigots. It won’t be long before the church is being reminded of their own position: that discrimination against active gays is morally unjustifiable.
to sell insurance at Beneficial Life or books at Deseret Book
I am more than certain that no such temple recommend requirements apply to any of the for-profit institutions owned by the church. For one thing, the exemptions would not apply, and thus such religiously based restrictions would be illegal.
On the other hand, they certainly do apply to the people who work in the Church Office Building, for example. Those folks are actual church employees.
Matt E: By conceding the equivalence of sexual orientation and race, and thereby acknowledging that the church’s policies against active gays is morally equivalent to racism
The Church has done no such thing. They have simply said that people deserve a certain level of basic civil rights regardless of sexual orientation. They have not endorsed any actual behavior.
It is like the difference (my apologies) between saying that people who drink should be able to get an apartment, and people who drink should be able to get a temple recommend.
Last Lemming: I want to point out another reason the exception was too broadly drawn–when extended to for-profit corporations owned by the Church
Are you sure the exception was that broadly drawn? If so, what is your source? Links appreciated.
One would have to conclude that ‘a certain level of basic civil rights’ falls short of equal civil rights. Thanks but no thanks. Homosexuals are willing to accept neither the whim nor generous mood of the Mormon Church in allowing such limited civil rights it decides are good enough. Our equality is based on the US Constitution, not the judgement or condescension of the Mormon Church.
What is remarkable to me is that so few LDS are objecting or resisting the change in political position of the Church–having gone from “not opposing” to “supporting” employment and housing rights.
Questions for ExMoHoMoDon regarding the breadth of the Constitution’s provision of gay equal rights. Would the Constitution’s guaranty of equality require BYU to hire openly gay professors? To admit as students and provide housing for same sex couples?
Are any of you aware that in the 1980′s, I believe, Utah voted and passed Amendment 2 (I think it was called that), that prohibited discrimination against gay people. The rest of the country was surprised and surmised that it must have been because Mormons had a history of being persecuted themselves and so
they didn’t want anyone else to be. It was about a year or so after the Matthew Shepherd lynching had taken place. I don’t see any difference in the Church’s stance on that issue then and now.
Mark D., BYU doesn’t kick students out of church housing for not having a temple recommend, it kicks them out for violating the Honor Code rules. BYU admits non-members who are ineligible for temple recommends altogether, so the standard is never a temple recommend. Students who violate the honor code by, among many other things, drinking alcohol or being actively gay, lose the very dorm building roofs over their heads. Chris Buttars shudders.
By agreeing that sexual orientation is a civil right on equal standing with race and gender, etc., the church has plead guilty to irrationally discriminating against a protected class. Having given up the most important element of the gay rights debate (that sexual orientation is objectionable as a behavior, and is not a status like race) they’ve now put themselves in the same position the church faced prior to 1978, having to justify discriminating against a protected class. Though Otterson seems to believe that surrendering on this point improves the church’s position in the gay marriage debate, it appears to me that their conceding the equivalence of race and sexual orientation has given them the task of opposing what they now agree is the equivalent of interracial marriage and Loving v. Virginia.
Matt, perhaps you should replace “Otterson” in your last paragraph with “the First Presidency.” Otterson was merely the spokesman.
Many of the rest of us have recently dealt with church decisions that we felt uncomfortable with without publicly criticizing those decisions. We’ve had to set aside our own personal politics and realize the church is apart (above) what we want to believe politically.
Church job that requires a temple reccommend: Provo Temple custodian. I was one. I had to produce the reccommend every time I reported to work. I can’t remember, but I thinmather employer of that job may have actually been employed by BYU … it’s been a long time.
How difficult would it be (especially legally) for Sounds of Zion or an apartment owner to become a church so that they could be exempt from these laws like the LDS Church is?
“Overwhelmingly, most people simply don’t care” is always a true statement.
“Our equality is based on the US Constitution” which if you follow most interpretations of the Constitution, means that there are no rights at all beyond the shadow rights of not having the state inquire into your private sex life as long as you are an adult, and then only if the Democrats maintain control.
Not much of a right.
This is Off Topic — but this is something of interest to the Times & Seasons:
The first issue of the Times and Seasons was published at Nauvoo. — 170 years ago today – Nov 15, 1839
Wish I had a better way to post this — but happy birthday (of sorts) times and seasons.
Matt, there are theological underpinnings to #38 that you seem to be ignoring:
> When you run a business of a certain size, you give up
> the freedom to be a sanctimonious jerk who gets to peer
> in your employees’ bedrooms.
In the case of church-related things where worthiness is at issue, the one doing the judging is always an ordained judge in Israel who has been given special powers of discernment and the guidance of spirit to make correct judgments.
Even where a temple recommend isn’t specifically required (BYU ecclesiastical endorsement), it is still a Bishop making the call. Even amongst members and in church-related organizations, we don’t entrust that kind of judgment to just some random bureaucrat. It is a representative of the Lord who has those specifics responsibilities and rights to inspiration.
If you really think that being a manager at Sounds of Zion imbues you with those same powers of making righteous judgments, well…
(IMHO, reminding Sounds of Zion that they are NOT a church, but merely a money-making organization who happens to make money off LDS, seems like a good idea if they are having a hard time remembering that themselves.)
Of course, this post is based on the hypothetical that no divine counsel was sought in the decision making process. Right, Matt? As such, the whole argument is just an exercize in debating abstracts that may have nothing to do with the real intent behind the decision.
I love it how Matt has this bug up his butt with the church on issues that he disagrees with. Its the same thing with stem cell research and abortion- didn’t Matt say that the church’s policy was just written by a bunch of mid-level employees just trying to pacify Huntsman? (or something to that affect). I look soon for the establishment of the “Church of Matt” as the only true way, since it is so obvious that the brethren have lost their minds with such liberal ideas.
Matt, you’re imagining a competitive exemption for Deseret Book over Sounds of Zion that doesn’t exist — the for-profit arms of Deseret Book and other church companies don’t have the same exemptions as the church itself has.
You can tell that by looking at the job requirements for the various openings at Deseret Book here. Look at the difference between the requirements for Marketing & Promotions Manager, for instance, and those of the Church Distribution Sales. The Church Distribution employee must be both a woman and endowed — two requirements that would be illegal in the wider market but which are protected here because of the nature of the employee’s job. There are no such limitatiosn on the retail Marketing & Promotions Manager — presumably if he or she somehow knew the market well enough, he could be gay or a closet drinker or keep a mistress or be a Methodist or even a Democrat and still be elegible for the job.
In the elements where Deseret Book competes with Sounds of Zion, the religious exemption doesn’t give the church an edge.
Ardis (#64) — the ordinance includes carve-outs for for-profit businesses owned by the Church, so whether or not the Church chooses to utilize the discriminatory powers it ensured the ordinance vouchsafed for it, it has them.
SCW (#63) — Matt has as much a right to a viewpoint as anyone or anything does. I’m glad to hear his thoughts and ideas, though we’re seldom on the same side of an issue.
It seems to me that the only precedent anyone has offered is DavidH’s point (#26) about jobs requiring temple recommends that were not available to blacks at the time the Church countenanced civil rights legislation (did it ever endorse it?)
And finally, regarding msg’s statement in #54 about Amendment 2, I’m not familiar with such an effort in Utah, but I’d be surprised by it, since here in Colorado in the 1990s, the Church came out in strong support for a statewide ballot initiative called Amendment 2 that repealed Boulder and Denver ordinances that had, themselves, prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation — much the same effort that a few groups apparently are considering in Utah to reverse the SLC ordinance.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
While at church this morning it occurred to me that the church may have misunderstood the legal meaning of sexual orientation. The church probably equates sexual orientation with same-sex attraction, the desire and condition itself, and because the church does not discriminate against those with same-sex attraction (status), only those that violate the church’s standards of morality whether gay or straight (behavior), the church may have thought that they don’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. For that reason they may not have thought the proposed SLC ordinance was essentially the church’s own standard.
The law does not share the church’s view of sexual orientation, however, making no distinction between status and behavior, and will therefore protect active gays as well as celibate gays. I suspect this means that the SLC ordinance requires employers and landlords to accept gay sex in a way the law does not require them to accept unmarried heterosexual sex or adultery. Landlords in SLC will be permitted to deny housing to an unmarried straight couple, or to an adulterous straight couple, but not to an unmarried gay couple. (At the time of the Lewinsky scandal I remember reading that significant numbers of the US military lost their jobs each year for adultery, as did many other companies, including Walmart.)
I am now doubting that the church realized it was advocating a double standard.
Question for the attorneys out there: do you think this ordinance would protect an adulterer from losing their job if they cheat with someone of the same sex? This issue would be complicated by the fact that Utah doesn’t permit gay marriage, so the employee could claim the company’s adultery policy cannot be applied to gays because gay marriage is not recognized in Utah.
Ardis and sister blah 2, given that the church has gays removed from church property when they show affection (recent Jon Stewart segment), it’s impossible for me to believe that the manager at Deseret Book will be hiring an applicant who mentions that one of the reasons he wants the job is because his gay lover works next door and will be able to stop by during his breaks to give him a hug and kiss.
SCW (#63), as I pointed out above, the church has since removed all traces from their website of the dumb non-position-position on stem cell research they released after meeting with the folks from Huntsman. So some higher ups agreed with me in that case. I tend to be very deferential to the church’s goals and standards and usually sound bells only when I think their stated logic or strategy makes no sense.
Greenfrog (#65), very interesting about the church’s support for Amendment 2 in Colorado. If you’re right, and I don’t doubt you are, it’s amazing. The church did a complete 180 in just 15 years, from arguing against local gay rights ordinances to arguing in favor! (Now I’ll have a rebuttal the next time the Sunstone crowd complains the church is always 40 years behind American society on social issues.) :)
Matt – #66
I don’t want to derail this on the stem cell issue, but you’ve mentioned it a couple of times. Is this the position you are talking about?
And am I reading you correctly that your position now is that the church doesn’t understand the legal issues? In other words, their support for non-discrimination ordinances in SLC is a matter of incompetence?
Sorry, but I disagree that something like this could be simply an ill-considered PR move (though there is that element that certainly doesn’t hurt). There are unfortunate gaffes occasionally made by leaders, but sending a representative to make an official statement is not something that any large organization undertakes lightly.
Wouldn’t it be better to view the leaders of the church as navigating a difficult issue, carefully and prayerfully weighing tradition with the need to act charitably to all of God’s children, and still somehow bring the large number of members along with them? If we do belong to a living church, then we ought to be open to that church changing.
Matt (66),
Based on previous comments here, I got the impression that the church pushed to be exempted from these laws. Or is it the case that legal precedent would mean that the church is automatically exempted?
If it is the former, it is evidence against your argument. If the church really believed that sexual orientation = same sex attraction, why would they push for exemption?
Wait, Wait, Wait… The Church may have misunderstood the meaning of sexual orientation? Oscar McConkie is not some sort of back-country rube, and neither are the brethren. As the Church has been an active participant in several battles of this nature (see, e.g., Colorado’s Amendment 2), this suggestion seems ignorant of history, the careful and methodical way that the Church handles these matters, and the legal resources that the Church has at its disposal.
Second, your analysis of the ordinance in question is flawed. Sexual orientation refers to homosexual and heterosexual orientations. The ordinance protects a straight person from losing his or her job or apartment for being straight just as much as it protects a gay person for being gay.
Matt, you seem to be a little confused about the difference between workplace behavior and private behavior. I’m pretty sure that most employers don’t want their employees engaging in PDA while they are on the job, whether gay or straight. Workplace fraternization is also something that an employer may choose not to tolerate. None of that would change under this ordinance. I have never heard of, and I think you would be hard-pressed to find, a policy that extends limits on fornication past inter-office fraternization.
By the way, I’m pretty sure that under the FHA, a commercial landlord cannot refuse to rent a unit to roommates of two different sexes if they would rent that unit to roommates of the same sex.
Dear brethren Nate & Matt;
While it is edifying to have this synoptic legal education on the alleged pros & cons of the recently passed Salt Lake City ordinance, I feel it germane to point out a simple and basic fact of life for we who labor in Zion; Utah is a “right to work” state. This gives any employer extremely broad rights to fire anyone for virtually any reason, or lack thereof, and there is nothing the poor soul can do about it. I believe that both of you esteemed counsellors would recognize that if a gay person was fired from a job, the only way that he/she could be aided by this ordinance is if one or more co-workers were to overhear the employer state to another member of management, “I want you to fire that ‘fag/lesbo’ because we don’t want that kind of person working here”, and then have those same co-workers so testify in court. Other than that, the burden of proof is on you, and in this state employer prevarication is as fine an art as it is in the ‘gentile world’. The employer will deny the allegation and substitute any of a multitude of other reasons that ‘justify’ the termination of employee. This is how the game is played in the real world. A common variation illustrating the point on a similar issue, is how all Utah employers can dodge the hiring of an older person by simply stating “you are over qualified”, “we cannot match your former salary”, “you don’t possess the skill set we are looking for”, etc. Thus there has been a get deal of ‘sturm und drang’ over this ordinance which is totally irrelevant to the reality of employee rights (or lack thereof) in Utah.
The one place where you might see a test case on the ordinance is if Zion’s Securities, which is the owner of record of the Brigham Apartments, denies an apartment to a gay couple. Zion’s Securities is the financial and real arm of the Church. But here again, the Church pays all taxes on it’s commercial businesses, so here too, they might simply let it pass since the business has nothing to do with the ecclesiastical mission of the Church.
Nonetheless, thank’s again boys, it has been both informative and entertaining to ‘watch’ you lawyers battle it out on this issue.
Rory, that’s the new stem cell position. The one I ridiculed and has been removed is the non-position-position they released in 2001, available here.
I have no idea what the church is thinking right now, and I definitely doubt the depth or competency of the legal advice they were given on this ordinance.
Greenfrog’s reminder that the church opposed local gay rights ordinances in Colorado as recently as 1994, even though the church’s recent endorsement says it is “entirely consistent with the Church’s prior position on these matters” makes me scratch my head. The statement does remind readers that the church’s “past statements are on the public record for all to see,” so I’d like to review their statements in the Colorado cases.
From the only reference I can see in Romer, the USSC case that invalidated Colorado’s Amendment 2, the city ordinance at issue “[prohibited] discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Matt,
The statement on stem cells you link to stated that they took no position, as you rightly point out. The present one I link to on lds.org says that they take no position.
To say that “they did eventually remove all evidence from their website of their awful non-position-position on stem cell research” is overstating it. Their position has not changed, it has simply been cleaned up for media use. It’s the same position.
Trenches:
Your position is correct; it is really difficult to prove a wrongful termination case. However, research on the effects of Title VII and other equal-opportunity employment measures shows that they really do change the culture of the workplace, even if no one actually wins a wrongful termination suit. I would say that having an employer not feel free to use the words “fag” or “lesbo” would be a significant improvement.
Matt:
Since we’re talking about the early ’90s, most of the sources are not freely available. I probably have a bunch of citations lying around in my old research, though, and you could easily access them with a Lexis search. Hit me up if you want them. As I remember, there was an ordinance in the late ’90s in Salt Lake City very similar to the current ordinance that the Church publicly opposed. I would agree that the Church’s statement that its current position is “entirely consistent” makes me raise my eyebrows, but I don’t consider inconsistency or spin to be a mortal sin, so I’m not incredibly worried about it.
Nate,
It’s unlikely the church asks for full legal memos on every issue of this kind they consider. I would be surprised if all of the apostles studied it, either; the church would have so many pressing issues the brethren would have to delegate many decisions to committees. My guess is that Michael Otterson was instrumental.
Yes the ordinance protects heterosexual and homosexual orientations (though presumably not illegal orientations?), but someone fired for heterosexual adultery would have a hard time claiming that the cause for their dismissal was their sexual orientation, while someone dismissed for homosexual adultery has an obvious claim. This disparity is most obvious for unmarried couples, as landlords will be able to discriminate against heterosexual cohabitators but not homosexual cohabitors, unless, presumably the landlord is gay.
I don’t know much about corporate anti-adultery policies, but the few that I have read about, including the military and Walmart, do not depend on the partners both being employees. In the highly publicized Air Force case of Kelly Flinn, her affair was with a civilian who coached a soccer team on base.
I don’t have access to Lexis — would you mind searching for any statements the church said in the 90s about gay rights ordinances and posting a couple highlights? I’m interested to know the extent of the about-face.
Rory,
The problem with the dumb and now deleted stem cell statement from the PR department was that it opened by acknowledging that the brethren “have not taken a position” and then proceeds to take a position. Here’s the opening sentence: “While the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have not taken a position at this time on the newly emerging field of stem cell research, it merits cautious scrutiny.”
I was dumbfounded someone at church PR would offer their personal opinion about stem cell research.
Anastasia Niedrich, HINCKLEY JOURNAL OF POLITICS, 2008 Volume 9, No More Excuses …
http://echols.info/No-More-Excuses.pdf
From late December 1997 to mid-January 1998, Salt Lake City protected employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation; but the Salt Lake City Council repealed the ordinance less than a month after its passage. The Salt Lake City Weekly newspaper even went so far as to call the short life of the ordinance and its eventual repeal “an outcome of Mormon politics” because of the documented urgings of Latter-Day Saint Church Leaders for their followers to attend the Salt Lake City Council meeting and urge for the ordinance’s immediate repeal (Biele, 1998).
Members could form their own church, and then be exempt from these legal issues that might require them to rent to gays, etc., putting them on a moral equal to the Church in matters where they would want to determine…
Not!
Something about a newer clause in the CHI about being able to take disciplinary action against those who aren’t solely members of the LDS Church.
You know, like when Provo city says you can’t have a music party unless you are dance club (churches like LDS/ BYU exempt), and two guys from BYU actually *have* formed a church which allows them to throw music parties, which then makes dance club owner(s) very upset and threaten to not donate money to BYU unless something is done about the situation, which puts pressure on the bishop to excommunicate them which then gives BYU the ok to kick them out… or something like that.
At least the possible hypocrisy is clear now, and can be discussed more openly?
Matt:
While I’m sure that the Church doesn’t ask for legal memoranda on every decision, we’re talking about an issue that it has been heavily involved in for at least the last 20 years. To say that they did this on a whim is belied by how seriously the Church has viewed the issue in the past, as well as all of the reports of the negotiations that took place before the meeting.
I’m not 100% sure that a company can fire someone for private consensual sexual activity, even under at-will employment. The public policy exception protects a person from being fired for exercising his legal rights and privileges. This appears to be a balancing test between the constitutional rights of the worker and the workplace objectives of the employer. Under Lawrence, there is a colorable argument that so long as private consensual behavior does not affect the work environment, it should not warrant employee sanctions.
As far as anti-adultery policies, you’ll have to provide me with links to Wal-Mart’s policies—the only policy I can find is the fraternization policy, and that only applies between employees. The military’s policy is another matter entirely—the standards for military personnel are so radically different, and the cope of rights so restrained, that it isn’t useful to compare military policies to any civilian corporate structure.
Finally, as to the articles, sure thing. You’ll have to give me a couple of days—I have a pretty busy schedule between now and Tuesday night. check my blog on Thursday for a thoroughly researched post on the subject.
DavidH Regarding your question about the breadth of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause as it applies to homosexual Americans and whether or not that would extend to an institution like BYU being forced to hire homosexual professors or admit married homosexual couples to BYU housing…I think the clear answer is that it would not. BYU is a private religious institution and has wide latitude to discriminate against homosexuals if doing so is consistent with its religious principles. Personally, I think doing so is wrong and immoral, but my opinion is not what matters in terms of the Constitution’s broad protection of religious belief. There is further protection for BYU’s discrimination in the Constitutional protection of freedom of association–BYU is a private enterprise, and can admit whom it will. Again, it is protected by the Constitution in spite of mine or anyone’s else’s revulsion or disagreement. The Supreme Court reinforced this protection in 2000 in BSA vs Dale–the Mormon Church (of course–because it hates homosexuals) sided with the BSA in excluding homosexuals from its membership both as Scouts and as leaders. I completely concur with the Court’s decision–I just don’t think that keeping me from participating with my 3 sons in scouting has anything whatsoever to do with any Christian or American ideal that I know of–but I concur that the BSA and the Mormon Church can be exclusionary and hateful because the scouts have that right as a private enterprise, and the Mormon Church has it religious views–however onerous I may find them–protected.
This is why the entire argument about same-sex marriage is about nothing more than Mormon hatred of homosexuals. When (not if) same sex marriage as a civil contract becomes the law, the Mormon Church will still be able to exclude homosexuals, just as churches now can marry or not marry whom they choose. Loving vs Virginia was decided in 1967 and the Mormon Church did not grant equal status to blacks until 1978–no one forced the Mormon Church in the interim to marry blacks because the Loving decision referred to civil contract, not to religious ordinance, as religious ordinances are protected under the freedom of religion clause.
So y’all have at it. Use whatever specious hateful nonsense you want to exclude homosexuals. Just leave our equal civil marriage contracts alone, and you can exclude whomever you feel superior to and good luck to you. The rest of the country will move on without you just as they did with racial bigotry.
BTW, most homosexuals wouldn’t be caught dead getting married in a Mormon building even if Mormons invited us in.
Your meeting houses are pretty banal at best, and some downright hideous. Unfortunately, not a lot of good architecture in your Temples either, with the obvious exquisite exceptions of SL, Manti, DC and Oakland. Most of them are not that great to look at. That kind of silliness aside, overwhelmingly most of us have no desire to be where we aren’t wanted and we got the message long ago by how the Mormons treated us. We are not interested in anything more to do with you–leave our equal protection under the law alone, and we will be more than happy to leave you alone. You are just not very nice people.
Speak for yourself, ExMoHoDon! There are hundreds, if not thousands, of we gay Latter-day Saints that would be more than happy for a civil ceremony to be performed in a Ward/stake Meetinghouse. Just because you lost your testimony, (if you ever had one to begin with), there are many of us who have and still retain ours. So best pack up your anger, hatred, venom and vitriol and move on. If you have left the Church, then leave it! If you’re so certain that gay marriage will triumph in the end, then sit back and watch it happen, cheer it on and leave us alone. I can assure you that we are as happy to be without you as you are to no longer be one of us. There is nothing worse than a mealy-mouthed erstwhile pseudo-Saint whining for some reason or another. I thought we left all of you behind in Nauvoo. Find some backbone and cowboy up! And as to being not welcome, I and two other of my gay friends are all priesthood quorum instructors and we all feel welcome in our wards by both members and the Bishopric. The example we set by living our religion and being an example to our less enlightened brothers and sisters does more to advance the cause of gay people in the Church than all the rubbish that is thrown at from your ilk.
Get over the defeat of proposition 8. Mormons make up only about 2% of the total population of California. That is no where close to the 51% majority that was needed to vote it down. Do you think that the Mormons held a gun to the heads of the rest of the electorate? Could it possibly be that some of the ‘outrageous’ behavior of California gays might have alienated their straight fellow citizens? Perhaps many of the married Californians don’t find it quite as amusing as you do to have their children see all the hedonism, semi and full nudity that can be witnessed on Gay Pride Day in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other places within the Golden State. Look around you on such a day, and you just might discover that your worst enemy is yourselves. Now go in peace and find edifying ways to prove your point by example so that you can bring to pass your inevitable victory.
Isn’t it interesting that all of you ‘gay Mormons’ who are active in the Church never speak for yourselves and use your real names? I think your post is a fake.
BTW….spoken like a true Christian ‘Gay Saint’.
This discussion of all of the precisions of how this law works (justification of exemptions, etc.) is fascinating. So is it true that for-profits owned by the church (like Beneficial Life) are exempt from the anti-discrimination law? Or not?
Honestly, though, I think ExMoHoMoDon was right in his very first comment: this is about PR damage control.
It’s not just a question of Proposition 8 — there’s also that PR fiasco of Oaks’s talk that hit the national news. Look at it for a second from an outsider perspective. Complaining about some alleged discrimination against Mormons looks hypocritical if the church favors discrimination on principle, just not against Mormons…
It is so satisfying to see Matt’s overheated rhetoric, begin composing a comment in my head about _Amos_ and about the well-established differences between individuals and religious organizations in antidiscrimination law (the church can refuse to hire a Muslim as a seminary teacher because of religion, but an apartment manager cannot do the same); and then to notice that Nate W. has already done this for me.
Thanks, Nate. :)
Matt,
It’s 1975, and the church has a policy stating that all of its male seminary teachers should be worthy Priesthood holders (effectively excluding Blacks from the job). You are the owner of a private school in SLC. Do you believe that you should be able to require that your employees meet all of the requirements (including racial limits) of a Priesthood holder? We’ll posit that, like church leaders at the time, you see this explicitly as “a religious and moral issue of non-Cain lineage.”
it’s impossible for me to believe that the manager at Deseret Book will be hiring an applicant who mentions that one of the reasons he wants the job is because his gay lover works next door and will be able to stop by during his breaks to give him a hug and kiss.
Impossible for me to believe that, too, Matt, but you’ll have to clue me in on how this is any more relevant to the discussion than an analysis of unicorn DNA would be.
But come on, Ardis—unicorn DNA is always relevant!
The only official First Presidency statement of the Church that I know of from the 1990s without respect to gay rights was its statement of opposition to same sex marriage. “First Presidency Statement Opposing Same Gender Marriages,” Ensign, Apr. 1994, 80
Quinn argues that the First Presidency orchestrated excluding sexual orientation from a Utah hate crimes bill in 1992, largely through Deseret News editorials. http://www.affirmation.org/learning/prelude.shtml
I would be curious what the legal arguments were that the Church made in supporting the Colorado ordinance–whether the argument was that voters had the authority to remove legal protections of GLBT citizens, or whether the argument was that legal protections of GLBT were themselves wrong.
It’s possible that Nate is thinking of the Oaks/Wickman interview, which does argue against civil unions for same-sex couples (and which is still prominently featured at the LDS Newsroom site).
I should note, I was out of town over the weekend so I haven’t had much chance to blog about politics, but in general, I think that the church’s support of the SLC ordinance is a very good thing. To quote from Eris at FMH:
Thanks for the heads-up, Clair, that’s good to hear. :)
RE: 80 & 81
Considering the fact that you have freely chosen not to use your name in your posts, I really don’t feel the need to use mine. Besides, it is pretty much an internet tradition to use monikers. As to my post being a fake, I don’t think that it serves any useful purpose to play the “gayer than thou” game with you either.
Most likely, I was raised under far different circumstances than yours and according to the manners I was taught, it was considered both rude and vulgar to discuss the details of one’s personal life with others. My sexual orientation never was for me a raison d’etre. Therefore I am neither proud nor ashamed of it. It was, and always has been, an accepted part of my being, much like eye color. I feel no need to pummel others with it because it simply is none of their business.
What I was taught is that you live your life by building on the foundation of your talents, skills, and intellect. You strive to improve your own life and the lives of others within the sphere in which you find yourself. You don’t whine, you don’t complain, you just get on with it.
As to my lack of Christian charity, you’re a big boy now and you should be able to take some adult criticism. I’m not your mother who wants to monicoddle her precious baby boy and make everything better for him. You have left the Church, but you can’t manage being adult enough to leave it alone. Whatever spiritual avenue you have found I encourage you to begin your journey down that road an don’t look back. Obviously, you feel the Church has failed you. All right then, go on and find happiness elsewhere, if that is what you really desire.
But every slight, every insult, every indignity which you feel you have suffered pales in comparison to those which Christ Himself suffered. Two notable characteristics I see as being fairly common among gay believing Mormons is humility and courage. They are in the Church and active for the love of Christ, His Restored Gospel, and the blessings of Temple attendance. They live their lives with quiet courage and refuse to allow any less enlightened Saint or Saints to diminish or cloud their focus by insensitive comments or pointed insults. They refuse to be alienated by a few unenlightened individuals. They are not there for the social contacts, they are there to worship their Heavenly Father and their Savior. But in time most do develop a circle of friends who are aware of their gayness but for them it isn’t an issue.
For those of earlier generations being gay was “the sin that dare not speak it’s name”. You can’t undo the ingrained attitudes of a lifetime. But for those same folk it is real shock seeing such a person teach classes, home or visit teach, bless the Sacrament and bear their testimony. Of course, these are the generations that are aging and passing away. They will be replaced by a more enlightened generation who also sees our example and sees this as a confirmation that ‘we’ are just like everyone else. And to the young gay people in our ward we are an example of how to be both gay and a good Latter-day Saint.
Change will inevitably come, but it is highly unlikely that any of it will be motivated by the strident, hateful voices of gays who have made their gayness a cause celebre. Recently, a poll was taken in Utah regarding gay marriage vs. civil unions. The majority of Utahns said that they were in favor of civil unions. As a gay Mormon rancher I know put it, “It was a damned foolish thing to use the term ‘marriage’. That’s something men and women do. It’s not something for a man to man relationship. My pardner doesn’t look like a woman, talk like a woman or act like a woman, and he sure as hell doesn’t want to be a woman. I’m glad he ain’t one, and I don’t want to be one either. So if gay marriage comes around I’m not sure we’d be gettin’ hitched anyway. We need something that’s for men.” I find his comments insightful as to the feelings of gay men in the contemporary American West.
Marriage is a very loaded term within the straight world, and even though their overall use of the institution falls far short of laudable, they are still quite attached to the theory and concept of it. I agree with my friend that it was a less than brilliant move to try to appropriate the term. No doubt gay lawyers saw this as an easy way capture the same bundle of rights that married couples enjoy without having to legally build them into another term such as ‘civil unions’. That decision is what created the present furor we have today.
The backlash was easily predictable when one figures in the additional religious overtones to marriage. With Mormons believing that such a commitment stretches into the eternities, it is very easy to understand whence cometh their heartburn. So you see a big part of the problem is poor decision making. Had another term been chosen, the concept could have passed a referendum in Utah if it was held today. I think that the same can be said for California and many other states. Although I am certain that you personally didn’t make the decision to appropriate the term marriage, you should undertand that act as the primary source of the national backlash. As I pointed out to you earlier, the ‘over the top’ flamboyance, crudeness and vulgarity seen in Gay Pride parades does nothing to advance your cause. It is time for the gay community to put aside their post pubescent shenanigans and act like mature adults. This will deprive the opposition of their best propaganda weapon and start to blunt the animosity of the straight American public. Your time would be better spent working on that goal than it would be to continue to carp and complain to the Mormons about their Church which you seem to hate so much.
I lack the time or inclination to follow this thread but let me remind everyone to be civil. There are plenty of places for people to shout at each other but we’d rather not this be one of them.
Anytime, Kaimi. And as far as the Church’s position on Amendment 2/Salt Lake City ordinance in the 90s, give me a couple of days so I can review the literature. I don’t want to make a sweeping claim about the Church’s stance until I’ve had a chance to study it.
i don’t understand why you’re even raising this question Matt Evans.
the brethren have spoken on this issue. no more needs to be said.
Ardis (# 85), back in comment 64 you’d said that Deseret Book doesn’t discriminate against active gays. I believe they do, and that a manager at Deseret Book would indeed eliminate the person in my hypothetical from consideration because of his sexual orientation. The church really does discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; gays who show affection on church property are forced to leave. I think that is their right, and am merely asking them not to restrict the rights of others. If they want to lead, lead by example and not by force.
Kaimi (#84), Of course! Back in 1975 the church would have had absolutely no business telling government to fine private religious seminaries that don’t hire black instructors.
#95: I said no such thing, Matt; I merely corrected your misstatement that Deseret Book had an advantage over Sounds of Zion because Deseret Book could exercise the religious exemption of the church (it cannot). How you get from that to your #95 would be a mystery to me, except that I’m finally getting used to how partisanship causes normally honest people to become comically dishonest in their distortions of others’ words.
it’s impossible for me to believe that the manager at Deseret Book will be hiring an applicant who mentions that one of the reasons he wants the job is because his gay lover works next door and will be able to stop by during his breaks to give him a hug and kiss.
You know, it’s also impossible for me to believe that the manager at Deseret Book will be hiring an applicant who mentions that one of the reasons he wants the job is because his (hetero, temple-married) wife works next door and will be able to stop by during breaks to give him a hug and kiss. Any job candidate who thought it appropriate to announce that in an employment interview deserves to be perpetually unemployed.
So, Matt, you believe that prior to 1978, the church should not have made any statements in support of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
(Should the church make any such statements now?)
You’re consistent, I’ll give you that much.
Matt,
Should the church tell government to fine business owners who sell a fellow a drink of whiskey?
But really, your incredulous rhetoric appears to be (deliberately?) missing the point of a very simple statutory structure.
1. Government should prevent some types of discrimination, in general.
2. Some organizations should be exempt from those rules.
That’s all that’s going on here. It’s a general rule with an exception. It’s really not that difficult.
“How can you say that birds are flying creatures, and also say that the ostrich is flightless???!!!111″
General rule, followed by exception.
Any kind of government intrusion into the relationship between an individual and another entity involves a balancing of interests. Any line at which the balance is judged to tip the other way appears arbitrary to a certain extent (such as the size of a business).
I would raise a different question, namely whether there is an actual need for a government ordinance in order to ensure employment and housing for a particular class of people. Specifically, do homosexuals have a harder time finding employment or housing in Salt Lake City than people who are identical except for that trait? Certainly most homosexual persons would be able to conceal that characteristic at the time of entering a lease or being interviewed for a job. Apart from the armed forces and churches, I am not sure what organizations or businesses would even ask a question about it. And in any case, most businesses have enough of a problem just finding employees and tenants that they aren’t interested in adding in limitations that make it hard to hire or rent.
Most news stories I have read about gay people’s income indicates it is higher than the general population.
If there were a material problem of gay people who were homeless or unemployed, surely their would be sympathetic news stories about it, other than complaining about the armed forces. But I have not seen such. Is the Salt Lake City ordinance addressing a real problem of unemployed, homeless gays and lesbians, or is it more a symbolic act? For example, I am sure that California and the city of San Francisco legally prohibit such discrimination, but whether such laws make any real difference in the ability of gays or lesbians to find employment or housing in California is a different question.
Is it possible that in a community where such an ordinance has popular support, there is little actual need for it? The primary punishment for businesses who discriminate has always been the loss of income that would have come from hiring or renting to a person in the disfavored class. Does this ordinance alleviate real immediate physical suffering, or is the main benefit to the self-esteem of the protected class? I am not saying that the ordinance as such is illegal or unjustified, but we should be honest about why something is being done, and not claim a problem that does not exist.
Raymond, the church’s support of the ordinance came after a series of meetings with community members who shared heartbreaking stories of encountering exactly such discrimination. It is not only an issue of getting past the job interview or lease signing. In one anecdote, the individual was fired from a government job (I believe SLC county?) after it became known in the office that he was gay.
Raymond:
So glad you asked. You can read up on some data here (pdf).
Gay Saint I was surprised in the midst of your lecture about my deficit upbringing which I found interesting since you know nothing about my upbringing, was an accusation of sharing personal details of my life which you considered ‘rude and vulgar’. I would like to know to which ‘details’ you are referring? I am a trained ballet dancer, but my dance experience does not extend to dancing on a float in the Gay Freedom Day Parade. Perhaps you have photos that I am not aware of? My name is Don Harryman. I have no problem standing behind what I say, as I have revealed my name many times before and published it in ‘Peculiar People–Mormons and Same-sex Orientation’, Raynes, Schow
Besides, the bulk of my comments were directed at answering a question regarding my opinion concerning the legal questions raised by this ordinance. My opinion is worth exactly what anyone paid for it–and anyone can disagree or hire a lawyer and get his or her opinion. How the extremes of Gay Freedom Day Parades got involved I am not sure, but if gratuitous sexuality and gambling are your concerns, then I suggest that Mormons who have great numbers in Vegas, consider shutting it down and the (legal) prostitution in every county of Nevada except Washoe and Clark. Oh wait, those extremes involve heterosexuals and lots of practically nude showgirls in shows and strip joints for which middle America pays hundreds of dollars a ticket–guess that isn’t a moral issue. Prostitution is legal in every county of Nevada except Washoe and Clark (Reno and Vegas) where it is controlled largely by organized crime. Guess those examples of heterosexual extremes don’t count since they are having sex the ‘right way’. I am sure those things don’t do ‘violence’ to ‘traditional marriage’ so the Mormon Church doesn’t address them or attempt to make those things illegal.
I merely corrected your misstatement that Deseret Book had an advantage over Sounds of Zion because Deseret Book could exercise the religious exemption of the church (it cannot).
Ardis (#96), as Greenfrog reminded you back in comment 65, even for-profit subsidiaries of the church, such as Deseret Book, are exempted from the ordinance. I was correct in saying Deseret Book will have greater latitude in their hiring decisions than will companies like Sounds of Zion. Deseret Book doesn’t have to post their no-active-gays policy just as the church doesn’t post it’s “no gay affection policy” at Main Street Plaza. I’ll refrain from implying your partisanship is hindering your integrity. : )
Kaimi (#98),
I understand the ordinance just fine. Lots of commenters have been hung up on the ordinance, but the ordinance is not the point of the post.
The point of the post is to question why, if the church thinks people shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against gays, the church discriminates against gays, and/or, since the church thinks it’s okay for the church to discriminate against gays, why the church wants others to be be punished for discriminating against gays.
I am genuinely curious as to why Otterson thinks the church shouldn’t lead by example, and am frankly surprised that you, and many of our readers, don’t find the contradiction between the church’s words and actions odd, as I do. You would think that whatever group of people at church headquarters discussed this ordinance would have included at least a couple of people who have given a FHE lesson on Actions Speak Louder than Words, or Don’t Talk-the-Talk If You Don’t Walk-the Walk.
I’m still trying to figure out if Otterson meant for the church to turn those FHE lessons on their heads, as they’ve done, and he’s already written the new section of For the Strength of Youth teaching his hip doctrine Talk Is Where It’s At, or if, as I think more likely, Otterson’s foolishly led the church to violate its own principles.
Then of course there’s the possibility I gave in #66, that they may have just received extremely poor legal advice, very wrongly thinking that “sexual orientation” to the law is the equivalent of “same-sex attraction” to the church, and therefore wrongly believing that the church doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
Kaimi, also, I do recognize the hope you and the other gay marriage supporters have that the church’s endorsement of the SLC ordinance shows that the church is now able to recognize the ugliness in others that discriminate against gays, even if they’re still unable to see it in themselves, and that, in time, the mirror will be turned upon their own faces and they will know. Then we’ll get OD3 and a few weeks later BYU will be boasting about their increasing numbers of actively gay faculty and their new Gay Pride dormitories.
#105
The encouraging sign is not that there is an imminent OD3, but rather that there may be a more pragmatic and charitable approach. One that seeks to protect religions and their sincerely held beliefs, while also seeking to ensure that the rights of all citizens are upheld.
The end result in this country seems clear, it’s simply a matter of time. The questions and debates we should be having are those of how to adapt, and how we might carve out the protections for foundational Mormon doctrines.
Rory, I said nothing about imminent — Otterson’s strategy of unprincipled appeasement doesn’t have BYU’s GayPride dorms scheduled until 2031! Kaimi will have to wait most his life for OD3!
Please flesh out the rest of your comment more, I’d like to hear your thinking. The church has managed to consider and treat many actions as sins even though society is very accepting of them (cohabitation and alcohol consumption, for example) and still manages to discriminate on those bases in its hiring and housing and to refrain from pushing government to prohibit others from doing it, too.
Who is this Otterson guy and why do you keep on mentioning him? I understand that you’re uneasy about attributing this action to the church, but by using Otterson’s name instead of “the church” or “the First Presidency,” you’re putting improper emphasis on the messenger instead of the message giver.
This is not Otterson’s strategy. This is the church’s strategy.
All:
Just a quick request–I can’t seem to find any information that shows that Deseret Management Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Church, which would be required for it and its subsidiaries to be exempt (see below). Can someone confirm or deny that for me?
From the ordinance:
Oh, and Raymond, here’s the data as it relates to Salt Lake City.
Matt!!!
Hi Kristine!!! About time you joined the discussion of Otterson’s initiative to create Primary lessons titled, “It’s What You Say That’s Important, Not What You Do”! You should encourage someone at Dialogue to write an article on the new curriculum. : )
Nah, I was just yelling to see if my friend Matt Evans was around…
Hmmm. The story about the Church’s support of the nondiscrimination ordinance is front and center on its webpage. http://www.lds.org I wonder if the IS department is part of the conspiracy with Brother Otterson. Oh wait, the Deseret News published an editorial praising the decision to support the ordinance–I suppose that well-known liberal appeaser Joe Cannon, the editor, is part of the Otterson conspiracy. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705343921/Editorial-Mormons-and-gay-rights.html
There is no doubt in my mind that this decision was carefully considered at the highest levels of the Church, just as there is no doubt in my mind the decision to throw the Church’s full support to Proposition 8 was similarly carefully considered.
Some of us may question whether, in deciding to support Proposition 8, the Brethren fully understood the consequences with respect to the perception of the Church by ordinary citizens. Similarly, some may question whether the Brethren have fully understood the consequences of penalizing members who in their private lives wish to discriminate in employment or housing against sexually active members of the GLBT community. I do not know.
I do think, though, that the decision to support this ordinance was as carefully thought out–and God’s guidance sought just as fervently (perhaps even more so)–as the decision to put the Church’s ecclesiastical networks at the service of the Proposition 8 campaign.
I also think that Matt is right to point out that this decision of the Church (whether foisted upon the First Presidency by an out-of-control Church bureaucrat or carefully and prayerfully decided by the First Presidency and the 12) has more than symbolic significance.
If nothing else, it makes more clear that the Church’s objective in the legal sphere is not to use the power of the state to discourage GLBT sexual behavior–or even to encourage private parties to discourage GLBT sexual behavior through means other than (in the words of section 121) persuasion, long suffering and love unfeigned. If it was unclear before, it is more clear now that the focus of the Church on this issue is intended to be the definition of marriage and maintaining the health of that institution.
DavidH, because I suspect the brethren do not endorse Otterson’s initiative to add new Primary and Sunday School lessons on Talk Trumps Works, I’m still leaning toward the belief that the brethren received incompetent legal advice and were wrongly led to believe that the church doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (mistakenly conflating sexual orientation with same-gender attraction).
[the church appears to not want] private parties to discourage GLBT sexual behavior through means other than (in the words of section 121) persuasion, long suffering and love unfeigned.
It is the height of irony (hyprocrisy?) if the church is trying to impose D&C 121 on everyone except the church itself!! I just can’t believe that’s what they believe, I mean come on, do any of the brethren believe everyone has to show love unfeigned except the church?! That’s why I continue to believe that they were given poor advice and were therefore unaware they were being hypocritical.
church is trying to impose D&C 121 on everyone accept [sic] the church itself!! I just can’t believe that’s what they believe
And yet that’s what you keep saying is the case.
What happened to T&S’s norm of closing theads at 100 comments, especially when they were going ever deeper into the plumbing?
If a “liberal” had said the brethren were acting hypocritically or incompetently, the thread would have been closed down and deleted a long time ago.
Ardis, finish reading my comment.
If this thread is going to be closed soon (which wouldn’t surprise me), anyone that can confirm that Deseret Management Corp. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Church is invited to post that information at my blog– Nate in Salt Lake City. Also, look there Thursday for what I can dig up on the history of the Church’s activities and statements with regard to housing and employment protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Thanks for checking into that, Nate, I’m curious. Shoot me an email once you’re post is up and I’ll link to it from Notes From All Over.
Anon, from what he’s written at T&S, I would guess DavidH actually does self-identify as a “liberal”. I don’t think he’s right that the church wants everyone to heed D&C 121 in regard to gays except the church itself, but his statement doesn’t violate our comment policy.
#115–Matt, so if the exception had been purely for the church itself, not for-profit subsidiaries such as DB, would that have been easier for you to get your head around? (From what I understand, even if the ordinance hadn’t explicitly excluded the church, it would have been de facto excluded anyhow due to case law precedents on religious exemptions to nondiscrimination laws?)
Maybe it’s really just as simple as the gay-rights folks wanting to make absolutely certain there was going to be as little friction with the church as possible, and throwing that in for good measure, without it ever being really the central locus of any debate/bargaining/legal advice that went on.
Matt, #120, wasn’t Anon talking about you?
Yes, I was talking about Matt. His open opposition to the church’s policy (and to Elder Holland, though he prefers to focus on Michael Otterson) is quite shocking.
Anon, to clarify further, I don’t think anyone here disagrees that the church’s position is hypocritical. No one has denied that the church currently discriminates based on sexual orientation in employment and housing (gays were even forced to leave Main Street Plaza when they showed physical affection), nor has anyone denied that the church recently encouraged SLC to punish groups and people who discriminate based on sexual orientation in employment and housing.
So far in the comment thread I’ve been one of the only commenters exploring explanations for the hypocritical position that exonerates the brethren. Because I don’t believe the brethren would knowingly endorse a double standard and take a hypocritical position, I maintain that they received poor advice, and did not know that the church discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, not realizing that the legal term “sexual orientation” encompasses both the status and behavior elements that the church distinguishes internally.
Matt, I’m pretty sure the brethren don’t need your “defense.” You should stop now.
Matt, hypocrisy only works insofar as the two entities being compared are comparable. Churches and employers/landlords just aren’t the same. You may be ok with your Bishop asking your daughter what happened between her and her boyfriend last Saturday night, but I suspect you’d beat a warpath to Applebees’ door if you found out her shift manager had been asking her about that kind of thing. In our society, churches simply have way, way more latitude to invade the innermost privacy of their adherents than other institutions (employer, landlord).
Matt writes,
“I don’t think anyone here disagrees that the church’s position is hypocritical.”
This is wrong. I personally disagree with the statement that the church’s position on the SLC ordinance (with religious exemption) is hypocritical.
I would also venture to guess that most of the other discussants here disagree with that idea. *You* are the only one I see here who is crying hypocrisy (eerily similar to a prior thread-which-shall-not-be-named involving a hotel chain).
I second what sb2 said.
The Church’s for profit subsidiaries by and large do not have a temple recommend requirement or even a requirement that employees be Church members. I suspect that the Church’s subsidiaries have employees who may live “in sin” (they certainly have employees who smoke and drink–even in public!) I have not seen leases where the Church acts as landlord (outside of University housing), but it would surprise me if there is a BYU-like Code of conduct.
In other words, I am pretty sure that, acting on probably the same poor advice it received with respect to supporting this ordinance, the Church’s for-profit subsidiaries will likely voluntarily comply with the ordinance.
That does, of course, leave open the question why BYU should be able to hire only active Mormons (including GLBT Mormons who are celibate), but nonreligious universities not have that right.
Thanks for the advice, Anon. However, so far the commenters who are content suggesting that the brethren knowingly took a hypocritical position are those who oppose the church’s position on homosexuality generally. Most of the people here are known entities, with histories in the homosexuality and gay marriage discussions at T&S.
Would it be hypocritical for a church to support a ban on religious discrimination, with an exception for the church itself?
Matt,
In light of the following:
1. The highly exceptional nature of the Church trotting out its officlal spokesperson to make an official pronouncement on a specific piece of legislation;
2. The extreme backlash in reaction to the Church’s involvement in Prop 8;
3. The general caution with which the Church conducts itself in matters large and small;
4. The legal background and experience of many General Authorities and those who advise them on these matters (McConkie, Wardle, Wilkins, etc.);
5. The Church’s careful management of its image;
You honestly and truly believe that:
1. “The church may have misunderstood the legal meaning of sexual orientation.”
2. “I would be surprised if all of the apostles studied it, either; the church would have so many pressing issues the brethren would have to delegate many decisions to committees. My guess is that Michael Otterson was instrumental.”
I’m firmly of the opinion that any thread that provokes Davis out of lurkerdom is a good thread, but as far as I can see, Matt, that it the ONLY redeeming feature of this post and your comments.
Matt,
It’s quite odd that you are so opposed to the idea of exceptions. So, let me set this out in very basic terms.
Legal rules are generally put into place to advance particular societal goals. However, perceptions of societal goals vary. Some people support some goals, other people support other goals.
Also, sometimes these goals come into conflict with each other. For instance, we generally want to encourage free speech. However, we also want to protect public safety. In many instances, these goals coexist nicely. In a few cases, there is a tension between them. Where the goals are in tension, we find a way to resolve that — often by crafting a rule and an exception. E.g., free speech is the general rule, but you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater.
You are apparently missing the obvious, so let’s go step by step here.
Goal 1: Prevent gays from being fired because of their sexual orientation. (This is a subset of a larger goal of combating discrimination more broadly.)
A fine goal, which leads to a statute, “no person may be fired for her sexual orientation.”
But, this potentially conflicts with Goal 2: Respect the rights of religious organizations to choose their employees. (This is a subset of the larger goal of respecting the freedom of religious organizations; it is particularly linked because religious organization employees are often closely involved with the organization’s actions).
So, we craft an exception. “This statute does not apply to religious organizations.”
That is the statute. Plain and simple.
But, wait! Matt is now apparently asserting that the statute should recognize a “Goal 3: This statute does not apply to private individuals or to organizations run by those individuals, if their objection is religious in nature.”
And Matt is making the further argument, “it is inconsistent and hypocritical to support Goal 2 without also supporting Goal 3.”
As far as I can tell, Matt argues alone here. Neither the church, nor the city, nor gay-rights advocates, nor anyone else on this blog, accepts the idea that Goal 2 and Goal 3 are conceptually inseparable.
And in fact, one could suggest a number of reasons why they are quite separable. People are not religious organizations and the law treats them differently in dozens of places; Goal 3 would be a nightmare to administer; and so on.
I would suggest, however, that we shift the ball back to Matt’s court. *Why* is it exactly that you think that Goals 2 and 3 are conceptually inseparable (to the extent that you are blasting the church for hypocrisy)? You are the only person on this blog, and as far as I can see the only person on God’s green earth who sees these as inseparable. Please explain why any of us should give any credence to your odd belief, Matt.
SB2 and Kaimi, thanks for helping to look for an explanation that exonerates the brethren. Unfortunately, however, hypocritical is a moral concept, not a legal one, so the structure of the law doesn’t help us. Our goal is to ensure our laws are moral (just, fair, etc.).
I don’t think anyone here disagrees that the church’s position is hypocritical.
County me as another one who disagrees with Matt’s repeated assertions. The hypocrisy is all on Matt’s side.
By the way, can I just note how much it gladdens my heart to see Kristine and Ardis and Davis show up to join in the fray. It’s like a special episode of Superfriends, after everyone has departed to their own shows, reunited for one more episode to combat a new threat from the Legion of Doom.
This feels like a Colbert episode.
Re: 107:
Yes, as you and I talked about at length last night over that beer at Junior’s Tavern in Salt Lake. The church holds its members to a standard that simply doesn’t apply to others, even in its own back yard.
The church is a small piece of a much larger society, and I see no reason to label it hypocrisy as it works its way through issues to arrive at a balanced tension with that larger society.
Let’s turn this on its ear, Matt. To avoid hypocrisy, what should the church’s position be? Either fully embrace gay individuals (including all ordinances), or fully advocating that society allow discrimination wholesale against them? Would that be your position?
Anon is correct. And though I may be a known entity, with a history of advocating for a less strident social position (including opposing prop 8), I (and others) have taken great pains to give the church deference and view the leadership charitably. I do not envy their position.
I’m surprised at the level of vitriol here.
Matt,
-Why do you think that G2 without G3 is immoral?
-Do you think that the same structure (G2 must include G3) should apply to other antidiscrimination laws as well? If so, why are you not actively seeking to create an exception to the 64 Act, exempting individual church members from the religious discrimination component of the 64 Act (allowing them to refuse to hire Muslims or Jehovah’s Witnesses, just as the institutional church can do)?
Kaimi (#134), again, the law is not the issue. The issue is why the CHURCH thinks it is right for the church and its subsidiaries like Deseret Book to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation yet wrong for individuals, families and companies like Sounds of Zion to do the same thing. This is a gospel question, not a legal question.
I suspect this is the first time the church has encouraged government to revoke the rights of others that they preserve for themselves. I’d be stunned if they’ve ever lobbied government to revoke the tax exempt status for all other charities and non-profits, for example, or anything like it.
I’ve liked DavidH’s comments and will be interested to see if he’s right that Deseret Book will volunteer to start hiring active gays, being true to the church’s statement that employment discrimination against gays should be prohibited.
Maaaaaaaaattttttt . . .
Before you know it, this generation of hypocrites (Otterson, weaselly Church lawyers, ignorant Apostles, &c, &c…) will be supporting laws that punish public business for hiring/firing employees based on their religion, while SIMULTANEOUSLY (!!!!!) continuing to staff the CoB with non-non-Mormons. Like whited sepulchers, these folks…
Henceforth and forever: it is hypocritical for a CHURCH to favor religious exemptions to any generally applicable law in the land!
Kaimi and Brad, it would be improper and hypocritical for the church to tell government to prohibit membership organizations from requiring that their employees be members of the organization. The church should not tell government that credit unions, membership clubs and hunting groups must be compelled to hire non-members, and to my knowledge they have never done so.
Is the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop a “membership organization”?
Still, you’re carving out a practically insane position: with all the centuries of debate about religious exemptions from generally applicable laws, the one entity that is morally precluded from favoring exemptions is a church, i.e. precisely the kind of entity which the exemptions are meant to benefit.
Matt, after our days in the trenches starting Geoff B.’s personal blog, I’m a little hurt I can’t get a response out of you.
It’s like the bloggernacle of yore around here. Good to see you, Davis! How’s married life?
I, too, think that no laws should have exceptions. Healing on the Sabbath? Fugeddaboutit!!
Well, SB2, let me say, in Matt’s defense, that exemptions are not the problem per se. The problem is that if Jesus supported an exemption for Messiah’s to heal on the Sabbath in the face of a law that otherwise permitted it, He’d be a Hypocrite (or just a dupe for some Judas figure in the PR wing of his Kingdom).
clarification: “…a law that otherwise generally proscribed it…”
I read for the first time today about Church support of the the city ordinance banning discrimination against gays in jobs and housing.
The SL Tribune had an article http://www.sltrib.com/ci_13758070?IADID about meetings between gay rights advocates and “midlevel LDS officials” which led to Otterson appearing at the council meeting in support of the ordinance. When I saved the article, I called the file “heartwarming” so I could find it again by identifying its effect on me.
A participant at the meetings said, “What everyone [meaning, I take it, church officials and gay advocates] found is that we really liked each other. There was a good rapport,” “It reaffirmed for me the power of people talking to each other — even if you have incredible differences.”
That the church could send Bro Otterson to support the city ordinance seemed to me to be momentous and joyful,
I grew up in Salt Lake but now live outside of Utah. I believe that none of my non-Mormon friends can understand the Church’s position on Gay Marriage. My secular friends and religious friends from liberal protestant sects think the church’s activities against Proposition 8 and similar issues are motivated by its leader’s hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality. None of these friends would have the patience to follow an explanation from me about the very complex reality of the Church’s position. These are good people whose sincerity I respect. I think many of them like and respect many of the Mormons they know.
That the church could send Bro Otterson to support the city ordinance seemed to me to be momentous and joyful. It is an act which can be readily grasped by non-Mormons [see http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/11/the-mormon-move.html ]
I went to the blogs hoping to find expressions of excitement similar to what I felt. The thread I found first on the subject was this one. So far it is the only one I have found. Sorry, Matt, but you are the Grinch.
Hey Davis, it’s hard to believe, but I have even more issues at work than I do on this thread! I’ll respond to your comments later.
Nate: Thanks for the information on my question about the factual nature of bias that needs to be addressed by an ordinance. I have worked in offices with gay and lesbian co-workers in both San Francisco and idaho Falls, people whom I respected in their work and whose respect I tried to earn. I guess it has been such a non-problem for me that I have a hard time conceiving of bias sufficient to harm someone’s career or deny them housing. (I ran into one of my lesbian San Francisco co-workers on the street in front of the Beehive House, where she and her friend were about to take the tour during a ski trip to Utah. I admit we had a public display of affection–hugged–right there on Church property.)
I thought one of the interesting findings about the reported income disparities between homosexuals and heterosexuals is that heterosexual men make more, on average, than gay men (even though gay men have a higher rate of college education), but lesbian women make more than heterosexual women. I have no idea what it is that makes being 100% traditionally female more of a disability than being homosexual.
May I suggest one point that I have not seen in the comments: Subtle discrimination against Mormons can be a reality. Discrimination against Mitt Romney solely for his LDS membership was very real for many voters. The Church regularly runs into religious bias when it is getting zoning approval for meetinghouses and temples. Some national governments are hard on Mormons. I have seen situaitons where I suspected bias against Mormons in hiring or promotions. I once heard a friend of ours, a teacher in California public schools, blithely talk about how the faculty at her school never hired graduates of the BYU education college because they “just don’t understand the background of the kids from disadvantaged families.” As if all Mormons are financially secure.
I think part of the motive of the Church leadership in this case was a recognition of the commonality of being victims of the same kinds of random, irrational bias.
Is it hypocritical to ask Church members to accept active homosexuals as employees or tenants, if the Church does not? No. I think it is teaching the membership that there is a distinction between the operations of the church itself, where standards of behavior have to be enforced in order to teach those standards, and our relationships with our neighbors in the world who have not made commitments to the same covenants that we have made.
For example, as a local bishop, I might find it necessary to initiate a Church disciplinary council about a brother’s behavior, but as his supervisor at work or his landlord, our relationship should be charactewrized by charity, where the covenants I have made in the temple enjoin me to emulate the Savior’s love for all my neighbors, not in spite of their sins, but because they need redemption from sin. The individual concerned may not believe he has committed a sin, he may in fact resent that I think he has, but my treatment of him must be one of love and concern for his welfare. It is not my calling, as either a bishop or just a Latter-day Saint, to inflict suffering and privation on anyone. If we are commanded to love even our enemies, surely we should love our employees and tenants.
Incidentally, I have to admit that I get some satisfaction from the fact that the Church’s announced support for this anti-discrimination ordinance plays with the heads of people who had painted Mormons as black-hearted villains because of support for Proposition 8. Andrew Sullivan a week ago was calling for smearing Mormons as racists of long standing; the announcement of the Church’s opposition to jobs and housing discrimination has forced him to see the Church as a more complex, and not uniformly villainous, institution.
Now, if I could only get some of my Mormon friends to view Andrew Sullivan “as a more complex, and not uniformly villainous” individual.
Apparently, Sutherland Institute President Paul Mero has announced that he’ll be delivering a special address tomorrow night: Why I am a Conservative: The Relationship Between Mormonism and Conservative Intellectual Thought.
Hopefully, Paul will expand on this comment that he made last year:
“My point is that I have witnessed apostasy over these sorts of issues. And I pray that LDS members hung up on this particular issue of gay marriage can recover their reason and faith to, at least, keep their struggle of faith to themselves so that the pressures of apostasy don’t overwhelm them.
“For those of you who consider yourselves faithful Latter-day Saints, take a step back, above the trees of contentious debate, and look introspectively at which way you are facing. For those of you supporting gay marriage, you will look around and see your Brethren across the chasm of faith.
“Legal arguments, political contentions, and speculations will come and go. Anybody can be right or wrong at any given time. But for faithful Latter-day Saints, this is a no-brainer. Face the right way or you might find yourselves out of the Church of your own doing.
“Not preaching…I just care about you all.
Air kisses back at you, Paul. By the way, your Jeff Reynolds is saying this is purely a public policy debate. If that’s the tack you intend to take in your special address, I trust you’ll spend a moment to explain your comment quoted above.
Wow Davis, #147, tell us how you really feel. A comment like that on this public forum is really beneath you.
Sign me up as another (tentative) vote for non-hypocritical. Since the religious exemption in the statute appears to have just about the same scope as Title VII, in context, this isn’t a big deal at all.
I especially would not call it hypocritical unless and until we had some evidence that DMC (Deseret Management Corp.) had a policy against hiring gays or the transgendered. Currently, the internal policy of DMC’s subsidiaries is that they do not “discriminate in any employment opportunity or practice because of a person’s race, color, religion, sex, or veteran’s status, national origin, age, disability, or marital status.” I’m not sure whether they will update their status to include sexual orientation and gender identity. I would be happy if they did, just as I am happy that they have applied the standards of Title VII to their own policies. But it isn’t hypocritical until their behavior doesn’t match their rhetoric. Removing Aune & Jones from the Plaza does not tell us anything about the hiring practices of the for-profit arm of the Church.
152 I’m glad that you see this decision as ‘momentous and joyful’. I see it as a cheap PR ploy designed only to blunt criticism. Those of us who are homosexual and who left the Church where we were decidedly not wanted, are not deceived by this tactic and understand that the Mormon Church is still the most dedicated and well financed enemy homosexual Americans have, and we are prepared for the long haul to do what it takes to win our Constitutional equal protection, in spite of the Mormon Church. In my view, there is nothing that the Mormon Church can ever do to make up for the damage it has done to me and thousands of other homosexuals.
Prop 8 was by no means joyful, but it galvanized homosexuals and their supporters and showed us clearly who our enemies are, so in that respect it was certainly momentous.
155 Garner as much satisfaction as you can from the Church’s move ‘playing with the heads of people who painted Mormons as black hearted villains’. If in fact the Mormon Church has temporarily gained the positive PR spin that this move was designed to create, it will be short lived, as most of us, especially those who know the depth of the Mormon Church’s hatred for homosexuals are by no means having our heads ‘played with’ because we recognize this move for what it is. The Mormon Church may have fooled (thanks in no small way to his enormous ego) Andrew Sullivan, but it hasn’t fooled those of us who know it and understand how it works.
Matt, comment #115, you’re totally giving yourself away with these words:
I’m still leaning toward the belief that the brethren received incompetent legal advice and were wrongly led to believe that the church doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (mistakenly conflating sexual orientation with same-gender attraction).
You vaunt yourself. It amazes me this is the conclusion you’ve come to. Wrangling with it in your mind, the brethren must have just been duped. This is more an observation and less a criticism, since you compose yourself mostly with civility; that is, I don’t find you rude or anything of the matter.
But when you question legal competence of the brethren in this matter, making the implicit assumption that the stance they’ve taken surely can’t be the right one, it kind of puts you at odds, yes? I mean, I’m just sayin’. Not that I’m against questioning the brethren — I think it can be important — but you seem to be practiced at it. You’re so certain that there’s something wrong with the position — “hypocritical,” as you’ve called it — that surely the brethren must have missed something. Is it possible you’ve missed something? Give yourself the benefit of the doubt?
After having read most of this thread, it’s apparent that you don’t give much credit to the brethren, which seems to be your numero uno hangup.
And I don’t mean any ill by it — but I am calling you out.
Here’s the warning bell. We’ll be shutting down the thread fairly soon, as it is already longer than what we prefer. So if you have an argument that only sounds good when no one gets a chance to reply, you might want to break it out.
Kudos to the LDS church for providing the opportunity to finally nod in agreement at a tweet from Joel Campbell:
joelcampbell Sutherland Institute begins its slippery slope campaign against “parochial” SL discrimination ordinances. Unfortunate http://bit.ly/1tYZS4
Hi Steve (and Kristine and Kaimi),
Married life is great. I feel caught up with you guys because I still read you all the time.
Geoff, my aplogies for offending you. I didn’t mean to.
I just want to say that Matt is wrong as the day is long, on this issue and pretty much every other issue imaginable. Also, he smells funny.
Quick, Frank, close the thread now!
If you have any additional comments, email them to Matt or Kaimi and they can post them at their discretion. Thanks for all who participated.