Comments on: Church exempted from SLC gay rights ordinance

By: Frank McIntyre

Frank McIntyre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:13:44 +0000

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.

By: Kaimi Wenger

Kaimi Wenger — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:32:25 +0000

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!

By: Davis Bell

Davis Bell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:36:54 +0000

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.

By: LdChino

LdChino — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:00:37 +0000

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

By: Frank McIntyre

Frank McIntyre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:37:56 +0000

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.

By: American Yak

American Yak — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:02:42 +0000

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.

By: ExMoHoMoDon

ExMoHoMoDon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:31:18 +0000

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.

By: ExMoHoMoDon

ExMoHoMoDon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:18:57 +0000

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.

By: Nate W.

Nate W. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:46:17 +0000

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.

By: Geoff B

Geoff B — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:56:57 +0000

Wow Davis, #147, tell us how you really feel. A comment like that on this public forum is really beneath you.