I spent about 2-3 hours over the past couple of days writing a point by point rebuttal to LDS apostle Dallin Oaks’ recent talk in which he compares recent violence and harassment against Prop 8 supporters to the violence and intimidation tactics of opponents of the Civil Rights Movement. For the past hour I’ve been reviewing the acts of vandalism against Churches and the verbal harassment of supporters (and in some cases, suspected supporters).
I have to take a moment here to say that I condemn such violence and harassment without reservation. During a peaceful protest at a Mormon Temple after the election, I and other activists tried to restrain some of the more ‘in your face’ protesters when they confronted people leaving the adjacent chapel. Many of my friends, who voted no on Prop 8, attended that meetinghouse, after all.
But reading through the human cost of the Civil Rights Movement, I’m sickened by the analogy to the point where I’m convinced that Oaks is his own worst enemy. As I read about the refusal of Southern State governments to prosecute Klan members for the savage beatings and murders of activists, of police support and coordination of organized beatings of boycotters and sit-ins, of torture endured by jailed freedom riders, of shootings/beatings/arsons against blacks who tried to register to vote, and all of this occurring after decades of systemized, socially-sanctioned and state-supported intimidation and disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, Oaks’ comparison is so bad as to appear satirical.
Further worsening his attempt to make young Mormons feel that they are being deprived of their right to freedom of religion is that his arguments are all hypothetical. Mormons are as free to practice their religion as they ever were. But thousands of gays who, for a short space of time, had the right to marry, were, by Prop 8 supporters, actually deprived of that right. The sad thing is that so many Mormons are uncritically swallowing down Oaks’ verbal excrement.
Further exacerbating Oaks’ hypocrisy is that the Church was no friend of the Civil Rights Movement. Then apostle Ezra Taft Benson, with the backing of President McKay, made several public condemnations linking the black fight for equality with Communism (making it a threat to national security). The Church also withheld exaltation and administrative authority from blacks until 1978 (recall that the Civil Rights Movement was as much about dignity as it was about legal rights), and that a predominantly Mormon Utah had the weakest state protections for the rights of minorities outside of the South. Its single legislative concession during that time was the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws in 1963.
Finally, while Oaks rambles on about how Mormon rights are being deprived because a few churches were spray painted at the height of voter frustration, gays face actual persecution on a daily basis. They continue to be denied the right to marry and to serve their country openly in the military. They are harassed to the point where many find life unbearable and commit suicide. Finally, gays are beaten and killed solely for their orientation. Dallin Oaks, the LDS institution and many of its members continue to contribute to a cultural environment that endangers gays by painting them and love between gays as ungodly, unnatural, sick, depraved, immoral, and threatening to fundamental principles of Christian and American life.
At the moment, my one consolation is that this Church finds me unfit to be a member. I can stand with my queer sisters and brothers and friends with some dignity.
