For those of you who do not keep yourselves abreast of current events, you may have missed perhaps one of the most important news stories in the past several years. Californian residents stood and defied the activist judges who overturned a previous measure defining marriage as between one man and one woman. The residents of California passed Proposition 8 52% to 48% and amended the states constitution and returned California law to prohibit same sex marriage.
Before I go further I wanted make it perfectly clear that I do not opposed the civil union of two consenting adults nor do I think it right to deny them the same financial and medical benefits heterosexual couples receive.
Now to the point of my post. The residents of California have spoken and as in ANY OTHER democratic vote someone goes home disappointed. Unfortunately thousands of "No on 8" supporters have allowed their disappointment to fester into outbursts of hypocritical rage thus resulting in a massive mob mentality. In order for this mob to maintain their momentum, they have, as all mobs do, focused their negative energy onto one single entity. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a.k.a. "Mormons".
I will henceforth call this mob the "Ragers".
Unknown to many people outside this mob of Ragers, there are websites now devoted to finding out every single Mormon who donated to the "Yes on 8 campaign". Someone has compiled a list of both large and small donors and made them into spreadsheets. All of this is available online. If you are a Mormon and donated to the Yes on 8 campaign, do not be surprised to find your name on this list. Upon further inspection you will discover that the site encourages the further identification of all members who donated money. This in and of itself is very disconcerting. Other sites are encouraging everyone to use online phone directories to find and boycott every mormon in the area. Who knows where this could lead? This rage is startlingly similar to the same wrath and bigotry of another movement against a religious group. Except that group was in Germany and it was the 1930's.
What the Ragers forget is that first and foremost, the No on 8 campaign had MORE money than the Yes on 8 campaign did. Had Proposition 8 failed, you wouldn't see thousands of people protesting Apple corp. HQ in Cupertino or thousands of people marching outside of Hollywood. You certainly wouldn't see a general complacency of the state government if the Yes on 8 supporters desecrated and forced the closure of the holy places of worship for those that were opposed to Proposition 8. Anyone caught desecrating said places would likely be locked up on hate crimes charges. Sadly, it is exactly these kinds of things that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are being subject to. The entrance gates to the holiest places for mormons--their temples--have been marked up with graffiti.
Another thing fueling the fury of the Ragers is that they got smacked upside the head by the law of unintended consequences. In all their fervor to encourage a strong black and hispanic turnout in order to elect Barak Obama, they were caught off guard by the morally conservative vote of those same ethnicities. Blacks and Hispanics overwhelming voted for Proposition 8. How's that for a bit of irony?
All in all the Mormons are simply an easy target. Following the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the Ragers simply picked the easiest target. Protesting B.E.T. and Univison would be seen as racist and morally reprehensible, therefore they had to pick another target. Sadly they are ignoring their own blatant hypocrisy and targeting a group of people who exercised their own constitutional rights.
5 comments:
Please feel free to comment on any posting in this blog. I want to spark discussion.
I saw a photo where there was grafitti on one of the temples and my heart ached. If we cannot respect one another's moral beliefs or religion, we are truly immature of handling the realities of life.
In all issues, there are radicals and radicals that act inhumanely. I am appalled that this has happened just after the election of Barack Obama.
We should be peacemakers, and proud of what we have achieved in history, not "raging" as you say and regressing in our achievements. Thank you for posting this.
Agreed sofia. We should approach this issue with mutual respect on both sides and a the ability to civilly and respectfully disagree.
Sadly I only scratched the surface of the festering anger of those that are attacking the church.
My only comment, from being on the other side of the political spectrum is that you implied that by supporting No on 8 I was part of the group that tagged temples and was full of negative energy. I did nothing of the sort. Yes I supported No on 8. That is my ability, just as it is anyone's to support Yes on 8. But when my side lost, just like most of the people on my side of the line, I did not do anything destructive. Yes it made me sad that people could be so narrow minded, but the worst I did was cry. Most of us did nothing destructive and you did not distinguish the supporters from the people who did destructive things.
Also, the LDS church hasn't been the only entity targeted. It has however, been the largest entity and the most publicized. However, don't forget that people are now talking of assassinating our president elect, and have been saying hurtful things to those who supported his campaign. Both sides of the coin have angry people who will do rash things. These people are called "fundamentalists" when we talk about members of a religious community. When they are part of a political community we call them radicals. Not all radicals are bad, MLK, Ghandi, and even Joseph Smith were all radicals in their time. Just a quick note, from the other side of the spectrum.
Second quick note, the word verification is nobings. That is just sillness.
Meghan thank you for bringing that to my attention. Somehow an errant "the" slipped through while i was editing. I removed the "the" and now there should be that distinction.
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