While Prop. 8 Has Been Overturned, The Enemy Is Tenacious And Insane…

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

As we are all aware, a San Francisco federal judge struck down that horrendous constitutional mistake known as Proposition 8. As a native Californian, I can breathe but a quick sigh of success and gladness, for there is a certainty that those magical-underwear-wearing corpse baptizers will return to gird our loins for their imagined battles.

There was much hullabaloo over this misbegotten piece of legislation, and I recall reading in an editor’s letters column how one voter was so horrified by how one side (the one against the proposition) was treating the opposition, that he voted yes on the fucking thing. Wish I was joking, but no.

The other side doesn’t get this – likely willfully – that this is NOT about a difference of opinion. It’s about discrimination. Equal rights for some equals equal rights for none. But we can but rest for a moment, for the enemy is invidious and dresses well, smiles when you answer the door, and passes out free reading material.

But behind the curtain, behind the porcelain smiles and the starched collars and bland ties, some evils are distressing for their banalities and obtuseness:

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the previous president of the church, officially welcomed gay people in the church,  and affirmed them as good people in an interview "Now we have gays in the church. Good people. We take no action against such people – provided they don’t become involved in transgression, sexual transgression. If they do, we do with them exactly what we’d do with heterosexuals who transgress" (Lattin 1997). The church teaches that homosexual problems can be overcome "through faith in God, sincere repentance, and persistent effort.” "Homosexual relations" is included on the church's list of "serious transgressions" that may result in a disciplinary council and, if the person does not desist, excommunication (LDS Church 1998, p. 95). The church defines "serious transgressions" to include "murder, rape, forcible sexual abuse, spouse abuse, intentional serious physical injury of others, adultery, fornication, homosexual relations, deliberate abandonment of family responsibilities, robbery, burglary, theft, embezzlement, sale of illegal drugs, fraud, perjury, and false swearing" (LDS Church 1998, p. 95).

Yet earlier in the same entry, it specifically states that:

In 1992, when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases as a mental illness, the church produced Understanding and Helping Those With Homosexual Problems, which removed all reference to homosexuality as a disease. The church frequently references contemporary scientific research, but explains that should not be taken as a position on "scientific questions," such as the cause of homosexuality.

Yet the prior paragraph cited distinctly treats it as a criminal offense of the highest order.

And of course, always remember that Mormonism was literally pulled out of a hat.

So be on guard. I can hear the massive bicycle wheels barreling down on California, ties flapping in the wind, their teeth skinned against the wind and what they deem sin…

Till the next post, then.