Prop. 8: the never-ending story

This morning I was reading the news and I saw an article entitled "Gay Groups Target Mormons." My first thought was, "If they're targeting us for recruitment purposes, I don't think they're going to have much success." But obviously that wasn't what the article was talking about.

Instead, it listed a series of actions that the gay community wants to take to punish Mormons for their role in the passage of California's proposition 8. Some are suggesting that there should be a nationwide boycott on Utah's traditional tourist traps like the Sundance Film festival in Park City, or the ski slopes along Utah's Wasatch Front. The article also talks about the myriad protests that have taken place in front of LDS temples over the past month, and some cases of vandalism against LDS meetinghouses.

Now, I'm not surprised that gays are upset about the passage of Prop. 8. After all, they'd been getting married in the state for 5 months, and now they won't be able to do that anymore. And I'm not really surprised that they resent Mormons, since we did in fact put a lot of work into passing Prop. 8 this fall. But what I am surprised about is that they waited until now, after the election, to get all worked up about the issue.

You see, I was one of those Mormon Prop. 8 volunteers that the gay community is fuming about. Between the end of August and election day, my wife and I put in a lot of work for the Protect Marriage coalition. We spent good chunks of our Saturdays going door-to-door, letting people know about the initiative, asking if they were interested in supporting it, and handing out lawn signs in favor of the proposition. We also donated what for us was a significant amount of money to the coalition, which used the money to pay for radio and TV ads in the weeks leading up to the election. It wasn't a lot of money by election year standards, but for a grad student and his wife working entry-level jobs to stay afloat while I finish schooling, it was definitely a sacrifice.

I don't bring this up to make myself out to be some kind of hero--what Geneil and I contributed in time and money to Prop. 8 wasn't anything especially noteworthy, and in fact we know many people who did a lot more than us. But I bring it up to illustrate my point--that the Prop. 8 campaign was a true grassroots effort, involving thousands of normal, everyday people making individual sacrifices for a particular cause. It was democracy in action. In stark contrast, the No on 8 campaign consisted primarily of a massive TV and radio ad campaign, funded in large part by a few major contributions from Hollywood celebrities and major corporations. I never saw gay rights activists going door-to-door and making their case in person to everyday Californians. I didn't even see very many "No on 8" bumper stickers and yard signs--at least until after the election. Apparently, the gay community hoped to simply buy their way to victory, without having to actually get out and work for it. They tried to win without getting their hands dirty. And they couldn't do it.

Now you might ask why gay activists didn't work harder before the election to make their case to the people of California, and indeed the much of the gay rights blogosphere is asking the same thing. But I think I know the answer. They understood something fundamental about our society, although you'll never hear them admit it in public. The fact is, most people are uncomfortable with homosexuality. Not just gay marriage or gay rights, but being gay itself. And with good reason. Being gay isn't normal, and for most religious Americans, it isn't moral, either. And having a gay activist knock on your door and ask that you personally accept their lifestyle may well have backfired. And they knew it.

So instead, they hid behind Hollywood money and sympathetic media coverage. They vandalized people's Prop. 8 signs, rather than distribute signs of their own. They stayed "closeted," so to speak, and hoped that their commercials and the momentum from the fact that gay marriages were already taking place would carry the day. And it almost worked. But as winning football coaches often say, we just wanted it more than they did.

I wanted it for two reasons. First, I know that kids do best with a mom and a dad in the home. Two dads or two moms is not the same thing. Men and women naturally have very different abilities to nurture and support their children, and kids deserve a chance to grow up with both influences in their formative years. Second, I know that when one's religious beliefs conflict with the government's views, the government usually wins--especially in court.

Such was the case here in California recently, when a doctor at a fertility clinic refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple for religious reasons. Although he referred the couple to a colleague who had no such qualms, the lesbian couple sued him anyway, for discrimination, and won. He can no longer practice medicine. In Massachusetts, the Catholic Church has lost the right to run adoption services because it refuses to place children with gay/lesbian couples. Clearly the government can't force someone to change their religious beliefs, but they can sure make your life difficult if you don't comply with their views. I don't want to see a day where my church loses the right to perform legally recognized marriages, the right to operate Family Services, and the right to function as a tax-exempt organization. And I certainly don't want to see my tithing funds being siphoned off in legal fees to fight off the myriad lawsuits that will certainly result when the church attempts to retain these rights.

That's why Mormons came out in force to support Prop. 8. More than probably any other church in America, we know what it's like to face government persecution over religious beliefs. We know where this road leads, and we don’t want to go there. The church itself didn't give any money to Prop. 8, nor did it need to. It didn't donate paid workers or even its full-time missionaries' time to Prop. 8 (despite a ridiculous TV ad to the contrary). It certainly didn't bus people in from out of state to help out with the Prop. 8 effort. (Besides, as any good Mormon would tell you that if we had buses, we'd be using them to find our less active members and bring them to church.) In fact, our church didn't even scale back its admittedly rigorous meeting schedule to allow volunteers like me more time to get out. Instead, the First Presidency of the church sent out a letter in June, asking members of the church in California to donate their time and means to protect traditional marriage. Later on, the church renewed that plea in a 1-hour satellite broadcast a couple weeks before the election. Some Mormons chose to participate. Some did not. In this case, as in all cases, the church teaches a good principle, and then it is up to its members to follow through.

It is true that Mormons contributed more money to Prop. 8 than members of any other religious group. But that's because we are an active church that believes in doing, not just talking. Funny that no one complains when the Mormons are the first ones to arrive at the scene of a natural disaster, bringing food, medical supplies, and lots of volunteers. With a church that tries to visit each of its members at home every month, and that asks its members to tithe their income and fast each month and give additional money to humanitarian causes and to the poor, it should come as no surprise that when church members get involved in a cause that directly affects their church’s ability to function as a force in society, they'll do so wholeheartedly.

But gay rights activists shouldn’t blame us Mormons for their loss on Prop. 8. And they certainly shouldn’t blame Utah for their loss. After all, “No on 8” got a lot more money from out-of-state than we did. In fact, they had more money, period, than we did. Mormons only make up 2% of California’s population, and over half of those aren’t even active in our church. People are giving us Mormons an awful lot of credit if they think that 2% of the state's population somehow persuaded another 50% of the state to see things their way. I mean, do the math—every Mormon would have to convince 25 other people to agree with them. Although I knocked on a lot of doors between September and November, I don't think I persuaded anybody to change their mind on the issue. What I did do was help to mobilize the so-called “silent majority”--those people who believe in traditional marriage but had been cowed into silence by overwhelming media opposition to Prop. 8.

So here we are a month after the election, and the gay community is protesting in front of our churches, mailing white powder to LDS temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake, and filing lawsuits against the church, claiming that it overstepped its constitutional bounds by speaking out on the gay marriage issue. Members of the LDS church have been called out, intimidated, and even forced to resign from their jobs because they donated money and time to the Prop. 8 cause.

But where are the protesters in front of the black churches? Blacks, after all, voted for Prop. 8 70% to 30%. Where are the protesters in front of the Catholic churches or Muslim mosques? Why not send some white powder to Mecca or the Vatican, while you’re at it? The fact is, lots of Californians got involved to help pass Prop. 8, including many who haven’t been particularly friendly to Mormons in the past. (Remember Mitt Romney? How’d his religion go over with the evangelical Christians?)

If there is a silver lining in all this, it is that despite all the ill will that Mormons are getting in the aftermath of Prop. 8, our Christian, Jewish, and Muslim allies are generally sticking by us in the face of persecution. This, more than anything, shows that the issue of marriage crosses cultural and religious lines.

I will end this enormously long post with the words of Rabbi Nachum Shifren, who said the following in a recent article entitled, “We Are All Mormons”:

"We who are friends of the Mormons, their patriotism, their family values, will not falter in our continued support of these dear Americans. Let us recall the Christian minister Niemoller, whose admonition during those dark years of Nazi Germany moved us to our core:

"When they came for the gypsies, I said nothing, because I wasn't a gypsy. When they came for the homosexuals, I said nothing, because I wasn't a homosexual. When they came for the Jews, I said nothing, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I said nothing, because I wasn't a Catholic......then they came for me, and there was no one left to defend me."