Threats against temples, churches, religious people in general

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Ah yes, tolerance is bliss. That story has a nice rundown of the threats against temples, Christian churches, family members and others who dared to support Prop. 8. Watch out: your wedding may be targeted by picketers. Hey, Worldnet Daily included us in a story about Christians! That’s got to be progress, right? I wonder if California authorities will begin investigating these groups for hate crimes.

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About Geoff B.

Geoff B graduated from Stanford University (class of 1985) and worked in journalism for several years until about 1992, when he took up his second career in telecommunications sales. He has held many callings in the Church, but his favorite calling is father and husband. Geoff is active in martial arts and loves hiking and skiing. Geoff has five children and lives in Colorado.

24 thoughts on “Threats against temples, churches, religious people in general”

  1. I noticed this morning when I dropped my daughter off a seminary that someone had spray painted the words “no on 8” on the brick wall sign on the corner that has the Church’s name on it. I didn’t notice it there yesterday morning or the day before, but that could just be my usual level of inobservance. And then as I pulled away from the building, the same message was on the sidewalk that leads through the parking lot.

    This could get ugly.

  2. So, if Worldnet combs through the comments of gay friendly blogs and prints the most inflammatory posts it’s evidence of widespread intent to commit crimes? Would you be as impressed by a story on, say, DailyKos that combed through comments on conservative blogs and used the most extreme comments to “prove” that the right was prepared to take violent action against President-Elect Obama?

  3. Emma, that’s a decent point. Thanks for adding it. Wackos post all kinds of strange things, especially on blogs where they can have anonymity. This does not necessarily mean any of it will materialize. It is possible the worst thing that will happen is some graffiti and the occasional mostly peaceful protest. I hope so.

  4. Geoff,

    I usually lurk, but, can I just say what a great job you have done and the rest of the Millennialstar crowd on Prop 8.

    Sounds like some have developed murderous hearts.

    Also, at what point is a very public denunciation of the Lord’s prophet and postcarding him, the equavalient to casting stones?

  7. I think about what I would do if someone passed a law revoking my marriage and I think, “yeah I’d probably be angry enough to crash a wedding or graffiti a temple”. I’m not proud of that at all, but I’m pretty into my marriage.

    As far as most of this goes though, I think it will cool down. Just like I’ve seen some pretty horrific stuff on Right-Wing websites, I think it’s mostly people not knowing how to express their extreme disappointment that a very emotional election didn’t go their way. Not everyone has the temperament to respond like you did in your latest election post Geoff.

  8. Look, I opposed Prop 8.

    But the gay community reaction has been deplorable on this. Really, the kind of comments I’ve been reading on their blogs and forums would be right at home on a neo-nazi message board.

    And these mass protests…

    You know, something these people don’t get, is that if they are trying to change minds in LDS leadership, they are going about it in totally the wrong fashion.

    Mormons are used to angry people using confrontational tactics. We get it all the time from bigoted Evangelical street preachers. We’ve kind of learned to tune it out. We also have a bit of a persecution complex that makes us readily take on the misunderstood martyr’s role.

    All these outdated, antiquated 1960s-style protest strategies are going to do is piss-off most Mormons, make us dig our heels in and take an even more hardline approach just to spite these unhinged loonies at the gates.

    We waited out the protests on race in the 1960s and we’ll probably wait out this issue too.

    The Mormons in Utah I grew up with are stubborn people. You get in their face, they’ll stonewall you like champions.

    If the gay community wanted to ensure a lack of the sort of progress they wanted within the LDS Church, they couldn’t have picked a better way to do it.

  9. It seems to me that the anti-8 leaders are trying to promote their cause by making Califonians feel embarrassed to be associated with those weird Mormons. Church members gave a lot of money and time for campaigning, but it was millions of California voters who passed the amendment. You can’t single out the majority of voters for special targeting, so you need a scapegoat, and as Seth R. wrote, we don’t mind playing that role. When I watched the video of the protest, I thought of Brigham’s words that Mormonism can only be kicked upstairs. There are many people whose respect for the Church was increased by those protesters ringing the temple.

  10. I have to wonder what the purpose is of such protests. OK, if it’s just expressing your anger, I get that. But if you want to change hearts and minds, it seems counterproductive to go after LDS churches and temples. Why not the Catholic archdiocese or the large evangelical churches? One thing the secular left definitely does not understand about Mormons is that we are less likely to change our minds if we feel persecuted.

  11. I’m pretty sure this is all about feeling hurt and angry, not about thinking they’ll change our minds. And let’s be honest here, if the No on 8 was nice and friendly to the church, it isn’t going to make our leaders change their minds when this is up for vote in 2 or 4 years (although it may help sway voters).

    It’s a bad way to do things, but like I said, I think they’re running on pure emotion right now, just like I would.

    Or maybe they think they can shame enough members to not donate or participate next time it comes up, that may be the case.

  12. The anti-8s are not trying to change Mormon minds. The anti-8s are trying to make Californians believe they just got conned by the leaders of a small, weird cult. Passing 8 wasn’t the fault of the majority of California voters; no, they were just tricked by all that Mormon money, but now that they realize they were duped into doing the bidding of Thomas Munson, they’ll correct the error.

  13. The other day a Youtube video of a news interview with a woman claiming that Obama would pay her mortgage and buy her gas went viral. The comments on Youtube were abominable. The racist invective was just horrible.

    I didn’t appreciate anything about the interviewee’s comments and think that she is undereducated, over influenced and just plain naive but that is absolutely not a function of her race.

    We conservatives need to admonish anyone who would attribute ideas that we disagree with to the person’s race. If we are the people with character and courage then we need to behave that way. Yes I abhor homosexual behavior but I have hired homosexuals and worked along side homosexuals very frequently. But villifying anyone with name calling and hate speech is unacceptable to conservatives.

  15. YouTube comments are usually a cesspool and not worth reading (unless it’s something utterly uncontroversial – like fluffy kittens). A lot of bored 13 years olds on there hoping to get a rise out of someone – a little acknowledgment from the World-Wide Web that they do, in fact, exist.

  16. This may not have been a conscious motivation, but I think going after the Mormons was a natural choice because they’re such an easy target. The Church has already been kicked around quite a bit during the presidential primaries and it makes a convenient and effective bogeyman.

    That, and the fact that the Church is like the kid in the dodge ball game who’s standing out front when the whistle blows.

    I will be interested to see if appealing to the black community with the “civil rights” angle is going to make a dent.

  20. Here’s the statement from a Catholic bishop:

    SACRAMENTO 7 November 2008 (This news release was issued by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento) The following statement was released today by Bishop William Weigand, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento and former Bishop of Salt Lake City, in response to attacks on (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) for supporting California’s Proposition 8, defending the traditional definition of marriage:

    “Catholics stand in solidarity with our Mormon brothers and sisters in support of traditional marriage — the union of one man and one woman — that has been the major building block of Western Civilization for millennia.

    “The ProtectMarriage coalition, which led the successful campaign to pass Proposition 8, was an historic alliance of people from every faith and ethnicity. LDS were included — but so were Catholics and Jews, Evangelicals and Orthodox, African-Americans and Latinos, Asians and Anglos.

    “Bigoted attacks on Mormons for the part they played in our coalition are shameful and ignore the reality that Mormon voters were only a small part of the groundswell that supported Proposition 8.

    “As the former bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, I can attest to the fact that followers of the Mormon faith are a good and generous people with a long history of commitment to family and giving to community causes.

    “I personally decry the bigotry recently exhibited towards the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — coming from the opponents of Proposition 8, who ironically, have called those of us supporting traditional marriage intolerant.

    “I call upon the supporters of same-sex marriage to live by their own words — and to refrain from discrimination against religion and to exercise tolerance for those who differ from them. I call upon them to accept the will of the people of California in the passage of Proposition 8.”

  23. The report from missionaries serving in the San Bernardino area is that 30 percent of LDS church members have moved to other states due to the ultra-liberal (i.e., teaching homosexuality in schools) climate in California.

    If Evangelicals and Conservative Catholics respond similarly, the re-match of Proposition 8 in the near future may go the other way.

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