Religion and Gay Marriage

Minutes before the LDS Church's startling announcement of support for Salt Lake City's anti-discrimination laws, one of Utah's conservative mouthpieces insisted it would not happen. Standing in the City Council Chamber, the Sutherland Institute's Jeff Reynolds told reporters rumors of the church's support were both ridiculous and a glaring case of "journalistic fraud." The church, Reynolds said, simply would proclaim nonopposition to the ordinances. Then church spokesman Michael Otterson strode to the lectern to deliver the bombshell. Soon after, Reynolds skedaddled to write a response that showed up two hours later. Blindsided by the news, Sutherland nonetheless reiterated its call for the Legislature to ... Read Full Story

As a prelude to Salt Lake City becoming the first city in Utah to enact an LGBT-inclusive employment and housing non-discrimination ordinance, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) made the stunning announcement that it supported the measure. LDS top leaders negotiated behind the scenes with LGBT organizations in Salt Lake City, before making the pronouncement. In the mean time, pro-gay Mormons provided the back drop of repeated public protests over church meddling in legislation and harmful anti-gay teachings. Straight allies from the Foundation for Reconciliation accessed GLAAD media assistance and garnered media coverage of their meeting with the governor of Utah ... Read Full Story

Personally we're not all the impressed with the mainstream LDS church's support for Salt Lake City non-discrimination, since they made sure to "does no violence to marriage" to justify how they could possibly support basic fairness. But you know who is even less impressed than us, both with the support and the ordinance itself? That would be the uber-conservative, largely-Mormon Sutherland Institute: Sutherland Institute: Allowing SLC's so-called 'homosexuals' to work and find housing = marriage [YT] There's also this, from Sutherland's Paul Mero: Ultra-Mormon Sutherland Institute in Open Revolt against LDS leadership [TPM] And then there's this article from the American Family Association's One ... Read Full Story

Personally we're not all the impressed with the mainstream LDS church's support for Salt Lake City non-discrimination, since they made sure to "does no violence to marriage" to justify how they could possibly support basic fairness. But you know who is even less impressed than us, both with the support and the ordinance itself? That would be the uber-conservative, largely-Mormon Sutherland Institute: Sutherland Institute: Allowing SLC's so-called 'homosexuals' to work and find housing = marriage [YT] There's also this, from Sutherland's Paul Mero: Ultra-Mormon Sutherland Institute in Open Revolt against LDS leadership [TPM] And then there's this article from the American Family Association's One ... Read Full Story

The LDS Church supports a Salt Lake City anti-discrimination ordinance: LDS (Mormon) church strongly supports pro-LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance [YT] Honestly, we're actually not all that surprised by this. Sure, the Mormon spokesperson spoke in favor of the ordinance. But in doing so, he still used the words "violence to marriage," implying that pro-LGBT progress that went beyond this simple ordinance (which contains religious exemptions) would be an "attack." So while it's an undeniably welcome move that apparently came out of secret meetings with local LGBT leaders , we certainly don't see it as any sort of amends for the hurt the LDS church caused ... Read Full Story