[Mormon Sophistry] We called our friends David and Jimmy last night in San Francisco. They were married on Oct. 25 on a lovely day in that city, after 27 years together in a committed relationship. David is nearly 70. His reaction to Prop 8 passing in California was about what I expected. "We'll keep fighting," he said. "It's not going to go away, people aren't going to give up. We know that."They don't know what's going to happen to the legal status of their marriage. Like the rest of us married stiffs, they go to bed together each night and wake up each morning, do their lives and are grateful to have someone on their side, helping them through. The outcome of the vote won't change that. Still, to live in a society that would recognize their marriage, that would be something all right.
The LDS Church issued this official statement regarding its well-publicized and the multi-million-dollar-funded fight it encouraged for Prop 8. It's posted on the church's "newsroom" link. According to LDS leaders, they have always supported joint property rights, the right of gay partners to visit each other in the hospital and many of the benefits that heterosexual married partners enjoy. It's just that marriage thing that they can't stomach.
The subtext of the official message is fascinating. The message was posted following Barack Obama's rout in his presidential victory. Obama drew millions of supporters who have never felt remotely a part of American politics or its power structure--blacks, Latinos (check out final election result maps and the border regions of every state from Texas westward to California. All of them, blue, blue, blue), gays, young voters. These people are the future of U.S. power and culture and the LDS hierarchy knows it. They had to issue a statement that seems inclusive and welcoming. The numbers in the U.S. are against them. The future is about same-sex marriage, an expansion of civil rights and a world with fewer borders, boundaries and restrictions on "people who aren't like us."
My friends David and Jimmy may not live long enough to see the change. But then I look around at the number of twenty- and thirty-somethings who are proudly gay and lesbian, who are politically engaged and who vote. It's just a matter of time. (Holly Mullen)
