Election Over, the Mormon Church QUIETLY Re-enters the GAY MARRIAGE FIGHT

[Segami]

"..After brief hiatus last year, Mormon officials are once again pushing back against gay-marriage legislation—this time in Hawaii..."

Reports that the Mormon church had given up the fight over gay marriage were premature. Earlier this year, Mother Jones and other news outlets noted the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was making a concerted effort to mend its tortured relationship with gay members and their families and to stay out of divisive political fights over gay marriage. The church sat out virtually every state ballot measure on the issue in 2012, helping assure that marriage equality bills passed in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and elsewhere. It launched a website, mormonsandgays.org, to urge better treatment of LGBT members. Mormons even marched in pride parades in Salt Lake City. Now that the 2012 election is over, and Mitt Romney, the nation's most famous Mormon, is no longer running for president, it seems the church is back in the ring. This week, the Hawaii state legislature began a special session to consider a bill that would legalize gay marriage in the state. The church is actively working to kill that measure.




One Sunday in September, local Mormon bishops read a letter from top Hawaii Mormon leadership instructing churchgoers to contact public officials about the same-sex marriage bill. The letter was not the full-throated call to action the church issued during the fight over California's anti-gay marriage measure, Proposition 8, when church leaders read letters directing members to "do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time." The September Hawaii letter was far subtler, and even acknowledged that some Mormons might actually be in favor of the marriage bill. Nonetheless, it urged members to "review" the church's "proclamation to the world," a 1995 speech given by church president Gordon Hinckley that spelled out the church's belief that marriage can only be between a man and woman. This latest letter also recommended members donate time and resources to groups working on the bill, though it didn't say on which side they should be working.




The church also suggested that regardless of how members felt about the marriage bill, they should advocate for an exemption that would protect religious organizations from having to perform same-sex marriages and to allow individuals and small businesses to refuse to cater to such marriages (a nod to the famous cases of photographers and bakeries that have refused to serve customers celebrating a same-sex wedding in states where it's now legal). The language the Mormon church favors mirrors the religious freedom argument the Catholic Church has adopted in its fights over everything from contraceptive coverage to gay marriage. But Salt Lake City's focus-grouped language didn't sit well with Hawaii church leaders, who wanted a more forceful message. On October 13, Hawaii church leaders read another letter to their flocks, this time stating flatly that the church's position on same-sex marriage had not changed and that the church "is opposed to the proposed legislation in Hawaii." The state church's letter argues that traditional marriage is "fundamental to successful families and a strong society," and directs members to actively oppose the legislation.



Cynics have suggested that the Hawaii campaign is evidence that the church was only temporarily backing away from the marriage fight to help Romney. Among those cynics is Fred Karger, a former California GOP political consultant who came out publicly at age 54, and became a same-sex marriage advocate. During the Prop. 8 battle, Karger helped publicize the fact that the Mormon church was directing millions of dollars into the campaign for the measure and attempting to hide its involvement. Karger thinks what's happening in Hawaii now is standard operating procedure for the church. Hawaii has a large Mormon population, and the church operates a large campus of Brigham Young University there. After Hawaii's supreme court ruled in 1993 that a ban on same-sex marriage likely violated the state's constitution, the LDS church got to work and organized a major lobbying campaign that was instrumental in the passage of a state constitutional amendment that allowed Hawaii's legislature to ban gay marriage, which it did, in 1998.



cont'




http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/mormon-church-gay-marriage-hawaiii


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