My little brother and his wife were interviewed for their local news while standing in line to vote!!! My sister-in-law is the one around 2:19 who says they should have brought snacks. (You may recognize them from the wedding photos I posted eons ago.)
I've looked forward to this day for so long, and I wish I could be out whole-heartedly celebrating Obama's victory! But I'm really disappointed and disheartened to see that Proposition 8 has probably passed. (Is it really over and lost?) I was hoping that the Mormons would learn a valuable lesson from this about love vs. hate, and that all those families' legal protection would be spared, and the healing would begin. I kept thinking that if you appeal to people's better nature and hold them up to high expectations, they'll come through. Pretty stupid, huh?
I'm looking out my window at the black silhouette of leaves waving against a gray sky. I don't have anything clever or scathing to say to my people for the moment, I'm just disappointed.
18 comments:
I waited in line as well, but was not on the news. :) My dh did not wait in line, thankfully, as he brought our three year olds with him!
It is too bad about prop. 8.
I (for one) would like to call for honesty in religious donations and reporting (as I've done before... I know I sound like a broken record).
Churches (in the U.S.) should be required to report how much they take in (in tithing and investments) and where they spend it. Just like any other charitable organization.
That way all mormons (and others) would know just which christ-like pursuits the money was being spent on.
Hey Aerin!!!
I completely agree. Actually, I was just invited to join a facebook group to petition the IRS to revoke the LDS church's tax exempt-status, and I'm thinking of joining:
"In general, no organization, including a church, may qualify for IRC section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying)."
The reason Prop. 8 passed was because of scare tactics (a.k.a. scurrilous lies) funded by the Church. The Yes on 8 media blitz did *not* appeal to people's better nature. That was the whole problem.
I relieved about Obama's win. I'm stunned by the loss in California. Between the two I can't stop crying.
Yeah, what he said.
I am on such an emotional roller coaster today. I was elated when I found out Obama won. I cried like a baby when I saw the acceptance speech. I'm so proud of my country and all day I've been congratulated on the election, by host family, the moms at pick-up, even the mailman who noticed my packages from America and decidedly anglo last name (yeah, I live in a small village). Yet this prop 8 business is sickening and shameful. I try to take the long view, but how can you when people's families are being destroyed, partly due to the actions of a church that I technically belong to.
Yes Chanson, I know exactly how you're feeling. I cried all the way through Obama's speech last nightl he's a great and powerful leader and we're lucky we were smart enough to elect him.
I have also felt almost unexpressable pain that my home state of California would pass Prop 8. We're supposed to be the leader in social issues. We always have been before anyway. And now it appears that the place I love and call home is as bigoted and unwelcoming a place as there is.
We knew all along that all of the black people getting out to vote for Obama would also bring with them a likely vote in favor of Prop 8 because black people on the whole are generally quite anti-gay and pro christian values. And as we suspected, based on exit polls, over 70% of black voters voted in favor of Prop 8.
So it wasn't just the mormons. But had the mormons minded their own business and honored their status as a tax-exempt organization and not gotten involved in a political matter, Prop 8 would have gone down in flames.
I have great anger and great sadness over all of this and have been trying hard all day to keep my feelings in check. When I tried to blog about them all hell broke loose. I started to name names - and as you can imagine that'd get messy fast.
It still could happen though because this is serious anger I'm feeling.
Hey MoHoHawaii!!!
Of course. I wasn't saying the prop. 8 people were appealing to people's better nature, I was saying that I was trying to appeal to people's better nature. But they have millions of dollars to blow on ads, and I have a blog...
Hey Sabayon!!!
I know. As my brother was saying in the comments of my other post on this, we really are ushering in a new era. But it's still upsetting to see that the LDS church has learned that it only takes a few million dollars worth of ads to fan old prejudices...
Hey Tom!!!
I hope you're doing OK -- I can't imagine what this must be like for gay Californians.
Yes, Obama got out the black Christian vote, and they're not known for their love of gays. But would they really have backed this proposition so strongly if the (LDS-funded) ads hadn't lied to them about the effects it would have on their churches? One minority (Mormons) convinces another minority (blacks) to turn on a third minority (gay people). Machiavelli would be proud at least...
I don't know if you or your readers would be interested, but there was an interview with a Mormon who opposed Prop 8 on The Story with Dick Gordon:
The Story: Faith Vs. Duty
Dick Gordon often manages to ask interesting, non-obvious questions and to get into the story more deeply and personally than other interviewers I've heard.
It doesn't make sense to me to remove tax-exempt status from churches for lobbying---lots of tax-exempt organizations lobby, on both sides of most issues. It does make sense to me to require churches to report their income and expenditures, though. Charles Grasssley of Iowa is trying to hold some televangelists accountable right now, and they are not all cooperating.
Hey Mathmom!!!
Thanks for the link -- I'm definitely interested in collecting up all of the stories on Mormons and prop. 8.
As far as lobbying and tax-exempt status is concerned, I think that churches should have to follow the same rules as other non-profits in terms of transparency, reporting, etc. The LDS church is really pushing the limits in terms of owning obscene amounts of corporate wealth (and, really, acting like a for-profit corporation), and I hope some legal means can be found to make them clean up their act. It certainly doesn't help the credibility of faith or religion in general to have churches be the ultimate tax-shelters -- it invites abuse.
I'm really disappointed about Prop 8 too.
Throughout Obama’s speech I was happy to see that the U.S. is ready to take a risk and yet, gay marriage is too much for the country to swallow. It’s all about baby steps. I will say that I am very upset that my Mormon community has deprived happiness to thousands of people. Can’t help but feel disappointed and ashamed
I was hoping that basic human decency would win with a clean sweep in this election. There were several other states with resolutions similar to Prop 8 that also voted against gay rights. I can't imagine the pain that gay people are feeling right now. One battle's been lost; now' the time to prepare for the next one.
Hey Kyla, Beehive, and the Chaplain!!!
Exactly. I really wanted basic human decency to win with a clean sweep this time, and I thought it would happen. On the bright side (as the "no on 8" campaign pointed out in an email) there was a huge outpouring of support for GLBT rights, and a grassroots movement has taken root. It's just a matter of time.
I totally joined that facebook group, and signed the petition - though the petition says, and I wish the facebook group did as well, not REVOKE, but REVIEW. The petition calls for a review of the LDS church's tax exempt status in view of the scope of its political involvement. Here's the link to the petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/review-the-501c3-status-of-the-church-of-latter-day-saints-the-mormons
Ok, so I really didn't think Prop 8 would pass, but here's my take on it: People are way stupider than we realized. IQs fall on a bell curve, with the smartest and the dumbest at edges, and most of the people falling in the middle. The smart people voted No, but there are way fewer of us. It's a curse. We must try harder to educate those in the middle of the bell. Or else kill them.
Hey Rebecca!!!
Exactly, I think it should be reviewed.
p.s. to all -- Rebecca's slearly kidding about that last bit. Though I agree on the educating part. :D
Thanks for your post. That's how I feel, too.
I am pretty pissed about Prop 8 but still trying to keep perspective. To be 100% honest, I think we could easily have won the Prop 8 fight if we had just been a little better organized and not focusing so much on Obama.
The religious right picked its battle and they had enough strength to win it. We lost the battle but we won the war.
Of course, Obama did nothing to help in the fight... sad. I hope he feels a bit guilty over it. Perhaps he is too busy with his own civil rights struggle to notice that of others.
Still, overall, I'm hopeful and happy. He's gonna be such a good president. It WAS a resounding victory.
Hey Candy Man!!!
I think that Obama's victory is a huge step in the right direction. And I think it's true that prop 8 passed because the pro-prop 8 forces were better organized. But the thing is that of course they were better organized -- they've been doing this for years. The LDS church has been organizing like this since they mobilized agains the ERA back in the 70's (maybe earlier), and the rest of the religious right has similar expertise. And the various pro-civil rights folks I've talked to pointed out that "no on 8" folks did pretty well considering that they came up from behind and had to build a new coalition. And with this experience, we'll be in that much better shape for the next time...
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