Take note of the update near the bottom.
Yesterday, Brigham Young University’s student paper The Daily Universe featured a letter to the editor that argued that the legal case for Proposition 8 is “indefensible.” Its author, BYU student Cary Crall*, also asked Mormons to admit that their only opposition to gay marriage is religious. The letter attracted enormous attention and praise from both the Mormon and ex-Mormon online communities. People were most impressed that BYU—in a refreshing display of academic freedom—published it.
But shortly after the letter was posted to the Universe‘s website, it was quietly pulled**. This is disappointing, but not terribly surprising; the letter nearly didn’t get published at all. Crall told me in a Facebook message that he submitted the letter to the Universe a few weeks ago, but it was rejected by the summer editor who felt it was inappropriate for a “newspaper funded by the LDS Church.” It wasn’t until after some edits and the approval of a new editor that it was published, albeit briefly.
Thankfully, Crall was kind enough to email me the original copy of his letter with permission to reproduce it here. (The bracketed sentences did not appear in the Universe.)
Viewpoint: Defending Proposition 8 — It’s time to admit the reasons
By CARY CRALL
Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the recent United States District Court case that overturned Proposition 8, highlighted a disturbing inconsistency in the pro-Prop 8 camp.
The arguments put forth so aggressively by the Protect Marriage coalition and by LDS church leaders at all levels of church organization during the campaign were noticeably absent from the proceedings of the trial. This discrepancy between the arguments in favor of Proposition 8 presented to voters and the arguments presented in court shows that at some point, proponents of Prop 8 stopped believing in their purported rational and non-religious arguments for the amendment.
Claims that defeat of Prop 8 would force religious organizations to recognize homosexual marriages and perform such marriages in their privately owned facilities, including LDS temples, were never mentioned in court. Similarly, the defense was unable to find a single expert witness willing to testify that state-recognized homosexual marriage would lead to forcing religious adoption agencies to allow homosexual parents to adopt children or that children would be required to learn about homosexual marriage in school.
Four of the proponents’ six expert witnesses who may have been planning on testifying to these points withdrew as witnesses on the first day of the trial. Why did they go and why did no one step up to replace them? Perhaps it is because they knew that their arguments would suffer much the same fate as those of David Blankenhorn and Kenneth Miller, the two expert witnesses who did agree to testify.
Judge Vaughn Walker, who heard the case, spent 11 pages of his 138-page decision meticulously tearing down every argument advanced by Blankenhorn before concluding that his testimony was “unreliable and entitled to essentially no weight.” Miller suffered similar censure after it was shown that he was unfamiliar with even basic sources on the subject in which he sought to testify as an expert.
The court was left with lopsided, persuasive testimony leading to the conclusion that Proposition 8 was not in the interest of the state and was discriminatory against gays and lesbians. Walker’s decision is a must-read for anyone who is yet to be convinced of this opinion. The question remains that if proponents of Prop 8 were both unwilling and unable to support even one rational argument in favor of the amendment in court, why did they seek to present their arguments as rational during the campaign?
It is time for LDS supporters of Prop 8 to be honest about their reasons for supporting the amendment. It’s not about adoption rights, or the first amendment, or tradition. These arguments were not found worthy of the standards for finding facts set up by our judicial system. The real reason is that a man who most of us believe is a prophet of God told us to support the amendment. [This is a privately held religious belief that we are using to support legislation that takes away a right from a minority group. If our government were to enact legislation based solely on such beliefs, it would set a dangerous precedent, possibly even more so than allowing a homosexual to marry the person he or she loves.] We must be honest about our motivation, and consider what it means to the delicate balance between our relationship with God and with His children here on earth. Maybe then we will stop thoughtlessly spouting arguments that are offensive to gays and lesbians and indefensible to those not of our faith.
It was very brave of Crall to write this. In the unfortunate (and I hope unlikely) case that BYU takes disciplinary action against him, let’s give him our support.
Update: The Daily Universe recently released this statement about their decision to pull Cary’s letter:
The Daily Universe made an independent decision to remove the student viewpoint titled “Defending Proposition 8” after being alerted by various readers that the content of the editorial was offensive. The publication of this viewpoint was not intended to offend, but after further review we recognized that it contained offensive content.
This is consistent with policy that The Daily Universe has, on rare occasions, exercised in the past.
So with this statement, we have a clear case of censorship. The Universe removed the piece because they deemed it to be offensive, and not—as was suggested in the comments—because it was “an example of bad journalism.”
To be sure, the Universe has every right to exercise editorial control over its content. I just think the decision robbed BYU and its students of an opportunity to openly discuss an important issue. The Universe instead thinks the length of women’s skirts is a more pressing matter.
*Cary Crall is a BYU senior from Temecula, California, studying neuroscience and mathematics. He plans to attend medical school, which shouldn’t be hard for someone who scored a 44 out of 45 on the MCAT.
**Here is the cached copy of the letter on The Daily Universe‘s website. You will also find it in the pdf version of the paper on page 3.
Pingback: Tweets that mention USU SHAFT » BYU censors letter to the editor critical of Prop 8 -- Topsy.com
Thank you for posting and drawing attention to this. Just a note, the editorial author’s last name is Crall, not Call.
Ugh, I don’t know why I consistently made that mistake. Thanks for catching it.
My earlier post appeared breifly but now has been deleted. I guess censorship is OK for some but not for others. I’ll try again and see how long this post last. Here are a couple of non-religeous reasons why I do not support same sex marriage:
The Non-religious Case for Marriage
• Marriage as defined by a partnership or union between one man and one woman has been accepted as a fact for so long we have forgotten why. America does not need to accept same sex marriage, however, just because it can’t recall exactly why we defined marriage in strictly hetero-sexual terms. Likewise, America need not experiment with socialism or communism in order to remember why we opted for capitalism instead.
A post on this page?
Reason #2
• Marriage is, in part, an emotional union, where spouses often take care of each other over a lifetime. But neither of these truths is the fundamental reason for marriage. The reason marriage exists is that the sexual intercourse of men and women regularly produces children. If it did not produce children, neither society nor the government would have much reason, let alone a valid one, to regulate people’s emotional unions. (The government does not regulate non-marital friendships, no matter how intense they are). That does not mean that marriage is worthwhile only insofar as it yields children. (The law has never taken that view.) But the institution is oriented toward child-rearing. (The law has taken exactly that view.) What a healthy marriage culture does is encourage adults to arrange their lives so that as many children as possible are raised and nurtured by their biological parents in a common household for the children’s benefit.
Reason #3
• Proponents of same-sex marriage raise the idea that the fact marriage is importantly linked to procreation is outdated and/or unfair. Harm, if any, to the feelings of same-sex couples is unintentional. Marriage, and its tie to procreation, did not arise as a way of slighting them. The timeless acknowledgement and certainty that marriage is the union of a man and a woman has been both naturally and historically tied to the law of procreation long before religious and political reasons were raised.
Reason #4
• The campaign for same-sex marriage is primarily motivated by one specific benefit: the symbolic statement by the government that committed same-sex relationships are equivalent to marriages. But with respect to the purposes of marriages, they’re not equivalent; and so this psychic benefit cannot be granted without telling a lie about what marriage is and why a society and legal system should recognize and support it.
Reason #5
• Same-sex marriage would introduce a new, less justifiable distinction into the law. This new version of marriage would exclude pairs of people who qualify for it in every way except for their lack of a sexual relationship. Elderly brothers who take care of each other; two friends who share a house and bills and even help raise a child after one loses a spouse: Why shouldn’t their relationships, too, be recognized by the government? The traditional conception of marriage holds that however valuable those relationships may be, the fact that they are not oriented toward procreation makes them non-marital. (Note that this is true even if those relationships involve caring for children: We do not treat a grandmother and widowed daughter raising a child together as married because their relationship is not part of an institution oriented toward procreation.) On what possible basis can the revisionists’ conception of marriage justify discriminating against couples simply because they do not have sex? How, for that matter, can it justify discriminating against groups of more than two involved in overlapping sexual relationships? Same-sex marriage cannot be justified without also, in principle, justifying polygamy and polyamory marriages.
Reason #6
• While it is true no one can say with any confidence that legal recognition of same-sex marriage would cause infidelity or illegitimacy to increase; we can say that it would make the countervailing norms, and the public policy of marriage itself, incoherent. The symbolic message of inclusion for same-sex couples — in an institution that makes no sense for them — would be coupled with another message: that marriage is about the desires of adults rather than the interests of children.
“me going to bed” stole his entire text from the National Review, and still can’t explain why any of his so-called reasons were NEVER brought up in court by the defenders of “traditional marriage.” I wish they would just admit they hate me for being gay, they think I deserve to remain alone and lonely forever as a second-class citizen, and that they feel that way because the Prophet told them to feel that way. Then at least I could respect their honesty, if not their intelligence.
Bottom line: the LDS presented no defense of Prop 8 in court because there isn’t one to present. It’s all about hate and feeling superior. OK, so I concede you are better than me, can I get my marriage license now?
Thanks, Jon Adams, for posting the editorial! It’s nice to be able to read the unedited version after having read the published version. Good job, Cary Crall!
I attended BYU, served a mission, etc. but no longer consider myself lds. I admire the ones strong enough to stay in the church and try to change the church – maybe someday . . .
It’s all about hate and feeling superior.
That much is true, it’s all projection. You hate heterosexuals and it all about you getting some kind of acknowledgment for your deviant behavior from the state.
Homosexuality was considered a psychological disorder until the 1970s.
Mormonism remains a disorder founded by a psychotic, so I guess we’re even? I don’t need your pathetic self-hating acknowledgment, I just need my partner’s health insurance coverage from his job. And I need both our incomes to officially count on mortgage applications.
Thanks for posting this. It is quite insightful.
It is very easy to stoke bigotry and fear with intentional lies aimed at voters during a political campaign, where any refutation will be swept up in the back-and-forth of argumentation of all kinds. It’s quite another matter to knowingly tell the same lies during court testimony, where one is likely to be held accountable for them in a meaningful way. Hardly surprising that the proponents of Prop. 8 were unwilling to risk doing the latter.
Reply
Floyd Weldon said: 2010.09.08 07:03
Thanks, Jon Adams, for posting the editorial! It’s nice to be able to read the unedited version after having read the published version. Good job, Cary Crall!
I attended BYU, served a mission, etc. but no longer consider myself lds. I admire the ones strong enough to stay in the church and try to change the church – maybe someday . . .
Proof that you can leave the church, but you can’t leave it alone. Cary Crall made a point that’s partly accurate. Most of us are supporting prop 8 because the prophets have asked us to. We’ve also been told that the prophets will never lead us astray. What you may or may not see is that people who end up opposing the church on this issue (like prop 22 10 years ago) fall away and become very bitter with the church.
Can you imagine how hard it was for church members to follow the Word of Wisdom in the 1800s when we didn’t know how bad it was to smoke or drink? Now we know. I think in time we’ll know how bad same-sex marriages are for the core unit of society: the family.
And maybe monogamy will be the demise of the United States.
“It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome…was a monogamic nation and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her.” — Apostle George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 202
Also, welcome Pharyngula readers!
Can you imagine how hard it was for the profits to admit blacks to the priesthood in 1978? The very idea that dark-skinned lesser-thans could EVER be equal to the White and Delightsome. Oh well… it was either that or lose all that federal cash coming into YOO-BHOO.
Crall’s editorial is an example of bad journalism, not censorship. The reason that arguments were absent from the trial in California has nothing to do with pro-prop 8 groups losing faith in their arguments. Nor is it a matter of their arguments being unfounded.Instead this is an issue of how legal proceedings work, something Crall seems completely uninformed on.
The reason there was no strong defense in the prop 8 case was not because the LDS church or other supporters of prop 8 had no defense. It was because they did not have standing in the court. Citizens of California sued California officials. Those were the people who had legal standing to represent their case in the court. All of the support prop 8 groups were not part of the trial. Crall was right about one thing, the state of California provided a miserable defense, but that seems to be the only accurate fact Crall presents.
(this blog explains the standing issue in lay terms better than I can: http://open.salon.com/blog/lawless_lawyer/2010/08/12/what_the_hell_just_happened_in_the_prop_8_case_a_guide
Since the LDS church was not being sued and not suing they were not asked to provide arguments, witnesses or any evidence. They were not part of the trial. Crall makes it sound as though the LDS church spread lies and fear to force voter turn out and then they skipped back to Utah when the trial hit because they could not defend what they had done. It is a complete misrepresentation of facts and I don’t blame the editor for pulling it. It was a bad piece of journalism.
Prop 8 is still a 1st amendment issue (as Elder Oaks has eloquently argued) because Prop 8 is about citizens rights to make voting decisions based upon their personal religious and moral beliefs. Crall’s argument that the only reason to support Prop 8 is because the prophet said so, shows his misunderstanding of the church. The church does not ask for blind following, but encourages personal revelation on all subjects, including political support for prop 8. Those who study the subject out will find that the center of the church’s doctrine is the family and the belief that it is an eternal foundation. Voting to uphold the traditional family foundation because you believe it is eternal is a valid reason to vote. Indeed if we are told that voting based upon our personal beliefs is tyrannical to those who do not share those same beliefs (as Crall attempts to argue at the end of his piece), then democracy is a lost cause. The first amendment allows for individuals to believe and worship what they would like. Asking them not to express that through voting would indeed by the tyrannical thing.
You don’t address the fact that BYU censored this article. So even if Crall’s letter is “bad journalism” (and I don’t think it is), it is also an instance of censorship.
Katie, you did a stellar job of presenting the facts without emotion. And we all have to vote our conscience. And the majority of Californians defined what the legal contract of marriage is used for. It’s not personal, it’s logic and what is practical. I consistently see Prop 8 opponents attempting to use emotion and martyrdom to push society in a direction it doesn’t agree with. It’s not about them, it’s about the end result of what a marriage contract is for. Society loked at the merits and effects, and as a democracy voted for Prop 8… California is hardly LDS.
Jon I would pull it too, it was bad journalism. He misrepresented facts. The entire piece has no integrity. He got it wrong. It was a misguided, editorial rant which attacks the church from false standing. If someone wrote an editorial attacking USU using completely false information I would expect it to be pulled just as quickly.
I am just as opposed to censorship as you are, possibly more-so, but stopping irresponsible and bad journalism is not censorship. I don’t think they were censoring a different idea, but rather preventing the spread of inaccurate information.
Too late Katie. Crall’s article is all over the net, especially in Reddit. BYU looks lie the second-rate parochial school that it is by pulling the piece and not even offering an editor’s explanation. The defendants in Perry v Schwarzenegger had every right to present evidence and put up witnesses, but they didn’t, because there is no rational argument against same-sex civil marriage, there is only bigotry.
There are rational arguments that the state of California chose not to present. I am opposed to same sex marriage, but I see that there are rational arguments on both sides. You can call it bigotry and hatred and say that it is about civil rights. I can say that it is about bigotry and hatred and is about semantics and first amendment rights. Both have legitimate arguments behind them.
The point I was making was about the inaccuracies in Crall’s editorial. You may disagree with my perspective, but that does not change the fact that Crall was wrong. The church and other pro- prop 8 groups did not disappear because they did not believe their arguments or because their arguments were unfounded. They had no legal standing. And that falsehood in his editorial makes all the difference.
Whether you agree with Crall’s opinions on the LDS church or not, he wrote an article which ignored facts and skewed information. Journalism is about a search for truth and Crall’s editorial was not truthful at all. I stand by my argument that it should be pulled as bad journalism.
It’s spread on the internet is unfortunate because it is spreading lies and misinformation (ironically the exact thing people accuse the LDS church of doing during the prop 8 campaign).
He misrepresented nothing. Your reading of the letter is mistaken. Crall never stated that the LDS Church had standing or was part of the trial. All Crall noted is that many of the arguments advanced the the church and its members were not deemed sound enough by the Prop 8 defense team to introduce into court (and those that were introduced were effectively rebutted). Had the LDS Church’s arguments and concerns been valid, it’s curious that the Prop 8 defense team didn’t raise them before the judge. That’s the crux of Crall’s argument.
You’ve also misread Judge Walker’s decision. You write, “Prop 8 is still a 1st amendment issue (as Elder Oaks has eloquently argued) because Prop 8 is about citizens rights to make voting decisions based upon their personal religious and moral beliefs. … Voting to uphold the traditional family foundation because you believe it is eternal is a valid reason to vote.”
Of course it is okay to vote your religious conscience! That is indeed protected by the First Amendment. But Prop 8 was found to violate both the equal protection and due process clauses of the Constitution, so it was struck down. And absent a legitimate (read secular) state interest, laws–democratically supported or no–that violate the equal protection and due process clauses cannot stand.
“Indeed if we are told that voting based upon our personal beliefs is tyrannical to those who do not share those same beliefs…then democracy is a lost cause.”
First, Crall did not say it was wrong to vote one’s religious beliefs. He said that it’s wrong for the government to enacts laws solely based on religious beliefs. That’s a subtle but fundamental distinction. Second, the United States is not a democracy, but a constitutional republic.
For more about Judge Walker’s ruling, I’d recommend these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfMTH#p/u/13/bV3fkpR74Ak
http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfMTH#p/u/12/fZNUo62N_mY
He did misrepresent it.
” This discrepancy between the arguments in favor of Proposition 8 presented to voters and the arguments presented in court shows that at some point, proponents of Prop 8 stopped believing in their purported rational and non-religious arguments for the amendment.”
Crall continues his misguided argument saying, “the question remains that if proponents of Prop 8 were both unwilling and unable to support even one rational argument in favor of the amendment in court, why did they seek to present their arguments as rational during the campaign?”
It is clear that he believes the campaigning proponents of prop 8 were the ones on trial. They were not. The truth is officials in the state of California were sued. The state of California put together a defense. California officials– and the state as a whole– were not the people fighting for prop 8. Their defense ignored many legitimate arguments. Most state officials, including Schwartzenager did not support prop 8. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I would guess the poor defense was intentional. There were many sound arguments which supported prop 8. (I will not defend all arguments suggested during the campaign, many I disagreed with). These were not even brought into the court room.
The point is, Crall’s editorial is based on false information. He misrepresented the situation to make it appear all of the church’s arguments for prop 8 had no ground and were not usable in court, when in actuality the state of California did not represent the church and did not argue those positions.
Katie, when you call something “bad journalism” and “a misguided, editorial rant,” it’s nice to give some reasons for it. Just so people don’t completely dismiss you out of hand, you know?
Now, you did a good job of telling us that you believe there are first amendment reasons to oppose gay marriage. That’s great. But just because Crall doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean his “entire piece has no integrity.” You’ll notice he doesn’t even mention “LDS supporters of Prop 8″ until the last paragraph. He’s very critical of the pro-8 group in the first six paragraphs, but that doesn’t mean he’s attacking the LDS church. Even in the seventh paragraph, when he urges LDS supporters of Prop 8 to admit that they’re supporting it because their prophet said to, he never mentions the LDS church. Now, your job is to try and point out where and how he attacks it. (Remember, being critical of individual Mormons or the Prop-8 supporters in general is not attacking the LDS church.)
Or maybe your complaint is that many Mormons would list 1st Amendment concerns among their reasons for supporting Prop 8. I think they probably would. It’s important to remember, however, that not everyone agrees that the 1st Amendment arguments are good. Many people (including Mr. Crall, apparantly), see them as nothing but camouflage for the Prop 8 supporters’ real concerns. Even if they are more than camouflage, even if they are real and heartfelt, I suspect Mr. Crall would ask Mormons to give up their 1st amendment arguments for Prop 8. This is probably because Mr. Crall, like many other intelligent people, does not find any merit in those arguments. The real reason to support Prop 8 in his mind seems to be something like “a man who I believe is a prophet of God asked me to.”
You may not agree with Mr. Crall’s opinion, of course, but that doesn’t make his opinion “bad journalism,” “irresponsible,” or “completely false.” Remember that bit about giving reasons above? That applies here too. You actually have to show his opinion is false before anyone cares what you say. And even if you show it is false, even if you prove that most Mormon supporters of Prop 8 hold 1st Amendment arguments very dear, even if you show those arguments are valid, that still doesn’t make Mr. Crall or his piece bad or irresponsible. If you prove all that, he was simply wrong.
And if I wrote an opinion piece attacking the state of Utah (since USU is a public university, its funding comes mostly from the state; this is very similar to how BYU’s funding comes mostly from the LDS church–you’ll notice that Crall never attacked BYU [or the LDS church, for that matter], contrary to your implication), I would not expect my harsh opinion piece to be pulled. That would be a silly act of censorship (who do you think would care?).
Now Katie, it’s really hard for me to believe you when you say you are opposed to censorship. Someone wrote an article you didn’t like (and one which you didn’t even bother to understand before you decided you didn’t like it). You want that piece stopped before it can spread undesirable information. What more is there to censorship? Please explain in the comment field below.
Katie, state officials did not represent Prop 8 in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. From Wikipedia:
“Two groups, the official proponents of Proposition 8 led by Dennis Hollingsworth, and a rival group, the Campaign for California Families, sought to intervene as defendants. The court allowed the official proponents to intervene, filling the void left by the state officials’ acquiescence. The judge denied the request from the Campaign for California Families.”
Katie,
I’m having a really hard time believing in your good intent (or at least your reading comprehension skills). Remember that Salon piece you referenced in your first post, called “what the hell just happened in the prop 8 case”? Remember how you used it as evidence for the claim “all of the support prop 8 groups were not part of the trial”? Here’s what that article actually says:
This article from Slate Magazine has a similar explanation:
You’re right that the Prop 8 supporters were not the original defendents, but your wrong about everything else. “And that falsehood in [your post] makes all the difference.”
Jon,
Your website ate my blockquotes.
It’s hard to tell if Katie is “lying for the Lord” or just ignorant of the rules of civil procedure in federal court. Defendant-Intervenors have the exact same standing at the State of California to present any and all evidence, to discover all documents, and to enjoy all the privileges the State AG would have had in this case. See there’s even a book: Rules of Federal Procedure, Ninth Circuit.
A serious student newspaper published at a real research university (i.e., not BYU) would have allowed Katie to rebut Crall in print. Instead, under pressure from the Church, the student newspaper caved and showed the entire world that BYU is not a place for serious scholarship but only a factory for robots who repeat doctrine ad nauseum.
Katie,
In the name of justice, and at the expense of sounding like an immature blockhead, F*** You. You can defend and argue all you want for the Church’s position given your beliefs, but the truth of the matter is that your pathetic support for the Church will stay. So you and the LDS funding for Prop 8 (which I still do not understand) can continue on sticking a sore thumb up every gay man and woman’s ass, because in the end, as the world and humanity progresses, homosexuals will gain every right that you have whether you support it or not.
Remember Katie, mormons are a small fraction of the world, let alone the United States.
@ Eat my shorts: Let’s not make this personal. Katie is a friend of mine, and we can do (and have done) better by way of rebuttal than saying “F*ck you.”
Katie is a friend of yours? Thank you Heavenly Father for allowing me to escape Utah and never having to count a shameless liar as a “friend.”
“Defendents” and “your wrong?” I apologize for the bad spelling in my post.
Katie is mistaken on a few counts. There are no “rational arguments that the state of California chose not to present.” Because Governor Schwarzenegger and AG Brown saw no benefit to the state in promoting discrimination (candy coat it all you want, it’s discriminatory to allow one group a right but deny it of another group), the State of California did not defend Prop. 8, and it won’t defend it in the appeals process either:
http://advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/09/08/State_Officials_Asked_to_Explain_Non_Defense_of_Prop_8/
The arguments presented by the defenders were shown not to be rational or to have merit. Katie, this doesn’t mean you have to like the ruling, it just indicates you’re absolutely wrong about the legal rationale for this discrimination.
Also, writing a letter to the editor is not an act of journalism and needn’t be judged on journalistic criteria. Crall was not acting under the auspices of the BYU paper, he was writing an opinion letter. Yes, opinion letter facts can be presented (or misrepresented—as is often the case from defenders of Prop. 8), but his letter is no more an act of journalism than Katie’s letter to this site.
The fact of his letter being pulled is the very definition of censorship. It was published, then it was censored. It’s certainly that paper’s right to do print what it likes and cut out what it likes, but it’s censorship nonetheless.
The irony is thick with the LDS church’s complaint about how it’s bigoted members are being represented. The common whine is roughly, “We were attacked! Our aims of discrimination had the very best of intentions, and we don’t like being painted as bigots!” Tough. If it walks like a bigot, preaches like a bigot, and votes like a bigot, guess what it is.
Pingback: Where Did Brigham Young University's Anti-Prop 8 Student Newspaper Letter Disappear To? / Queerty
I’m glad to see Mormons so well-represented in this thread. Thanks for your comments; I hope you continue to participate at this blog. The freer and more diverse the marketplace of ideas, the better.
May I reproduce this whole post? I want to print your post and the article and distribute it to passer byers.
Go for it.
When I first read this I was surprised that BYU allowed it to be printed at all. (or posted online rather). Seems I was right.
RE: the accusations of “bad journalism”, not only is it excellent journalism, this was a letter from a student sent to the paper. It is an opinion piece. But it is an opinion piece with far better journalistic integrity and facts than just about any piece the DU ever publishes. Which is why it got censored.
Because when facts make the church look bad, they censor them. Mormonism cannot abide reality. BYU is a fascinating intensified microcosm of the prevailing culture which exists in Mormonism (in Utah especially).
Again we see the hypocrisy of the church’s statements. Despite saying that they allow their members to support or oppose prop 8 as they wish, and that members are free to choose, as soon as a member express the opinion that prop 8 was a bad idea they suppress the dissent and censor the belief which goes contrary to their corporate interests.
Funny seeing all these pathetic bigots try to defend their position.
If you support Prop 8 you hate gay people. You think we don’t deserve the same rights you do.you are a bigot.
^These are FACTS and no amount of whining will change them bigots.
You don’t have to be a bigot to support Prop 8. I, like Mr. Crall, find the case for Prop 8 to be largely indefensible, but that doesn’t make all of its proponents bigots (though many are)—it just makes them wrong.
“You don’t have to be a bigot to support Prop 8″
Do they oppose me having equal rights? Yes? Then they’re bigots. Let’s not pretend like anyone would be arguing someone opposed to interracial marriage wasn’t a bigot.
@John, I’m not a bigot either, even if I argue that all Mormons should be deprived of constitutional protections because Mormonism is a disgusting abomination, the worst sort of cult, and a danger to American democracy. Plus there’s the foetor mormonicus from the skidded garmies, but I ain’t no bigot!
Whatever legalistic arguments they come up with, Mormons who oppose gay marriage are still either doing it because they’re homophobic, because they can’t make decisions for themselves, or because they’re afraid to follow their conscience and defy their church.
So I guess yes, I suppose some small percentage aren’t really bigoted, they’re just cowards. But the vast majority are bigoted/prejudiced or whatever you want to call it. Even if they don’t hate gays, even if they think we deserve civil unions, they’re still arguing that straight people are better than we are. They’re arguing that they deserve a more privileged place in society. That’s prejudice.