Some excerpts from yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune:
LDS apostle Dallin H. Oaks on Tuesday likened the post-Proposition 8 backlash against Mormons to the persecution blacks endured during the civil-rights struggle.
Now Oaks faces a backlash himself.
Last year, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urged its followers to donate money and time to pass Prop 8, the successful ballot measure that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to wed in California. Afterward, protests, including several near LDS temples, erupted along with boycotts of business owners who donated to Prop 8 and even some vandalism of LDS meetinghouses.
And from an Associated Press article:
“[The analogy] may be offensive to some — maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone era,” [Oaks] said.
Oaks qualified his comparison somewhat by acknowledging that the intimidation of Mormons in the wake of Prop 8 has not been “as serious as what happened in the South.” Still, I find it offensive. Comparisons to things like the civil rights movements should not be trotted out casually. Absent a strong parallel, such comparisons cheapen those events. And in today’s gay rights debate, neither the LGBT community nor especially the LDS Church (with its own history of racism 
should tie their plight to that of blacks.
What do you think? Was Oaks’ analogy appropriate?
Not at all appropriate. As a leader of an organization that is working hard to 1) remove rights that a class of people were actually granted and held (California, Maine) and 2) prevent them from gaining those rights in the first place, Oaks has no grounds for claiming the mantle of victimhood. In fact, if we’re going to make the Civil Rights comparison in the first place, the LDS church is certainly not on the side of, y’know, equal rights for all.
The “anti-Mormon backlash” in the wake of Prop 8 he also talks about is hardly supported by the evidence. Protests and boycotts are a completely acceptable form of demonstrating disagreement, protected by the First Amendment. And a few isolated acts of building vandalism aren’t enough to establish “hate crimes” against Mormons. Churches get vandalized all the time, by many people for many reasons. I even knew some kids who would damage their church building during the week, and then go worship in it on Sundays with their families. Come talk to me when Mormons are kidnapped, beaten, and left to die simply for walking down the street, Dallin Oaks.
He was stupid. I first heard about this from a friends blog, where he celebrated the words that Oaks had said. ICK. You don’t devalue the suffrage of hundreds of years with comparisons to a snobby church’s backlash after they try to DENY human rights. Which oddly enough, is the exact opposite of what we fought to give the blacks.
It is the height of insulting ignorance for the Mormon church to compare the protest of their overt, hateful bigotry and meddling in other state’s affairs with being the victim of similar bigotry. If they want a better comparison it would be that the distaste directed at them is of the same spirit, if not magnitude, as the distaste leveled at White Suppremisists by any moral person.
It must hurt for it to be pointed out to them exactly how hateful their actions are, but the solution rather than whining about it is to stop being bigots.
I have not read the full speech by Elder Oaks, but from the comments James has made, makes me question if he has read any Mormon history? There are in fact times that Mormons were persecuted for their beliefs. That is one of the main reasons they came out west and settled Utah. They wanted to flee persecution. I cannot comment on the recent speech of Elder Oaks because I have not read the article. You should also look up the State of Illinois and they day that they as a state officially apologized to the Mormons for the persecution.
-Jake, the speech in question was regarding prop 8 and the aftermath of that. I don’t believe anyone is denying that Mormons have been persecuted in the past, but they have not been persecuted like African-Americans were during the civil rights era as a result of actively supporting Prop 8.
If the analogy applies to either group in question it would undeniably have to be the LGBT community, not the much larger LDS population which currently has the basic rights that are being pursued by the minority group or in this case the LGBT community
Two comments:
1) Jon says: ” neither the LGBT community nor especially the LDS Church (with its own history of racism) should tie their plight to that of blacks”. I take it Jon is here here criticizing the LGBT movement as much as you are the LDS Church, because the LGBT movement constantly makes ties to the plight of blacks, arguing (erroneously I think) that (a) they are the rightful heirs to the civil rights movement and (b) that the ban on gay marriage is akin to past bans on interracial marriage.
An article discussing this erroneous connection can be read here:
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/content/view/2331/
2) I am not sure I particularly want to come to the defense of the particulars of his claims, but I am sympathetic with the “spirit” of his claim. I take it that his main point was that groups of all sorts (including religious ones) have a right to make their case in the public square without fear of retaliation (death threats, vandalism, he alluded to people being fired but I had not heard of that before with Prop 8 backlash). It seems to me that this is a perfectly legitimate point. He made a distinction between legitimate protests (which he considered fair game) and outright intimidation (attempts to suppress the expression of opinion, vandalism, etc).
Perhaps we should refrain from comparing any and all instances of intimidation that are reactions to a social/political positions to what black Americans faced. But it does not seem to me to be a totally erroneous comparison – the same KIND of thing is going on, even if much much less serious (as he pointed out) in both degree and frequency.
And, as you point out, the comparison seems particularly imprudent in light of the LDS church’s own checkered history on race.
As an atheist, my sympathies lie with Oaks/Mormons. There certainly are some parallels, and Oaks himself said that what has happened has not been “as serious as what happened in the South.” Such a disclaimer remedies any needs for strong parallels. So, the comparison really does not denigrate the civil rights movement in my opinion, and when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, it’s the anti-prop. 8 people that are harassing and initiating violence upon the Mormons. They deserve the scorning, not the Mormons.
I was going of the last sentence of James’ post. “Come talk to me when Mormons are kidnapped, beaten, and left to die simply for walking down the street.” In Mormon history you can find instances of those things he mentions.
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Jake – This point has been addressed a couple times already in this thread: nobody means to disregard the discrimination Mormons faced in the mid-19th century, but Oaks’ comparison was about the modern day specifically.
I’m not taking a stance on whether comparing gay rights to black rights is offensive, but I read the thecathiolicthing link Kleiner put up.
As I understood it, it basically says that discriminating against gays being married is ok, because it is logical (like how we discriminate against the blind and don’t give them driver’s licences). It says, “Sexual complementarity, procreative ability, and the natural link to child-rearing are among the things that make it reasonable to define marriage as between one man and one woman. ”
It implies that the reason for marriage is to have your own children and raise them. This ignores the benefits of tax breaks, being able to see loved ones in the hospital, showing a deep commitment to another individual, etc.
To me, that seems like telling a blind person that he cannot buy a house with a garage, because garages are for cars and he can’t drive.
Now to switch sides, I know there is the slippery slope fallacy that if gays get married, then people will start marrying animals, and then staplers, etc. But I’m still a little uncertain on the major reasons stopping marriages from happening between multiple people. Is the only thing stopping us from going from “between one man and one woman” to “between one person and one person” to “between some people and some people” the fact that our society is used to relationships in groups of two? Polygamists, like gays, are a group of human beings and American citizens who love each other.
(I’d be happy to have somebody shut down this argument)
I rather doubt the post was intended to “devolve” (if that is the right word!) into a debate on gay marriage.
Anyway, the article that I linked to certainly meant to imply that the purpose of marriage includes (though may not be limited to) the possibility of having children and rearing them with a mother and a father. This arrangement provides social benefits. If it did not, if all marriage is is an expression of deep seated feeling between two persons, then why should the govt be involved in it at all? The govt is involved (tax breaks, etc), as it were, because incentivising hetero marriage serves certain state interests (the making of children and the rearing of children with mothers and fathers that, statistically speaking, makes for the best possible environment for children). The state has no compelling interest in simply approving the deep seated commitment of two people (as if that was all that marriage is and all that marriage is for).
I should say, though, that I see no problem at all – in fact I see some moral urgency – in allowing hospital visitation rights to same sex partners. But this matter is not actually as pressing as it might first seem. Same-sex partners can already sign power of attorney, designate wills, and sign off on hospital visitation in the event of an emergency or death. Gay marriage of civil unions are not necessary to afford gays these rights, they can already do all of this if they so choose.
Here’s the Trib’s response via Don Bagley: http://extras.sltrib.com/bagley/
His comparison is disrespectful and it belittles the struggles of people the Mormons themselves excluded from what they considered the highest places in the Mormon church. Oaks’ disregard for Mormon discrimination against blacks is a very disheartening thing to hear from their church.
Kleiner, I’d beg to differ that marriage is primarily to provide an environment to raise children in. It’s security within a relationship that allows partners to share benefits and certain rights when it comes to execution of estate, medical decisions for incapacitated loved ones and it does facilitate easier adoption of children than people who are assumed to be single (which, along with “divorced” and “widowed” are the only options when asked for marital status.) My husband and I don’t plan to have children, yet we’re still married. Does the lack of having children trivialize our legal standing as a married couple? No. Additionally, there’s the question of infertile couples who get married – where’s the tax incentive to marry them? What about couples who get married well beyond the years when they can naturally have children and are too old to adopt? Should we exclude them? While I understand that children provide a growing economy which the government is interested in supporting, there are so many examples of couples that do not produce children, it’s absolutely unfair to deny the right to a set of people because they are not naturally capable of having children – if you do that, than you should deny people who have undergone voluntary sterilization, people who are too old and people who are physically incapable of having children of their own.
There’s also a legitimacy in marriage that simply living together doesn’t provide when it comes to tax breaks and insurance benefits. The easiest way for him to legally immigrate was to bring him over on a spouse or fiance visa instead of attempting a work visa. The intent to marry and eventual marriage – regardless of children – is proof enough for the US government that my husband and I are committed to each other and not just using the system to allow him to immigrate because he wanted to live in the US. There are more benefits than just a government sanctioned relationship for children.
Children are not solely byproducts of marriage either, and I’m living proof of that. I was born to a young, single woman and given up for adoption. The fact that my parents are married made adoption much easier for them – if they had just been committed to one another but not married, what adoption agency (especially in the late 80′s) would have allowed the adoption to go through? Marriage DOES give legal legitimacy to the commitment two people have to one another, even in social settings. I can’t count the times I’ve heard “They’re already living together, why not just get married?” in reference to those who choose not to get married for whatever reason. Marriage is accepted as a display of long-term commitment, where living together is often just seen as serious dating.
1) So the purpose of marriage is for hospital visitation rights and executions of estates? That seems like a stretch, since these things are more recent than the the institution of marriage. To the contrary, I would argue that marriage is NOT an artifact of law and it was NOT created by the state to handle legal issues. Rather marriage is a naturally occurring community, brought about by the natural need to bring men and women together in stable and committed relationships in order to create and rear children. Some governments recognize this natural institution and promote it, since there are social benefits (state interests) served by doing so.
2) People that raise the objection about infertility and childless hetero marriages are very impressed with those objections, even though the objections are really not that impressive. Of course the govt does not do fertility checks or force marrying couples to promise they will have children. But by incentivizing hetero marriage they are incentivizing the KIND of relationship that could lead to social benefits (ie state interests). That some marriages do not actually result in that benefit does not undermine the traditional meaning of marriage, as gay marriage would.
If marriage was just an artifact of law, it would be a silly one. You can already give a same sex partner power of attorney and all of that. If marriage was nothing more than a govt seal of approval for how much you love your partner – why should the govt be in the business of that at all?!
I recognize that the view I am expressing here will be most unwelcome on this page. Let me say that I think that most of those that push for gay marriage do so out of noble intentions (concerns about justice, etc). Those that actually make arguments just don’t, to my mind, make very persuasive ones. But it must also be said that for many the gay marriage “right” is simply a dogma of the left, and my views are not likely to be taken all that seriously by many who frequent this site (in fact, I rather suspect that some reading this think it morally atrocious that I would even advance such a view).
Back to the debate on Oaks’ talk. Maybe this is a dead issue, but I need to get this out.
Being LDS is a choice, being Black is not. This comparison, even in its most disguised form, like Oaks’ comparing the persecution of anti-gay-marriage beliefs to persecution of racial equality beliefs, is illogical.
And we all know the church was racist back then. So, Oaks is comparing the church to the opposite of what it was…?
It makes me crazy.
“This comparison” meaning the comparison of religion and race.
Kleiner, I understand that the institution of marriage as a legal entity was created with the promotion of the production of children in mind, and that it has logic for encouraging potential products of heterosexual relationships existing in a legally bound and committed state. The problem is, marriage is not simply a baby-producing vehicle anymore, particularly not with increased infertility (when the infertile attain ways to reproduce, those genes are passed on where they would not have been before), later marriages and dropping birth rates. The change of what marriage was to what it is accommodates the reasons I listed above. The social ramifications of only being able to attain power of attorney doesn’t go anywhere to validate relationships in the eyes of most people. People don’t ask if two people in a committed relationship have signed their rights to the other, they ask if they are married. While you may not think the social justice is a very strong argument, the same sort of argument was used in determining the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Social studies showing an increased sense of inferiority was enough to sway the Supreme Court to say that, whatever the original intent was, the conditions in society and the institution of public education had changed enough that segregation was detrimental. I’m not sure whether you believe sexuality is in-born and not a choice, but for those who side with it being in-born, sexuality is not a choice, and neither is happiness in regards to their future partners. Those who grow up knowing they’re gay see few or no options in legitimizing their future relationships beyond power of attorney. It is would be just as wrong as if fertility tests were asked before rewarding marriage licenses – despite, as you say, the original purpose of promoting marriage being the having and raising of children. Power of attorney does not replace social and legal benefits that are reaped by power of attorney.
Left dogma, right dogma. Both sides have opinions that they each think are good arguments, even though the very idea of “traditional” marriage makes me cringe – I’d much rather put my brain to work than my uterus. I never believed I would persuade you, then again, you’re not particularly persuasive to me with the “This is how it started and this is how it should remain.” Marriage in most cultures was originally a way for men to assert their ownership of women, and while some people agree with that, most don’t, including me. The “natural” tendency of marriage could be likened to the harems dominant males keep in nature – those with desirable attributes attain mates, those without those attributes don’t, and the most desirable genes are passed on by attaining mates.
A thoughtful response, Cherie. I think you’ve nailed the points of our disagreement (I still reject the view that the gay marriage debate is at all akin to the fight for rights for african americans). And you are also correct to note that upon reaching the impasse we are, well, at an impasse.
By the way, I think people are “born gay”. In fact, I find it very nearly absurd to say otherwise. But I would draw a distinction between the desire (which is not chosen) and the act (which is chosen), in terms of moral evaluation.