Hypocrisy much? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unhappy about the fact that the media spotlight is trained on its participation in making Prop 8 happen.
In an official statement on the church's web site, bearing false witness and hypocrisy is the order of the day.
It is disturbing that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being singled out for speaking up as part of its democratic right in a free election.
Members of the Church in California and millions of others from every faith, ethnicity and political affiliation who voted for Proposition 8 exercised the most sacrosanct and individual rights in the United States -- that of free expression and voting.
While those who disagree with our position on Proposition 8 have the right to make their feelings known, it is wrong to target the Church and its sacred places of worship for being part of the democratic process.
Once again, we call on those involved in the debate over same-sex marriage to act in a spirit of mutual respect and civility towards each other. No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information.
Bzzt. Wrong answer. The people protesting the church's significant role in an another state's democratic process -- members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave millions of dollars to remove the civil rights of human beings -- are merely exercising their right to free speech to highlight that role.
And what is this "erroneous information"? Who knows, the church doesn't say. The amount of hot air and vapid defensiveness from an institution that has a history of bigotry and oppression against black people has earned every second of this bad press brought on by this media exposure and demonstrations. That the Mormons have trained that bigotry onto gay and lesbian families only confirms that the LDS is what is erroneous and it is repeating that sorry history.
No one is telling the church and its membership not to believe whatever they want to believe about same-sex marriage, but they cannot foment discrimination and conflate church and state in their support of Proposition 8. The sole reason for backing the amendment is faith-based. That has nothing to do with civil law or government -- at least not in this country.
If the LDS can, in the minds of its followers, be inspired by God to take away the civil rights of people in another state, then gay and lesbian families (wouldn't they also be children of God, or are they not human to the LDS?) and their supporters, inspired by the Constitution, can call for the boycott of the state of Utah, where this hate was fomented and bankrolled. Tourism brings in $6 billion a year to Utah -- the state government and businesses in your state will not look kindly upon this rogue mini-theocracy hitting the bottom line of the state coffers.
And the Catholic church is also lying boldly:
Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church was also a target for supporting Proposition 8.
"Proposition 8 is not against any group in our society. Its sole focus is on preserving God's plan for people living upon this earth throughout time," Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles, said in a statement Thursday.
WTF? Wait a minute. Prop 8 just removed an existing right from one specific group of people. There's no way to whitewash this. There's no spin that takes away the fact that religious institutions that backed Proposition 8 did so because of their faith -- interfering with the laws of California.
Those laws do not correspond to anything taught from a holy book, or answer to any supreme being these churches preach about.
These extremist statements and positions are nothing less than a call to establish a theocracy. Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be moved to name the behavior of these institutions for what it is -- and question their tax-exempt status.
Think of what the millions of dollars poured into California's Prop 8 effort could have done on to help the homeless, the working poor, the people suffering in the imploding economy. Instead, here we see professed people of faith turning a blind eye to the less fortunate to focus on obliterating the separation of church and state using bigotry.
If it's bad PR for the churches, they brought it upon themselves.