It ain't over folks. One lawsuit has already been filed to challenge the Prop 8 results, and high-profile attorney Gloria Allred is about to file another one.
Meantime, just as I predicted, the Church had better get ready for increased hostility in California. I'm sure this will be no surprise to Salt Lake, and many California Mormons will say "bring it on, we welcome The Enmity of The World." But it's no longer theoretical, people. We're going to have to actually live with this now, not just talk about it. At a protest rally yesterday in Los Angeles "the crowd appeared angry and frustrated, with much of that anger directed at the Mormon church, which funded the bulk of the Yes on 8 campaign." Click here for the full story. Prop 8 may prove to be just a speedbump rather than the end of the road.
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It is not the mind of heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm is done to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy.
- John Stuart Mill
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if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll just end up miserable.
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need... an educationof the heart and soul. They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul.
Bruce Bawer
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Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
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What we insistently desire, over time, is what we eventually become and receive in eternity.
- Neal Maxwell
Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others' opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
There's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
- Hamlet
I am oppressed by the uncertainty of my future, but I cherish the lively hope of seeing my dreams fulfilled, because the Lord cannot place thoughts and desires in a person's soul if He does not really intend to fulfill them, to gratify these longings which He alone has caused.
- Blaise Pascal
What we insistently desire, over time, is what we eventually become and receive in eternity.
- Neal Maxwell
Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others' opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
There's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
- Hamlet
I am oppressed by the uncertainty of my future, but I cherish the lively hope of seeing my dreams fulfilled, because the Lord cannot place thoughts and desires in a person's soul if He does not really intend to fulfill them, to gratify these longings which He alone has caused.
- Saint Padre Pio
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
- e. e. cummings
Whose boat drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be.
- George Gordon, Lord Byron
The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra of personalities only to value the piccolos of the world. Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of the symphony.
- Joseph Wirthlin
I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?
- Everett Ruess
It’s the loneliest feeling in the world. It’s like walking down an empty street, listening to your own footsteps. But all you have to do is to knock on any door and say ‘If you let me in, I’ll live the way you want me to live and I’ll think the way you want me to think’, and all the blinds will go up and all the doors will open, and you will never be lonely, ever again.
- Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind by Robert Lee
Marriage is a civil contract. You might as well make a law to say how many children a man shall have, as to make a law to say how many wives he shall have. It would be as sensible to make a law to say how many horses or oxen he shall possess, or how many cows his wife shall milk.
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Only regret what you don't learn from.
- Chris Taylor
Others sing your life
But now is a chance to shine
And have the pleasure of
Saying what you mean
Have the pleasure of
Meaning what you sing
Oh, make no mistake my friend
All of this will end
So sing it now, sing your life
- Morrissey
"The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances." -Hugh Nibley
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"I see their knavery, . . . to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid." - Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III, Scene 1
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"Know Thyself." - Socrates, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and a bunch of other really smart people
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7 comments:
There is a prop 8 rally again today at the LDS temple in Los Angeles at 2pm.
Mormon's have been known as that group that has those nice commercials about families. Now we'll be known as that group which hates gays.
Of course, the church vehemently denies hating gays - but if your actions makes people feel hated then your words of love compassion become empty and meaningless.
Sorry, I guess I'm still feeling a little emotional today.
You know what else really worries me? My kids, though young, came to their own conclusions on Prop 8. They believed it was wrong wrong wrong. We have gay friends that my kids know will be hurt by the election result.
I have tried to teach my kids faith in the principles of the gospel and activity in the Church, but how will they look at the Church now? They are angry and will see it as having forced discrimination onto people they care about.
This is the first time in my life that action by the Church has actually started to threaten the stability of my family and the future I'd hoped to provide for my kids. This is not what I had hoped being raised in the Church would do for them.
I think it just might not be the time for gays to have that right yet. I think that in time they... we... will. Look how long it took blacks to have right and woment to have rights in this country.
On another note - I am upset with the church for pushing this. It seems that the Church did not pause to think about the families in the Church who have gay relitives.
The Mormon church has always been despised and this really has not helped our image.It seems like right when I tried to get back into my faith this started up. I am glad it is over but I can't say I am happy with the Church.
Alan, I don't know if what the Church did was right or wrong. Maybe that seems wimpy, maybe I am. I still have not resolved the issue in my own mind. I do have a suggestion for your kids though. My kids saw me leave the Church and come back. I actually always went, I left it in my heart. When I came back, I told my children that I still have questions about the Church, how it has done things in the past, how mortal men lead the Church and sometimes make mortal mistakes.
My testimony to them is that the gospel never changes. We must base our testimonies on the gospel, the redeeming atonement of Jesus Christ. I view the Church as the best vehicle currently on earth to deliver the message of the gospel and help us live by its principles.
It's started. What have we done? I wonder what this'll lead to...
I think we all saw this coming. And I can tell you that I agree with abelard, Actions speak A LOT louder than words. Did the church honestly think they could take such a strong stance and then the LGTB community would just shrink back into their closets! And issuing some PC statement about unity isn't much of a bandage on the hurt that they have helped create. Good Luck to them in trying to rebuild the church's image in the minds of Californians and supporters of LGTB Rights!
I have never really made a stand for or against prop 8, and perhaps today I will still be undecided.
A couple of months ago I was given an assignment in my ethics class to choose an editorial and deconstruct the arguments that I found there.
I chose an article written concerning polygamy and how at times in existence it was God's choice for his followers.
It brought me to a realization of something that I had always felt, but had never come to the front of my mind.
We all choose how we want to live our lives. We choose things that other people would not. If the actions that people choose do not harm others, then there is little that I can truly say against their actions.
Polygamy, in itself, is not a fundamentally bad thing. In essence, it does not exist to hurt others, yet in living what they believe, some polygamists do hurt others in forms of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. This is where we as a society must step in, to prevent such bad things from happening.
Gay marriage, in effect is the same to me. As long as it does not harm others, then what harm can it cause?
Mormons can say that their children will be exposed to things that they would not wish for them. I tell them, look around. We live in the latter days, if we eliminate gay marriage do we really change what our children are faced with?
What our parental responsibility entails is to teach our children what we feel is right, and then release them to choose for themselves.
Having a discussion with our kids teaching them that God does not recognize unions between two men or two women will help them to understand what God's will is for us.
We live in a time where we are taught that all people are created equal, until they forfeit their rights by choosing to act in a manner that is against what we as a people determine as law.
Gay marriage does not abuse others more than the straight marriage does. There will be those on both sides that will give marraige good and bad examples of what marriage is about.
Gay marriages will have the same ability to abuse others as straight marriages do. Our responisbility will be to step in to stop that abuse from happening.
By telling California that gays should not be allowed to get married, we do not create a better situation for our children to be in. Gay couples will continue to exist, and straight married couples will do continue to do enough damage to the sanctity of marriage for both homosexual and heterosexual companionships together.
Let us teach our children what is right and wrong, and let others live their lives they way that they choose, in a manner which is respectful and healing to whoever wishes to participate.
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