Next weekend, April 4-5, marks the annual World-wide conference of the Mormon Church. Instead of organizing a protest Mr. Whipple has instead opted for a multi-service project to do good deeds for the beautification and betterment of Utah residents in an attempt to demonstrate that Gay people are good people and therefore their interests should be respected by Utah voters.
Mr. Whipple, while I commend you for concerns about the need for such service in Utah offsite of well manicured and controled LDS property, I think you are sucking up to church leaders who have put your cause in the same if not worse category than of Black American men prior to and in some sense still after their mistakenly named "revelation" in 1978.
America has come a long way in officialdom with the election of a Black president but in many cases discrimination and offensive language is still in vogue in illiterate quarters.
You need to remember history Jacob. Do you believe that equal rights would have happened for Black people in the absence of the work of Dr. King and others? Do you think that sit ins and marches which sometimes resulted in injury and death were not Required to shift the weights on the scales of liberty?
Black people did not enhance the chance of their equality by sucking up to white supremacy!
Do you believe that Black men would hold the right to priesthood within the church in the absence of work done by Byron Marchant, Dr. John Fitzgerald and myself if we had not made an open and forceful public assault on the status quo of pre 1978 Mormon Leadership thinking?
The 1978 manifesto happened only because of the public efforts that we and others made to force a change of attitude and perspective on the part of those leaders. If embarrassing the leaders is necessary, as it is, then you must do peacefully whatever it takes to embarrass them!
Placing yourself and your supporters in a position of prayerful servitude to the duties of servants will only leave you all as servant subordinates. It will not change anything! Mormons will still regard you as second or third class citizens with no rights which they think they have the power to withhold!
What the Church leaders need (metaphorically sppeaking) is a stone between the eyes ala David and Goliath ! While that may be shortly coming at them from an unsuspected source you and your group need to make yourself totally visible in the sense that every attendee at annual church conference needs to see the massive presence and economic power which you wield in the State of Utah.
Take the advice of someone who has stood there on the front line of battle almost all alone! It can be scary! Behind the showy mantle of "priestly authority" these leaders are as confused and mistaken on the issue of homosexuality as is the rest of their ilk in-spite of their arrogance.
Teach them a peaceful lesson in the rights of Gay and Lesbian Americans to pursue happiness as protected Under the U.S. Constitution. Re-order your thinking and surround all Mormon temples in the state of Utah as well as all other states especially Hawaii!
In fact if supporters at least 2 by 2 were to picket Mormon temples around the world with protestation and placards it would open the eyes of the blind. Let not only Mormons but the whole world see and understand your determination to seek equality.
Don't argue with methods of success!
I know God is with you!
I and many other thinking people are with you!
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