May 24, 2009
Ex-Los Altos, CA, Mayor, Incurably Anti-Gay Mormon Ron Packard Propagates Prop 8 Propaganda on PBS
Shame on you,
Ron Packard.
Shame on you.
Somebody’s in serious need of schoolin’, and there’s nobody else I see who’ll take him on, so… here I am. It won’t be the first time I’ve tried to get through to him, and it probably won’t be the last.
Settle in for a long one, friends — and if you’re not in the mood for a long one, bookmark this post and come back to it when you’ve got a bigger block of time to read — really read. This involves themes of power, denial, religious delusion, blame, accountability, and “ex-gay” suicide — themes far larger than any grudge I might hold against my homophobic hometown ex-mayor.
Wait — Do I hold a grudge against Ron Packard? Yes. That doesn’t mean I pose any threat to him — my only weapon is words, and in reality I don’t even wish the guy any misfortune. All I want is for Ron Packard to experience a stroke of conscience, whether by “revelation” (as his convoluted religion calls it), or simply a sudden attack of rational, reality-based clarity — so that he stops using Mormonism as an excuse to persecute his neighbors (of which I am one), and to shed his cloak of deep denial about the very real anguish he and his church inflict, the kind of anguish that kills. Literally.
(So there you have it, Ron: My only wish for you is that you get it — although, if you didn’t get it after Stuart Matis blew his brains out on the steps of your temple, I doubt you ever will. But more about Stuart later. And if anyone wonders why I go to such great lengths to pre-empt any assumptions about my own motives, let’s just say that the last time I called out a local politician on his religion-based bigotry, he tracked me down, phoned me out of the blue, and— and we’ll pick up that story again some other day.)
So…
We live in this little ‘burb in the San Francisco Bay Area called Los Altos (”The Heights”) — which used to be a lovely, picture-perfect, idyllic, small town surrounded by apricot orchards, until the nouveau riche moved in and ruined everything with their multi-million-dollar mansions in the hills (and, for those not so filthy with money, but still aspiring to the delusion of the dream, McMansions erected atop the rubble of nice, roomy, post-war, ranch-style homes).
And in this little ‘burb (which now consistently ranks among the top ten most expensive places to live in the U.S. — and which is our home only because my family has been here since around 1910), we had a mayor by the name of Ron Packard. We still have him — when he’s not playing mayor, he’s on the city council, and has been, for far too long.
There’s not one, single, solitary thing I like about Ron Packard, and this is why:
(Really, read the links, and you’ll understand all — and you’ll get an idea of how small-town politics works, too.)
Los Altos, CA: Red Island in the Middle of a Blue Sea
February 25, 2006
Latest from Los Altos
February 26, 2006
Lawyers We Love… And One We Don’t (or: Los Altos Gets Another Well-Deserved Slap)
March 8, 2006
Gavin Newsom Shames Los Altos (Good!)
March 9, 2006
Pride Parade in Bigotville, USA
April 15, 2006
Kudos for Kids, More Shame for Bigotville
April 17, 2006
Done? Good. OK, now that you know why I was so down on Ron Packard before, let me show you why, since then, he’s gone from being just a small-town homophobe and general thorn-in-the-side to devil incarnate. This is the preliminary record for Packard and his associates at the law firm Packard, Packard & Johnson, from our forthcoming Proposition 8 donor database:
PROTECTMARRIAGE.COM (ANTI-GAY)
RONALD PACKARD - ATTORNEY
LOS ALTOS CA 94022-2324
08/06/08 - $5,000.00 - 1364931-INC44380PROTECTMARRIAGE.COM (ANTI-GAY)
MR. VON PACKARD - ATTORNEY
LOS ALTOS CA 94022
08/10/08 - $2,500.00 - 1364931-INC39324PROTECTMARRIAGE.COM (ANTI-GAY)
MR. PHILIP FAVRO - ATTORNEY
SUNNYVALE CA 94086-7333
09/09/08 - $200.00 - 1364931-INC76420PROTECTMARRIAGE.COM (ANTI-GAY)
MR. SCOTT ATKINSON - BUSINESS MANAGER
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA 94043
08/10/08 - $100.00 - 1364931-INC39711
Do you need me to comment on that? No, you don’t — not if you read the links I gave you at the top of this post, especially the first two, especially as they pertain to the suicide of Stuart Matis, a young gay Mormon who blew his head off on the steps of the Mormon temple in this little ‘burb of ours… the temple at which Ron Packard was a bishop.
“I thought, Who prays that hard?” says Feeser, 34. Compelled to find out, he moved from New York to Salt Lake City for one year, and, as an experiment, attended Evergreen, a gay-conversion therapy program that is unofficially connected with the Mormon Church. Feeser also interviewed Mormon families who had lost relatives to suicide, and investigated the circumstances surrounding Matis’s death. Missa Solemnis, or the Play About Henry is the fruit of his labors.”
— Latter-day sinners:
A new play looks at the horrors endured by gay Mormons
Time Out New York
Oct. 30–Nov. 5, 2008
So, why am I rehashing all this ancient history? Because Ron Packard managed to get on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics Newsweekly,” where, in a discussion of the Mormons bankrolling (and supplying manpower and vast resources for) Proposition 8, he defends his church by repeating some of the most thoroughly debunked propaganda about the church’s involvement in the anti-gay movement (which goes back much further than Packard implies, and is hardly limited to Proposition 8), and about the alleged consequences of supporting Proposition 8.
Mind you, I’m not calling Ron Packard a liar — I’ll just assume that he is as sadly misinformed as most of his fellow Mormons about the truth of his church’s long, ugly history of aggressive anti-gay political activism, and so gullible as to buy the lie that anyone has ever lost his job for supporting Prop 8… in which case I guess it’s up to me to be a good neighbor (a better neighbor than Packard has ever been to me), and set Ron straight (so to speak) on the facts.
You can watch the video at PBS — but here’s where Packard “catapults the propaganda”:
SEVERSON: Ron Packard is a lawyer, a former Mormon bishop and former mayor of Los Altos, California. He is now a councilman who supported Proposition 8 and says it’s extremely rare for the church to get involved in ballot issues.RON PACKARD (Former Mormon Bishop): I think that they made an exception to their general policy of not getting involved because they have a core concern about the protection of families and the possible disintegration of families in modern society.
Oh, really, Ron?
Chronology Of Mormon / LDS Involvement In Same-Sex Marriage Politics (PDF), Richley H. Crapo (who, by the way, is straight and Mormon), Utah State University:
1988 - The Church contracts the Hawaii marketing agency, Hill and Knowlton, to monitor and promote the Church’s stance on gay issues in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. …5 May 1993 - Apostle Boyd K. Packer gives an address at a meeting of the All-Church Coordinating Council and refers to homosexuality as one of the three major social problems that represent a danger to members. …
14 Feb 1994 - The First Presidency issues a statement that reads, in part, “We encourage members to appeal to legislators, judges, and other government officials to preserve the purposes and sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, and to reject all efforts to give legal authorization or other official approval or support to marriages between persons of the same gender.”
ca Feb 1995 - Brigham Young University President and later Regional Representative Rex E. Lee allowed by LDS headquarters to serve as a legal counsel to aid the state of Colorado in it’s [sic] defense of its recently passed constitutional amendment forbidding laws which grant civil rights protections based on sexual orientation.
23 Feb 1995 - The Hawaii Public Affairs Council issues a news release under LDS Church letterhead. In it church spokesperson Ms. Napua Baker announced that the Church had decided to petition the court to be admitted as “codefendants” with the state in the Baehr v. Lewin case in order to “protect freedom of religion to solemnize marriages between a man and a woman under Hawaiian law.” …
Feb/Mar 1995 - In the petition which was filed soon after the announcement by the Hawaii Public Affairs Council, the church argued that if same-sex marriage were legalized, (1) it feared that the state would revoke its ministers’ licenses to perform marriages, (2) the church would become subject to lawsuits charging discrimination when its ministers refused to perform same-sex marriages, and (3) because the church could help the Attorney General’s office to present a more complete case than would otherwise be done, given the limited time and resources available to the AG.
Mar 1995 - The Circuit Court of Hawaii rejects the church’s petition to become a party to the Baehr case. The judge ruled that the request was without merit, since nothing in the licensing law REQUIRES a minister to perform ANY marriage in behalf of the state, rather it merely PERMITS them to do so when it is in harmony with their religious practice and belief. Any requirement of the kind feared by the LDS church would be a violation of freedom of religion. The judge further pointed out that although the LDS church, like any individual or organization, might be the subject of a frivolous law suit, the grounds stated in the church’s petition would be without legal merit and thus, this fear, did not constitute grounds for being considered a party to the case. The church had, in other words, failed to demonstrate that it had any “property” in the issues under consideration. Finally, the church, according to the judge, failed in its petition to demonstrate that its arguments against same-sex merit were ones that had not already been raised by the state. The Church appealed this decision to the Hawaii Supreme Court. …
early in 1995 - Hawaii Governor John Waihe`e organizes an eleven-member Governor’s Commission on Sexual Orientation and the Law and specifically includes two LDS and two Roman Catholic members to represent their religions’ views. …
Sep 1995 - Original Governor’s Commission disbanded after the appointment of Mormon and Catholic members was successfully challenged as a violation of the separation of church and state, and a new seven-member commission is set up, using a different procedure.
23 Sep 1995 - The First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles issue a joint “Proclamation on the Family” in which they “solemnly proclaim that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children” and further declare “that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.” …
Nov 1995 - General Authority Loren C. Dunn, member of the First Quorum of Seventy and president of the North America West Area, formally appoints a Salt Lake City advertising executive and his wife to do several months of volunteer work for Hawaii’s Future Today. …
late Dec 1995 - An announcement is made that Jack Hoag (the Church’s lawyer in Hawaii, CEO of First Hawaiian Bank, the President and Chairman of Hawaii Reserves, Inc., and member of the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii, Manoa) is working on something important, possibly the creation of Hawaii’s Future Today…
January 1996 - First press release from Jack Hoag and Debbie Hartmann (chair of Hawaii’s Future Today and a staff member of BYU-Hawaii campus and prior member of the Board of Education, currently finishing her PhD in psychology with a focus on gay parenting) concerning legislative issues…
23 Jan 1996 - The Hawaii Supreme Court rejects the church’s appeal of the circuit court’s denial of the church’s petition to become a party to the Baehr case…
28 Jan 1996 - North America West Area Presidency (Loren C. Dunn, President) sends a letter to be read in all California wards, urging members to express their support for legislation against recognition of same-sex marriages being considered in the state. …
ca. Feb 1996 - The LDS church instructs its contracted marketing agency in Hawaii, Hill and Knowlton, to develop a plan for setting up a group, now known as Hawaii’s Future Today, to serve as the formal lobbying group which will approach the legislature, the courts, and the public on issues regarding same-sex marriage. …
The costs for setting up Hawaii’s Future Today and facilities for its use were provided by the church and by Hawaii Reserves, a property management company that is solely church-owned, and which took over the properties previously managed by Zion’s Securities. …
Once organized, Hawaii’s Future Today, under the direction of Jack Hoag and Debbie Hartman, began its public advocacy of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and of a constitutional convention to write this same ban into the Hawaii state constitution. …
21 May 1996 - Hawaii’s Campaign Spending Commission mails a complaint to Hawaii’s Future Today that indicates that the ads are in violations of Hawaii’s regulations governing spending in political campaigns, indicates the fines for such a violation and explains that Hawaii’s Future Today must file the required papers to register as a political-action committee. …
Jun 1966 - LDS headquarters acknowledges that it has been “calling” married couples with political action and advertising expertise on short-term missions to aid the work of Hawaii’s Future Today. …
Aug/Sep 1996 - The church and Hawaii’s Future Today submit amicus curiae briefs to Judge Chang of the Circuit Court of Hawaii in the Baehr case making the same appeals against same sex marriage. …
About this time, Jack Hoag and Mike Gabbard, LDS chair of Alliance for Traditional Marriage, cooperate to form a PAC called Save Traditional Marriage-’98 to lobby against same-sex marriage. …
Jan 1997 - North America Northwest Area Presidency (Glenn L. Pace, William Kerr, and C. Scott Grow) send a letter to be read in all Washington state wards, urging members to express their support to government leaders for legislation against the recognition of same-sex marriages being considered in the state. The letter uses the same boilerplate as the 28 Jan 1996 letter mailed in California, indicating coordination of the action from a higher level than the Area Presidencies. …
7 Mar 1997 - President Gordon B. Hinckley formally discloses in a newspaper interview published in the LA Times that the church had made a commitment at the top levels to play an active role in the same-sex marriage issue: “`We’re engaged right now in the same-sex marriage problem in legislation in Hawaii,’ Hinckley said. `We just made a decision today concerning the filing of a brief in that case. That’s spreading around the country now pretty largely and we’ve become rather actively involved in that kind of thing,’ he said” (LA Times, 7 March 1997, Page B-1). …
14 May 1998 - W.E. Woods reports that Save Traditional Marriage-’98’s report to the Hawaii Ethics Commission indicated donations from the following LDS sources: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ($4,225), POLYNESIAN CULTURAL CENTER ($1,025), BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY - HAWAII ($1,200); HAWAII’S RESERVE, INC. [the LDS Church-owned land management corporation] ($1,000); and LAIE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION [an appointed unit of HAWAII RESERVES, INC] ($1,000)). This does not include officers of said organizations which are also to be calculated in aggregate amounts…
Much, much more at the link.
Why I’m (still) mad at the Mormon church: a timeline, Chino Blanco, December 8, 2008:
October 1998: Of the $600,000 used to try to ban gay marriage in Alaska, $500,000 came from one big lump sum donation from the Mormon Church. It seems that they learned that they should have their members give the money in the future to avoid criticism.September 2007: Mitt Romney, in an interview with Christianity Today, describes an earlier 2007 Salt Lake City meeting between Jerry Falwell and Gordon B. Hinckley to discuss their cooperation on a campaign against same-sex marriage in California. …
May/June [2008]: The New York Times reports about this time in retrospect: “First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties.” …
Mormon Lesson of the Day: How the Mormon Church Mobilizes Its Members Politically — And Why It Works (”Dry Kindling: A Political Profile of American Mormons”), November 18, 2008:
The potential potency of a Mormon electoral bloc is not merely a theoretical proposition. Mansbridge (1986), for example, credits Mormon voters as instrumental in the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in some key states near the end of its ratification period. In particular, Mormons have played an important role in the politics of various Western states. In California, for example, LDS Church members were urged by church leaders not only to vote for Proposition 22 (a ban on gay marriages) in 2000, but also to become actively involved in the campaign. Latter-day Saints in other states have also been involved in advocating ballot initiatives banning same-sex marriages, including active support for efforts in Hawaii, Alaska, and Nevada. Mormon political involvement has also been observed outside of the Western states, as the Mormon Church has supported an anti-same sex marriage initiative in Nebraska and opposed riverboat gambling in Ohio. …
“When we first became involved in Hawaii two three years ago, the Hawaii Supreme Court asked the legislature to show cause as to why H.L.M. should not be legalized in Hawaii. … When Elder Maxwell took me to meet the First Presidency on this matter, President Hinckley said we better move ahead.”
Mormon Anti-Gay Game Plan, 1997. Click to open PDF file in new window.
Fred Karger Files Supplement to FPPC Complaint on Mormon Marriage Meddling, March 19, 2009:
The supplemental information is set forth in two parts. The first part includes official Mormon Church documents detailing the Church’s involvement in creating a “front group” in Hawaii to fight same-sex marriage in a very similar election 10 years ago. The Mormon Church did the same thing in California. In 2007, the Mormon Church set up another front group, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to qualify and pass Proposition 8. …In 1995, at the request of then Mormon Church President Gordon Hinckley, Church leadership identified the type of committee they wanted to create to stop same-sex marriage in Hawaii, and they set it up. …
They hired lobbyists, consultants, campaign managers, attorneys and had one very high ranking Mormon on the Board, Jack Hoag, the recently retired Chairman of the Church-owned First Hawaiian Bank. They were able to get money into Hawaii’s Future Today (HFT) that would go unreported (documents attached to this complaint and on our web site: Mormongate.com). These actions hid their direct involvement while creating a coalition to lead the effort.
They raised nearly all of the money from Utah and other mainland Mormons. Eventually the Mormon Church gave $400,000 directly to the campaign committee close to the election, but received much criticism for that large contribution. They switched strategies after that campaign and in subsequent elections, did not contribute directly to campaigns opposing same-sex marriage. …
The Mormon Church appears to have done the identical thing in California 12 years later. The Church established the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) in the summer of 2007 for the sole purpose of qualifying and passing Proposition 8. …
Yoo Hoo! Mormons! Tell Me Again How the Church Itself Isn’t Buried Up to Its Collective Hump in All These Anti-Gay Macchinations, March 25, 2009:
Rolly: A Prop 8 campaign look-alike in Hawaii? With all the controversy surrounding the LDS Church’s involvement in the Proposition 8 election in California last fall, a more subtle dust-up was brewing at the Hawaii State Legislature last month, pretty much over the same thing.
Hawaii resident Leonor Briscoe was fired up enough over an e-mail exchange with a neighbor that she forwarded copies to her friends, including some Utah residents she believed would be interested in the issue.
The exchange began with an e-mail she got from Frank Lueder, also of Hawaii, that informed her of HB444, a bill before the Hawaii Legislature that “is attempting to once again legalize same-sex marriage but under a new term, ‘civil union.’ If you wish relay your OPPOSITION to it, you could do so by [calling or e-mailing] your representative. You could access the list of … House of Representatives from the e-mail address I just gave.”
Briscoe, who is LDS, responded: “In the hierarchical, authoritarian structure of the Mormon church, there’s no way you would be sending out e-mails about HB444 without the implied or expressed sanction of the leaders of the Mormon Church. …
Well, Ron? Are you the last person on earth who doesn’t understand the depth of involvement your church has had in ramming through anti-gay (and other anti-equality) legislation, all over the country, for decades?
Finally, Ron, if you’re so concerned about the “disintegration of families in modern society,” better take that mote out of your own eye first, and deal with the rampant social problems within Mormon culture, beginning with sexual abuse in the LDS church, the high rate of depression among your women, the outstanding porn consumption, and… You get the idea. At some point, you might even get around to figuring out Utah’s off-the-scale teen suicide rate. (If you’re really brave, you might start asking why all these gay Mormons killed themselves.)
If anyone’s threatening the Mormon family, Ron, it’s Mormons.
Mr. PACKARD: The church has a long tradition of encouraging thinking members to not be afraid to speak up — beginning with Brigham Young. He said doesn’t want blind allegiance. He wants people to pray about it, think about it, and come to their own conclusions.
Oh, really, Ron?
I may not be worthy of my temple recommend…, “Guest,” Feminist Mormon Housewives, July 31, 2005:
In my stake temple recommend earlier this month I was told that if I do not agree with the church’s position on gay marriage, that I am not worthy to attend the temple. At the time I told the interviewer that I really didn’t care if homosexuals got married or not, but I wasn’t going to be out protesting over it. It was quite a long discussion, with me over and over again saying that I didn’t care about the issue. (If you’re curious, it occurred around the question of you affiliate with or agree with anyone whose practices are contrary to the teachings of the church).Upon further reflection, I wondered if, because I would not be comfortable campaigning against gay marriage legislation (such as the saints in CA were asked to do), that I’m not fully in agreement with the church’s position. Frankly, I feel much more strongly about other issues, such as abortion or pornography. But I have a hard time being impassioned about gay marriage – This is a group of people we have excluded from our church anyways, why should we care if they get married? This strikes me as a political issue, not a religious one.
Mormon Lesson of the Day: How the Mormon Church Mobilizes Its Members Politically — And Why It Works (”Dry Kindling: A Political Profile of American Mormons”), November 18, 2008:
While it is perhaps a historical irony that contemporary Mormons favor Republicans, history teaches us that we should not be surprised to see that Mormons are homogeneous in their political leanings. Political unity among Mormons has deep historical roots. In the 1830s and 1840s, one of the charges leveled at Mormon settlers in Missouri and Illinois was that they voted as a bloc. In fact, in 1838 fears of Mormon bloc voting led non-Mormons to thwart Mormon voters’ attempts to cast ballots in Gallatin, Missouri. The resulting riot led the governor of Missouri, Lilburn W. Boggs, to issue an order that the Mormons must be driven from the state or “exterminated” (Arrington and Bitton 1979, 51). Faced with this choice the Mormons opted to leave the state, crossing the Mississippi River to found the city of Nauvoo, Illinois. But their bloc voting continued. In the 1840s Mormon leaders, church founder Joseph Smith particularly, were courted by candidates of different parties vying for the cohesive Mormon vote. When the Mormons settled in Utah, the church actually had its own political party (the People’s Party), which dominated state politics until it was disbanded in 1891 by church leaders who saw that Utah’s unique political landscape was an impediment to efforts to achieve statehood. Owing to the historical antipathy many Mormons felt toward the Republican Party, Utah became a predominantly Democratic state. Concerned that the one-partyism of Utah was still an obstacle to becoming a state, LDS Church leaders “encouraged the development of the Republican party among church members”…Even a brief description of the expectations placed upon members of the LDS Church underscores the level of commitment required within the Mormon faith. …
An implication that follows from the intensive church involvement of Mormons is that their church activity provides training in what Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) call “civic skills.” These are the quotidian tasks that constitute the practice of civic involvement – holding meetings, giving speeches, writing letters, etc. They find that training in these skills is an important resource leading to political activity, and that such training is often provided by churches. …
As expected, we see that … The more Mormons are involved in their church, the more they are involved in politics. … Interestingly, Mormons with the lowest level of religious participation have a slightly lower rate of political activity than Southern Baptists or Catholics who have the same level of religious involvement. Mormons have the steepest sloping line, however, and so at the highest level of religious participation, they have the highest level of political involvement. …
Adherence to the prophet’s instructions in all matters is a hallmark of Mormon religious observance, including in regards to political questions. …
Typically, the LDS Church has taken official stances on issues raised by ballot initiatives, and not campaigns for elected office. This is presumably because of the church’s reluctance to be seen as intervening in a partisan contest, as well as the fact that this is often the vehicle by which controversial social issues are brought before the electorate. …
Much, much more at the link.
And let’s not forget Andrew Callahan, who last fall was notified of his impending excommunication as punishment for his public opposition to Proposition 8.
SEVERSON: Ron Packard says the most fierce opposition has come from gay rights advocates that have rallied against the church around the nation. He’s says he on a blacklist because he supported Proposition 8.
Mr. PACKARD: There’s some people who’ve lost their jobs because they supported Proposition 8.
SEVERSON (to Mr. Packard): Really?
Mr. PACKARD: Yeah.
Oh, really, Ron?
Who? Or are you just swallowing — and regurgitating — the same old garbage about Scott Eckern and Richard Raddon?
Commit this to memory, Ron:
Eckern did not “lose” his job, nor was he “forced” to resign, as the vast majority of your fellow Mormons insist on saying; he resigned voluntarily, “after prayerful consideration“:
“I am leaving California Musical Theatre after prayerful consideration to protect the organization and to help the healing in the local theatre-going and creative community.”
Got that, Ron? Nobody forced him out. His resignation was a result of “prayerful consideration” (which is a big deal with Mormons, isn’t it?).
Or is it Richard Raddon’s story that’s bothering you?
Watch the anti-gay brigades scream about how yet another good Mormon was “forced” out of his job because of his religious beliefs by those horrible gay fascists.First, Richard Raddon wasn’t forced to do anything. We, however, chose not to give our money to an organization that pays someone who uses his money against us. What a simple concept that is, and how sad so few simple minds actually comprehend it.
(Shame on you, Bill Condon, for saying Raddon “lost his job.” That’s bullshit, and you know it. He was free to stay; in fact, the first time he tried to resign, you wouldn’t let him.)
Who else could you be talking about, Ron? And why haven’t these stories made the newspapers? You’re a lawyer — you know what the legal repercussions would be if a person were fired for nothing more than supporting a ballot initiative, or a political candidate — and it would be front-page news. (Goodness knows, the right-wing Christian evangelicals would never shut up about such a thing if it ever happened.)
So I ask you, Ron: Who are you talking about? Who are these people “who’ve lost their jobs because they supported Proposition 8″?
(Aside to Lucky Severson: Why didn’t you follow up on Packard’s claim that people have “lost their jobs because they supported Proposition 8.” Why didn’t you ask him for even one example?)
And, Ron, I sincerely doubt your law practice has suffered; don’t tell me your income relies on the patronage of vast numbers of gay clients — or that your Mormon clients have abandoned you.
That said, if you can give me one good reason any gay person should even consider retaining a lawyer who is an anti-gay activist, I’d love to hear it. Would you knowingly patronize a business whose owner devotes his money and energy to destroying the Mormon church?
I didn’t think so.
Mr. PACKARD: A majority of the people of the United States don’t want same-sex marriages. So for the majority we may have, instead of getting a hit we get a halo. Whenever any organization gets involved in the political process, there’s going to be some who consider it a hit and others who feel that they’re a hero.
You just keep believing that, Ron — until you get hit, whether by divine “revelation” or the weight of simple rationality, with the reality of the damage you have inflicted on your fellow man (and woman).
No “halo” for you, Ron. You are no hero, except in your own imagination, and to your fellow Mormons struggling to maintain that delicate balancing act called cognitive dissonance.
SEVERSON: Ron Packard says the church does not discriminate against gays, that his niece and some of his friends are gay, and that the church does not have a policy of denying the sacrament to homosexual members. …
Ron Packard can say whatever he wants, but the truth is that the Mormon church does not discriminate against closeted gays, or gays who remain celibate, or gays who undergo “ex-gay” programs in which prescribed methods of “cure” are surpassed (and then, maybe not) only by Dick Cheney-approved torture.
And it doesn’t work, Ron. Not all the prayers to your god, not all the electrodes attached to all the penises your church can find… All you get are self-loathing closet cases forced into doomed-to-fail marriages with unassuming, naive Mormon girls — or you get countless young men like Stuart Matis…
…who blew his brains out on the step of your temple… Bishop.
— Full page hate
Drinking Liberally SLC
February 15, 2009
Here, Ron, you’d do well to school yourself some more before you run around catapulting the propaganda again — else a person might think you’re not merely severely misinformed, but that you really are lying… for the Lord:
A history of the Mormon moves in 1999 and 2000 to discriminate against gays
LDS-Mormon.com
Memo links Mass. couple to Prop 22, Mormon strategy
Bay Area Reporter
November 27, 2008
Official Mormon Church Documents (1995 through 1998)
“…documentation indicating the Mormon Church’s complete domination in the Hawaii fight for same-sex marriage. They show how the Church raises money, performs research and polling, brings in other religions, lobbies legislators, builds collations…all while hiding their involvement.” MormonGate.com
And while you probably still won’t learn anything, Ron, you should at least try to understand the very real real anguish you and your church inflict, the kind of anguish that kills. Literally:
I Would Really Rather Be Dead - Stuart Matis
From No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones by Carol Lynn Pearson
“He was thirty-two years old before he told his parents about the cross he had carried since age seven. He had been certain that with obedience and faith his attraction for the same gender would pass … He fasted and prayed and he went to the temple every week. He wept as night after night he prayed until morning, begging and pleading with a God he knew could help him if he was only worthy enough. As a child he would deny himself a favorite television program as punishment for a homosexual thought, or he wouldn’t allow himself to attend a friend’s birthday party.”
Letter to a Cousin
Stuart Matis
“So, you want to have my opinions regarding the Knight Initiative? At the outset, I’ll tell you that the events surrounding this initiative have been painfully difficult for me to endure. Last July, I read online that the Church had instructed the Bishops to read a letter imploring the members to give of their time and money to support this initiative. I almost went into a panic attack. I cried for hours in my room, and I could do very little to console the grief of hearing this news. Furthermore, I read that the Church had supported similar measures in Hawaii and in Alaska. … My gay friend, Clay (I met him on my mission), has implored me to never mention anything regarding Knight in his presence. It causes him too much pain.“
Clay Douglass Whitmer (1965-2000)
“Clay committed suicide in the San Francisco Bay Area on March 20, 2000 — three weeks after his friend Stuart Matis. Stuart was Clay’s very dear friend. They went to Brigham Young University together and served Mormon missions together in Italy. The death of his friend Stuart may have been the last straw in Clay’s life.”
DJ Thompson’s Final Goodbye
“First, I would like to thank Troy and Bill [Stuart’s brother] for their thoughtfulness in their expressions of the heart. This in part, is what has led me to go public, and International with my feelings, on this issue, and the general issue of hate and anti-rights for gay men and women. Not just from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but joined by the hate groups such as the Christian Coalition, and others aligned with them, all over this country. … Up until now, my pride kept most people close to me from knowing this. It is unfortunate that the lives of good people such as Stuart Matis, Mathew Shepherd, and many others go unnoticed, unappreciated, and under valued in this country. Therefore, I believe that the end of my life, will simply be the same. I also know that my words will be ignored by most that even hear or read them. I see Proposition 22 as a last straw in my lifelong battle to see peace in the world I live in. … Stuart and I were both to be 33 this year. We both decided to leave this earth for most of the same reasons. …”
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Filed Under: "Ex-Gays", California, Civil Rights, Hawaii, Homophobia, LDS/Mormons, Marriage, Mental Health, Mitt Romney, Proposition 8, Radical Religious Right, Utah
