thomascwaters.com

“The church supports this ordinance because it is fair and reasonable and does not do violence to the institution of marriage,” said Michael Otterson, managing director of the LDS Church’s public affairs office.

The Mormon Church has been extremely active in supporting anti-gay marriage battle, and may be recognizing how their previous strategy is a recipe for a back fire, because the strategy has changed. The accusation is that those who are opposed to Marriage Equality do so, because they really want to discriminate in any way against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Proponents of full equality and equal rights have labeled the opposition as bigots, and now, they are recognizing that label as damaging to their goal. The church is not speaking of this as a change in strategy, claiming that it was articulated in an August 2008 statement.

But August 2008 is really not that long ago.

The LDS identifies their goals here:

…the LDS Church “does not object to rights regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference.”

“The church remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman,” he said.

This may be a more gay-positive stance than that taken by far-right groups like the National Organization forMarriage (NOM) and draws a line in the sand that everyone should be able to understand. But the real problem is that Marriage Equality does neither, and so their arguments against it are irrelevant. Marriage Equality doesn’t force any church to do anything against their religion, so the second point is moot. Their first point, gets a bit muddier, because 1) it assumes that the “integrity of the family” is a set concept easy to define, and that currently exists, and 2) is linked solely and completely to the gender of the parents of a family. The integrity of the family, in other words is all about procreation, at least for the Mormons.

Before going any further, this is a positive development to see the LDS take a public step forward for the rights of gay and lesbians. But otherwise, this is the same old stuff we have been battling and must continue to battle. There is no mention of bisexual, or trans rights in this ordinance, and no protection in public accommodations. So, at least gay people can work, but they can still be refused a hotel room or a seat in a restaurant.

A more interesting story appears if you read down through the comments following the blog post. Here, in the comments is where we see the actual position of Mormons begin to be expressed. Some folks are outraged that their church would say anything supportive of gay people at all. Other see this very matter-of-factly and support it- for them the church is acting fairly and reasonably here, and except for the failure of the ordinance to protect bisexuals and trans people, and failure to include public accommodations, I completely agree.  The line in the sand, is the biblical and/or church ownership of marriage, and GLBTQ activists need to come to grips with that. If we continue to fail to understand the line in the sand, we will continue to fall short in ever battle against our opponents.

I am not suggesting we should accept their line in the sand, rather we have to quit fighting against the wrong enemy! We can say this is hate-based and use the catchy “NoH8,” but in doing so, our attempt to reframe the battle as one of love vs hate misses the mark. They are winning the battle when it comes to framing the issue! The real enemy is a restrictive and unsupportable notion that marriage is between one man and one woman. The enemy is the false notion that the integrity of the family is dependent upon a household with a male and female parent. This is the framing of the issue and the rhetoric we must learn how to confront and beat.

via Deseret News | Mormon Church backs protection of gay rights in Salt Lake City.