Posted on 08/15/2009 4:05:35 PM PDT by Baladas
SALT LAKE CITY -The Mormon church's vigorous, well-heeled support for Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California last year, has turned the Utah-based faith into a lightning rod for gay rights activism, including a nationwide "kiss-in" Saturday.
The event comes after gay couples here and in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas, were arrested, cited for trespassing or harassed by police for publicly kissing. In Utah, the July 9 trespassing incident occurred after a couple were observed by security guards on a downtown park-like plaza owned by the 13 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The court case was dismissed, but the kiss sparked a community backlash and criticism of the church.
"I don't think that kiss would have turned out to be the kiss heard round the world if it were not for Proposition 8," said Ash Johnsdottir, organizer of the Salt Lake City Kiss-In.
Atali Staffler, a Brigham Young University graduate student from Geneva, Switzerland, said she joined the 200 or so people who filled a downtown amphitheater for the event because she has watched her gay father and many gay friends struggle to find their place.
The 31-year-old, who was raised Mormon but is not active in the church, said the church shouldn't be involved in Prop. 8.
"I encourage them to promote the values they believe in and to defend their religious principles in advertisements, but civil rights have nothing to do with religious principles," she said.
Twenty-two people, many of them strangers to one another, gathered under the scorching sun on Washington's National Mall to participate in the national smooch. They were gay and straight, couples and singles of all ages, with placards that read "Equal Opportunity Kisser" and "A Kiss is a Not a Crime."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.aol.com ...
Heh... they should go try that outside an AME church.
"Hate crime" or not, perverts are still perverts.
I hope the Mormons ran them off again!
That’d be “beat down time” Fur Shur. The AME are a very humorless bunch aren’t they?!
Bull. Civil rights have everything to do with religious principles-- it's just a question of whether a given citizen considers himself or herself (and on this issue, it's hard to tell which is which sometimes!) a god.
Strange. No mention of the vicious, anti-heterosexual Left’s “vigorous, well-heeled support against traditional marriage...”
> The 31-year-old, who was raised Mormon but is not active in the church, said the church shouldn’t be involved in Prop. 8. <
You mean..EVERY church of EVERY religion, correct? Today a “kiss in”, tomorrow a “catch and pitch in”.
I went to the recent Tea Party in Columbus, Ohio. The media made mention of ‘a hundred or so’ people when there were estimated 10,000. No story.
22 flamers show up in Utah and it’s all over the place.
How do 200 people fill an amphitheater?
Such immaturity.
Of course this is nothing compared to the classy “F* Mormons” banner that hung from some gayboy’s house in SF after Prop 8 (until the coward finally had to take it down due to adverse publicity from his own kind)
Or perhaps the ripping of the Cross from that elderly woman’s hands during a TV interview back about that time.
Some real class acts, those cute little homos.
I had to really scrounge the web to find the lesbos in SA were not at the really beautiful Mormon Temple, but at a local Mall which describes itself as Family Friendly.
The two gals should've taken a drive up I-35 to Austin where their PDA's wouldn't have raised any eyebrows.
Outside a Mosque
ALLAH AKBAR!!
They should hold these “kiss -ins” in the black and hispanic communities in CA. They voted overwhelmingly for Prop. 8.
Pretty audacious for the Associated (with terrorists and freaks) Press to suggest that it is the Mormons’ image that is harmed by these antics.
There could well be some unintended consequences: A really concerted anti-Mormon hate campaign by gay activists will almost certainly help the otherwise RINO-tainted Mitt Romney with social conservatives.
What? Didn’t have the guts for a bugger-in? Compare the goings-on at Woodstock 40 years ago last week. Freaks just aren’t what they used to be.
When will they be holding their “fist-ins”. This is the logical conclusion, isn’t it?
This is just homosexuals being excited at the prospect of people being offended. It must be part of their fetish.
all this kiss in stuff on the same week as Disney world opens a pro Lesbian restaurant is the alegedly family friendly Disney World Resort Boardwalk.
I bet normal families were happy to walk into that restaurant. (hard to imagine disney would allow that in public on their property.)
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