My honey’s niece heard an interesting story about me last Thanksgiving and asked if she could interview me for a project for her college Social Justice class.

Here is the result:

YouTube LINK

In Utah, it is currently legal–

• To evict a tenant for being gay
• To fire an employee for being gay

The Salt Lake Tribune reports this morning that a gay anti-bias bill that would prohibit this type of discrimination will be attempted in this session of the Utah State legislature — even though the LDS church has reportedly chosen to not get behind it, as had seemed to be the case earlier this year.

This apparent refusal to provide its blessing (something that is literally required for most LDS legislators to get on board) may be tied to attempts to remove the clause allowing exemptions for people with “sincere religious beliefs against homosexuality”.

Maybe it’s me, but isn’t this exactly the group this bill is targeting? Keeping this clause in makes it essentially non-enforceable and non-effective.

ADDENDUM: It didn’t pass. Another year in Utah with no legal protections. I also read that the church fears this because they would not be able to fire church employees who are in a gay relationship as they currently do with impunity. Nice.

A few days before the recent U.S. Presidential elections, my LDS cousin’s married, adult daughter posted the following on Facebook as a “call to arms”:

Tomorrow is a day of fasting and prayer for our faith. Whoever you are and whatever your beliefs, I invite you to join with our family in spending the day remembering God and this great nation and asking for His blessings on us this Tuesday.

After the election — when Mitt Romney, the LDS candidate she fasted and prayed for — did not win, I posted this:

Wow this stuff really works. My prayers WERE answered on Tuesday.

She retorted with a somewhat typical Mormon response that blamed my supposed iniquity as the root cause of why I would disagree with her political beliefs (not to mention the whole “fast and pray so Romney wins” mantra):

You can have your own need for all things immoral and inane validated by the Democratic Party and turn your back on what you once professed to be true but that doesn’t give you props for being a schmuck on my status.

Her father pulled something similar several years ago when he sent out a blast email exhorting people to give a good rating to his son’s newly-launched music album on Amazon and iTunes. My older brother questioned the propriety and honesty of this request in an email response back and this man proceeded to call my brother “an apostate and embittered ex-member” [of the LDS church] as a way of showing who was on the right side of god.

Interesting tactic.

Fred Karger, the outspoken anti-Prop 8 proponent from California has created the “Top 10 Craziest Mormon Beliefs” site that entertains just that.

I suspect that this is being done to enlighten the electorate during this, “The Mormon moment“.

I’m trying to stay out of politics and especially the extreme fringes of the two main political parties, but this from Gary Johnson (who, to be honest, I’d never heard of before coming across his blog) appealed to me:

Gary Johnson: Social issues are not going to win the White House

August, 19, 2011, WASHINGTON, DC – In a speech Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, presidential candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson criticized the “social conservative fringe” of the Republican Party, saying “There is no majority in America that can be built on hypocrisy and inconsistency.”

Johnson said, “Social issues are not going to win the White House in 2012. When I see Republican Presidential candidates discussing morality as if the government were some type of watchdog and moral compass for America —then I see the American electorate being turned away. America does not want its government dictating behavior the bedroom, we do not want a government invading personal lives. The Republican Party is about efficient management of the government pocket book. We are the party that can restore economic prosperity to this county. However, if continue to get sidetracked by the social conservative fringe of the party—we will never get that chance.”
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Our brothers and sisters in New York were able to legally marry today.

LINK

Jon Huntsman throws his hat into the ring…

From The New York Daily News:

Gay marriage now just one vote shy of becoming law in New York despite Archbishop Dolan’s objections

BY KENNETH LOVETT
DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

ALBANY – Gay marriage moved just one vote shy Tuesday of becoming law in New York as the state’s top Catholic raised holy hell trying to stop it.

Sen. Roy McDonald (R-Saratoga) – in a dramatic reversal from his earlier opposition – became the second GOPer in as many days to give his blessing to same-sex nuptials, bringing Senate support to 31 votes.
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