Families: united by love but divided by hate.

In discussing the terrible tragedy of two teens driven to suicide by anti-gay bigotry—which I advise you read if you haven't done so)—I said to the bigots: "But they could be your children." Of course, we know many examples when they have been their children. Certainly Bobby Griffith was tormented by his own mother and family and church until he killed himself. Mary Griffith realized what she had done, but it was too late to save Bobby. Since then she has campaigned to end the prejudice.


This is what must terrify the anti-gay bigot in ways that can't torment the racist. A Klan leader is not going to discover that the white son he has known his entire life is going to announce he's really black. But no anti-gay bigot with children can have that confidence throughout their entire life. There is always a time when they simply don't know. And many remain clueless their entire lives. But many of them do find themselves facing down their own children and hating them for being gay.


As often happens in politics two powerful political families are united when their children marry. Both families are very conservative, both are Mormons and of course, they are Republicans. Matthew Salmon was Republican state senator in Arizona, he ran for governor and he was a U.S. Congressman. Jeff Flake in the Congressman from Mesa, another conservative Republican and like Salmon, another Mormon. The Flake and Salmon families have been a foundation for the Right-wing Republicans in Arizona. And now they are united by romance—though neither of them are particularly thrilled by it.

Matt Salmon is named after his father, the former congressman. At 14-years-of-age he told his mother he was gay, which didn't stop his family from campaigning against gay people. His partner is Kent Flake, the second counsin of Congressman Flake.

Matt followed the teachings of the Mormon sect and went through therapy to change. It failed, as might be expected.

Kent is from Snowflake, Arizona. Snowflake was a small town founded on orders of Brigham Young, the alleged Mormon prophet. Young sent William Flake to found the town and Apostle Erastus Snow was put in charge of colonization. These polygamists were the founders of the town and when Mormons to name it after Flake others wanted to honor Snow. The name Snowflake was how they honored both simultaneously.

Of course each young man knew of the others family. Matt befriend Kent on Facebook and soon they started dating. At this point Kent told his family he was gay. But under pressure he broke up with Matt and tried to go through church therapy to cure himself of being gay. Matt and Kent had an argument about Kent's attempt to change and faced with a final decision Kent decided to stay with Matt and to resign from the Mormon cult. Matt was sitting in church one Sunday in the summer of 2008 when the minister, following orders from the church heirarchy, was urging everyone in the Arizona congregation to send money to defeat marriage equality in California—that is donate to Proposition 8. The minister told the congregation that all homosexuals are promiscuious and their relationships are selfish. That was when he decided to quite Mormonism completely, and today compares it to some of the outlandish teachings from the cult of Scientology.

Flake is getting the worst of it. He rarely sees his family anymore, hasn't had a real conversation with his father nad has been told that his father doesn't want Matt around his family or his grandkids. Kent's sister told has publicly said that she called them "fags" and "pedophiles" but insists they still love him, they just don't want "to see him in a gay couple." The same is true in Salmon's family. He was told that his family still loves him but that Kent is not welcome in their home. Matt's own siblings dropped him as a Facebook friend in protest over his being gay.

One cousin, Krista Gohus, still is friends. She recently left the Mormon sect as well and considers herself a libertarian, not a Republican. She told the Phoenix New Times: "Matt and his boyfriend, Kent, have been to my home many times, and my 10-year-old son knows Matt and Kent are a couple. I'm teaching my children that being gay is just like being left-handed or being born with curly hair. It's not right or wrong, it's just the way you were born."

Photos: Matt (L), Kent (R).

America's Best Christian on the Mormons

Some amusing satired by Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian.

In related news, but not humor, is the story of an evangelical church in Denver. Having given much deserved grief to the fundamentalists for their bigotry I should mention this attempt to change. Highlands Church, is an evangelical church run by Mark Tidd. Tidd said he watched Christians he knew who were gay trying to change and repeatedly failing. He concluded that if this sort of attempted change were really the will og God then the process ought "to be life-giving." Instead he says that "people were not flourishing. The results were broken spirits, despair and depression." (Sounds right to me.)

After giving this much thought Tidd told his congregation that the church would be welcoming to gay people. Tidd said: "If you had told me 10 years ago I would be standing here... speaking out in favor of gay marriage and ordination. I would have told you, you were crazy." Tidd had a congregation of 350. Around half his congregation walked-out. (Now, that's the fundamentalism I have come to know and loathe.)

How deep is their hate.

My experience, as a former Christian, is that no one can hate another person so thoroughly and nastily as a committed Christian. I am not saying that every Christian is that way, just that I'd be hard pressed to find anyone as hateful in the United States, who doesn't considered himself or herself to be a strong Christian. I am fairly confident that any survey asking people to rate their level of religiousity would show that as they became more fervent in their faith they also became more intolerant and bigoted.

Consider the actions of Catholics of late, by which I mean committed Catholics. Most American Catholics are not "committed" and are pretty decent people. The more in-tune with the church they are the less pleasant they are. We saw the Catholic sect pouring millions into Maine to take away marriage rights for gay couples there. Almost all the funds, to destroy marriage equality in Maine, came from outside the state and much of it was clearly handed over by the Catholic Church. I don't mean members of the church, but the church itself. Personally I think they should lose their tax exemption if they are going to pour millions into political campaigns. Other political bodies don't have the tax exemption that they have and they consume vast amounts of government resources.

Two recent incidents show the depth of hatred that strong Catholics are capable of feeling toward gay people.

Let us start with the Republican Governor of Rhode Island, Don Carcieri, a rather rabid Catholic. The state legislature passed a law to allow the surviving partner of a gay person the right to plan their partner's funeral. That is the entire piece of legislation—letting a gay person plan the funeral for the person he/she loved, who has died. Carcieri vetoed that legislation. His view is that gay people in relationships should NOT have the right to plan their partner's funeral.

Carcieri said that allowing this is part of a "disturbing trend" and that the voters of the state should have the right to make the decision. Understand what he is saying: if a same-sex couple have been together for decades, and one partner dies, the other partner is to be excluded by law from being able to plan the funeral simply because Catholic Carcieri thinks God hates homosexuals.

The law was passed when a gay man was unable to legally claim the body of his deceased partner. The body remained in state custody for weeks instead. These people hate gays so much that they won't let a gay man or woman plan their partner's funeral. The governor's veto will probably be overridden by the state legislature, thankfully. Exactly why should the right to plan a funeral for one's partner be determined by majority vote?

And for those conservatives pretending to be libertarians, who say this matter can be "privately" decided by contract, that simply was not the case. When Mark Goldberg tried to claim the body of his partner of 17 years so he could be cremated, according to his wishes, he was denied that right. "Gold said he tried to show the police and state medical examiner's office 'our wills, living wills, power of attorney and marriage certificate' from Connecticut, but 'no one was willing to see these documents." He was only allowed to handle the arrangements after several weeks and then after the state placed an ad in the paper seeking "next of kin" of the deceased, It took over a month's worth of bureaucratic fighting before he allowed to have the funeral for his partner. Imagine being forced to fight for a month just to have a funeral for your partner.

It is a fraud when these people say that they only want to "reserve" marriage to straight couples and do not wish to deny gay couples other rights. They wish to deny all rights to gays for the same reason the Nazis wanted to deny all rights to Jews. (Hating Jews was another thing the Catholic Church did so extremely well for centuries.)

Historically the Catholic Church has no right to preach about morality, having justified repressive regimes like Franco and Hitler, and having engaged in such monstrous practices as the Inquisition and the execution of heretics, "witches," and dissenters. Denied the power to actually kill people in recent decades the church instead has worked hard to help cover up for the bevy of child rapists that fill their priesthood. Of course, to divert attention from their own utterly corrupt and immoral view of the world they have focused on such "moral" issues as forbidden condoms to stop the spread of AIDS, and legislatively bashing gays.

Another example comes from Catholic Bishop Janusz Kaleta who has something to do with tourism for a city in Kazakhstan. The Bishop was asked about groups of gay tourists and their visits to the city and to the local churches. After saying it was important to encourage people from "all" walks of life to visit he explicitly indicated that gay people should not be included in any tours. He said, "such demonstrations are just not ethical." The person who was speaking to the Bishop, Juergen Steinmetz, assumed the Bishop misunderstood. He claified that these tourists were not conducting "demostrations" they were simple visitors to the city who wanted to see the sights. The Bishop replied that just being gay itself is a "provocation" to the church and an insult to the Vatican.

The Bishop said: "I consider if someone is homosexual, it is a provocation and an abuse of this place. Try to go to a mosque if you are not Muslim. It is an abuse of our building and an abuse of this place." Strange he is worried about "abuse" that exists merely from the presence of a gay person after the church has done so much to cover up real abuse of children by their own clergy.

This is how deeply the antigay hatred of the religionists goes. One Bishop of the church says that even gay people as tourists is offensive while an antigay Catholic, Republican Governor says that gay people shouldn't be allowed to plan their partner's burial without a public vote approving it.

No person's right should be subjected to majority approval. If Catholicism needed the approval of the majority to open a church, in the American South, it would never have opened a church. The rights of black people should be subjected to the votes of white majorities. The rights of Mormons should not be subjected to the vote of a Christian majority. Majorities simply ought not have the power to approve whether minorities are allowed equal rights before the law. The very idea that it should be this way is inherently authoritarian.

I find it particularly odd, or perhaps telling, that the two sects most vitriolic in their hatred of gays, the Mormons and the Catholics, have their own sexual secrets that they want so much to hide. The first was founded by anti-monogamy activists who had dozens of wives and the second group has actively worked to hide child rapists from the consequence of their actions. I suggest they are so vitriolic because they have such pasts, not in spite of them.

Video shows Mormon thugs roughing up couple for a kiss.

It is not well known that the Mormon sect employs large young men as their muscle, especially around their so-called temples. These men are hired to roughhouse anyone that may protest the church or attempt to pass our literature that doesn’t meet their standards.

In most the country the temples are surrounded by sidewalks and streets open to the public. This has always vexed the Mormon church. It makes it easier for people to do inconvenient things like speak against the sect, carry picket signs, hand out literature, or apparently, kiss.

The way the sect handled this in Salt Lake City was to use their massive political power in the state to turn the public street in front of the temple into Mormon church property. Since the street, used by pedestrians, not cars, continues from public property to public property most people never realize that the Mormon cult managed to get the politicians to give them domain over the small stretch of land outside the temple gates. The Mormon majority on the city council vote for the land transfer, while the two non-Mormons on the council opposed it.

People walk along the street, as they would any downtown street, never realizing that they leave public property, enter private property, and then re-enter public property, all in a matter of seconds. But it gives the Mormon cult something they desire, the ability to snuff out dissent, or anything else for that matter.

Matt Aune, and his partner Derek Jones, didn’t realize what was going on. They were walking down the street, side by side, holding hands. As they were walking Aune, still at the side of Jones, gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. Seconds later they were surrounded for four burly thugs in suits who were yelling at them. Aune pulled Jones protectively to his side. The four men surround the couple and become more and more agitated. Suddenly they move, one of them grabs Jones and flung him to the ground. The other three grab Aune and begin trying to wrestle him to the ground. (Three on one, Mormon fairness.)

The Mormon hired guns handcuff the men and call police, for the crime of a kiss and a hug. Of course, they couldn’t make that the official charge. So they contended the men were guilty of trespassing, even though this street was public for decades and is still wide open for pedestrians and not posted as private. Had there been no kiss there would have been no trespassing charge. When police were called they were told the men had kissed and hugged. That was what the security guards said then. According to the police report the church thugs said that they never engaged in roughness with the two men — something this video calls into question.

After the incident got publicity the church revised their story and painted a scene reminiscent of the most debauched orgies of ancient Rome. Now they claimed there was “groping,” “passionate kissing” and “profane and lewd language.” We know how honest the Mormons are when it comes to gay people. The church contends that they didn’t treat the male couple any differently than any other couple. Yet I know of no incident where any other couple was every wrestled to the ground by burly security thugs for the crime of a kiss and a hug.

While the church has video cameras on the public, better to spot those criminal kissers or felonious huggers, no video footage of the alleged crime actually exists. The church did release film of the men being surrounded by the church-hired thugs. But, for some reason, it can’t supply footage showing that the men were groping each other in public. How convenient.

Public prosecutors had asked for all footage of the incident and when the church only turned over the arrest tape, and had nothing to to back up their accusations, charges were dropped against the men.