P.D.A.
Curious if you locals could give us some eye-witness accounts or on-the-ground reports of the latest attempt by the Mormon Church to completely decimate the tatters of its public reputation. The imbroglio looks to intertwine two particularly vexing issues for the Church: the 2003 public easement of Main St. and its financial support of Prop 8. Bravo!
I particularly admire the oblivious conviction with which the Church has defended its actions, claiming that the two men had been "engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol." Profane and lewd language. Heaven forbid! And the alcohol is a clear sign that the two were a bunch of no good degenerates.
Although my favorite quotes from scanning local papers comes from the The Salt Lake Tribune, reporting on the second week of protests:
I particularly admire the oblivious conviction with which the Church has defended its actions, claiming that the two men had been "engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol." Profane and lewd language. Heaven forbid! And the alcohol is a clear sign that the two were a bunch of no good degenerates.
Although my favorite quotes from scanning local papers comes from the The Salt Lake Tribune, reporting on the second week of protests:
Police arrived after reports of two slight altercations between protesters and counter-protesters, including a roll-by kiss given to one female counter-protester by a man on in-line skates who sped north across the plaza grounds too fast to be apprehended.
posted by d l wright at 7/19/2009 05:52:00 PM
7 Comments:
I drove by the first one last weekend. It sounds like this one, despite the counterprotest, was much more civil.
Yeah. It seems like the The Church learned their PR lesson after the first protest. There are no international headlines if you just ignore and contain the protesters. (It's the Dubya method.)
The Church
heh
When I was writing that post I was trying to decide if LDS or Mormon Church was more acceptable, but then I forgot to go back edit! But I guess it adds to the snide tone of the piece.
I was curious if the main feeling among the LDS community was whether the incident was uncalled for or an attack from the homosexual agenda.
Sorry if that came off as me correcting you. I was actually doing that with a little bit of mocking. The official name of the organization is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with the "The" being part of the official name.
So, to use the shorter, more arrogant version of the name (The Church) in a sentence, you'd actually need to refer to it as the The Church.
Grammar jokes. Hilarious, I know.
The LDS Church, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. . . members of which can be referred to as Mormons. Officially The Church prefers that "Mormon Church" not be used. But it's pretty appropriate to call it The Church, not only is Mark correct that the official name calls for capitalization, members and "non-members" alike in Utah and Idaho refer to it as "The" Church the same way that people in Italy, Spain, Portugal and much of Latin America refer to the Catholic Church as "the" Church. It's more than just a religious entity. The Church has influence beyond that of just church.
On a mostly unrelated note. I've thought lately that the phrase "using alcohol" (the quote in paragraph 2) is kind of odd.
I went to the opthamologist yesterday and filled out the useless form that every doctor has you fill out the first time you see her.
Do you use alcohol?
Tobacco?
Does use ever mean consume when you're not talking about alcohol or drugs? Is it just me or does answering yes to that question seem sort of shameful?
I think the sentiment among the LDS community is split sort of like it was during the Prop 8 ordeal.
Many, Mormon and otherwise, view this as a property rights issue and nothing more. The Church is, in their view, well within their rights to ask anyone to leave their property for whatever reason. Personally I don't buy this argument at all in publicly accessible spaces that are privately owned. Like stores or plazas etc. You can't just kick people out without cause. We have laws that say it's illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. (The profane language came AFTER the couple had been detained by Church security.) Regardless of whether or not you agree with me on that, there's the whole question of assurances made by the Church when the deal was struck to swap them Main Street for some land for a Rec Center on the West Side. Because of that I think it's problematic to call the Main Street Plaza private property.
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