Rally for Equal Marriage Rights - Perth, Western Australia 19/03/2011

When one of the Mo’ mums at my kids school asked me what we were going to do on the weekend I told her that we were going to the Rally for Equal Marriage Rights. There was some stunned silence before she managed to exclaim something about me fighting for the ‘other side’.  We talked about it for a little while. She is very happy to openly discuss things, which is great because although we disagree on a lot of issues I don’t feel like I have to hold anything back when I talk to her.

 I am not much of an expert on the plight of the LGBT community so I thought I’d just write down some of the things she said and then leave it up to more my savvy commenters to reply. I’ll add my thoughts too.

The first thing she asked was if I knew that if the LGBT community was given equal marriage rights then ‘it’ would have to be taught in schools, to kids as young as 5?

My thoughts – I just watched an episode of Glee the other night where being gay was spoken about very openly in and out of class. I know it is just TV and they didn’t mention marriage but I get the feeling that the world is pretty well prepared for their kids to talk about LGBT rights etc at school.  Also, if people are born with their own sexual orientation then wouldn’t it be imperative that they hear about the legitimacy of their feelings at school?!

Then she said that if same-sex couples were allowed to marry then paedophilia and bestiality would soon follow as accepted ‘lifestyle choices’.

Ugh! – So (some) opponents of same-sex marriage actually look at the love and devotion clearly displayed by consenting adults in a same-sex relationship as being ‘in the same boat as’ or 'close enough to' criminal behaviour.

My friend said, "soon religious people will lose all of their rights". I asked her what she was talking about. She said that she "wouldn’t be allowed to say that being gay is wrong."

Hmmm. I’m pretty sure freedom of speech won’t be taken away, but you might want to be careful where you say it, more for your own safety than anything. Believe what you want to believe, just stay out of other peoples' bedrooms and marriages!

One other thing she said was that it wasn’t right for 3% of the population to dictate to 97% of the population.

Well what ever happened to fighting for the little guy, the minorities? I also think that the 3% statistic is fairly useless since I wonder how many LGBT are openly gay? My spider senses tell me that the real figure is much higher… 

Verdict: Freedom of Speech - 1; Censorship - 0

I still hadn't heard from the facebook team so I thought I'd just check and see if I was still blocked from posting links to this blog on fb due to being 'abusive and spammy'.  The link successfully posted so it would seem that the fb team figured it out pretty easily. I would have loved to have got an email or something from them declaring my blog to be safe for public viewing; I could have posted it as a permanent seal on the top right hand of my blog! It all worked out pretty good anyway, I was able to post a plain link on fb while I was having a bit of a whinge about someone flagging my blog and I got loads of hits. It was the most fun I'd had yet with my stats page :) Anyway, on with the show I suppose. Time to churn out some more shlock.

Do you like your witches char-grilled or soft-boiled?

I think one of the hardest parts about this process has been the unexpected personal attacks. If I had just left the church quietly ….. well, things would have been ‘easier’ for everyone… but what good is easy!. I could not do that. I had discovered something awful and I needed to speak up about it. So I have traversed this very vocal path and I have created a bit of a monster.

I have some friends who are still attending church but who remain steadfast in their friendship with me. They have told me that there is a fair amount of chatter going on at church about my blog and even about my character. One friend went as far as to say that they have been slandering me and that she is glad that we don’t live in the time of witch-trials.

This is all such a joke to me since, in my opinion, the widespread panic that has erupted came from within. I only passed on links to this blog to people who I thought would appreciate it, mostly non-Mormon friends. The Mormon friends who I sent it to were people who I thought would be interested in reading about how I was feeling and who would be able to read it objectively. Unfortunately I was wrong about a couple of my friends and they spread it like wildfire throughout our local church.

People have accused me of trying to make members hate the church. They have said that I am bitter and that I should leave the church alone. I never spread it throughout the congregation, the members managed to do that all on their own.

May I repeat an earlier statement of mine “Oh no, Maureen is being so mean to the Mormon church. Wah, wah!”

If the church were true what on earth (or the heavens) is there to fear from me! I am exercising my right to express my opinions. I feel cheated and deceived by the church. I feel that it perpetuates many harmful practices and I will continue to write about them.

I have not attacked any members. I wish that they would stop attacking me but I will continue to nurse my thick skin in anticipation of failure to treat me in a Christ-like manner. Disagree with my statements, argue with me about my opinions but please do not slander and demonize me.

Gag order

Some of you will have been following little snippets of info on facebook that make it obvious that I have had some opposition to my blog this week. Overwhelmingly people have been positive about my blog and I am so happy to hear everyones comments. I am sure a number of people haven't liked what they have seen here and have respectfully left it alone. What I want to address right now is the one person who tried to shut me up and yet still believes that he has said nothing offensive (for brevity's sake lets call him No-talkie). Let me be very clear straight off the bat that if you disagree with anything I write here anywhere on the blog I would love for you to write a comment; or not write a comment, it's up to you. Open dialogue is exactly what I encourage, just add respect!

As No-talkie first posted his comment to Rockstars wall on facebook (the wall people! you know, where everyone can read it!) I think that I can safely assume he wouldn't mind if I reposted it here:

i've followed some of the comments that you and maureen have made about the church, if you choose to leave the church thats fine but what i have a problem with is when you insult active members by putting down there beliefs. do you think that i am that stupid and i am not free thinking enough to make conscious/educated decisions about my own faith. every active member that reads your comments would be offended by it but i am prepared to stand up for it. you'd be better served keeping your comments to yourself. typical case of 'you leave the church but you can't leave it alone'. live your own lives but don't insult the life that i still choose to live. live your own life and enjoy it because i enjoy mine and don't for one minute think that you or your wife are bringing me to the light with these issues.

regards

Well there's plenty to discuss in there but for today I just want to highlight the gag order. So for those of you who have been lucky enough to have a conversation with No-talkie, now you can make your own mind up. Was he being offensive?

Apparently I am not allowed to voice my opinions about what I consider to be an insidious institution yet No-talkie can say whatever he wants (which of course he can, you know freedom of speech and all). As I said in one of the messages I sent back - he used his freedom of speech to quash my freedom of speech. Look, should I really be so surprised, Joe Smith did the same thing when William Law tried to speak out against polygamy etc in his Nauvoo Expositor. That didn't end so well for old Joe.

No-talkie earns this name for these reasons: He sent his complaint to my husband, not me. He refuses to respond to any of my messages (fb and email). I have asked him to call me but I have received no answer. His wife ordered me to end communication with them.

The saddest part of all is that within the space of a few hours my friendship with No-talkies wife ended abruptly. With only a few written messages as her information and absolutely no verbal communication to attempt reconciliation my friend decided that the best thing to do was to insult, mock and discard.

Sigh!

So....the only way to responsibly respond to a gag order is to expose it. My 'mentor' sums it up nicely:

" I didn't leave people alone as an LDS missionary. LDS parents don't leave their children alone about religion. And the LDS church doesn't have the best record of leaving the marital status of gay people in neighbouring states alone.

As long as religions are sending out missionaries every week, I will not be leaving it alone, I can assure you."

Well said.