DOMA AMICUS BRIEFS: Who's Who In Vile Anti-Gay American Hate Groups

GLAD has posted a round-up of the anti-gay groups who have filed DOMA amicus briefs in their case, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management.

Agudath Israel of America
American College of Pediatricians [FAKE]
Attorneys General of SC, UT, IN, MI, CO
Concerned Women for America
Congressman Lamar Smith
Eagle Forum
Family Research Council
Foundation for Moral Law
Robert George
George Goverman
Liberty Counsel
Massachusetts Family Institute
NARTH
National Legal Foundation
National Organization for Marriage
Pacific Justice Institute
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
National Association of Evangelicals

HRC's Fred Sainz On Mormon Church's So-Called Change Towards Gays

Much noise is being made about the Mormon Church's so-called softer position on homosexuality. HRC's Fred Sainz went on MSNBC to talk about it, but Pride In Utah, who has read the new Mormon Handbook, says don't believe the hype.

HRC Delivers 150K Petitions To LDS

Clip description via YouTube vlogger Dave Evans:

National gay rights activists on Tuesday delivered a petition letter carrying 150,000 signatures to the Mormon church following an address given by President Boyd K. Packer, a Church Apostle. The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay civil rights organization, collected the signatures after an e-mail alert to members and supporters 20 percent of whom are not lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The response to the alert is the largest in HRC history. The petition letter and signatures were delivered in an 800-page stack to the church's downtown Salt Lake City office building by HRC President Joe Solmonese and leaders from Utah's gay community and a gay Mormon support group.

Wal-Mart Selling Anti-Gay Kids' Book

Q Salt Lake reports that over 100 Wal-Mart stores are carrying the anti-gay children's book written by the wife of the president the Mormon anti-gay group Standard Of Liberty.

Chased by an Elephant, the Gospel Truth about Today’s Stampeding Sexuality by Janice Barrett Graham was written to “help shed the clear light of truth on today’s dark and tangled ideas about male and female, proper gender roles, the law of chastity, and the God-given sexual appetite,” according to Janice Graham in the book’s introduction. The Grahams claim that their son, Andrew, successfully changed his sexual orientation and is now a happily married man.

Andrew Graham has published his own book about being "lured" into homosexuality while a student at Brigham Young.

(Tipped by JMG reader JRN)

UTAH: Thousands Protest Anti-Gay Remarks By LDS Leader Boyd Packer

Thousands of protesters gathered in Salt Lake City's Temple Square last night to denounce remarks by LDS Apostle Boyd Packer, who called gay people "impure and unnatural."

Packer’s speech, delivered during the LDS Church’s 180th Semiannual General Conference, hit a nerve, protesters say, because it came after a string of gay teen suicides in the national news. Boys as young as 13 took their own lives after reportedly being bullied by their peers for being gay. On Thursday, protest organizers estimated that 4,500 people ringed the two downtown blocks that make up the LDS Church’s headquarters. Participants wore black, and some carried signs. Lying head to toe or sitting shoulder to shoulder, they encircled Temple Square two times. “Tonight, we are symbolic of all the children who have been killed by messages like Boyd K. Packer’s,” said organizer and Salt Lake City blogger Eric Ethington. “When you hear nothing from [church leaders] but that you are nothing but evil and you need to change the unchangeable nature of yourself, that is only a message kids can take for so long.”

LDS officials shrugged off the protest, merely noting that those thousands of angry people had a right to be there. No apology or retraction is expected from Packer.

HomoQuotable - Joe Solmonese

“Words have consequences, particularly when they come from a faith leader. This is exactly the kind of statement that can lead some kids to bully and others to commit suicide. When a faith leader tells gay people that they are a mistake because God would never have made them that way and they don’t deserve love, it sends a very powerful message that violence and/or discrimination against LGBT people is acceptable. It also emotionally devastates those who are LGBT or may be struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identify. His words were not only inaccurate, they were also dangerous." - Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese, responding to Mormon leader Boyd Packer's address to millions of LDS members.

Mormon Leader Rips "Immoral" Gays

So much for that LDS make-over.

Same-sex attraction can be overcome and any type of union other than marriage between a man and a woman is morally wrong, an LDS apostle told millions of Mormons on Sunday. “There are those today who not only tolerate but advocate voting to change laws that would legalize immorality, as if a vote would somehow alter the designs of God’s laws and nature,” Boyd K. Packer, president of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, said in a strongly worded sermon about the dangers of pornography and same-sex marriage. “A law against nature would be impossible to enforce. Do you think a vote to repeal the law of gravity would do any good?” Some argue that “they were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural,” he said. “Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember he is our father.”

(Via - Good As You)

Mormon Church Launches Post-Prop 8 Image Makeover Campaign

LAUNCHED: HRC & Courage Campaign Collaborate On "NOM Exposed" Site

The Human Rights Campaign and the Courage Campaign today launched NOM Exposed, a site devoted to unmasking the players, major backers, and strategies of the National Organization for Marriage. Via press release:

As the National Organization for Marriage, or NOM, embarks on a fall election campaign to defeat candidates who support full marriage equality, the Human Rights Campaign, in collaboration with the Courage Campaign, unveiled "NOM Exposed," a live, interactive website which reveals NOM's deep anti-gay affiliations, its long connections to the Mormon and Catholic churches and its quest to keep voters in the dark about its financing.

At the same time, HRC announced the formation of the NOM Project to follow the ongoing political work and propaganda of NOM as it attempts to influence elections and legislative campaigns across the country. The project will be led by Kevin Nix, a longtime LGBT advocate and political and media consultant. A former communications director at both Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the Family Equality Council, Nix also worked at Media Matters in the 2004 presidential cycle.

"NOM and its leaders project a message of tolerance yet NOM Exposed shows that behind the well-trained talking points is an anti-gay animus and moneyed connections that it is loath to reveal," said HRC President Joe Solmonese. "This website is not static. Working with the Courage Campaign, we will be watching the campaign trail and documenting NOM's political buys and bedfellows. We will connect the dots for voters."

NOM Exposed is one of the most extensive takedowns of the enemies of the LGBT movement that I've seen on the web yet, and I've only just begun to dig in. Take note of the site's "Rogue's Gallery" and start from there. This is fantastic.

Fred Karger's First TV Ad

Gay activist Fred Karger is exploring a run for president in 2012 and this week debuts the below ad on New Hampshire television. Clip description: "Fred Karger, the gay activist who started the investigation against the Mormon church and the National Organization for Marriage over Prop 8, introduces himself and his Presidential Exploratory Committee to the people of New Hampshire. Sign up and learn more at www.FredKarger.com."

Today In Frivolous Lawsuits

A man who was performing ritual proxy baptisms of the dead for the Mormon Church is now suing the LDS for repetitive motion injuries. Apparently you need a living human stand-in when Magic Underpantsing a dead person against the wishes of their descendants.

The civil suit filed Wednesday in Salt Lake City's 3rd District Court claims Daniel Dastrup suffered severe back injuries, including a herniated disk, after performing about 200 baptisms at the LDS temple in Raleigh, N.C., on Aug. 25, 2007. The lawsuit contends the church was negligent in failing to warn Dastrup that the repetitive nature of the proxy baptisms - bending, lifting and twisting - could result in physical injury. "The church owed the plaintiffs a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid injury to the plaintffs from the services they performed to the church," the lawsuit states. Dastrup, who now lives in Las Vegas, claims he has suffered "a significant permanent injury that substantially changes his lifestyle," including damaging his relationship with his wife. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages to compenstate Dastrup to cover medical costs and loss of earnings.

RELATED: During the 2008 presidential campaign, the LDS Church posthumously baptized Obama's mother as a Mormon. The president has never commented on this.

Mormon Make-Over

The new PR campaign from the Mormon Church is, of course, intended to sow friendliness for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

U.S. Mormons Step Into Argentina's Battle For Same-Sex Marriage

Magic Underwear Inc has sent a letter to its members in Argentina, calling for opposition to same-sex marriage.

"The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is absolutely clear: Marriage is between one man and woman and is ordained of God," said the July 6 letter from church President Thomas S. Monson. A copy of the letter and its English translation began circulating over the weekend on websites for former Mormons. The Argentina letter was directed to congregations in the Buenos Aires area and states that it is a response to concerns stemming from the proposed legislation that would change the definition of marriage. The letter encourages members to review the "Proclamation on the Family," a 1995 statement from church leaders that set out traditional marriage as a sacred institution ordained by God and the family as a fundamental pillar of society.

Argentina's House of Deputies approved a marriage equality bill in May. The Senate is scheduled to begin debating the bill this week and Argentina's president has promised to sign it should it reach her desk.

PhoboQuotable - Slaggie Gilamonster

"I know something about the founding of NOM -- I was there. And this film and this claim is fantasy. NOM was not founded by Mormons as a secret front group. We have many valued members from the LDS Church since, but no member of the LDS Church hierarchy helped provide seed funding for NOM, or is responsible for NOM or what we did in California to get Prop 8 on the ballot.

"Gay rights activists believe they have the power to determine reality. If they say gay unions are marriages, it must be true. If they repeat the Big Lie that NOM is a Mormon front group, it must be true. I say this as a person who believes deeply that Mormons, like other Americans, have every right to participate in coalitions with others to promote core values in politics. But the relentless religious bigotry by gay activists against a religious minority with a long history of persecution in this country is shameful. The wallowing in fantasy (e.g., the belief that if they say it, it becomes true) is just sad." - Slaggie Gilamonster, responding to the documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition.

Movie Describes How Mormon Church Pressured Members To Support Prop 8

LDS members contributed 71% of the $40M used to repeal same-sex marriage in California, even though they only comprise 2% of the state's population. This short clip from 8: The Mormon Proposition, which opens around the country this month, describes how church elders pressured its member to donate as much as they could.

$1.4M Jury Award For Boy Scout Sexually Abused By Mormon Troop Leader

A Portland, Oregon jury has awarded $1.4M to a man sexually abused by the scoutmaster of his Mormon Church sponsored Boy Scout troop. The scoutmaster had confessed to church and Boy Scout leaders that he molested at least 17 scouts, yet he was allowed to remain in contact with the boys. The LDS does not have to pay their portion of the judgment because they settled out of court with the plaintiff last year.

Nine out of the 12 jurors found Boy Scouts of America and its local body, the Portland-based Cascade Pacific Council, negligent in the lawsuit brought by plaintiff Kerry Lewis, who is now 38. The Boy Scouts of America said in a statement on its Web site that it plans to appeal the verdict. ""We are gravely disappointed with the verdict. We believe that the allegations made against our youth protection efforts are not valid... We are saddened by what happened to the plaintiff. The actions of the man who committed these crimes do not represent the values and ideals of the Boy Scouts of America." he jury found that the Boy Scouts of America was liable for 60 percent of the negligence and the Cascade Pacific Council was responsible for 15 percent. Together they will have to pay Lewis $1.05 million.

The punitive damages portion of the trial begins next week. Lawyers for the plaintiff are asking for another $25M.