Had all of the voting Mormons voted with the gay community the Prop 8 voting results would have remained largely the same. Maybe the next anti - ads should feature African Americans or Hispanics (These populations also voted largely for Prop 8 with much greater impact than the Mormon community).

I do not get why all the fuss about so-called gay marriage. I see no reason why gay or straight people should not live their lives in relationship with whomever they choose, and according to the terms they choose. Whether one calls this personal association with another marriage or civil union is only of consequence to those who fear they will be forced to live under some association they do not want. Essentially, the state should bow out of this debate, and offer those who choose to live together under some legal connection a uniform legal right, call it what you will, and then let the church, the GLBT community or anyone else who cares call it whatever they choose. Then it is none of the state''s business, and there will be nothing more to fight over. Won't it be a relief to everyone not to have this in our face every time we want to catch up on the news?

Aaron Bylund: "DNA EVIDENCE!!!! HAPLOGROUP X!!!!!!"

Yeah, well...if you'd actually read the report you linked to, you'd have found this telling paragraph:

"These findings leave unanswered the question of the geographic source of Native American X2a in the Old World, although our analysis provides new clues about the time of the arrival of haplogroup X in the Americas. Indeed,..we obtain a coalescence time of 18,000 ± 6,800 YBP, implying an arrival time not later than 11,000 YBP."

There's a lot of abstruse science surrounding this, but it inconveniently and clearly says that a) DNA provides no conclusive evidence that Middle Easterners emigrated to North America, and, more tellingly, b) that the Mormon story of Lehi's bunch coming over to America around 600 BC would perforce be inaccurate by a not inconsequential factor of 8,500 to 25,000 years, i.e., the haplogroup you cite could NOT have been brought by a tribe from Biblical days. In other words, what you cited is precisely evidence AGAINST Mormon "history."

Next time, dude, you might want to actually read your "evidence" before you deploy it. But thanks for playing.

I don't get the whole battle going on here.

Is this merely a matter of semantics with neither side wanting compromise?

Lets just call the union a different name -- but with all the same legal rights...
How about instead of "marriage" gays call their union: "Lifetime Commitment of Mutual and Equal Love and Respect"? Just call if "LCMELR" for short. ;-)

... considering how marriages, especially those sanctioned by religious organizations, most often are not equal, but are relationships where the male dominates the female... offering the official sanctioning of sexual relations by the church, so they wont be committing any sins. (missionary position - man on top - preferred)

It seems a "Lifetime Commitment of Mutual and Equal Love and Respect" would be of a much higher level and much more valuable and precious than mere "marriage".

The churches (Mormon or otherwise) should not stick their nose in the business of others (Please keep your "missionaries" off my doorstep) and the gay community should let them have the word "marriage" that is so special to them... and just come up with something much better and more meaningful.

dman,

DNA EVIDENCE!!!! HAPLOGROUP X!!!!!! Found in the Druze of the Middle East near Jerusalem and Galilee. Also found in Native Americans in the Ohio river valley area. These are the only occurances of this DNA type.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1180497

WORDPRINTS http://www.lds-mormon.com/wordprin.shtml

CHIASMUS AND OTHER EVIDENCE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics_and_the_Book_of_Mormon

The gays are trying to equate their cause with civil rights. The way you have sex has nothing to do with civil rights. The blacks are not buying this arguement either, but I do not see H8 fighting the black churches who also talked to their members about supporting Prop 8.
Members of any church had just as much rights to talk to each about Yes on 8 as the people who wanted No on 8, talked to each other. Last time I checked this is AMERICA!t

Rick W:

In the late 1800s, that is exactly what happened: The people of the United States decided they didn't like Mormons practicing polygamous marriage (a tenet of their religious belief) out in the Utah Territory. So the U.S. made a law against it and, guess what: Mormons upheld that law instituted by the voice of the people and haven't performed polygamous marriages since. No appeals to the Supreme Court. No protests. No boycotts. No blacklists.

From all of the comments here telling gay people to "get over it" I can only assume that if it were made illegal for Mormons to get married they would just shrug and say "oh well, the people voted".

DMan, what "science" are you referring to? Doesn't the Book of Mormon start out with a story of two family groups migrating to America? Yes. Do you have DNA samples from them to benchmark against? No. Does the Book of Mormon assert that they were the only people in America when they arrived? No. Ok, your "science" has been debunked.

There seems to be several issues here...as well as potential "competing rights".

Issue one: The separation of Church and State. As long as a church or church members want to assenble and to speak freely (on political issues), they should not do so at tax payer expense. Trying to cut an imaginary thin line between church and its members seems a veiled argument at best.

Issue two: Equal protection under the law. There have been many instances of "prohibiting" or "limiting" individual rights based upon race, gender, and economic status, et al and none have withstood the test of Constitutional scrutiny.

Issue three: The US has 3 branches of government...thanks goodness! When one of those branches fails, the other two are there to counter balance the other. Crying about "judicial legislation" is anti democratic and un American on the face of it.

Issue four: I have a hard time thinking that if I deny someone their individual rights, why I'm better off or that my community is somehow being protected.

Issue five: As soon as we bring someone's "God" into the debate, the debate is over. Examples abound and this situation is no different...which is why we have tried to keep "our religeous beliefs" away from the body politic.

Good Luck, America.

Churches have the right to communicate with their members without the onus of political reporting forms. Did the LDS Church organize phone banks? Yes, to call its members. Did the Mormon church have satellite broadcasts? Yes, to its interested members who showed up to listen. If churches, if ANY church in America loses this most basic of First Amendment Rights, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Speech, so that gays can marry, will the societal cost justify the benefit? How can we all simply get along and enjoy equivalent rights? That, seems to me, is the unbigoted core issue here. I'm LDS. I didn't think I had skin in the game on this until now. Since state recognition of gay marriage has very far reaching implications for the whole nation, (I'm a chaplain in the military, and I wonder what impact this kind of change could have on my career), taking a long look and being careful about drastic change is in everyone's interest. I do not believe that many of the H8 folks share this sentiment from what I'm seeing. If gay couples already have equivalent relational privileges and responsibilities, do they really want to jeopardize in a sweeping way the simple rights of others? What is the "cost/benefit" here? Good neighbors figure it out and live peaceably together. Bad neighbors see only their own side of the story and sue. Look at this frivolous attempt at curtailing Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech and ask yourself where this stops down the road? The LDS church communicated with its members about an issue that could have far-ranging impact on religious freedom, and the H8 people are just mean and dumb enough to emphatically prove the point.

Watching the protests unfold across California and across the US, it has been clear to me who is hating whom -- and it's not the Latter-Day Saints hating anyone. Clearly the radical gay rights folks hate the LDS church and its members, to the point of repeated violence and disruption of religious services.

drnan: If you're going to spread lies about my church, please spell "Mormon" correctly.

Why are they picking on Mormons? There aren't that many of them around, and prop 8 won a majority in California, so almost everyone who voted for prop 8 must not have been Mormon. I guess they figure that Mormons are weak and unpopular enough to beat up on with impunity. You can bet that they aren't going to be harassing people at AME churches in Compton. They are looking up contributors using campaign finance records, then tracking them down and harassing them, even driving people out of their jobs. I have never seen such blatant political persecution in this country. I don't see McCain supporters trying to drive Obama campaign contributors out of their jobs. Who's calling the shots over there, Joe McCarthy? Thank goodness they don't have the power of the federal government behind them as McCarthy did, at least not yet. I used to be sympathetic to gay rights issues, but now I'm thinking that if given the chance, they will try to force their beliefs on me. "If you give a pig a pancake, she'll want some syrup to go with it..." I won't have anyone forcing their beliefs on me, and I'm not about to give them the power to do so. No one who uses intimidation to alter the political process will ever get my vote.