Protest at Mormon Temple Not Best Messaging Method

I’m a little scared of the anti-Mormon fervor that I’m seeing in the gay community. All over Facebook today the statues look like we’re planning a Night of the Long Knives at the Mormon Temple in NYC at 6:30. Seriously guys, cut it out. I know you’re angry. I know you need some way to express that anger, but the Mormon Temple in NYC makes no more sense than your grandparents’ retirement community in Sacramento or The Apollo Theater in Harlem. Can’t we be better than this?

While thousands and thousands of protesters gather outside the Mormon Temple, evoking scenes of Fred Phelps, we’ll still be left with a simple fact: We were out-organized and out-fundraised in California. That’s why we lost. It’s great to see all these voices speaking out about Prop. 8 now that it’s too late to do anything about it. Where were these people weeks ago when the Equality Groups were on their knees begging for money? We knew we were being out-fundraised for weeks and I rarely got a message about it. I’ve been contacted about 30 times regarding this single protest.

This protest will just confirm the Mormons’ fears about us and will certainly be portrayed negatively in the media. It’s old, divisive politics. Politics I’d like to put behind us and had hoped we could after Obama’s historic victory.

Now, I’m not defending the Mormons. I’ve been speaking out against them since before it became trendy and there are ways we can express our anger without another Kristallnacht. You can avoid staying at the Marriott and make jokes about polygamy.

But in the end, it wasn’t the Mormons that passed Prop. 8 in California, so your nights spent suffering at Holiday Inns will be in vain. It was the people of California who voted to put bigotry on their law books and it’s shameful. So let’s educate them. Outreach, not Anger. We have to actually spend time on this; we can’t solve it screaming for two hours at people walking into a church.

I’m ready for the fight, as long as I don’t have to become a crazy fundamentalist monster to be part of it.