Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 188

Guest [00:00:02] Mormon Stories Podcast is made possible through the financial contributions of its listeners to keep it alive and available to future generations. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org hello, and

John Dehlin [00:00:15] welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. My name is John Dehlin. I am your host, and I'm very excited to have a bunch of you with us today online. We're streaming live on the Internet. You can, you know, those of you who have found this podcast are finding it through MormonStories.org but we have with us today some very special guests. I have with me Cary Crawl. Carrie, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Cary Crall [00:00:42] Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:45] And we also have Morris Thurston. Morris, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Morris Thurston [00:00:49] Thanks, John. My pleasure.

Guests Introduce Themselves and Their Prop 8 Experiences

John Dehlin [00:00:52] All right, well, so I guess this podcast is a long time coming. So, Morris and Carrie, again, thank you so much for joining us. We are also hoping to have Laura Compton here as well, and we're hoping to patch her in soon. But let me just begin by saying that this podcast is long overdue. Proposition 8 happened quite a long time ago. Morris, how long has it been since Proposition 8 went down? Has it been over a year?

Morris Thurston [00:01:21] Yes, definitely a couple years. Well, the vote was probably less than two years, but when it first was up and people were campaigning for, it was probably two years or more ago, actually. More.

John Dehlin [00:01:35] Yeah.

Guest [00:01:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:36] So Proposition 8 is over two years old from its beginning. And on Mormon Stories, we've actually never really talked about it explicitly. And I guess the impetus for us talking about Proposition 8 other, other than the fact that lots of people are interested, was a recent editorial written to the Daily Universe by 1 Mr. Kerry Crawl. So, Kerry, thank you for being the

Guest [00:02:02] impetus for this podcast.

Cary Crall [00:02:05] No problem. No problem there.

John Dehlin [00:02:09] I think that before we dive in to actually talking about your letter to the editor and what happened, I'd love to go back a little bit and talk a little bit about just sort of how Prop 8 first went down by a couple people who experienced it. So I'm going to assume that both Kerry and Morris were in California when Proposition 8 started heating up. Is that right, Morris?

Morris Thurston [00:02:36] It's true with me, yes.

John Dehlin [00:02:37] And. And you too, Kerry.

Cary Crall [00:02:40] I got there starting in July 2008. So, yes, I was there for a big part of the campaign.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] So let's start with you, Kerry. You were serving a mission, right?

Cary Crall [00:02:51] Yes, I was. It was the South Carolina Columbia mission.

John Dehlin [00:02:57] Okay, so you're serving a mission, and you get home and give us just a few of your recollections.

Cary Crall [00:03:07] When I got home, I was very aware that Prop 8 was going on my first family home evening back home in the singles ward where I was attending, we had a presentation about Proposition 8 from one of the local leaders in the ward. And it was a little strange. A lot of people, of course, were there to just socialize. And all of a sudden it turned very serious very suddenly. And I noticed very quickly that people were presenting arguments for Proposition 8 that I just felt like. I felt like I needed to look more into also. I think the big impetus was to get us out on the streets and to campaign ourselves for Proposition 8. And I was fresh off a mission. This was nothing new to me. And I was considering what kind of involvement I would have in that effort.

John Dehlin [00:04:06] Okay. Now, had you thought a lot about this issue before your mission, Carrie?

Cary Crall [00:04:13] I had thought, not particularly, not specifically the issue of gay marriage. There was a time I was probably 12 or 13 when Proposition 22 was going through the. Was up for the vote. And my parents were involved in that as well as my ward. But it didn't really stick. It didn't really hit home at the time, what was going on. I was 12 or 13. I was busy, you know, going to soccer practice and watching tv.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] So I guess it was kind of a shock for you when you got home from your mission and they're talking about this in singles ward.

Cary Crall [00:04:52] It was at a family home evening. I definitely did have. It was presented to me. The letter was presented in sacrament meeting. There was a meeting in our. In my home ward where the entire final two hours were dedicated to Proposition 8. Not that. Right after sacrament meeting, there was a joint meeting with priesthood and Relief society where Proposition 8 was discussed. And usually it was under the context of, you know, we're fighting a spiritual war. We need to represent God's will on this issue. And it was a lot of charged rhetoric, very spiritual, an emotional rhetoric coming to us.

John Dehlin [00:05:47] Yeah. Now, Morris, what are your early recollections?

Morris Thurston [00:05:52] Well, very much the same as Kerry's. I had, of course, been more mature during the earlier California Prop 22. And so I had something to definitely compare it to. I was there as well when the letter was read. I knew it was going to be, and I knew that I had real issues with that whole. The whole idea that this is what our church should be involved in. But I felt that I owed it to the church and to the leaders of the church to attend these meetings, unlike some of my friends who simply boycotted them. So I went and, like Kerry, we had a meeting that was a joint priesthood relief Society meeting. And there were talks given the talks I found to be. Well, what was the word they used in connection with Kerry's letter to take it offensive? Offensive. I guess that's how I found the talks because one of the talks was focused on a Meridian magazine article that compared those who would vote against Prop 8 as Satan's minions because they were appealing to feelings of compassion and all of that. And that's kind of the way Satan got his people involved. And then another talk that was given compared us to the wicked people in Noah's day who didn't listen to their prophet and were destroyed. And so from the. I had kind of gone in thinking, well, I could just sit there and vote against it and that wouldn't be a problem. But the impression I had coming out of the meeting was that really I would be counted among either saints minions or the wicked of the earth if I were to vote against it. And that, that did offend me.

Origins and Politics Behind Proposition 8

John Dehlin [00:07:54] Let's back up just a tiny bit. Have any of you guys ever heard any theories as to how Proposition 8 got rolling? I've heard that there was not unanimity in the quorum of the 12, that this was something that began maybe on the lower to the mid levels. I've even heard some rumblings about some Catholic official approaching some mid level LDS official and some type of agreement was struck for. For folks in California to start supporting this before top level leaders were ever looped in. Have any of you ever heard of any of that rumbling at all?

Cary Crall [00:08:35] I'm happy to say right now that I've not. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] Kerry hasn't.

Cary Crall [00:08:39] No.

Morris Thurston [00:08:40] And I don't think, John, that that is probably accurate. This all dates back even further. It dates back to the campaign in Hawaii which was even years before The Prophet Proposition 22. I believe, and I'm sure that at some point this whole idea was brought up by. I mean, obviously the 12 have many people who advise them and we could all speculate as to how it evolved. But I think by the time Prop 8 came along, it's fair to say that the brethren were at least for the outside world, unanimous in how they felt.

John Dehlin [00:09:19] Okay. Okay. And so Maurice, your thoughts are. Your feelings or impressions are that this is something that was planned early on and orchestrated top down from the start.

Morris Thurston [00:09:36] Yeah, I mean it followed naturally from what had gone before. It's just that it was taken to a level of involvement that it never had been pretty prior to that. It is as though the church felt this was a line that needed to be drawn in the sand. And they were going to put everything into this campaign.

John Dehlin [00:09:57] Yeah. And I guess I can kind of understand why they would feel like they needed to draw this line in the sand. There's no revelation that accommodates gays within the Doctrine and Covenants. There's no revelation that Joseph gave accommodating, you know, gays in the plan of salvation. You know, the only indications in the scriptures, well, based on the most commonplace interpretations, are that homosexuality is not something, you know, that's acceptable within Christianity. Although I know those interpretations have been challenged. But I guess, Carrie, can you kind of see the church's point of view and why they would probably feel like they would need to do something like this

Cary Crall [00:10:46] based off that reasoning? I have a hard time with it. I think that there are plenty of moral issues that our doctrine don't leave any space for. For some reason, gay marriage was singled out. And especially a big issue I had when I was listening to these arguments is that they weren't explicitly about gay marriage and why gay marriage was wrong. They were about gay adoption. They were about education. They were about the First Amendment. And so I was confused as to why gay marriage specifically was being targeted. So I do understand. I understand why the church has an interest in this issue. I don't understand why, if that interest translates into political involvement, why it doesn't do so on many other issues that are very similar.

John Dehlin [00:11:41] Right. And I guess you could argue that they have to start somewhere. But, Morris, have you spent any time sort of getting in a place of empathy for why the church would feel like it needs to do this?

Morris Thurston [00:11:52] Well, of course I can understand why the church feels that its doctrines would preclude gay marriage. I had a much more difficult time understanding why the church felt that it needed to impose its doctrines on others that were not even members of the church through the political process. And that's something I have not been able to kind of get my hands around.

John Dehlin [00:12:20] Yeah. And on the boards, Derek says the family proclamation is doctrine. He's basically saying that would be the primary motivation, perhaps is just a desire to make sure the proclamation of the family is promoted and encouraged or the values within it. But, Morris, you're saying that it's one thing to have a bunch of religious beliefs and doctrine, but it's a different thing to start trying to influence the legislative process. Is that right?

Morris Thurston [00:12:47] Yeah. And, I mean, when I first was involved in this, I didn't make any secret of how I felt about the political issue. And I wrote a letter to my bishop explaining why I Couldn't support it and would not be contributing to the cause. And he got back and he, by the way, we've had some very nice conversations. But his first reaction was, well, that's what the proclamation on the family says. And therefore how can you be against the proclamation on the family? And my response to that was, I'm not against the proclamation on the family. The family talks about the importance of marriage and the sanctity of marriage. And I agree completely with that. The proclamation doesn't say that we have to apply it to people who are not of our faith.

John Dehlin [00:13:37] Right, right. So as this started heating up,

Guest [00:13:47] one

John Dehlin [00:13:47] of the big issues that many people have expressed concern about was the extent to which people were individually propositioned to donate money. I'll start with you, Morris. Do you have any stories or anecdotes about the way that the people were often approached to donate?

Morris Thurston [00:14:07] Well, since I very early on made it clear to my bishop that I was not going to donate, there was no further pressure put on me. However, before I've had things where the people of pressure and I know how it works, they call in people and they sort of know how well healed you are and they make it clear if you've got more money, they expect more from you. And if you have less money, they probably expect less. But that's been fairly clear. The only anecdotal story I have that kind of bothered me a lot is someone ironically from Arizona where a similar battle was going on and the bishop brought in their 89, 90 something year old grandmother, she was very elderly and beginning to suffer from dementia and got her to agree to give $1,000. And they felt that she really wasn't mentally capable of making that sort of an informed decision and that that was a little bit unfair.

John Dehlin [00:15:12] Right. How about you, Kerry? Have you heard any stories like that?

Cary Crall [00:15:18] I've heard plenty of stories. I haven't experienced any. There was, I heard people. Well, no, I think it's not even relevant. I haven't heard any direct stories from anyone in my life about being approached by priesthood leaders, asking them for money. I've heard plenty of stories otherwise that people might as well just go up and look up on the Internet and it's better than hearing it from me right now.

Escalating Church Rhetoric Leading Up to the Vote

John Dehlin [00:15:47] Did both of you guys, did both of you guys experience the upping of the rhetoric as the campaign, as the vote neared, where in soccer meetings and in Sunday schools and in the quorum meetings, etc. This became a frequent topic of discussion. Morris, we'll ask you first.

Morris Thurston [00:16:08] It Was definitely a frequent topic of discussion and it would be slipped in even in second meeting talks. I will say this, that as the date for the vote came closer, I had a reason to be in Utah, staying in a condominium there. And. And so probably for the last month or so prior to the vote and during the vote itself, I was actually out of California and I kind of considered that a blessing.

John Dehlin [00:16:41] Yeah. How about you, Kerry? Do you remember any of that?

Cary Crall [00:16:46] I also was out of California at the time. I was at BYU and definitely at byu. There was an upping of the rhetoric. I would receive emails from someone who was organizing the call campaigns, the call centers where I had plenty of BYU student friends who were going to call centers to call voters in California to ask them to support Proposition 8. I remember the weekend before the vote we received an email asking us to come in for an all day call session. And it was very encouraging saying, you know, we're almost there. Recent polls are showing that we're pulling ahead. We need this push. I often wondered why I was getting those emails. I hadn't signed up for any list. I also received a phone call and I wondered where they got my phone number. And I also was approached just walking around campus. There would be students who would ask if you were from California and would ask if you would be involved in the campaign and try and sign you up right there to do so. So definitely all of those things, I take they were definitely a step up from where I was comfortable politically and getting involved.

John Dehlin [00:18:11] So BYU is really leveraged as a resource for the campaign, is that right?

Cary Crall [00:18:18] Well, I don't know where they got my information. I can assume BYU definitely had my information of where I was from, what my phone number was and what my email address was. But there was nothing that was tying those emails or phone calls specifically to byu.

John Dehlin [00:18:39] Interesting. I got a. There's a. Just one sec, Morris. There's a comment on the forum from a John Smith. It says the members of my ward were asked to make meals for BYU students so that they would have more time to work at the call centers. We were also asked to clean their apartments. That's interesting. I haven't heard that.

Cary Crall [00:18:58] That would have been nice.

John Dehlin [00:19:03] Just for that reason alone. Morris, were you going to jump in?

Morris Thurston [00:19:07] Well, I was just going to say that because I think this is kind of relevant to the whole issue of how much pressure was put on. I very early on had communications with a couple of general authorities and explained my position. They were friends of mine and I consider them friends still. And they were very gracious and kind in discussing it with me. And it was made clear to me that I think there was a big misunderstanding that was never clarified for most people. And that is, although we may have a moral belief or there may be a moral issue involving homosexual marriage, we do not tell people. The church does not tell people how to vote. Now, that seems like it's kind of contrary to what the letter said. But if you read the letter specifically, it didn't actually tell you how to vote. And I was told that since the issue had arisen in the political arena, I could use my own judgment about how to vote on it. And that would not be something the Church would be taking any action on one way or the other. This was confirmed later when there was kind of a little bit more flack going. And there were some articles in the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack did a couple of them and Whitney Clayton, Elder Clayton, who was kind of in charge of the California effort, affirmed that and said that we're not taking action against people because of. I mean, they're free to vote how they will, and we consider them in full fellowship in the church. Now, that being said, I've also heard anecdotally of people who had action taken against them for coming out and stating what their beliefs were and how they intended to vote. I never did, but I think that it varied a lot according to who your local bishop and stake president was.

John Dehlin [00:21:20] Gotcha. Now, let me just see. Laura Compton, are you on the line?

Laura Compton [00:21:25] I am. Can you hear me?

John Dehlin [00:21:26] Oh, Laura, I'm so glad you could join us.

Laura Compton [00:21:29] It only took about five computers, but we're here.

John Dehlin [00:21:34] I don't mean to interrupt the conversation we're having, but Laura, you know, you were one of the co founders of Mormons for Marriage, and I think you've been one of the most interviewed people, along with Morris, I think, in the country on this issue. So why don't you fill in any reflections you have for what we've discussed so far?

Laura Compton [00:21:54] Well, the only part that I've been able to hear is just Morris's recent message about things just being kind of depending on who your local leaders are is kind of how your situation went. And so because my connection issues, I haven't really been able to follow the conversation, so I'm not sure where you guys are, but.

John Dehlin [00:22:18] Well, why don't you just. Why don't you just talk to us about how you experience the run up to the vote on Prop 8

Guest [00:22:28] and

John Dehlin [00:22:28] what your reflections were as being an active Mormon While the Prop 8 thing was raging in Northern California.

Laura Compton [00:22:36] I think I was. Having lived through Prop 2210 years previous to this, my big issue with Proposition 8 was going to be that we just did this 10 years ago. We had people leaving the church, we had people committing suicides, we had people wards just completely divided and over the top politicizing everywhere. And I just didn't want to live through that again. I think the message has already been out there that I contacted my bishopric and stake presidency quite early, before the letter was read, right after it was leaked to the Internet and told them how I felt and gave them copies of Carolyn Pearson's book no More Goodbyes, circling the wagons around our loved ones and pled with my leaders to really make a difference in our ward, that they were our shepherds and that they had responsibilities for their whole flocks. And they really took that to heart. And while there was politicizing political things done in our wards and in our stake, I think that they really tried very hard to make it a place where it was not over the top politics all the time. And I can think of several times when people would start saying things in the ward and somebody from the bishopric would say, this isn't the place or the time for that. So my experience in my ward was that I could make a difference and that people could make a difference. And that when we stood up and talked, that made a difference, right?

John Dehlin [00:24:13] Yeah. And so you did.

Laura Compton [00:24:15] And then I hear, then I hear people, you know, the next takeover, who were being called on the carpet. And I hear people being stressed out. And when we got Mormons for Marriage set up, we had lots of people coming, writing both on the conversation in comments to posts, but also privately contacting us, saying, thank you so much. I know I'm not alone. And that was a big, big difference between Prop 8 and Prop 22 is to have a community, especially an online community, where you know you're going to be isolated in Ward 1 as one person in a ward or a couple people in a ward. But having an online community like the Mormon Stories community really made a big difference for a lot of people, I think.

John Dehlin [00:24:57] So this may be the be stating the obvious, but I don't think it is actually. I want to go around the horn. We'll start with Laura, then Morris, then Kerry. And I want to hear why. Laura, you felt like Prop 8 was something you wanted to fight.

Personal Motivations for Opposing Proposition 8

Laura Compton [00:25:11] I didn't want to see any more people dying. You know, we've had lots of issues in the church with blacks in the priesthood and with feminism and with gambling and working on Sundays. People aren't killing themselves over that. We don't see young gay members killing themselves. And I wanted to make sure that nobody who knew that I was around felt like every single person was against them. I really want them to have the safety net and to realize that, you know, somebody is listening to them and somebody is noticing that. And that's why it was so important to me. And, you know, if you're going to protect families, gay families are as much family as straight families.

John Dehlin [00:25:53] Okay, so that's. I mean, that can't get any more serious. I guess for you it was a matter of life and death.

Laura Compton [00:26:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:02] Yeah. Well, Morris, how about you?

Morris Thurston [00:26:06] Well, I love to quote myself. So when I wrote a letter to the church authorities, what I said was, I feel the church's involvement is a mistake. In my opinion, banning gay marriages in California A, will do very little to strengthen the family, certainly far less than initiatives aimed at strengthening the bonds of heterosexual marriage. B, has caused and will continue to cause further alienation and despair among our gay brothers and sisters who cannot be blamed for their same sex attraction. And C, places the church in a position of trying to dictate politics to those who are not members of our church. A position that's proved disastrous throughout our history from Missouri to Illinois to Utah. And of those three, the most important for me, the one that I came back to and stressed at the end was the feeling that we're not accommodating our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who are. And I've talked to many of them who are often among the very strongest members of the ward. Growing up in their youth quorums on missions have a lot to offer from a spiritual and every other basis in our church organization. And yet something like Prop 8 just serves to drive the wedge further there. And I'd like to see that wedge removed.

John Dehlin [00:27:39] All right. How about you, Carrie?

Cary Crall [00:27:47] For me, I. I was keenly aware of how I felt during the entire campaign and afterwards. And it didn't feel good. It felt. I felt like I was betraying my own conscience and my own ability to reason. And I couldn't. I didn't know what else I could trust. If I couldn't trust those things, I. It was. It's still a matter of a lot of serious consideration for me in prayer. But I do want it. I did. Where I really took my stand, and where I continue to take my stand is that I want people to be honest about why they support Proposition 8. I don't think that when any of these arguments that were being used to support it were shown to be weak by Morris and by Judge Walker and other people. I mean, I know that's still debatable. Some of them might be supported later that I don't think it changed anyone's mind. And I don't think that those are the reasons people were supporting Proposition 8 in the first place. And I do think that those reasons were deeply offensive to gays and lesbians inside the church and outside the church. How are you going to tell

John Dehlin [00:29:08] a

Cary Crall [00:29:08] lesbian parent who's not LDS that she can't possibly be a good parent and not base it on any study, but base it on your own religious belief? She's the one who has children and she's the one who's raising them as best as she can. And that's a very difficult thing to say to someone without any sort of, any sort of rational, non religious source to point to. And so because of, because of those things, I really felt strongly that people need to be honest about their opinions on Proposition 8.

John Dehlin [00:29:49] Yeah, and we'll definitely get to that, Kerry. And I'll just ask sort of a quick follow up. I'll just ask this to Nadine and Morris. Do either of you. There's a lot of members of the church that don't feel like you guys do, and there's speculation as to what makes someone care about this issue versus not. And usually it seems to be because you have a close loved one who's gay. Laura, is there someone close to you that made you particularly sensitive, this issue that you're comfortable talking about?

Laura Compton [00:30:27] I had a lot of friends and co workers at work. I grew up in the same stake as Stuart Mattis, so that was a turning point for me. But it might.

John Dehlin [00:30:39] Sorry, do you remember Stuart Mattis? Did you know him?

Laura Compton [00:30:43] He was a friend of my brother. I knew his sister more, but we're about the same age.

John Dehlin [00:30:48] But you knew, you knew his family?

Laura Compton [00:30:50] Yes, I knew his family. His, his father was in our Stake Presidency. He was in the Bishopric of the Singles Board. So yeah, I knew them. You couldn't live in the stake and not know who the Mattisons were. They were very energetic and they still are. And I think that they have really, within the construct of Mormon theology and practice, have really reached out to the, some gay men in the, in Utah especially, and, and have done some real hard work in, in working to make things a little bit safer within the parameters that they feel comfortable.

John Dehlin [00:31:31] And, and was this in Southern California?

Laura Compton [00:31:34] Northern California.

John Dehlin [00:31:36] Okay, so you're from the Bay Area as well?

Laura Compton [00:31:39] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:31:40] Okay.

Guest [00:31:40] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:31:41] Wow. So you knew Stuart Mattis family. And so you, you remember the day you heard about his suicide?

Laura Compton [00:31:47] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:50] I have to say, Laura, we just had a. We just had a listener. This is the beauty of the Internet and the Internet forum. We just had a listener say, who is Stuart Mattis?

Laura Compton [00:31:59] There is a whole bunch of information about him at our site, Mormons for Marriage. And I will put a link in the chat room right now.

John Dehlin [00:32:06] Why don't you give a 30 second.

Laura Compton [00:32:10] Stuart Mattis was a young gay man who's about 32 years old and three weeks before the California vote on Proposition 22, which is exactly the same thing as Prop 8, except that instead of changing the Constitution, it just changed the law. Stuart Mattis shot himself on the steps of the Los Altos Steak center in Los Altos, California with a note pinned

John Dehlin [00:32:34] to his chest that said do not.

Laura Compton [00:32:36] Said do not resuscitate. His story is spoken about a little bit in. There's a wonderful chapter about him in Carolyn Pearson's book. Stuart tried very, very hard to be righteous, to not have gay feelings and to really suppress and tried to get rid of his gay attraction. And he found that the only way that he could live with himself was to not live anymore. It was very, very sad and very hard to talk about sometimes. But we had a wonderful memorial for him about. He. It was 10 years ago, 10 years ago in March that he did that. And his parents, you know, have a lot of concerns about using Stuart. There's. But we talk about that on the Mormons for Marriage website, so you can go there.

John Dehlin [00:33:35] Okay. Morris, is there anything you're comfortable talking about in terms of what gave you a personal connection to this issue?

Morris Thurston [00:33:44] Sure. Although I will say this, John, while it's true that many people who support gay marriage have a personal connection, I think there are those who do not. And more tellingly, there are people who have a very close personal connection who are among the most bitter advocates of or strong advocates of Proph aid and banning same sex marriage. So it doesn't necessarily mean that that's the way you're going to go. But my wife's brother, my brother in law was gay. He's a younger brother. And we just knew him as a kid growing up in church. And you know, great speaker, great, very fine musician, piano player, the sort of guy that every mother would want their daughter to date, never got any trouble and then discovered that he was gay. And for him, this was Fairly early in this whole procedure. And I didn't understand much about gay issues at all at the time. And Richard ended up. He contracted AIDS and died. And my wife was on his deathbed and I went with her to the funeral. He had joined a church up there that was welcoming to gays. And a number of people just stood there and spoke at a little memorial service for him. Stood up and spoke. And I heard all these people standing and speaking and realizing that they were all. It was actually a gay church, so again, lesbians. And they were all that way. And they just. Afterwards, in talking to them, they seemed like such fine people. Many of them were in committed relationships. And I just kind of got a new outlook myself. I'd never thought about it much before I started thinking about it. And from that point on, I never could see the point in the church's wanting to be against the sort of committed relationships that I saw in that room. It seemed like what the church should be doing, on the contrary, is encouraging those kinds of relationships.

John Dehlin [00:35:58] Right. Well, let's move to a bit of that, Morris. So I guess the church got in some type of consortium and some marketing firm or PR firm was brought on. And they started really ramping up the public relations effort as it related to Proposition 8. And Morris, one of the areas where you entered the scene really strongly in all this was a response you made to a document called Six Consequences of Proposition 8 fails. So, Morris, why don't you give us some background on that document. Talk us through what the document stated, tell us if you know who wrote the document or its origins, and then talk about your response to it and why you found, as a Harvard trained lawyer, I guess, why you found it not to be accurate according to the law.

Morris Thurston [00:37:01] Okay. You know, maybe there's one thing I'd like to for that, John, and that is that my feelings on this issue I have always considered to be my personal feelings. And I don't make any claim to being a prophet, and I don't make any claim to my personal feelings about the wisdom of gay marriage and how we should treat our gay brothers and sisters. I don't make claims that those are or should be what the church does. They're just what I believe. People have asked me, well, how can you believe that way if obviously the brethren seem to feel otherwise? And my response to that is that I have never viewed anyone in the church, from the prophet on down, is claiming infallibility on every single thing that's ever said. And I think that there's room for People to have their own opinions within the church, their own personal opinions, so long as they don't preach it, as this is the doctrine. And so that's where I am. I have very good friends who supported Prop 8 and who continue to support the principles behind Prop 8. I don't disown them from my friendship and they don't disown me from their friendship. And I grant them the right to believe the way they believe if they'll grant me my right. So with that preface, getting back to the document, when I looked at the document, just something about it really. Well, everything about it seemed wrong to me. It was called Six Consequences. The Coalition in Support of Proposition 8 has identified if Proposition 8 fails. And as I read through them, I realized that every single one of the so called consequences were legal consequences. And I thought, well, who's any better qualified to look into this than me? You know, I've been practicing law for 35 years and I'm not altogether an idiot. So let me see what's behind all of this. And as I looked at it, as I looked at the cases that seemed to underlie it, I kind of got more and more angry because I felt that it really was a misleading document. Now what you have to understand is that in California, even before Prop 8, gays and lesbians, homosexuals were accorded all of the civil rights that married couples had. That is, not only were they accorded the rights of individuals, non gay individuals, but also their relationships, their registered relationships had the same consequences as themselves, marriage, relationship. So other than the fact that it wasn't called that. So to identify these as consequences that would happen if we didn't vote for profate seemed pretty ridiculous. I'll just run through them real quick. The first one says children in public schools will have to be taught, and that was underlined, have to be taught that same sex marriage is just as good as traditional marriage. And then the flyer identified the supposed code of the education code code section that required that. Well, I looked into that and the code section says nothing of the type. It says that pupils will receive instruction to aid them in making decisions of matters of personal, family and community health. The focus was on health. There's another section that deals with sex health education and HIV AIDS prevention. And it provides that instruction shall be age appropriate and medically accurate and shall teach respect for marriage and committed relationships. So that was already part of the law. Nothing with gay marriage was going to change that. It wasn't going to require teachers to teach, for example, kindergartners about or even that gay marriage was a good thing or a bad thing or make any judgment whatsoever. And later there were several editorials in the newspapers that supported that view. I know there are people that disagree with that, but if they look at the law, they're not going to find it. The second issue was churches may be sued over their tax exempt status if they refuse to allow same sex marriage ceremonies in their religious buildings open to the public. Ask whether your pastor, priest, minister, bishop or rabbi is ready to perform such marriages in your chapels and sanctuaries. Well, that's a very inflammatory statement. And I know members of our church who were convinced that if prophet passed, we were going to have to start marrying gay people in our temples. And it was absurd. So I looked at what was behind that and I had been following all of this stuff pretty closely, and it seemed clear that the one case they were basing that on was one involving an affiliate of the Methodist church in New Jersey. Now, New Jersey was a state that did not allow gay marriages. So obviously this had nothing to do with gay marriages. But in that case, an affiliate, not the church itself, had a pavilion that it opened to the public and collected fees for or actually allowed people to use for various things such as marriages and other things as well. And there was a tax provision that said if you make that type of facility available to the public, you can get a property tax exhibit exemption, which is what they did. However, then they decided, well, we can't allow people to have a gay commitment ceremony here. And basically New Jersey said you can't do that. Once you've taken this tax exemption and you've said that anyone can use it for any purpose, you can't suddenly decide to discriminate. So the additional tax at this little affiliate affiliate was required to pay. It amounted to $200. It made it sound like the entire church property or income tax exemption would be taken away. And it didn't have anything to do with that at all. Okay, the next one was religious adoption agencies will be challenged by government agencies to give up their long held right to place children only in homes with both a mother and a father. Catholic Charities in Boston already closed its doors in Massachusetts because the courts legalized same sex marriage there. Well, Catholic Charities, number one, didn't close its doors and still hasn't what it did do. Catholic Charities was an arm of the government in Massachusetts. They received money for providing adoption services, and they were. And they took adoptions assigned. They basically act as an arm of the state. They were allowed by the State to take non Catholic adoptions and kind of run the adoption program. And at some point it became clear that this, they might have to start placing children with gay couples because you couldn't discriminate there. And in fact they already had done that. But some members of the board of that got upset and said well Morgan's is going to stop doing the adoptions altogether then. And so they voluntarily withdrew from it. The fact of the matter is that the Mormon church still provides adoption services there. No one has ever been asked or required to place a child with gay couple if they don't want to. Because we do voluntary adoptions, we don't do state mandated adoptions. And furthermore in California we already, before Prop 8 ever came along, prohibited discrimination in state operated adoption services. So that hasn't changed and never will change. And, and to my knowledge no LDS adoption service has ever been required to do anything that would involve gay adoption. Okay, next. And we're getting there. I know this is kind of long. Number four was religions that sponsor private schools with married student housing may be required to provide housing for same sex couples even if counted to church doctrine or risk lawsuits over tax exemptions and related benefits. Again, this didn't seem to me to really apply to the church. First of all, we don't have any church schools in California that I'm aware of that provide married student housing. So Prop 8 wasn't going to change that. And the one, the case that underlies this one is a case in New York which didn't have gay marriage. So you know, you don't need gay marriage to reach this kind of a result. So it just again it seemed to be a reason to vote against Prop 8 that had no underlying basis. California's existing non discrimination laws give all registered domestic partners for their heterosexual or homosexual the right of equal access to family housing. So that wasn't going to change. Ministers. The next one is number five. Ministers who preach against same sex marriage may be sued for hate speech and risk government fines. It has already happened in Canada, a country that legalized gay marriage. A recent California court held that municipal employees may not say quote traditional marriage, quote or family values quote because after the same sex marriage case it is hate speech. This is one of the more ridiculous ones because in America, in the United States we have a first Amendment, we don't have hate speech. They do have hate speech laws in Canada and some other places. The Canadian case that was being referred to involved not a minister but a private citizen who put bumper stickers on his car basically said that someone engaged in homosexuality should be put to death, and they considered that hate speech. There's been kind of a similar case in Sweden. First of all, I could never see our church publicly saying that homosexuals should be put to death. So that kind of hate propaganda would never even emanate from the church to begin with. And. And even if it did, in America, you're completely free to say that the California case that they referred to was the Good News Employee association versus Hicks. And essentially it was a group that disagreed or. Well, it was a blatantly homophobic message. It was a flyer that they put on the walls of the workplace to preserve our workplace with integrity, with respect for the natural family, marriage and family values. And this was a workplace that included a number of gay and lesbian workers. And they were told that to respect workplace etiquette, that they should take it down. And the court found that their employer was perfectly entitled to do that. The last one was, it'll cost you money, it'll bring a cascade of lawsuits, blah, blah, blah. You know, everything brings lawsuits. And as far as costing money, Prop 8, the official flyer said that it would be a net benefit to California because it would bring an influx of revenue because of the anticipated increase in marriage ceremonies and actually be a boon to the economy. So I didn't think that was very, you know, made much sense.

Examining the Six Consequences Document

John Dehlin [00:49:55] Right.

Morris Thurston [00:49:55] That was pretty well it, John.

John Dehlin [00:49:57] Okay, well, Morris, thank you for doing that. And this is a very important article. Real quick, do we know who wrote these six points?

Morris Thurston [00:50:09] Well, at the time I didn't. It was anonymous. It. It wasn't signed. But later Gary Lawrence said he had written it, so I will.

John Dehlin [00:50:17] And who is that? Who's that?

Morris Thurston [00:50:19] Gary Lawrence is a. He's down here in Southern California, in Orange County. He is a political advisor, public relations type guy. He's written a book recently that actually has some very good points in it about how we present ourselves to the public and argues that we should do better with our public relations efforts than we have. And I actually agree with him on that. He's very respected by many people. He's been a former bishop, I believe, but he is a political. I mean, that's his business. And he does get paid what he does. And the church was paying him, as I understand it, to run this campaign. He was essentially running the California campaign from the ground level.

Laura Compton [00:51:12] His title was grassroots coordinator. As far as the campaign was, he was also involved in. Prop 22 is also involved in Hawaii. Hawaii, same sex marriage stuff. In 1997. He has Lawrence Research.

John Dehlin [00:51:27] So this guy's really, really instrumental. He's really central to this whole thing.

Laura Compton [00:51:33] He's been involved for a long time.

John Dehlin [00:51:35] Have you met him, Morris?

Morris Thurston [00:51:37] I have. I actually spoke on the same program with him.

John Dehlin [00:51:42] Oh, wow. Huh. Interesting. Well, seems like he's a pretty key figure here.

Morris Thurston [00:51:51] Yeah, he is. In California, I think.

John Dehlin [00:51:54] Yeah. So, Morris. Oh, one last thing. Apparently Jeff Holland's elder, Holland's son, Matthew Holland, was integrally involved in this campaign as well. Is that right?

Morris Thurston [00:52:09] I really don't know. Maybe Laura does.

Laura Compton [00:52:12] He was a board member on the National Organization for Marriage, which is the group that got Proposition 8 onto the ballot. They got enough signatures to get get onto the ballot. National Organization for Marriage has been involved in lots of. Traditional marriage campaigns since the Prop 8 campaign. The person who replaced Matthew Holland on the board was Orson Scott Card. And there have been intimations that Mormon roots run deeper than that, but I'm not aware of the details of that.

John Dehlin [00:52:55] Right. And this is. This is the same Matt Holland that's now the president of Utah Valley University, right?

Morris Thurston [00:53:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:03] Okay, so, Morris, real quick, before we get to Carrie and our listeners are. Kerry, I want you to know that our listeners are clamoring to hear from you.

Cary Crall [00:53:12] Oh, wow. I better wake up. Not kidding. I've been enjoying it.

John Dehlin [00:53:17] You're a rock star. But before we do that, Morris, what was the reaction? I remember something on Meridian magazine in response to your six consequences. Is that right? Does my memory serve me correctly?

Morris Thurston [00:53:32] Yeah, there was. And, yeah, I had a lot of reaction. Someone, I think maybe a professor at BYU wrote something on Meridian. I had other people posting stuff on the Internet net that was supposedly a rebuttal of what I said. Some of them were pleasant. Some of them were unpleasant. Some of them either accused me directly or indirectly of not being a true Mormon. And so it was a kind of stressful time for me. But, you know, I guess whenever you say something controversial, as I read recently in a book that I really enjoyed called the Help, I think they said that if you're going to write about something, don't write about something that everyone agrees with. It's not worthwhile.

John Dehlin [00:54:25] So I bet that was hard. Morse, did you get any grief from leaders or people in leadership?

Morris Thurston [00:54:34] No, I really didn't. In fact, I got some support. I will say that the two general authorities that I spoke to were both very supportive. And later, when my stake president inquired, because people did. I know that people did suggest to my stake president that perhaps he should take some sort of action against me. And when that happened, he told me that he contacted these general authorities and they both vouch for me, so I did not receive any problem from above.

Guest [00:55:15] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to discuss it with others, please check us out online@mormonstories.org if you want to find other friends, family members, former missionary companions or ward members who approach Mormonism like you, who consider adding me, John Dehlin, as your Facebook friend. This may seem like a strange idea, but many of my closest friends have discovered that they are not alone in their thoughts or feelings or family or even a word situation through discovering mutual Facebook friends. Finally, to keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider a donation@mormonstories.org music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton.

Morris Thurston [00:55:57] Nearer, my God to thee Nearer to thee E' en though it be a cross that resent me still all my

Guest [00:56:12] songs shall be Nearer my God to

Morris Thurston [00:56:16] thee Nearer my God to thee Nearer.

Cary Crall's Letter to the Editor at BYU

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 189

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Mormon Stories Podcast is made possible through the financial contributions of its listeners to keep it alive and available to future generations. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org alright, Kerry, well, let's bring you into this now, Kerry. It's been a couple years since Proposition 8. Where are you? You're a BYU student, right?

Cary Crall [00:00:25] Yes, I am.

John Dehlin [00:00:26] What year are you?

Cary Crall [00:00:27] I'm a cougar.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Go Cougars.

Cary Crall [00:00:28] I'm a senior. Yeah, go Cougars.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] Okay, so you're A senior at BYU. What in the world? Two years after Prop 8 made you decide that you wanted to write a letter to the editor.

Cary Crall [00:00:44] It was probably, it was two things really that were the immediate cause of me wanting to write this letter. One was an editorial printed in BYU's newspaper. I kind of only peripherally mentioned Proposition 8, but it was basically the author's point was that because he did, because he was following God's counsel and he had done his marriage correctly, that God was blessing him with children. And that although the world might disapprove, that felt to him like a pretty obvious sign of God's approval of his choice to be married. When he chose to be married. And in the situation he was in, he was citing an article that had come out saying that most marriages that occurred later in life were more successful than earlier marriages. And I mean, there's many times I've read. It's kind of the irony of my letter being removed for being offensive is that I don't know if I've ever read a more offensive viewpoint newspaper than what happens in the Daily Universe. Almost every week, in my opinion. As to opinions that people express that feel just mean spirited or cocky, I think is a good word as to the opinions that they're expressing in kind of blatant disregard for the morality of people outside of the BYU community. So that was one impetus. And the other was just reading all of Judge Walker's decision. I read the entire 138 page decision and reading it, it was, it was, it was a revelation. There was a burning in the bosom. There was, I definitely. He makes a comment in his decision where he says he points out that the proponents of Proposition 8 never called a witness who would explain the discrepancies between the arguments used to promote Proposition 8 during the campaign and those used during the trial. And I might have misinterpreted what he was saying, but I took that as he was anticipating that that would be part of the trial. And I also was kind of surprised that nothing had been said on those points that were Being promoted so aggressively. And so after I'd read that decision, I decided, you know, I needed to. I needed to finally go back to one of these five letters to the editors I'd started in the past and finish one of them and send it in. And so I did it. I did it just in the middle of a class, sat down and wrote it.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] So you wrote that during a class on a laptop?

Cary Crall [00:03:45] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:03:47] Okay. And so just tell us your. Tell us the main points of the article. Again.

Cary Crall [00:03:56] The main point of my article is kind of what I just said. It's just that during the trial, I mean, during the campaign, there were many arguments that claimed to be rational and non religious as to why Proposition 8 should be passed in California. That none of those arguments appeared in the trial, although some of them did. There were. The argument of preserving the definition of traditional marriage was addressed in the trial. And according to the evidence and the judge's opinion, it was found that the definition of marriage had changed already before in the past with no direct negative consequences. They talked a lot about coverture, which I don't know, that might be a little. That's out of my legal expertise. But what I understand is that marriage used to mean that the woman and the man became one entity before the law, I think, financially and legally, and that that had since been changed. And that was a fundamental change in the definition of marriage in that it was seen as a positive step for society. And. But besides that, I didn't. A lot of the arguments weren't addressed a lot of these arguments that Morris has talked about. And I felt like it was a sign that those weren't the real arguments that people who supported Proposition 8 inside the LDS Church, that wasn't why they had supported it. And I mean, that was largely based off of just talking to people. One thing that's been, I think, most misunderstood about my letter is that it was really addressed to the BYU community. It was addressed to BYU students. Some of my language, I think, included a more general audience, but I definitely didn't anticipate that people would be reading it all over the country. And even I've gotten some feedback from people in Australia and Europe who've read the letter as well. And so definitely, I think in the BYU community at least, that, which a lot of times is a microcosm of greater Mormonism, that people were supporting Proposition 8 because the Prophet had told them so. And I felt like they should be honest about that. That's a stance that while it might not be respected by other people, it wasn't offensive to them, and it was true. And I felt like if that. That it's within Mormon experience to sometimes have to take a unpopular stance for a religious reason and that people should take ownership that that is what they were doing, that it was, and not hide behind things that seem to be false.

John Dehlin [00:06:59] You know, it's kind of weird, Kerry, because on the one hand, your final point is very true blue. It's like. It's like for once, you know, not for once, but it's basically a Mormon saying, let's follow the prophet or we follow the prophet, or basically asserting, you know, one of the fundamental points of Mormon doctrine, that Mormons obey the prophet. And on the other hand, I guess people took offense, and maybe they took offense, and I saw a few comments in this regard. Maybe they took offense because in a way, you disagreed with a devout Mormon's decision to follow the prophet on this issue. And so you were kind of making that point in a way. You know, some would. Some interpreted it as a way to expose or embarrass people for following too blindly, maybe, or for not being honest in the campaign. Tease out for us where your heart or where your feelings were, you know, when you made that final assertion.

Cary Crall [00:08:16] Yeah, definitely. I don't think my letter says that. I think people are reading into that. What I do think my letter says, and especially there, I mean, there are two versions of my letter. I want to set the record straight. No editor at the Daily Universe ever changed my letter. What happened is I'd sent in an original form of it, which had been rejected for publication. And when I was contacted and they told me that they would like to publish it, and not just as a letter to the editor, but as a viewpoint, I decided to look over my letter again to make sure that there weren't any errors or gross grammatical problems. And I decided to add a sentence that kind of clarified my position. And what ended up happening is that the original letter was published and not my revised version that I had actually submitted to be published as the viewpoint. So there wasn't any going through my letter with a black pen or a black marker that didn't happen. But what. What I do think I can say is that I don't think that this is an issue that someone has thought

Guest [00:09:26] about,

Cary Crall [00:09:29] that someone has done their duty to society if they haven't thought deep and hard about these issues. I think the problem is that there's a balance. There's a balance between your commitment and your responsibility to your religion and your religious leaders. And Your commitment to other people who are not of your faith. And if this isn't a tug of war for you, then maybe you're being too extreme, if there's no give and take there. Because I think as American citizens, we all understand. I think. I think it's very easy to put yourself in someone else's shoes on this issue, that if we were told all of a sudden by a different religious group that something we did was incorrect, We would tend to want to ask them why they thought it was incorrect. And if it was something that was purely religiously motivated, I don't think it would convince us. I think that's exactly what we were asking of society, especially the gay community. I mean, there should be no surprise that this has been responded to the way it has by the gay community. This issue is very important to, I think, the issue of your family and your ability to marry. It's not just one of the issues they stand for, like it is for many Mormons. This isn't our life. It doesn't affect our daily life, but it does for gays and lesbians who want to be married and have all the same rights as heterosexual couples. Now, in California, I understand that they had most of those rights. I do think in the trial, there were shown. There were some things that were shown where people were treated differently legally under civil unions than they would be with the classification of marriage. And so I do think that those things matter to gays and lesbians.

John Dehlin [00:11:45] Right. Okay. Well, what I'd like to do, I'm going to just give a cue to our listeners that I think we're ready to start taking calls. And that means that my buddy Richard is going to be sending out a phone line that people can call. But I also want to invite people to call in on Skype at the address. Mormon stories. Richard's going to be taking those calls and screening them and getting them ready. So I just want to cue our listeners that we're ready to start taking calls. And once they get filtered through Richard, we'll be bringing them on the line. So before we do that, and that's giving Richard a little bit of time. Oh, the phone number is 435-915-4429. That's 435-915-4429. Like to encourage you guys to call in or you can Skype us at Mormonstories. So, Kerry, one of the big questions that people asked is what was the response at BYU for writing that article?

The Daily Universe Removes the Letter

Cary Crall [00:12:53] The response at BYU was mainly silence. The letter was removed. Shortly after being published, and I never heard anything from the administration. I emailed the editor who I had initially submitted my letter to, and she didn't really have much to tell me. She wasn't part of the decision to remove it. She did tell me that she hadn't received any discipline. I myself haven't received any discipline as well. I haven't heard from the university. As far as I know, we are still good friends. As far as students at byu, it surprises me. I've definitely received some feedback, most of it positive and most of it from friends or people who already knew me. There have been a few people who've just added me on Facebook and, you know, given me a little thumbs up for what I was willing to say. I haven't received any direct communication in the form of negative feedback. I haven't received any hate mail. I've definitely seen some on blogs where people comment on my letter, and I've seen received some indirectly from people close to me, and I've mainly just been able to call them and talk to them about it, and it's gone very well. My main response came from outside the BYU community, from people all over Utah at first and then all over the country, and most of it was very favorable. Before the letter was pulled, people's main response was, wow, that took a lot of courage. And I can't believe BYU would publish this. And I think it's a good sign for the freedom of expression in the church. And then BYU removed or not byu, the Daily Universe removed the letter and that quickly was reversed.

John Dehlin [00:14:53] You know, that's exactly, that's exactly what happened. I. Somebody forwarded me the link to your editorial, and my immediate reaction was, I'm going to Facebook this because it's so awesome that BYU would allow a letter like this to go. It's like, oh, a breath of fresh air. We're opening things up. We're letting diverse opinions. You know, the whole basic sentiment that was behind the Mormon.org PR campaign, where we're a church that embraces diversity and that embraces individuality. It was like a follow on from that where it felt like, here's the church, you know, living by what it seems to be promoting in its PR campaign. So I was thrilled, and I swear it wasn't two hours from when I posted that on Facebook that it was yanked down. And. And it just seems so embarrassing to the church because something that would have just been a blip and maybe even favorable ends up maybe potentially being yet another black eye. Does anybody in the panel have any thoughts on that decision by byu? Any insight into it? Any perspective?

Cary Crall [00:16:13] I need to say something. I think they've been. The Daily Universe has been pretty adamant about taking responsibility for this. Obviously, it could have come from somewhere else. But as far as I know, it was just one faculty member, the head editor at the Daily Universe, who initially approved the letter. And then as they received a response, he decided to take it off. There's no real evidence that the BYU administration or the LDS church at large were involved at all.

John Dehlin [00:16:44] Right. So maybe it was.

Morris Thurston [00:16:45] Well, let me just say, obviously, no one knows why, but to me, it's strange credulity to think that the Daily Universe decided to take it down because a few students complained about it. Somebody complained that was in a position of authority. And yes, it was the Daily Universe that complained the fall for it. But who called the editor of the Daily Universe that had so much clout that he would make the decision, which seems to me to be a terrible decision from a public relations point of view, to take the letter down. I kind of agree with John. This was an opportunity missed, an opportunity for the church to say, look, on our campus at byu, we do have academic freedom. We have freedom of speech. We can speak our mind on things without and in a respectful manner without repercussions. And I think Kerry's letter was very respectful. So, yeah, I was disappointed.

John Dehlin [00:17:48] Yeah. Okay. Were you going to speak up, Morse?

Cary Crall [00:17:52] No, I have something to say. I've been watching the Daily Universe for any viewpoints or letters to the editor about my letter, and none of them. There has been none. I know of at least 20 people who've told me that they've written into the Daily Universe a letter to the editor. So it seems like that story is going to die. I don't think it's going to be commented on in the Daily Universe soon. It seems to me that they are not allowing any subsequent letters to the editor to be published.

Laura Compton [00:18:27] John, this is.

John Dehlin [00:18:28] Go ahead, Laura.

Laura Compton [00:18:30] You know, I was a journalism major in college, and I think that the Daily Universe staff are learning a very hard lesson, but maybe one that they're getting the wrong lesson from that by stopping the conversation, you're able to dodge the hard conversations, and that's just not what newspapers should be doing. And I think that by having the faculty step in and say, yeah, let's pull this. Let's not have any more letters to the editor because something was offensive, I think that that's sending the wrong message to these people who are going to be out and become the future muckrakers and PR folks of the world. I think that they've really dropped the ball on that as journalism faculty and as student editors. But like, you know, it's a student newspaper and they're learning, so hopefully they'll learn a lesson.

Morris Thurston [00:19:16] Well, the other thing that I think we're learning is that this is not your grandmother's and it's not your grandmother's world or your grandfather's. When something like this happens, it instantly goes all over the world, as Kerry has pointed out. I don't know how they thought they were somehow going to bury the thing. Does no one else on BYU campus have Internet access and can read all these blogs and can tune into Mormon stories? The discussion's going to happen. It's just not going to happen in the moderated setting of the universe.

John Dehlin [00:19:54] Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit crazy. I mean, I guess there's a chance that the church has just decided that it gets, you know, let's just say that there's some committee at the top of church leadership that has to decide whether or not it's going to intervene. You know, we know that like with the September 6th, that high level leaders got in trouble for intervening in local matters, in the stakes where the members of the September 6th were participating. And I've always gotten the sense that from September 6th on, top church leaders have tried to avoid the appearance that they're mingling in local decisions and in local affairs. And so there's always a chance that, that these top level leaders are basically saying, we can't get in the business of censoring the BYU newspaper. So we have to just let whatever happens happens. And then, Laura, kind of like you said, the editors and the student participants are just scared. They don't want to bring shame on the church. And in reality, this doesn't reflect at all on decisions made by the church leadership. True.

Laura Compton [00:21:13] I think that's true. I want to hear what this caller has to say.

Live Callers React to the Censorship

John Dehlin [00:21:16] All right, caller, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest [00:21:20] Hi, John, Laura Morris, Carrie, this is, this is really fantastic that you guys are doing this tonight. I'm really enjoying this conversation.

John Dehlin [00:21:28] Is this Tom Grover?

Guest [00:21:29] I guess. Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:21:31] Is this Tom Grover?

Guest [00:21:33] Yeah. Yeah. This is Tom Graver.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] What's up, Tommy? He's calling from Nebraska.

Guest [00:21:38] That's right. Yeah. Out here on the plains.

John Dehlin [00:21:41] All right, brother, go ahead.

Guest [00:21:42] I guess. Mike, I've got a couple of questions for Carrie and the, the first is you had this letter. It's been censored as you have Discussed, you don't know by who. And yet here you are on Mormon stories, continuing to speak out on the issue of marriage equality, but also the censorship. And I'm wondering, do you fear any kind of retribution, either formally from the church or socially from people who find out that you're continuing to speak out?

Cary Crall [00:22:17] I am. I have definitely been anxious. I haven't been able to really give my schooling my best effort the last week. And I'm often. I'll. It's taken a little toll on me. I'm nervous about definitely. A lot of blogs have made. People have made comments to the extent, to the point of, oh, it's too bad this kid's gonna get excommunicated and kicked out of byu. I don't really think that's going to happen. BYU does say in the honor code, the honor code doesn't just limit behavior, it does limit expression on some points. And one of those points is that you're not allowed to advocate homosexual behavior as morally acceptable. You're not allowed to make that statement. And I've definitely had to be very aware of that as I've gone into interviews, as I've continued to talk, I don't think my initial letter would cause negative disciplinary action from the church or from byu. I do think as I continue to do interviews, that there's a possibility that I could say something that would put me in jeopardy of losing my place at byu. And that's definitely not an outcome that I'm looking forward to happening if it does. I do also feel like before I agree to any interview, I try to make sure that my goals. I have a few goals as to why I would write the letter and as to why I would do more interviews. And I tried to make sure that the interview could satisfy one of those goals, that it's not just about attention and that it's not about anyone else's goals for. For me or my letter. Socially, I don't anticipate I'll lose many friends over this. The Facebook battle has been in my favor. I probably gained 50 more friends than I've lost. So that's. It's going to be all right. Socially, real quick.

John Dehlin [00:24:32] And then I want to bring Tom back in, if he's still on the line. But, Kerry, do you get a sense that at BYU there's a general antipathy for gay rights or a lot of sympathy for gay rights at byu?

Cary Crall [00:24:45] It's a hard question because I think at BYU you can find people who agree with you and you tend to hang out with those people. Amongst my group of friends, I know many people who are in support of homosexual rights. I think homosexual rights in general is becoming a more. I mean, it's obviously a very. It's almost a mainstream Mormon stance. It is a mainstream Mormon stance to say that you believe in homosexual rights. I think the church made that clear with its ordinance. It was. It helped support. Pass in Salt Lake. There's a similar ordinance being discussed in Provo. And there's a meeting on actually tomorrow night at the BYU Law Building where people can go and show their support and find out what they need to do to help that ordinance pass. I think that in a class, depending on which department you're in, I don't think in the religion department you would be wise to express your favor for homosexual or any sort of deviant opinion about Proposition 8. If you're in sociology, if you're in an English class, maybe. I mean, it really depends on the professor. I think a lot of students have a lot of respect for their professors and can kind of make. Get a feel for how the class is being run and what is appropriate to say.

John Dehlin [00:26:17] Right. So it just depends. But you definitely have a core group of friends that are supportive of gay rights at byu?

Cary Crall [00:26:29] Yes. Yes, I'd say that I could at least round up 10 people within an hour.

John Dehlin [00:26:37] Right. Okay. Well, Tom, you still on the line?

Guest [00:26:39] Yeah, I am.

John Dehlin [00:26:40] Oh, Tom, did you have a second question or follow up?

Guest [00:26:43] Yeah, just a second question, if you guys don't mind. This is also for Kerry, but I joined the conversation late, so if you've already answered this, just skip it and go ahead. So in the explanation that the Daily Universe gave, they used the word offensive to describe your column. And that was attributed not to the Daily Universe finding it offensive, but the readership. And I'm wondering from your personal perspective if you felt that stung a little bit. That was kind of a sanction against you personally, if you. You will.

Cary Crall [00:27:22] The word offensive, it definitely made me go back and read my article. I wanted to know what people found offensive. My intent was never to offend people. I don't think my letter is offensive. I think what it could possibly do. I understand that a lot of people in California sacrificed a lot to get Proposition 8 passed. That this wasn't a casual thing for them, that a lot of people lost close relationships with family members or friends, that they spent money, that they spent time. And to any challenge to its validity, I think because they're so invested, could cause them to feel offended. I think our church is Pretty clear. We've had a few talks now that being offended is a choice, that people don't offend you, that you choose to be offended. And I thought it was very interesting that that was the word used to describe my article, that I had offended people.

John Dehlin [00:28:31] Yeah, yeah. I even had my. I have a wonderful aunt who's got to be in her 70s who's in no way, you know, antagonistic to the church. She's very faithful. She wrote me and said on Facebook, John, can you please explain to me what was offensive about that BYU editorial?

Cary Crall [00:28:56] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:28:57] Yeah, I think we're all confused about that. So I just want to, I want to invite listeners this may seem like panel and a discussion that would not be hospitable to people who are supporters of Proposition 8 and people who are opposed to gay marriage or are very supportive of the Daily Universe. And I want to invite any caller to please call in if you support proposition 8, if you support the BYU Daily Universe's decision. I promise that we'll be friendly and non antagonistic and this will be a warm and a safe environment to disagree and to express your opinion. So again, anyone who wants to call in and share that, you are welcome. Laura, you've been quiet for a bit. Do you have any thoughts or comments you want to throw in from what we've talked about so far?

Church Members Responding to and Leaving Over Prop 8

Laura Compton [00:29:55] I've been kind of watching the chat. I see here that somebody has asked if Morris has has noticed any members leaving the church over Prop 8 or if he's any seen any wards divided. I know that I've kind of seen both that people have left and I've kind of seen people step away from I've seen both and I've anecdotally heard of other people. I'm not sure that anybody's joined because of our stance on Prop 8, but I think I have heard of people saying that

John Dehlin [00:30:31] Morris well, I too have

Morris Thurston [00:30:36] run across a number of people who found this to be divisive. I know people who are staying all the way from church because they're very hurt by this. I know people who've resigned their membership in the church because of Prophet. There are a lot of I received emails from people after my six consequences. Someone explained in detail in an email how they had they had come to the same conclusion concerning six consequences even before they'd read what I wrote, talked to their bishop and stake president about it and they forwarded their thoughts up the line. But it didn't go any further up the line. Later their Bishop acknowledged their sick president acknowledged that he didn't send it up because it would just come back. And they treated the whole argument against the six consequences as more or less of a annoyance and an irritant. And she says, this was a woman who wrote me her husband was in the bishopric. She said, my husband writes a letter of resignation every Sunday, but so far hasn't sent it. And they kind of asked me what I thought, and basically what I said is, don't send it. You need to be able to stay. If you feel the way you feel, you need to be able to stay and express it. And there's a lot of good that the church does, and it's not worth, in his situation, it didn't seem like it was worth resigning from the church.

Guest [00:32:14] Right.

John Dehlin [00:32:15] And I'll just add anecdotally, we have a caller waiting. But I'll add anecdotally that, you know, I've requested essays for a book that we're working on called why People Leave the LDS Church. And lots, dozens and dozens of people that I've spoken with have either resigned their membership of the church or gone inactive or lost their faith over Proposition 8. So anecdotally, I know dozens, if not, you know, over a hundred people who this has affected very seriously. But let's go to a caller.

Cary Crall [00:32:53] Hey, John.

John Dehlin [00:32:54] Hey, who's this?

Guest 2 [00:32:56] This is Glenn.

John Dehlin [00:32:59] Welcome, Glenn.

Guest 2 [00:33:00] How are you doing?

John Dehlin [00:33:01] Good. Thanks for calling.

Morris Thurston [00:33:03] Good.

Guest 2 [00:33:04] Thanks for. I wanted to address Morris Thurston about his response to the six points and specifically the first point about education. I read that and I read the conclusion that he proposed as a response. And while I don't disagree with the conclusion, I kind of disagree with the way he got there.

John Dehlin [00:33:33] Okay.

Guest [00:33:34] And

Guest 2 [00:33:37] Morris, you were talking about how the California Education Code would not require teachers to teach. But you know, we have this issue with the teacher who brought our first grade class to San Francisco to witness her own marriage. And I'm just wondering, how did the California Education Code restrict her from doing that?

Morris Thurston [00:34:03] Well, that's a good question, actually, and appreciate you bringing that up. The. The first of all that you have to go behind the facts there just a little bit. This was a woman, a gay teacher in a. As I understand it, Laura can correct me if I'm wrong. A private school.

Laura Compton [00:34:23] It might have been a charter school.

Morris Thurston [00:34:25] Okay, A charter school, but it was.

Laura Compton [00:34:27] And the kids had known the teacher. This is the second year that those kids were with that teacher. And it was a small school, so everybody knew the teacher and knew that that's an important part.

Morris Thurston [00:34:38] And also I think that the teacher.

Guest 2 [00:34:40] During time. That's correct.

Morris Thurston [00:34:43] I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.

Guest 2 [00:34:45] I said the outing was done during school time.

Laura Compton [00:34:50] Yeah.

Morris Thurston [00:34:53] They got permission slips from the parents. And my understanding is that it wasn't a case of just busing the entire class or taking them there, but rather the one who wanted to go. And I think they took public transportation actually to go there.

Laura Compton [00:35:10] And it was a surprise. The teacher didn't know that it was going to happen. The parents kind of set it up and said, let's all go see your teacher.

Morris Thurston [00:35:21] It just seems to me like that is an anomaly. You're always going to find, you know, the one person who has a book on gay marriage or does something that's kind of out of the ordinary. But none of that is required by the law. And that was my point about that points that it actually said that the law would require teachers to teach about gay marriage.

Guest 2 [00:35:50] Right. And the California Education Code would not be changed by Proposition 8. That part of your conclusion I completely agree with. It would not. But in an LA Times article October 19, 2008, there was paragraph in there that said there is nothing in the state education code that requires schools to teach anything about marriage. Even the decision about whether to offer comprehensive sex education is left up to the individual school districts. So there seems to be in the education code a lot of leeway in terms of making decisions about what will be part of the curriculum or what won't be part of the curriculum.

Morris Thurston [00:36:34] I think that's right. And I think that parents have a lot of input into that.

Guest 2 [00:36:39] Sure they do. So the point is, while there won't be any requirement to teach about gay marriage being equal to traditional marriage, there's no restriction on it either.

Laura Compton [00:36:53] Glenn. There is a requirement, though, that when students are taught about marriage that there is as much respect for domestic partnerships as there is for man woman marriage as there is for divorced parents, that the schools can't say this marriage is good and this domestic partnership is bad. They are equal ways of treating your family. And the school would not be able to say same sex marriage is bad and gay marriage is good. And certainly they're not going to be taught talking to kindergarteners and first graders about how to have gay sex,

Guest 2 [00:37:34] okay, that's understood about the, you know, the sexual relation part and so forth. But as far as the word marriage is Concerned, if Proposition 8 is struck down and we go back to a situation in California where gay marriage is legal, then as an educator, as a teacher, When I'm in the classroom and I'm teaching a concept, I need to define the terms if same sex marriage is legal. I'm not necessarily going to use the term same sex marriage. All of a sudden, the term marriage becomes legal and applicable to men marrying men, women marrying women, and men and women marrying each other. Is that not correct?

Morris Thurston [00:38:22] Well, I think. I mean, obviously that's true if the issue that people are worried about is that students are going to learn about same sex marriage in the sense of that there is such a thing. You're absolutely right. Obviously, if there is same sex marriage, people are going to learn about it. Of course, my reaction to that or response to that is that every young person in my wardrobe knows about same sex marriage because they stood out on street corners holding signs against it. So they're not learning anything they didn't already know.

Laura Compton [00:38:55] And I can also say, as a parent of children in school, that every child, every class in my school has at least one gay couple as parents. It's not like it's something that kids don't know about. They already know that it's there. It's just the adults saying, oh, yeah, it's here.

Guest [00:39:13] Right.

Guest 2 [00:39:14] You know, one last point, Morris. On your response in talking about how Prop 8 affects California education Code and so forth, would you not agree with the statement that a law today may not be the same law tomorrow? In other words, there are groups out there that are working very hard to get the vote that affirmed Proposition 8 overturned in the courts. Once that's done, I believe that those same groups are going to go after the California education code and get that change. So that marriage is defined as, you know, what I said before, that it's a man can marry a man, a woman can marry a woman, and a man and woman, that all of that equals the word marriage.

Morris Thurston [00:40:04] Oh, I think that's certainly the impact of this. There's no question about that. But again, I don't see that. I mean, you have to say that what you want to have happen is that no one will mention the fact that people are getting married. And they are. They're going to mention it. If that's the law, that's what's going to happen. I agree with you.

Guest 2 [00:40:31] Okay. Yeah, that was my whole point. I felt like there was another dimension to your argument that was missing. And once the word marriage becomes, you know, has the full force of the state behind it as applying to all of these different situations, then, you know, the effort to then go and change the California education code will be a very strong one by those proponents of the gay lifestyle and so forth. And so I think what it does is once the full force of the state is behind that word, then it opens up the box to all of these other things that then become

Guest [00:41:18] part

Guest 2 [00:41:18] of the public education system for right or wrong and opens up a huge can of worms.

Morris Thurston [00:41:25] Well, I guess I just, I agree with everything you said, but I don't worry about the can of worms because to me, as Laura pointed out, kids have already got parents of other kids in their class who are of the same sex. I don't see a problem in people knowing there is such a thing, are such a thing as homosexuals and that there is homosexual attraction and that some people have elected to make their relationships like long term relationships. In fact, I would hope that that would be a good thing. I don't think this can of worms involves or includes educators, teachers and others recruiting children to become gay. I just don't believe that at all.

Guest 2 [00:42:08] Well, and I don't know if that's necessarily the issue that I'm getting at. I mean, if you look at the Lexington, Massachusetts case where basically the parents of the child were told, you know, don't interfere with what we're teaching your children, and that's my paraphrase, it really gets to be a sticky situation as to how much influence parents can have over the education process, especially when they're paying the taxes for that education and then they're told by the courts or by the school district, no, you cannot have any say in what we teach our children. And that's getting to the can of worms that I'm referring to. But just for the record, I will state for myself and my own personal beliefs that I'm all for civil unions, domestic partnerships and so forth. I think, you know, I fall in the camp with Elton John over this word marriage that, you know, we've had this distinct traditional definition. And if we can provide all of the rights afforded to same sex individuals under civil unions or domestic partnerships, then why can't we leave this word marriage alone? And I believe that it has a lot to do with the legal issues that come with having the full force of the state behind that word.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] Right.

Laura Compton [00:43:36] Can I say one more thing about this? At our website, when we were talking about marriage and why it should be equal and why it should be allowed, we had a teenager write in on a comment saying that she has no reason to. She was talking with her friends and they were talking about virginity and not having premarital sex and Then she said, but if I can't get married, why should I remain virgin? Why should I not be promiscuous? If I don't have a reason to stop being promiscuous, I can't save myself from my future spouse. I think one thing that if we have this marriage option and teenagers and children growing up in school realize that they have this option whether they're gay or straight, that maybe we'll see a downturn on some of the promiscuous and unhealthy sex attitudes that we have seen and especially young gay males in the last decades.

John Dehlin [00:44:41] Right.

Morris Thurston [00:44:42] Well, one other final thought on that issue too, that was brought up because I think it's a well thought out, well reasoned issue. You're always going to have at the margins somebody who does something that people aren't going to agree with. And you can bet that if it happens, if something that is outrageous to somebody happens, it's going to get publicized all over the world. And the miracle to me, the amazing thing is that all we have is this incident in Massachusetts and this field trip in California where everybody consented and nothing else. That to me is not really a can of worms. The incident in Massachusetts. I've talked to people who live in Massachusetts now and this thing is, you know, they've had gay marriage for quite some time now and most people just yawn and say life goes on as normal. There, there is no horror story. I kind of, I heard those same horror stories back when, when we opposed the Equal Rights Amendment for women about all the horrible things that would happen, like, oh, women might be required to join the military and they might actually fight in battles. And here we have today women doing exactly that. And we're all, we don't care. And I think that's what's going to happen.

Guest [00:45:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:58] Well, Glenn, sorry, Glenn, make one last comment. We got a bunch of callers, so make a quick comment.

Guest 2 [00:46:03] Then we got to go on her example. And you know, when the church released God Loveth His Children, I think it created a problem for the church as it relates to this very issue, because the position of the church shifted slightly away from the old paradigm into a new way of thinking about homosexuality in general. And I think that for the church to deny people the opportunity to practice something that they have no control over, as I believe the church is now hinting at in that pamphlet, in that document, is two faced at a minimum, and I believe is going to, if people take that document seriously, I believe that's going to create some problems for the church where people will say, how can you deny people who you've admitted don't have control over these feelings the opportunity to express those because they come from an orientation that's different from the norm.

John Dehlin [00:47:15] Right. All right, Glenn, I don't want to cut you off, but you've been a great participant. Thank you so much for calling in.

Guest 2 [00:47:22] You bet. Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:47:23] Thanks, Glenn. Yeah, I mean, I think I know how the church would answer that, and I'm giving Richard a chance to bring on the next caller. But I think that the church would say, yeah, you can't control your feelings, but you sure can't control your behavior. Right.

Cary Crall [00:47:40] Elder Oaks and Elder Wickman say that in their interview that they had with a public affairs official about same sex attraction. They say that exact thing. And they say it's the exact same thing they ask of old single members of the church who never get married. I mean, it's debatable as to whether those things are similar or the same thing. But I think that has been a response in the past.

John Dehlin [00:48:04] Yeah. And I'll just add that I know people who feel like they're able to live a celibate life, and I know people for whom that seems like a sad, desperate impossibility. So, you know, I tried to pin down Bruce Bastian and Caroline Pearson to condemn that option of people living in solitude. And they were, both of them did not want to do that. They wanted to say, you know, everyone's got to make their own decision. If that's something they feel good about, they need to be able to do that. My only issue is that I think there's a certain group of people, and probably the majority who for whom the option of a life of solitude is just desperately sad and, you know, unhealthy. All right. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Laura. And then we got Greg on the line.

Laura Compton [00:48:59] I want to hear from Greg.

John Dehlin [00:49:00] Hi, Greg.

Guest [00:49:02] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:49:03] Welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest [00:49:06] Thank you. My comments are kind of back to some of Kerry's issues and some questions that stem from his article. First, I would kind of like to clarify with Kerry because you asked for people who maybe disagree, as it were. I don't know if I disagree. I tend to more agree with what he's saying. However, he seems to kind of call out Mormons or call out the general body of the church for supporting Prophet because the Mormon, because the prophet said so and says that all these other reasons that were taken to court are not the reason that they're doing it. And while I think that now that those reasons have really been disproven or shown that they're not very valid at the time they were voting, I still think that's very possible. They indeed believed those things. I wonder if there could be any clarification in that regard.

Cary Crall [00:50:01] Sure. Thanks, Greg. I do think that people did believe those arguments. I know that my mom did at some point and as we would talk about them, and I definitely didn't dismiss them. I thought, especially when they were repeated by. Three of those arguments were repeated by Elder Cook in the broadcast that he was a part of to California members about Proposition 8. And I do definitely think that that is possible. What kind of convinces me, though, that those weren't the most important thing to people is that for many people that I've talked to who felt that those arguments were true at the time, now that they are seeing that they might not be, their stance hasn't changed in many cases. I definitely think that people may have maybe read Morris's document or have read the legal conclusion, which, by the way, I mean the court still, the trial might be appealed, it probably will be appealed, and there might be new things brought to light so we don't have to give up on those arguments completely.

Guest [00:51:19] But

Cary Crall [00:51:21] I think that for many people, the fact that those arguments are being strongly challenged made no difference as to how much they supported Proposition 8. And to me, that shows the underlying reason was something other than those arguments. I heard John on his Facebook. He asked if the Prophet came out in favor or against Proposition 8, would people have used these reasons and come to the conclusion that they needed to still vote for it? I think that's a good question and it helps to highlight that standard as to whether or not people were really following the profit first or whether they were basing their decision off of these rational arguments.

John Dehlin [00:52:15] Yeah, I just, you know, I. I don't want to oversimplify or take away. I think. I think to be a traditional, orthodox believing Mormon is to sort of say on matters doctrinal, on matters theological, and even on matters social and political, I think there's a good chunk of the membership that feel like they abdicate that thinking and that responsibility to church leadership and to what they feel is the prevailing culture. And I don't think there's any question that if the Prophet made an about face, the same people who fought to support Prop 8 would turn around and defeat it. And probably many of them wouldn't even feel any cognitive dissonance about it.

Laura Compton [00:53:07] I think some of them would be grateful. I know that I've talked With plenty of people who said, you know, I really didn't see the problem with same sex marriage, but the prophet is against it and he must have better understanding than I do. He must know better he his judgment, his sight is better than mine. So I'm going to submit my, my thoughts to his. I think if he changed his mind, they'd be like, oh, wow, yay. I don't have to internal disagreement with what I'm doing.

John Dehlin [00:53:38] So Laura, you're saying, you know people who, who maybe even strongly disagreed with Prop 8 but followed the prophet anyway?

Laura Compton [00:53:45] Yes, because they thought the prophet was the prophet and because they trusted his insight. Just like when you trust the insight of a professor or somebody that you respect and say, well, I don't understand all the reasons, but this person that I admire, who knows a lot, has this idea. And I thought, well, maybe I'm just missing something and he knows something that I don't know. I think that that's the kind of information I heard.

Morris Thurston [00:54:10] And we saw the same happen with regard to blacks in the priesthood. There are an awful lot of people who simply breathed huge sigh of relief and that doctrine was changed. Now there were a few who were invested in the old one and probably who had kind of a closet feeling still of a little bit of bigotry against blacks. But for the most part, people just pitched right in and said, great, change is here. Now we don't have to deal with all this question of why is this. And even apostles like

John Dehlin [00:54:48] Bruce Armaconki, Bruce

Morris Thurston [00:54:50] Armor Conkie said, forget what I've said before. This is the way we go.

John Dehlin [00:54:55] Yeah.

Cary Crall [00:54:56] And I think we have something, I think we have something closer to that with the Salt Lake City ordinance. If you looked at public opinion polls before the church came out in favor

John Dehlin [00:55:07] of

Cary Crall [00:55:09] gay rights and housing and employment, the approval of such an ordinance was very low. I don't have the statistics. Look them up. But afterwards, after the church issued that statement, it swung dramatically. People don't have 60, 70% change in public opinion because they come up with some great new rational reason as to why gays and lesbians should have those rights. It was because the church changed its policy or they didn't change their policy. They came out and made a stance on that issue and they clarified their stance in their support of a specific ordinance.

John Dehlin [00:55:52] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to discuss it with others, please check us out online@mormonstories.org if you want to find other friends, family members, former missionary companions, or ward members who approach Mormonism like you, consider adding me, John Dehlin, as your Facebook friend. This may seem like a strange idea, but many of my closest friends have discovered that they are not alone in the their thoughts or feelings or family or even award situation through discovering mutual Facebook friends. Finally, to keep Mormon stories alive, please consider a donation@mormonstories.org music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Nearer my God to thee Nearer to Thee across that reset me still all my song shall be Nearer I go to thee Nearer I go to thee Nearer to Thee.

Legal Prospects and the Supreme Court

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 190

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Mormon Stories podcast is made possible through the financial contributions of its listeners to keep it alive and available to future generations. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org we have

John Dehlin [00:00:14] a caller on the line. John. Welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest [00:00:18] Hey, John, thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:00:20] Yeah. Is this John from Logan?

Guest [00:00:24] This is John from the Shaft blog and Logan. Correct.

John Dehlin [00:00:26] Alright, well, you're becoming a mini celebrity, so welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest [00:00:32] Well, it's funny you said that. My question is actually directed to Carrie and Kerry. I was wondering if you have any kind of misgivings about this newfound celebrity and in particular, do you regret at all being many, like atheists and ex Mormons, favorite Mormons? Does that bother you at all?

Cary Crall [00:00:52] It doesn't. It doesn't bother me because I respect a lot of people and what they've been saying on blogs, blogs that are associated with being former Mormons or being atheists. They have rational and well reasoned and well tempered and polite and respectful things to say and I'm not embarrassed at all to be associated with those people. I do have my own personal beliefs. I still am a member of the church and I'm happy that I am. I have to check myself sometimes, make sure that I'm not seeking attention and that I'm not allowing the, allowing this issue to become about me. I definitely am trying to be vigilant to make sure that I'm not, you know, you know, kind of used as a tool to promote other people's opinions and beliefs that I don't agree with. But I'm not afraid of being associated with people who disagree with me, belief wise. Having them talk about me and what I wrote and wanting to be my friend on Facebook and chatting me when I'm supposed to be doing biochemistry homework. That's not something I'm afraid of.

Guest [00:02:11] That's good to hear.

John Dehlin [00:02:14] Well, thanks for calling in, John. It's good to talk to you. I gotta come visit Shaft one of these days.

Guest 2 [00:02:20] Yeah, please do.

Guest [00:02:20] You're always welcome.

John Dehlin [00:02:22] All right, thanks for calling in, John.

Guest [00:02:24] Take care.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] All right, well, while Richard's queuing up the next caller, Morris, there are a lot of people asking what the prospects are for the Supreme Court and you know, the legal, the legal prospects for this whole situation.

Morris Thurston [00:02:42] Well, it's very convoluted and as many people probably know, there's even a preliminary issue about whether The Pro Prop 8 people have standing to appeal. There are some people who are opining and the judges asked for briefs on whether they're even entitled to bring an appeal. Don't Appeal stops right there. If they do appeal, then it would go to the ninth Circuit Circuit Court of Appeals. And sometimes they will hold three judge hearings in the ninth Circuit. But for something like this, it's very possible that they would hold what's called an en banc hearing, which I believe involves nine judges. I could be wrong on that. Altogether on the 9th Circuit there are some 20 some judges. And you have judges ranging from. Those seem to be, seem to be on the side of gay rights. Those who may not be, including one Mormon judge. I don't know how he stands, but obviously he's going to be, gets put on the case. It will be interesting to see if, if he feels conflicted at all by what the prophet has said. Then once it gets past the 9th Circuit, then the Supreme Court can hear it. It's not a court that is required to take an appeal. The court could just ignore it and say let the lower court's decision stand and not even hear it. But I suspect that if it gets up to the Supreme Court, this is an important enough case that they would hear it. At that point, it's kind of anyone's guess. Right now there are four justices on the Supreme Court, Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas, who are very conservative. And my own, if I had to handicap it, I would say they would vote to overturn the Perry case, the district court opinion. Then there are four that would be considered liberal, but we don't know about two of them. Kagan and Sotomayor really don't have any sort of track record on the Supreme Court. We assume they're liberal because they were appointed by a Democratic president that doesn't always prove out on issues, especially social issues like this. Then you've got Breyer and Ginsburg who probably I think would uphold the lower court. And then you have Judge Kennedy, who most people would consider to be the swim vote. And who knows how Judge Kennedy would go. He's ruled in favor of issues

Cary Crall [00:05:31] that

Morris Thurston [00:05:31] the community feels strongly on in the past, but none of those issues raise the same questions that the Perry case. This would be breaking brand new law. And my own feeling, when I first heard that they were bringing this Terry case in federal court, I kind of felt they shouldn't do that. My own view is that they should have left it alone and let California bring another constitutional amendment position in the Future, maybe in 2012, maybe later than that. And, and my feeling is that the voters would have approved it if the courts rule on it, even if it goes up to the Supreme Court, you Always have people who will say, well, just a bunch of activist judges and the will of the people has been thwarted. I honestly think the will of the people at some point and could be as early as 2012 in California would probably be in favor of marriage. But that's just my opinion.

Cary Crall [00:06:38] I have a follow up question for him. John, please. I've received feedback from people who criticize my letter because they say that the Perry vs Schwarzenegger case, that people, that the proponents of Proposition 8 were basically counting on an appeal, that they were throwing that case. They knew how the judge would rule and that's why they didn't bring all their. They didn't bring their A game, they didn't bring their top guns out. That didn't seem to me, I don't know, legal strategy, but that doesn't sound like anything I've heard before. Do you have any comment on that?

Morris Thurston [00:07:15] I don't believe that that would be foolish. And most lawyers would never not bring their A game in a case as important as this. By not doing that, what they've really done is made it more likely that the case will survive on appeal. Because on appeal judges are supposed to respect the lower court's findings of fact. Just because the lower court is the one who hears the witnesses and has an opportunity to judge them, whereas the appeals court doesn't. The appeals court is supposed to focus on issues of law. And so by if what they did was punt below and not put it on their A game, then they set up a record that is much more favorable to being upheld on appeal. So I don't believe that.

Cary Crall [00:08:03] Yeah, I wish I could have you in my pocket to respond to these things.

John Dehlin [00:08:09] The Pocket Morris Thurston.

Morris Thurston [00:08:11] I'll tell you what, let's become Facebook friends, then.

John Dehlin [00:08:14] You've got me coming to Deseret Book soon. The Pocket Morris Thurston.

Morris Thurston [00:08:19] Well, what I need is an iPhone app, don't I?

John Dehlin [00:08:24] All right, we have, I think we have a caller back on the line. Yes, is this Greg?

Guest [00:08:36] Yes, it is.

Morris Thurston [00:08:37] Greg.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] Welcome back. Sorry we booted you prematurely.

Guest [00:08:41] No, that's quite all right. Just talk about the people who are offended by Kerry's letter. It seems as though we've done a lot of assessing that, assigning blame to those, like to students who are offended or to faculty who are offended or maybe even church officials who are bothered. But I feel like it's more realistic and more probable even that it's not so much those people who cause it to be pulled, but people who are governors to byu and maybe not even like big funders to the university in general, but maybe smaller donors specifically who give their money to the Daily Universe. I was wondering if there was any hearsay about that, your thoughts on that, because I think that's a pretty viable option that kind of absolves some of the responsibility that the university itself maybe could have for that situation.

Cary Crall [00:09:35] I have a comment on that. First off, I'm pretty sure Greg's in my ward in that case.

Guest [00:09:40] Hi, Greg.

Cary Crall [00:09:41] Second off, I think that today, just today, some friends of mine were looking through the ads, the people who take out ads in the Daily Universe, to see if there was any potential for a letter writing campaign to put pressure on them to maybe pull ads and repercussions or in response to the Daily Universe's taking down my letter. And half of them were from. Half of the ads in the Daily Universe are from Brigham Young University in some way. And I. I find it hard to believe that the Canon center is up in arms about the Daily Universe pulling my letter. I think that they support the decision. So I don't know. I think that the main funders of the Daily Universe who would have put heat on the Daily Universe are within. From within byu as far as far as the university at large. I have no idea.

Guest [00:10:42] Yeah, I think that's a good point.

John Dehlin [00:10:45] Okay, Greg, thank you. Thank you for calling Mormon Stories. Appreciate it. All right, I think Greg's gone. All right, well, we're about two hours and 15 minutes into this podcast. Maybe two clean hours, if. If you count the fact that we got off to a little bit of a late start. I want to thank my listeners and all the web participants for calling in. We may get one or two more calls before we end, but I just want to. You know, one question that I'm kind of really curious about. I'm curious, you know, I guess all four of us here, all three of us here on the call, no, four of us, we're all still active in the church. And I'd be curious to hear how each one finds a way to make that possible. Let's start with Kerry.

A Prop 8 Supporter Calls In

Cary Crall [00:11:40] Oh, that's a great question. My activity in the church is purely voluntary. I decided last year that being LDS was going to be a choice for me. I wasn't going to feel trapped into being Mormon. I wasn't going to rely on my heritage. I have an interesting heritage. My mother's side of the family goes back to Hyrum Smith, and my father is a convert. So I definitely have a. I have a heritage of questioning and a heritage of loyalty, both mixing and me. I am a member of the Mormon Church because I believe it helps me accomplish my spiritual goals. It helps me love other people. It helps me feel God's love as often as I can.

Guest [00:12:40] And

Cary Crall [00:12:43] it helps me to. To feel a certain joy and confidence as I face my life. The basic beliefs of the LDS Church have served me well to give me, I think, a certain resilience as I face difficulty in my life. And that resilience is priceless to me, and I love the LDS Church for it, and I believe in it because that wonderful fruit in my life.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] Gotcha. Thanks, Kerry. How about you, Morse?

Morris Thurston [00:13:21] I think what Kerry said was very good. I would agree with all of those things. You know, I've been around a lot longer than the other people on this phone call, so I've, you know, I've had to deal with these issues for a long time. I began to begin to be concerned about things, issues, historical issues and other things shortly after I got back from my mission and studied them out. And the whole blacks and the priesthood issue I had to deal with. And where I came down was that there was so much that was being offered by the church, by my membership in the church that was important and dear to me. I think that where we're at our very best as Mormons is a community of people who care about each other and who go out of their way to do nice things for other people. We've lost children who died as infants, and in each case, people just pitched in and helped us get through those hard times. And to me, that's the true spirit of Christ. And I think one of the problems and the issues I have with this whole situation as wanting to include these wonderful people in that feeling, in that spiritual community. I guess that's probably all I need to say right here. I could say a lot more, but that's what's important to me.

John Dehlin [00:14:59] All right, thanks, Morris. How about you, Laura?

Guest 3 [00:15:03] I think we've got a caller. I'm happy to follow the caller.

John Dehlin [00:15:06] Okay. All right.

Cary Crall [00:15:10] Laura's so inclusive.

John Dehlin [00:15:12] Yes, she is. She's very polite and respectful to her callers. Okay, caller, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest 2 [00:15:18] Hi, this is Nicole.

John Dehlin [00:15:20] Hi, Nicole.

Guest 2 [00:15:22] Hi. I'm from California, and I actually voted in the Prop 8 campaign, and I'm friends with Carrie, but I voted yes in Prop 8. And I know it might offend some people here, but I had a really, really hard time with it. I have a lot of homosexual friends, gay and lesbian friends, bisexual. I know a Lot of people, and they would be very upset if they

Guest [00:15:48] knew that I voted.

Guest 2 [00:15:49] Yes. But my point is that I had to search it out in my own mind and I had to stay true to what I believe and follow the prophet for what I believe. And I know that he is a true prophet of God and that if he tells me to do something, I'm going to do it. Kind of like in the beginning of the podcast when we were talking about the primary song, Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet. He knows the way. And that's our whole. Our whole thing. And I didn't want to vote. I contemplated not voting. It was a really, really hard decision. And so what it finally came down to was, am I going to sustain my church leaders or not? And so on Kerry's letter, when he said. When he said that about standing up and actually saying, yeah, I voted for this because the prophet told me to, that's kind of what I was calling in about. So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:50] Well, I appreciate you being willing to call in and talk about it. Do you. Do you regret your vote now or do you still feel good about it?

Guest 2 [00:16:58] I don't regret it. Well, like, it's a really hard thing to talk about. And I had, like, I had to think about it for a long time and, like, I had to talk to my bishop about it and just tell him, like, you know, I don't. I'm having a really hard time with this. And the things that he would tell me are just like, you need. You need to do what you know is right in your heart and what you feel like Heavenly Father would want you to do. And although I have a lot of gay friends, I wouldn't mind if they got married or I think they would be great fathers or great mothers or whatever. It came down to the fact that if I'm a member of the LDS faith, I need to do what my church leaders are telling me to do if I believe that it's coming from God.

Guest 3 [00:17:51] Nicole, I appreciate the integrity that you have to talk about it and to talk about the reasons why you feel it's so important. I think that that's something that a lot of people have left behind is integrity when they talk about political issues like this. And I think that having that integrity is really important.

Guest 2 [00:18:12] I definitely agree. I feel like a lot of people that did vote in California with their friends and whatever, that they lied to them, saying they voted one way when they didn't for sake of not wanting to hurt feelings. Whereas with me, it came down to we just didn't talk about it. Most of my friends are homosexual. And it just would come to the point where we wouldn't talk about religion or decisions on Prop 8. It just had to be that way.

Guest 3 [00:18:45] I'm sure that there are people who treated me the same way. But, you know, I think that it's important to stand up for what you believe in. And I have to say that this kind of goes back to our conversation before about why we're still involved in the church and why we do the things that we did while you got the message that you got. The message that I got was very much one of somebody needs to stand up and say something on behalf of the gay youth who are in the ward and who are growing up and who are coming to church and hearing some of these very hurtful things being said. And so it's interesting. I always find it interesting when people talk about, you know, how they have an answer to prayer and they get one answer and I get a totally different answer. And yet I cannot negate somebody else's answer to prayer because it's as much revelation to them as mine is revelation to me.

Guest 2 [00:19:42] Exactly. I actually had a friend in high school. When I was a sophomore in high school, he came out to me. He was in my seminary class, and he told me that he was gay. And there are people in our class that would make homosexual jokes and things like that all the time. And so I started standing up for him because he's sitting in the class. Nobody knew besides me. But I would say, you know, like, we're acting Christ, like, by saying that, like, these types of things. And so a lot of the people in my high school thought that I was a lesbian, thought that I was gay or bisexual, whatever. And honestly, it doesn't really matter what people think of you. It's what you know is right. And this kid, he ended up going away from the church because of comments made to him, and so he tried to commit suicide and all this other stuff. And so, like, I, like, I am. I have been through all of the stuff, and so I know how hard the decision is. And so it just comes down to, are you willing, like, are you willing to die for your religion kind of thing, like, going back to the older days, like, if you say I'm a Mormon and they're going to shoot you, it kind of comes down to the point of, do you really believe it? And are you willing to stand up for it or not?

John Dehlin [00:21:06] Right,

Cary Crall [00:21:09] Nicole. Sorry. Okay, Nicole, I think you definitely exemplify the point of my article. I do also want to point out no one outside of a Mormon context is going to listen to what you just said. Maybe not. No one's not fair. Many people outside of a Mormon context are going to listen to what you say, and it's going to scare them. And that kind of reasoning is scary to people outside of the church. And I think that's why this is going to be an issue, because it's the difference between. It's a completely different set of how you make decisions and how you seek knowledge.

Guest 2 [00:21:53] No, I agree with that for sure, Kerry. That's what I wanted to call in was because these people that are making these decisions really do need to say, like, yeah, well, I voted for it because a prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints told me to do it. And that's simply what it came down to, the deciding factor. And other people are not going to agree with that. They're not going to understand that at all. And I totally. Yeah, I know that.

Morris Thurston [00:22:23] You know, I'd say one thing, too, Nicole. I respect what you said. And to tell you the truth, when I was your age, I probably would have said exactly the same thing that you just said. That's the way I felt. Sometimes as you, you know, go through life, your views change a little bit, but I think that I lost the train of my thought.

John Dehlin [00:22:49] You were just saying that sometimes when you get older, things change.

Morris Thurston [00:22:54] Well, no, that actually wasn't what I was going to say to begin with. Okay, let's go ahead to the next comment. If I, If I get it, I'll come back to it.

John Dehlin [00:23:03] No problem. No problem. And, you know, I'm just kind of curious, Nicole. You know, I'm sure, you know, enough to know that, you know, we did polygamy and then we overturned it, that we. That we kept priesthood from the blacks, and then we overturned it. You know, you could look at changes in the temple ceremony or other instances where the church has made fundamental changes. You know, even. Even the change to the opening of the Book of Mormon, where we used to call Native Americans Lamanites and now we've renamed the Lamanite generation. We no longer, you know, try to refer to Native Americans as Lamanites, I guess. I love the Brethren, and I think they're. They can often be inspired, but I think history has shown that they can also be wrong. Have you contemplated this? And have you thought about what if. Have you asked the Holy Ghost to confirm whether this is actually a correct decision? And what would you do if you followed the prophet. But it ended up that they were wrong. Would you feel bad? I guess I asked you way too many questions.

Guest 2 [00:24:21] But no, I totally followed you. I actually have thought of all of those things. Like, I would be ecstatic if they were wrong. If then later they decided, you know what, homosexual males can hold the priesthood and they can go to temple and they can get married and they can do whatever, I would be ecstatic. Like I said before, my best of the best friends are gay. And like, I know a lot, and a lot of them are active members in the church. And I know that they struggle. They struggle with a lot of things. And I feel like they miss out on a lot because. And it seems like it's not fair that they can't experience relationships and things like that. But at the point where I am right now is what the prophet saying at this moment of time, I just have to go with that. And if it ends up changing, then I can vote a different way later on if they want to overturn it. But as far as my testimony, it's not going to be shaken because people are angry with me because I voted because of a prophet of a church. But if it was wrong, I mean, I would be happy about it. I struggled with voting for voting yes the whole time.

Following the Prophet Versus Personal Conscience

Morris Thurston [00:25:46] You know, John, it occurred to me what I was going to say. And that is, I think that what Nicole is assuming is what probably 95% of the people in the church assumed, which is that the prophet told us to vote in favor of Prop 8. Actually, if you look at the letter they sent out, it says, we ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage. Now, that doesn't actually say that you are instructed to vote in favor of it. And I have specifically talked about to general authorities of the church who assure me that the prophet does not tell us how to vote. Now, that may seem like a small difference, but it's an important difference. For example, back a few years ago when there was a federal domestic doma, whatever that stands for, that was being passed and Harry Reid was going to vote contrary to the way that the church had advised its members that they saw the issue. And apparently the stake president of Harry Reid's got very concerned and started sending letters to him saying that he might have to take his, you know, take action on his membership if he put it that way. And within 24 hours, representatives of the church authorities were down in Las Vegas explaining to the stake president that we do not tell people how to vote.

John Dehlin [00:27:32] Now, Morris, I've worked for a few 501c3 nonprofits and my understanding is as soon as the church crosses that line and tells people how to vote is when it seriously is in jeopardy of losing its tax exempt status. Am I wrong there?

Morris Thurston [00:27:50] You know, I'd want to go back, John, and really look at that before responding one way or the other. I actually think that, that churches have a wide range of latitude to tell its people how to vote on propositions such as Prop 8, not on candidates for office. But I think, actually I think the church could tell us one way and would not lose its tax exempt status, but it is elected not to. And I think that's wisdom on its part.

Guest 3 [00:28:17] After all, if it would be a big PR loss too. I mean, even when it's just an employee like we had with Prop 8 and we had with DOMA, they always have the fallback position of we don't tell our members how to vote. Now they might introduce their letter about whatever piece of legislation with a whole bunch of talks from your bishop or from your stake president, you know, reminding you about the proclamation on the family and reminding you about church policy and the importance of the word of wisdom. And then they read this letter and it says, oh, by the way, you know, this issue is coming up in this legislature, please contact your elected representative and tell them how you feel. Well, the implied message is that you're going to tell the elected representative that you feel the same way as the person who talked to you at church about it two seconds before they read that letter. But at the same time, they always have this fallback of, well, we didn't tell them how to do it. We just tell them the goal to go talk to their person or to go work for this proposition. But we didn't tell them. We didn't tell them they had to and we didn't tell them how to vote. And they were free to make the choice. And I think that that's very important. Both a legal distinction, but also from a PR perspective as well.

John Dehlin [00:29:32] Yeah, Morris, you wouldn't doubt for a second. I mean, what, what, what the leaders, how the leaders want the members in California to vote, right?

Morris Thurston [00:29:42] No, I don't doubt that at all. But I also know that they're adamant that we all have the ability and the right to vote as our conscience sees fit on any political issue.

John Dehlin [00:29:54] Okay?

Morris Thurston [00:29:55] And we can still be, and we can still be full and full fledged active members of the church. Now, if I voted against Prop 8, is it likely they're going to call me as a general authority tomorrow? I think not.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] Right, right. Yeah, that's true. Well, I think it's maybe close to being time to wind down. Laura, I'm not going to let you off the hook. How would you feel answering that question I asked you earlier? What keeps you in the church?

Guest 3 [00:30:26] It's definitely the people. And definitely I've been, I, I've been a liberal nut since I was little and since the era was going. I was a feminist at a young age. But I find that by having one voice speak up, you realize that other people speak up too. And each person needs to make a safe place for where they are. And if all of the people who are supportive of gay rights and all the people who are supportive of women's issues and all these other things, if we all left the church, well, so we would self select and the church would be that much more conservative. But then think about the children who are growing up here and the kids who are in primary and the kids who are in young men and young women and they're coming to terms with their sexuality and maybe they are these budding, you know, they're dealing with these same sex attractions and getting these negative, negative messages. And we can't let them wallow in the depression and the guilt and the pain. But if we all walk away and nobody's sending positive messages to them, they aren't going to hear that at church. And when they don't hear that at church and all they hear is negative issues, it's very easily, it's very easy to internalize the message that God doesn't like me the way I am. I need to change. I can't change. I don't have any other choice. You know, kids can't, their brains just aren't wired yet to think very super critically about the, the delicate issues. And so they need some blunt messages that says you are good just the way you are. And if I can be in church and say that to one kid in my ward, you know, great, right? Plus we have fun potlucks. And if I weren't there, they wouldn't have an organist half the time.

John Dehlin [00:32:40] So you stay in the church as a service project and, and the potlucks and to play music. No, I'm just kidding. My guess is there are other things too. Other.

Guest 2 [00:32:53] There are.

Guest 3 [00:32:54] There are?

John Dehlin [00:32:54] Yeah. All right, Laura. Well, it sounds like, we have another caller on the line. Caller, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest 4 [00:33:02] Welcome. This is Sadie.

John Dehlin [00:33:05] Tell us your name again, Sadie. Hi, Sadie.

Guest 4 [00:33:08] Welcome, welcome. Yes, I had a question about how everyone is saying, you know, you had a choice, you could say this letter, it strongly advised you to help support Prop 8. I just wanted to point out some people might work for the church. You know, my father was a seminary teacher, and before the blacks could have the priesthood, my mother had a lot of miscarriages, and they were finally going to be able to adopt a newborn black baby boy. And they have. And my brother is white. And, you know, my father, he didn't know how to teach seminary. And, you know, where would my black brother go? Would he. There wouldn't be priesthood for him. And some people really are held hostage by their job, you know, and so if you're a BYU professor, if you're a seminary teacher, you know, there's a circle of people that, you know, I don't know how much of a choice they have, You know, and so does anybody have a, you know, a comment, you know, like, you know, you know, how many of you would, you know, quit your job over this? At a certain point, you might just need to provide for your family.

Cary Crall [00:34:41] I think that anyone. I mean, you can still vote, I think. I don't think the church had access to who voted which way. But as far as speaking out, I understand definitely your point.

Guest 4 [00:34:56] So, I mean, you know, if you were. What if you were a seminary teacher, what if you were a BYU professor and you have a gay child? You know, that would really be a precarious situation for some people and even somebody similar to Carrie, but not Carrie. You're still evolving in your thought process, and maybe you figure some things out in college, which, you know, the mind is still growing. And then here, you know, really, your diploma could be held hostage.

Morris Thurston [00:35:32] I think your point is a very valid one, Sadie, that there are people for whom there is not very much opportunity to speak out if they're going to keep their jobs. Absolutely true. I do know, you know, I know of at least one BYD professor who is now kind of on emeritus status. So, you know, he can't be fired. Exactly. But he's spoken out very strongly in favor of gay rights. There are doubtlessly people on the BYU faculty who feel strongly against a Prop 8 and who have felt a little bit constrained to express their views.

Guest 4 [00:36:17] I think the irony is, you know, is when you're saying, hey, if the church leadership changed their position, we could all breathe a sigh of Relief. But if some people within the church leadership, like, they don't dare speak, they could be the most held hostage.

Morris Thurston [00:36:36] Yeah, maybe what you're getting at, and I've often thought this may be as true as well. We always hear about politics, the brethren being unified on everything these days. It wasn't always that way. You can go back in the history and find where there were some very serious disagreements among the brethren on various points of doctrine. But now it's kind of more of a corporate church. And I think the idea is that everyone, you know, you'll have your discussions in private, but when you come out in public, everyone will get on board. I'd love to know what those discussions are in private. I do know that there's a very strong, you know, I've been in the church office building. I've been people that work for the church, and there's a very much a reverence towards the general authorities and particularly for the apostles. And if you're below that level, your freedom or your feeling of a willingness to speak out is seriously hindered, I think.

Guest 4 [00:37:33] Yeah. And so that's where you. I just wonder about wanting the leadership to change, but then I think that those are in positions of leadership and those that can really counsel our youth probably have the most fear to even speak the way they feel.

Guest 3 [00:37:51] Sadie, if I can pop up here, too. Part of the reason that I got involved with Mormons for marriage and have been outspoken on this issue is because I'm in a place where I can. Where my employment isn't threatened, where there's not going to be a lot of repercussions for me. And I feel like the more of us who are able to speak from a relatively safe space, if we're able to speak and kind of make a net and a groundswell that hopefully that will start to create an environment where other people feel a little bit more safe as well.

Guest 4 [00:38:30] Yes. And I also think that where someone's saying, you can still vote, nobody knows how you vote, but if you're a seminary teacher, I'm sorry, every kid is going to say, how did you vote? So you can vote and you can lie. You could vote and say, I'm not going to answer. You could vote and tell the truth and get maybe fired. I mean, it's not that. It's not that simple. And so I guess that's where someone says, you know, you know, I. You know, we can. We can follow the profit or we can't. And then there's all these, you know, the minions that are being paid and, you know, they really don't have that much freedom to disagree. And I guess that was my point.

Guest 3 [00:39:16] No argument for me.

Guest 4 [00:39:19] And so with Terry, I guess I was going to say, you know, he says he's active and he says he's going, you know, to church, but even at a certain point, if there was a crisis of faith, it would seem in my mind it would be prudent to not acknowledge that until I got my diploma.

Cary Crall [00:39:38] Yeah, I understand that. I feel like the things that I've been stressing and the main part of my message hasn't been about a crisis of faith. And right now I definitely feel like, you know what, I explore what I'm thinking on my own as far as my testimony in the church. It is smart to keep that to myself because I think a lot of people on this broadcast have acknowledged that their testimony is. Testimony is a fluid thing. It's in motion and it's growing and it's being challenged. And so any snapshot in the form of an interview or something in print isn't going to be very indicative of where your testimony is at maybe just a week or two down the line.

Morris Thurston [00:40:40] That's a very important point, I think, that Carrie made.

Guest 4 [00:40:46] Yeah, I don't have any other comment or question.

John Dehlin [00:40:52] Well, thank you so much for calling in, Sadie.

Guest 4 [00:40:54] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:40:57] All right.

John Dehlin [00:40:57] Well, this has been a fascinating discussion. I appreciate everyone's participation, including those who are listening and commenting on the chat. I think it'd be kind of fun to end with each person sort of answering two quick questions. And I want to thank again Morris, Carey and Laura for coming on the show. But I'd like to hear what. I'd like to hear what each of you think, you know, what you'd like to see happen in the church. What's an accommodation that you think that the church could make that wouldn't, you know, that wouldn't lead to a destruction of the church itself? So what's an accommodation you'd like to see made and then maybe end by what you actually think is most likely to happen? So I know that's a tough thing to ask. Maybe I'll start with Morris on that question. Morris, do you have any thoughts on that or is that too speculative?

Morris Thurston [00:41:58] Well, John, yeah, what I would like is very much different than what is going to happen during my lifetime. What I would like to see is that we would recognize the validity and the importance of long term same sex relationships, of stable marriages between same sex marriages as well as heterosexual marriages. And that as Laura emphasizes on her website that families come first. Not just heterosexual families, but families. And I'd like the church to, I would love to see a day when the church recognized that and when they truly could be treat gay members equal to heterosexual members by saying if you have sex outside of marriage, then you need to see your bishop about that. But if you get married and you're faithful to your husband or wife as it may be, then we embrace you with open arms into our church. As far as what is eternal, consequences of that are in the heavens and the hereafter, that's far beyond my ability to say I'm not a prophet. And quite frankly, I don't think that anyone, including the prophets of the past, have a really strong understanding of what that's like. We get bits and snatches of Mormon doctrine, but then sometimes they're taken away. If you study the history, things that we thought about the hereafter are either no longer stressed or outright disavowed. So I'm not worried about what's going to happen in the hereafter, but I do worry about what kind of church we're going to be in this world today. And that's what I'd like to see.

John Dehlin [00:43:58] All right, well, thanks, Morris. How about you, Carrie?

Closing Reflections and the Path Forward

Cary Crall [00:44:03] Well, I think it needs to start by talking about these things. That's part of why I wrote my letter to the editor. I felt like things needed to be challenged. Some friends and I are starting on a brand new adventure I'm excited about. We're making a, you know, making a blog that we hope to turn into print someday called the Provo Vanguard. And you can Visit us@provovanguard.blogspot.com and hopefully it'll be a shameless plug. I don't, you know, I'm not worried about it and, and hopefully that'll be a place where people can express opinions and have discussions like this that is part of the BYU Provo community. As far as in the church, I would love to see a day where it's okay to say, oh, there's John, he teaches Sunday school and he is a wonderful gay member of our ward. That would be a nice thing. It would be a nice thing that when young men or young women who realize that they have homosexual feelings, that it doesn't have to be a day of shame and embarrassment and self hatred. And I mean, when I say a day, that's an understatement. I think a lot of people deal with that for years and years that it can be just something you Realize about yourself. It's a characteristic, a trait. It's like realizing that you're left handed. You know, it might mean that there are benefits and there are disadvantages to being left handed, but it's not an evil or a bad thing and it doesn't make you an evil or a bad person. And I think I also would love to see a day when the gay community heard from members of the church and church leaders what the church leaders have been saying all along, or at least recently, that we love and respect gay people. I think we need. I think it's our responsibility in that communication. Something's falling short. We might say that people don't feel that they don't hear that they don't believe that. And I think if that's really our message, we spend a lot of effort in missionary work to convince people or to persuade people or give them reason to believe our statements. I don't know if we do the same thing with our statements about how we feel about gays and lesbians both inside and outside the church. I think we can be much more proactive. It should happen in young men's and young women's, and it should happen maybe in General Conference. I mean, I have, I have faith that the topics of General Conference talks are inspired and prayed about. I would love to hear a talk explicitly about the issue of how to show love to homosexual members in your ward. I think that would be great for the entire church. And I do think that those goals are things that I could see in my lifetime. For sure. I think that there are things that I have seen already, at least the beginning of.

John Dehlin [00:47:18] Yeah, I mean, didn't President Hinckley come out with a speech basically decrying any racist speech, any hateful speech, and openly denouncing that in General Conference?

Cary Crall [00:47:31] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:47:31] Yeah, he did. And it feels like, you know, there was this whole dust up about the Mormon.org campaign and these commercials. And do they represent the church or do they not represent the church? And are they deceptive or are they representative? I think the real story there was how many members of the church have actually seen those commercials or even know that they existed. And I would guess that the answer is very few, relatively few. And I think it's the same way about Elder Oaks and Wickman's, you know, press statement. They made this press statement, but what percentage of the members of the church know, for example, that now the church no longer demonizes or considers to be a sin one's sexual orientation? I'd say, you know, less than 2% of the membership, maybe even less than 1%, are even aware of that statement. And I think a General Conference talk would just go such a long way.

Cary Crall [00:48:29] I have one more thing to add, John. I. I was. The First Presidency issued a statement as well during the disaster in Haiti, asking members to raise money and to do their best to help people in that country. I didn't see the same kind of push from that statement that came when the statement came from them about Proposition 8. To me, there could have been just as much of an outpouring of resources and time and effort there than there was with Proposition 8. I should have been. There should have been people stopping me in the halls of byu. Then there should have been. I should have been getting phone calls and emails. I should have had special firesides to attend where my leaders asked me to help. It didn't happen the same way. And to me, it seemed like a pretty comparable situation.

John Dehlin [00:49:24] Right, right. Yeah. I saw a comment earlier on the chat board that what an amazing thing it would be if the Church used its same power and influence with Prop 8 and marshaled it for poverty or for literacy or for immunizations or clean water or daycare for children. It's pretty sobering, the power for good that the Church could have if it chose to marshal it in that direction.

Cary Crall [00:49:57] No, True. And I think it does do a lot. I do think we could all, as members, do more.

John Dehlin [00:50:05] Yeah. All right, Laura, you're going to bring us home now.

Guest 3 [00:50:09] I think that the Church has spent a lot of time instilling the message that we need to fight for traditional marriage and protect families. And it hasn't spent a lot of time instilling the message that we need to love and respect everyone, gay or straight. I think that, you know, if we had six months of three hours at a time, every meeting, dealing with protecting our gay loved ones and our gay family members like we had in California right before Prop 8, you know, that would make a huge difference. But I think it's equally important that we remove from our vocabulary the phrase gay lifestyle. And I think that it's also important that we just stop talking about being afflicted with same gender attraction. It's not a disease that somebody has put upon you. I realize that they would rather call it a disease than say, this is you or this is a crime. But I. I'm not afflicted with opposite gender attraction, so I don't think that anybody should be afflicted with same gender. I mean, that's just crazy terminology. I would love to see general conference talks, at least one a session, you know, or maybe even two. We could replace the hammering home about pornography with hammering home about loving your children, no matter what. What they say, no matter whether they're gay or straight or whether they don't know. We could have firesides that talk about what it's like to be a gay person growing up in a ward and hearing these messages over and over again and reaching out. And instead of singing Follow the Prophet, which is a fun song for the kids to sing, put equal emphasis on songs like I'll walk with you, I'll talk with you. That's how I'll show my love for you. I think that if protecting families is really the most important thing that the church wants to do, it needs to protect all of our families, and it needs to save traditional marriage by providing marriage counseling to young couples who, who are getting ready to get married so that they have the same expectations, so that their marriages will last, so that they'll learn how to communicate, so that they'll learn how to be good parents, so that they'll find ways to deal with the rough spots, so they don't have to fight with each other and instill poor coping skills into their children. And walk the talk. You know, it's been said before, Morris and Kerry both talked about there are messages that talk about the importance of gay people and the importance of respecting your family and welcoming your children and telling them to choose life and not kicking them out on the streets. But those messages need to be hammered home just as hard and just as forcefully and just as importantly as the other messages. And that about, we've had all these folk doctrines come in and all these personal opinions, and by not speaking out against those hateful, bigoted messages you have condoning by silence. And if somebody Salt Lake City could stand up and say, this is unacceptable behavior, we do not appreciate it. This is how. This is not how saints should be acting. This is how you should be acting instead. That would make a huge difference. I mean, that's what happened when Salt Lake City passed their civil rights ordinances. And now you've got civil rights ordinances all over Utah. If just by the word of, you know, the right people in the right building.

John Dehlin [00:54:12] Right, Right, right. Well, beautiful.

Guest [00:54:18] Well.

John Dehlin [00:54:20] Well, thank you so much, Laura Compton, for coming on Mormon Stories. I. I don't know what's taken me so long, but I'm glad I've. I've started down the road of repentance. And Morris Thurston, this is your second second appearance on Mormon Stories, but I really appreciate you taking the time to come on as well.

Morris Thurston [00:54:41] Glad to do it, John and Carrie,

John Dehlin [00:54:44] it looks like you're bringing up the lead as a new generation of people who are willing to share their feelings and share their heart and take a little heat to express what they feel and what they believe in. So it's an honor and a privilege to be able to bring you on Mormon Stories.

Cary Crall [00:55:03] Thank you. I've really enjoyed it.

John Dehlin [00:55:06] All right, so with that, I want to thank again all the listeners and all those who participate on the chat boards. I want to remind everybody to go up to MormonStories.org to continue this conversation and to see other past episodes. I want to thank all you guys for your feedback and your suggestions. Appreciate all the support and I hope that we'll all do do our part to help change hearts and minds within the church and without on this important issue. So thanks again to all of you participating and hope to talk to you again real soon.

John Dehlin [00:55:40] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to discuss it with others, please check us out online@mormonstories.org if you want to find other friends, family members, former missionary companions, or award members who approach Mormonism like you, consider adding me, John Dehlin, as your Facebook friend. This may seem like a strange idea, but many of my closest friends have discovered that they are not alone in their thoughts or feelings or family or even award situation through discovering mutual Facebook friends. Finally, to keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider a donation@mormonstories.org music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton.

Guest 2 [00:56:36] Still all my song shall be Nearer my go to thee Nearer my God near.

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