But this is illustrative of the larger subject of this post, which is the persecution complex of today’s radical gay activists, which has caused them to lash out at our church for simply participating in the political process. Case in point is the planned disruption of the Mesa temple winter ceremony. No protests are planned at Catholic and evangelical churches — only the Mesa temple is being targeted. It seems pretty clear that the Lord’s church is the target simply because it is the Lord’s church.

I think I can speak for the vast majority of Latter-day Saints when I say that we could care less what people do in their bedrooms. I try my best to have compassion for all people and treat everybody with respect. I very often fail, but I keep on trying. Personally, I am in favor of laws that protect against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. I have no problem with people visiting each other in the hospital and saying they are next of kin. I have no problem with people make private contractual relationships for inheritance purposes, etc.

What Nick and most homosexual activists don’t understand — or pretend not to understand — is that most people like myself are on the defensive. We don’t care what people do in their own homes, but it appears that radical gay activists do care what WE do in our own homes and in our own churches. And now they are even trying to tell us we cannot participate in the political process and enjoy our democratic rights without potentially losing our jobs. We are extremely concerned about what gay activists want to teach our children in the schools, and the gay marriage experiment in Massachusetts — and the experiences of my own family in California — has shown that gay activists want the complete normalization of gay sex so that the act itself is shown and taught and celebrated with people as young as fourth and fifth graders. Most parents want the right to keep sexual discussions private, but this is not good enough for radical gay activists, as history has shown.

So, the fight about marriage is important because marriage is important. But at the end of the day this is really a fight for the freedom of Mormons to worship as they please and to raise their children the way they want to. And, yes, these days we are primarily on the defensive against people who want to force us to accept their beliefs and keep us from the political process entirely. It is very similar to the environment of the 1830s and 1840s of Missouri and Illinois. And that is why this post has been written.

Mormon’s lament centered on a group of people who, in his view, brought their sufferings upon themselves, through their wickedness. His description reflects my own experience in the field of criminal justice, where I’ve often seen habitual criminals who seemed unable to connect their own actions to consequences—instead, they saw their prison sentences and other punishments as evidence to prove that they were continual and inevitable victims of the police, the judges, etc., and they bemoaned their “victimhood.” Much of my own work involved helping young offenders to take responsibility for their own actions, and to understand that their chosen actions had certain consequences.

I’m not sure, Jim, how you equate that sort of “sadness” with the sadness I’ve described. Perhaps it brings you peace to believe that gays and lesbians “deserve” some “inevitable” fate of discrimination, thus absolving (or even glorifying?) the actions of those who carry out the discrimination. Perhaps it even brings you peace to believe that a gay man who is beaten and killed by a complete stranger, merely because he was seen walking out of a gay bar, “deserved” his fate, and those left to mourn are just experiencing the “sorrow of the damned.”

If you are truly so cold-hearted, Jim (and I suspect you really are not, despite your words), then I can only assume that you believe something that even your own church leaders have publicly repudiated—that people “choose” to be gay, and thus should “choose” not to be gay. That’s the only reason I can conceive of, that would make you declare that a young person–a pure and chaste virgin, even–who finds themselves attracted to others of their own biological sex is merely experiencing the “sorrow of the danmed” when they hear hated and vitriol spewed against people like them. Perhaps you feel that Stuart Matis, an active, faithful LDS virgin in his 30s who happened to be gay, was driven to commit suicide because he didn’t have the “right” kind of sorrow that would make him “repent” by becoming heterosexual.

When you equate these people with those described by Mormon, I can only think that you see the “ultimate destruction” of gays and lesbians on the horizon. Perhaps you even believe that passing legislation such as Proposition 8 will help you to bring about that “ultimate destruction,” whether through “fortunate” suicides or through exerting enough pressure to force magical, universal changes in sexual orientation. Good luck with that, Jim.

I find it ironic in the extreme that anyone presumes to lecture me about sadness. Thank you for that — perhaps I needed the humility.

Anger is the underlying tone I read and perceive in much of the activist approach. It may not accurately characterize you personally, but when I read about bitter recriminations being leveled against masses of people, so many of whom I am sure are innocent of any particle of guilt, I interpret that motivation as a measure of angst.

As I read your response, I am reminded of the testimony of Mormon, who as he watched the ultimate destruction of the Nephites, recognized the nature of their remorse and sorrow. They were not sorry in a manner that would move them to save themselves — only sorrowful to realize the inevitability of their fate. In my present circumstances, as I wait for the sure execution of my own death sentence, I think I appreciate this particular sentiment as well as any being can.

I am not playing any games, this really is an issue about which I wish I had more answers. I know that there is probably some gulf of understanding between us that I can never cross. I am grateful to not be burdened with that particular cross to carry that might make me more personally involved. Suffice it to say that following the counsel of the brethren is the only resolution I have found to this thorny problem. I follow their lead even in matters where my own personal uncertainty precludes strict determination.

I expect to stand before God in a very short time, and will probably be surprised to learn the truth about things. Perhaps Anita Bryant and I are completely wrong about this matter, and if so you are well justified in feeling angry about it all. But I can’t help my own continuing suspicion about any such rhetoric that tends so much toward one-sided polarization, and advocates such bitter antagonism.

Jim, it does make me sad, when someone gets up and declares (as Anita Bryant and others have) that homosexuals aren’t worthy of equal civil rights (whether that be in the sense of marriage equality, employment discrimination protections, housing discrimination protections, etc.), or that homosexuals are “out to recruit children and have sex with them,” or that homosexuals have a united agenda to eliminate religion from the world, or that homosexuals “choose to be gay” and are simply in open rebellion against deity. It makes me sad, Jim, when someone gets up and declares (as Anita Bryant and others have), that the laws of this pluralistic nation must conform to the dictates of their particular religious faith, no matter what religious faith that may be.

Why do these things make me sad, Jim? They make me sad, because I realize that a significant portion of Americans haven’t learned much in the last thirty years. They make me sad, because I see these people convincing themselves that “loving gays and lesbians” means passing legislation to make their lives miserable, in hopes that such things will force them to “repent” of being who they are. They make me sad, because every time one of these people get up and say such vile things, it takes away hope from another young person who knows deep down inside that they are different—and that young person just might be convinced by all that rhetoric that their difference makes them so unacceptable, that their life isn’t worth living.

I hope what you say is true, Jim. I hope you truly find no “ill-will” in your heart. If so, maybe one day you’ll realize what you’re doing to others—people that your own religious faith considers children of deity, and you’ll re-think all the wicked lies and propaganda that people like Anita Bryant have spewed over the last three decades.

This is a sentiment that seems common to the whole campaign that I obviously do not grasp. I wonder if you can take some time to explain further, since you seem to be one of the few to whom this issue actually makes any personal impact.

Why do you find sadness in the attitude of such figures as Anita Bryant? Do you not rather mean to express anger, or somehow tell he that she has no right to feel the way she apparently feels?

Does the fact that other people hold opinions which conflict with your own always strike you as somehow “sad”? What difference how others feel? You decided your present course knowing that some people objected, did you not?

I ask such questions, and reserve many others, simply because the current event so baffle me. I am apparently one of the evil bigots that stand accused of so plaguing you, yet I find in my heart no ill-will. I and my ilk, what have we done that is wrong? I don’t claim any moral high ground, other than to follow the lead of the brethren. You apparently do not agree, and have chosen another course. So be it.

Why, then, the slanted rhetoric? Is it to convince me that I am wrong? Or to reassure yourself, perhaps?