Facts about Prop 8

I borrowed this from Kathryn's blog, and especially now that the protests have spread across the country (to my city last night) I thought I'd like to share it with everyone, as it seems there's a lot of confusion out there.  From what I understand, the protest at the Manhattan LDS temple didn't get violent, however that hasn't been the case in LA.  I agree with people standing up for that in which they believe, but don't believe it using violence, name calling, and mud slinging to express those beliefs.

The facts:

Mormons make up less than 2% of the population of California. There are approximately 800,000 LDS out of a total population of approximately 34 million.

Mormon voters were less than 5% of the yes vote. If one estimates that 250,000 LDS are registered voters (the rest being children), then LDS voters made up 4.6% of the Yes vote and 2.4% of the total Proposition 8 vote.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) donated no money to the Yes on 8 campaign. Individual members of the Church were encouraged to support the Yes on 8 efforts and, exercising their constitutional right to free speech, donated whatever they felt like donating.

The No on 8 campaign raised more money than the Yes on 8 campaign. Unofficial estimates put No on 8 at $38 million and Yes on 8 at $32 million, making it the most expensive non-presidential election in the country.

Advertising messages for the Yes on 8 campaign are based on case law and real-life situations. The No on 8 supporters have insisted that the Yes on 8 messaging is based on lies. Every Yes on 8 claim is supported.

The majority of our friends and neighbors voted Yes on 8. Los Angeles County voted in favor of Yes on 8. Ventura County voted in favor of Yes on 8.

African Americans overwhelmingly supported Yes on 8. Exit polls show that 70% of Black voters chose Yes on 8. This was interesting because the majority of these voters voted for President-elect Obama. No on 8 supporters had assumed that Obama voters would vote No on 8.

The majority of Latino voters voted Yes on 8. Exit polls show that the majority of Latinos supported Yes on 8 and cited religious beliefs (assumed to be primarily Catholic).

The Yes on 8 coalition was a broad spectrum of religious organizations. Catholics, Evangelicals, Protestants, Orthodox Jews, Muslims – all supported Yes on 8. It is estimated that there are 10 million Catholics and 10 million Protestants in California. Mormons were a tiny fraction of the population represented by Yes on 8 coalition members.

Not all Mormons voted in favor of Proposition 8. Our faith accords that each person be allowed to choose for him or her self. Church leaders have asked members to treat other members with "civility, respect and love," despite their differing views.

The Church did not violate the principal of separation of church and state. This principle is derived from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." The phrase "separation of church and state", which does not appear in the Constitution itself, is generally traced to an 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson, although it has since been quoted in several opinions handed down by the United States Supreme Court in recent years. The LDS Church is under no obligation to refrain from participating in the political process, to the extent permitted by law. U.S. election law is very clear that Churches may not endorse candidates, but may support issues. The Church has always been very careful on this matter and occasionally (not often) chooses to support causes that it feels to be of a moral nature.

Supporters of Proposition 8 did exactly what the Constitution provides for all citizens: they exercised their First Amendment rights to speak out on an issue that concerned them, make contributions to a cause that they support, and then vote in the regular electoral process. For the most part, this seems to have been done in an open, fair, and civil way. Opponents of 8 have accused supporters of being bigots, liars, and worse. The fact is, we simply did what Americans do – we spoke up, we campaigned, and we voted.

Life without Prop 8, a first hand story

An email from my brother Jason:

For those of you who have seen the commercials about the family whose second grade son had the book Two Princes read to him in class, I spoke to his father today and got his account of the full story.  He is *Elder Wirthlin's grandson and lives in Massachusetts.  I will try to go through his story as he related it to me today as best I can.  He had some interesting insights as well.

He is a member of the armed forces and as such has to move frequently.  When they recently moved to Mass, they looked into an area with good schools.  They found a district that was highly rated with test scores and that's where they moved.  It was to Lexington, Mass.  Soon after they moved, they learned that the school had something called the "Anti-Bias Committee."  He and his wife thought that it sounded like something good and wanted to be a part of it.  They soon realized that it was meant as a way to push alternative lifestyles into the elementary schools.

The committee decided to have a panel discussion called "Is your family like mine?"  The idea was to go through all the different types of families and explain and highlight each one.  They were going to talk about single parent families, multi racial families, divorced families, families with gay or lesbian parents, etc.  Rob's wife realized there was no panel for families with a traditional husband and wife and asked why.  The panel said they didn't know anyone who would be the example for the panel.  She said she would do it.

The group then was discussing what questions to ask on their panel to help keep the conversation going.  Rob's wife suggested they ask each different family "What do the parents do to strengthen their family?"  Everyone was offended and didn't understand why she would ask such a question or how to respond.

Time passed and they both got busy with things going on with their careers.  They had a baby and one of their parents passed away.  One day their seven year old son who was in second grade at the time came home and told them about a book they had read in school that day about two princes who got married.  They said the book made quite an impression on their son even though it had only been read once because he was able to quote lines from the story to his parents.  The parents knew the teacher and the teacher was aware of their more conservative beliefs.  The mom was upset because she had been at school that same day and the teacher didn't mention anything to her about the book.  They thought maybe their son was confused and followed up with the teacher who confirmed the story.

They decided to check out the book themselves and saw that the queen had told the princes that she would have already been married twice by his age and that she brought over all different types of princesses for him to choose from.  Each one had some different unappealing physical characteristics for the prince until he saw one of the princess' brother whom he immediately fell in love with and got married to.  The story ends with a picture of the two princes kissing with a heart over their lips.

The parents decided to set up an appointment to discuss this with the principal and teacher.  The teacher admitted that the book wasn't part of the curriculum but said she read it to help the children learn to enjoy reading more because it was a light read.  Rob asked why the teacher would waste time teaching this during school hours when it wasn't a part of the curriculum.  She said she was teaching a common thing about marriage and families to the students and wanted one book that wouldn't be so mushy and girly so the boys in the class would have something to relate to.  The principal asked why they would object to a book being taught about families.  In Rob's opinion the book showed gay marriage as preferable to traditional marriage and also he didn't understand why they would feel the need to teach anything at all in the school about any kind of marriage.  They asked if they could be notified in advance of any future cases where they would be discussing this in school.  The principal handed them a letter from the superintendent stating that the opt-out rule in Mass was only being applied to cases where there would be teaching of an explicitly sexual nature, and that it would not be applied to teaching about family structure of any kind.  The principal refused to give them prior  or post notice of any future discussions.

At this point the principal said they needed to speak with the superintendent about it even though it was not part of the curriculum for the district.  By this time the media got wind of it and started interviewing his wife, etc.  The superintendent said there would be no accommodation made for them.  Rob thought this was crazy because they get notice for so many other things; field trips, biology, math, spelling, but not this.  He said he only wanted to be notified when an adult would be talking about gay marriage.  They said no.

They decided to file a lawsuit with another family.  Because the Mass State constitution says that parents are responsible for the moral upbringing of their children the District court rules against them and said the schools must teach before the children can make up their own mind.  The First Circuit Court of appeals denied them in a 43 page report in which they stated that the sole purpose was to change people's minds about gay marriage.  The Mass Supreme court turned it down as well.  The scary thing is that now other states can turn to this as precedent for case law in their own states.  He recommended to anyone to read the appeals court decision because of the language in it and their justification that will be used by other states deciding the same issues.

He summarized up with saying that the same arguments that are being made by the No on 8 campaign now were the arguments made several years ago in Mass.  They said it was a Civil Rights issue and that it only affected the two people who were involved.  He said he thought within weeks if Prop 8 doesn't pass there will be similar things implemented in California.

On a side note, they were shunned by the community.  He said his wife would be walking down the street and people would cross the street to walk on the other side.  They were totally isolated from everyone else.  He said the other family's son who was six years old was beat up in school and the school did nothing about it until a year later when the same bully started intimidating their other younger son.

One thing I'll just add that I thought was significant was that he said they are pushing so hard to get this taught at such a young age because children are not able to discern right from wrong before the age of 8 to 10.  This hit home to me because we know that children under the age of 8 do not have accountability.  They are trying to plant this seed in kids before their brain can reject it so that later in life it will always be there.  He also mentioned that the high schools in the district have a common practice of telling adolescents during their confused years if they are upset or depressed that maybe it's because they are gay or lesbian.  Now in Mass from pre-K to fifth grade they must learn the correct definition of gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals.  They use the guise that it's about families and marriage because they have gay marriage.  He said anyone who thinks this is not going to affect them is naive.

I'm sure I may have made mistakes of his portrayals to me.  I did the best I could do based on my ability to write notes while he was talking to me but I want everyone to realize  that I may have made mistakes in the transcription.

*Elder Withlin is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for the LDS church.

Yes on Prop 8

My 4 year old nephew Ryan, doing his part.

So I have to take just a minute to mention how impressed I've been with all the effort put forth from the members of the LDS church (and probably others, I just specifically hear about the LDS since I'm a member) specifically my parents, sister and her family, and brother and his wife, toward promoting Prop 8.

I spoke with my dad for a while today and we talked about all the campaigning for (and against) Prop 8.  It's raised more money ($6 million) than any other prop (or measure....not sure of the correct term here) than any other in the history of the United States.  Pretty amazing.  My family and friends have given so much time putting signs up every day (that have been taken down during the night) making cold calls, contacting neighbors, and not to mention donating money for this cause.

I couldn't be more proud of my Californians.

I will admit when I first learned of Prop 8 I struggled with how I felt, however after researching it I've come to realize that I truly am for it.  I strongly encourage anyone out there who does not know where they stand, or doesn't understand what exactly Prop 8 will do, to really look into it.

There's a really great video on Youtube that explains what will happen should Prop 8 not pass.  I encourage you to watch it.

And one more....sorry, I can't help myself

Cycle of democracy

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.  These nations have progressed through this sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith
2. From spiritual faith to great courage
3. From courage to liberty
4. From liberty to abundance
5. From abundance to selfishness
6. From selfishness to apathy
7. From apathy to dependence
8. From dependency back again into bondage.

Compliments of www.wrisley.com

I'd say we're at about #6, headed towards the end.  I'm just sayin...

Vote.

'Twas the night after elections and all through the town

Tempers were flaring, emotions all up and down!

I in my bathrobe with a cat in my lap

Had cut off the TV, tired of political crap.

When all of a sudden, there arose such a noise,

I peered out my window and saw Obama and his boys.

They had come for my wallet, they wanted my pay

To give to the others, who had not worked a day!

He snatched up my money, and quick as a wink,

Jumped back on his bandwagon as I gagged from the stink.

He then rallied his henchmen who were pulling his cart,

I could tell they were out to tear my country apart!

On Fannie, on Freddie, on Biden and Ayers!

On Acorn, on Pelosi, he screamed at the pairs!

They took off for his cause and as he flew out of sight

I heard him laugh at the nation who wouldn't stand up and fight!

So I leave you to think, on this one final note,

IF YOU DON'T WANT SOCIALISM GET OUT AND VOTE!!

Politics Shmolitics

I don't really know enough about politics to take a really high stand and be a boisterous endorser, however, my brother Jason is pretty smart, and I like what he has to say here.  I try to "find out for myself" for whom I should vote, I really do, but I get so lost in all the political jargon, I have no clue what people are talking about.  I can't say I'm not influenced, however, by the profanities screamed at the tv on the trading floor whenever Hilary's on the tv.

Who's getting your vote?

I took this survey.  Check it out and see for whom it says you should vote.