Sunday, November 9, 2008

Ur Doin it Rong


I am... annoyed, to say the least.

I just got an e-mail from my school OutLaw group advertising an Anti-Prop 8 protest in New York. I saw the subject line and was like "OOO Fun!" You see, I LOVE the idea of LGB and allied folks getting together for a political parade, unlike the celebratory Pride events of the summer, and showing how deadly serious we are about our rights.

However.

I read further and I realized that the protest was occurring at a Mormon Temple and just... no. No.

Look, I understand and am equally dismayed that the Mormon church was financially behind a lot of support for Yes on 8, individuals and leadership alike. I do. It sucks.

But?

1) Protesting someone's place of worship is just tacky.

2) Protesting that church in New York is far too removed from the situation to be helpful.

3) The entire thing defeats the damn purpose of changing people's minds. No, really. The only positive thing that can come out of protesting SPECIFICALLY Mormons is drawing attention to the fact of the financial support for Yes on 8, something that I don't think is particularly unknown or disputed AND something that likely won't change if attention is drawn to it. If anything, it will get stronger.

4) Look. A LOT of people voted for and financially contributed to Yes on Prop 8. Not just Mormons. Not just Black people. White people. Catholics. Straight people. Probably the odd self-hating LGB person. Tons of diverse people voted for it and tons of people donated to it. You can't just blame a tiny subsection.

5) I understand the philosophy that you shouldn't have to persuade people to treat you equally but the fact is, we do. Protesting the very people whose minds we want to change, rather than, say, the system that allows people from out of state (such as myself) to donate to a state measure campaign is counterproductive.

If this protest were to change, and take its focus away from someone else's religion, I'm there. I'm so there. But as it is, right now? I can't.

(ETA: I don't mean to say we should respect a religion's claims that it is their right to hate gay people or whatnot. Just that I don't think it is productive to protest something that people say is their religious belief. I mean, how likely are you to change your mind about something you believe if people come up to you with signs and anger? And that's what we want to do, right? Change people's minds? Am I wrong about this?)

Good luck to everyone there, I guess.

ETA: I was fretting so much about this that I e-mailed the guy who fwded the announcement explaining my concerns and asking him to let me know if he heard about any non-mormon-focused protests, and he wrote me back and we debated the issue a bit. He has similar concerns but is more optimistic about the protest being specific to the institution rather than the temple itself or Mormons in general. I responded that theoretically such a protest could be possible, but that the folks organizing this protest were calling for mainstream media coverage and that I was pretty sure the narrative presented to the public would be "Gays protest Mormons," which would be counterproductive and hard to control. He agreed, and told me that he was friends with the person organizing it and had e-mailed him about these concerns. I feel slightly better now, even if it probably won't change anything.