The Salt Lake Tribune reported today:

Now that California voters have outlawed same-sex marriage, an LDS Church leader called Wednesday for members to heal rifts caused by the emotional campaign by treating each other with “civility, with respect and with love.”

“We hope that everyone would treat [each other] that way no matter which side of this issue they were on,” said Elder L. Whitney Clayton, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Presidency of the Seventy.

One fascinating aspect of the marriage fight has become the use of words.  Not too long ago, not many, not even the LDS church had a problem calling gays satanically motivated right in the open, or worse.  They had no PR problems in openly causing our families problems, with no need to talk of respect here in Utah politics.  It should be seen as a bit of a step in the right direction that today, ostensibly, they often talk about civility respect and love for us, and even about placating us with “certain” unnamed rights while they’re taking others away.

Still, it is important for us to get them to feel the actuality of their choices. They have, in fact, been the definition of uncivil, insulting, and harmful to our families, but have done a good job of spinning it in their public rhetoric (and, yes, some of us have responded in kind; but that’s what you get for casting the first stone, right?).

“Respect”, for example.  The LDS church specifically aims to not treat our families with respect.  They specifically place us at or, really, below second class family status, if the leaders will even call us “families”.  In fact you’ll hear many in the church deride our hope for equal legal rights and responsibilities as merely a hope for their social respect, which they say they cannot give on religious grounds.  Now, they have instituted a huge legal slap in the face to our homes, but somehow have decided that, as long as they do it calmly and while merely feeling love, that it is respect; it is civil; it is love.

To move forward, though, I feel we need them to see and feel what they are doing.

If only they’d imagine their own weapons aimed at themselves.  What if the gay community successfully helped make LDS marriages illegal?  What if we did it in the spirit of love and with calm demeanor?  What if we called LDS “families” a threat to The Family?  What if we couldn’t bear to call their unions “marriages” at all?  What if we labeled LDS children deficient and prone to all sorts of social problems, in the face of science?  Why?  Well, the science must be wrong as we just know a child can’t best thrive with LDS parents.  What if we said we can’t allow the LDS to marry because marriage causes them to have children, or would somehow hurt their extant children?  What if we said LDS unions are inspired by the devil?  What if we ignored the fact the LDS parents do have children in our schools and we threatened others that our kindergartners will be “taught about Mormonism” in school if we “let” them get married?

I mean, right in that article:

As for Proposition 8, “we consider this to be a moral issue,” Clayton said. “We’re not anti-gay, we’re pro marriage between a man and a woman.”

Can they not hear themselves?  Would it be loving, civil, or respectful if we said we’re making their marriages illegal because it’s a “moral issue”?  We’re not anti-LDS; no, we’re just pro-non-LDS marriages?  How could you call us anti-LDS?  If we were Baptist, we’d lovingly say we’re just pro-christian marriages .  Simply, what if we took away their equal protection from government and we made their marriages illegal, and then called for “civility” “respect” and “love”?

Well, we’d be oblivious jerks; that’s what we’d be.  But I think they’d then understand how uncivil that is, how cruel and dehumanizing.  I think they’d understand then how shallow the words are and how much worse it is to try to sugar coat their choices.

So, without compromising our ethics and doing to them what we’d not want done to ourselves (as if we could ever have that kind of political power ), how do we get the other side to drop the curtain and look, really look at what they’re doing to us and our children?  How do we get them to see pleasant PC words don’t change the facts?

I wish I knew.

But I do know you can’t cause a rift and then reasonably ask for it to heal without genuine repentance and accompanying actions.  You can’t ask for respect for your disrespect, and to do so would be kind of funny if it wasn’t for the fact that their first stone was aimed at our families.  I’m sure they want this to smooth over, both in and out of the LDS church.  I’m sure they want to be treated with respect, and civility, but such choice of words on their part, attempting to absolve themselves of their massive and consiquential disrespect and incivility towards our families… well, it’s just another irritant in the wound.