New HBO News Segment focuses on LGBT issues, touches on Monson, Priesthood

[Bob Crockett]

Just focus on the facts and not being personally offended.  I'm sorry to have offended you.  It wasn't intentional. 

[Gray]

23 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

Let's focus on the truth and not an argument over who said what.  What Mrs. King may have said on the subject isn't determinative. Being a black voter was the most important factor in support of Prop 8.  It wasn't the Mormons, who didn't even register in the statistics.  It wasn't the evangelical vote, which came in third.  Blacks, as a group, don't agree that racial equality can be compared to the rights of gays.

Your information is quite out of date (most black Americans support gay marriage today), but still completely irrelevant to the topic of MLK's message. MLK was a specific person with his own message. MLK was not "black voters in California."

But, per the fallacious terms of your argument, now that a majority of black folks support gay marriage, I guess that means racial equality can now be compared to gay rights.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Gray

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Daniel2 said:

Hm.  It's disappointing to see that you were the one that called me out for invoking the words of Dr. King, both personally and your account of the  young African-American woman 's objections, and then when we've shown through numerous quotes by his late widow that that's entirely acceptable, your response is 'let's not argue over who said what' and to then talk about Prop 8--which wasn't the topic at all.

I think the point of BC was that while there may be some blacks that are comfortable and even encouraging of the comparison of the civil rights movement to the gay rights movement, that the majority of blacks disagreed based on the reaction of the black population in California to Prop 8 (I agree that given the fast change in society in acceptance in the past ten years, a ten year old vote is not a good measure of today's general opinion).

Whether or not Mrs. King has an inherent claim to her husband's work and therefore can pronounce the appropriateness of any usage is debatable, I believe, though her opinion is more weighted than anyone else for me because of her familiarity with her husband and the likelihood of her knowing his opinion on the subject or at least being able to extrapolate it.  OTOH, just because something is a cause for her doesn't automatically mean her husband would be for it as well.  It would be nice to see what he actually said on the subject of homosexuality as well as expanding civil rights to nonracially defined groups.

Dr. King also wasn't the determiner of black opinion nor was he forced to accept the majority of black opinion as his own.  His words and opinions should first be taken as his own views without them being automatically applied to the general movement unless there is evidence from multiple activists and general opinion polls and votes that show the rest align with him.

Much like one would view someone like Romney when made the Republican candidate...all it meant was that there were a lot of Republicans that agreed with him, that the leaders were comfortable with him being a spokesperson on some issues, but it hardly demonstrated that he could be used as the source for Republican opinion on anything.

add-on:  or pretty much what Gray said in one sentence above.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Calm

[Daniel2]

40 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

Just focus on the facts and not being personally offended.  I'm sorry to have offended you.  It wasn't intentional. 

I'm not offended.  Just surprised--I was under the impression we were engaged in a conversation in good faith.  In this case, what you call "focusing on the facts" strikes me merely as avoidance on your part to admitting that if Coretta Scott King can speak to the two movements similarities, it's certainly not inappropriate for me to do so.  Yet after having had it pointed out to you in several posts from multiple posters, it appears you won't.  We now know what to expect in regards to good faith efforts from you going forward.

[kiwi57]

20 hours ago, california boy said:

Not going down this road again.  If you want to know my position, there are plenty of threads that I have stated quite clearly what I base my opinion on.

IOW, you refuse to address what the documents actually say, and you have nothing in support of your "position" except some verbal reports of what some people said.

To be clear: I don't for a minute doubt that those things were said. But it takes a whole lot more than that to establish a "policy," and you haven't even tried to support your claims with anything approaching the level of evidence.

[Daniel2]

Hey, Calm,

Thanks for your thoughts, as well.  I don't have time to respond in full to your post, and even though I don't think the following article articulates everything I'd like to say in response, I'll share it today as food for thought until I find some time tomorrow to respond properly.

Thanks!

D

What did MLK think about gay people?

By John Blake, CNN

January 16th, 2012, 07:00 AM ET

(CNN)– Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was writing an advice column in 1958 for Ebony magazine when he received an unusual letter.

“I am a boy,” an anonymous writer told King. “But I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don't want my parents to know about me. What can I do?”

In calm, pastoral tones, King told the boy that his problem wasn’t uncommon, but required “careful attention.”

“The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired,” King wrote. “You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it.”

We know what King thought about race, poverty and war. But what was his attitude toward gay people, and if he was alive today would he see the gay rights movement as another stage of the civil rights movement?

That’s not the type of question most people will consider on this Monday as the nation celebrates King’s national holiday. Yet the debate over King’s stance toward gay rights has long divided his family and followers. That debate is poised to go public again because of the upcoming release of two potentially explosive books, one of which examines King’s close relationship with an openly gay civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin.

The author of both books says King’s stance on gay rights is unclear because the Ebony advice column may be the only public exchange on record where he touches on the morality of homosexuality.

Yet King would have been a champion of gay rights today because of his view of Christianity, says Michael Long, author of, “I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters,” who shared the story of King’s Ebony letter.

“Dr. King never publicly welcomed gays at the front gate of his beloved community. But he did leave behind a key for them - his belief that each person is sacred, free and equal to all to others,” says Long, also author of the upcoming “Keeping it straight? Martin Luther King, Jr., Homosexuality, and Gay Rights.”

Did King’s dream include gay people?

One person close to King, though, would disagree.

Rev. Bernice King led a march to her father’s graveside in 2005 while calling for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. She was joined by Bishop Eddie Long, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Church in Georgia, where she served as an elder at the time. Long, who recently settled out of court with four young men who filed lawsuits claiming he coerced them into sexual relationships, publicly condemned homosexuality.

King did not answer an interview request, but she has spoken publicly about her views.

During a speech at a church meeting in New Zealand, she said her father “did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage.”

Yet her mother, Coretta Scott King, was a vocal supporter of gay rights. One of her closest aides was gay. She also invoked her husband’s dream.

Ravi Perry, a political science professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said King’s widow once said in a public speech that everyone who believed in her husband’s dream should “make room at the table of brother and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.”

There is no private or public record of King condemning gay people, Perry says. Even the FBI’s surveillance of King’s private phone conversations didn’t turn up any moment where King disparaged gay people, she says.

“If Dr. King were anti-gay, there would likely be a sermon, a speech, a recording of some kind indicating such,” she says. “And knowing how closely his phones were tapped; surely there would be a record of such statements.”

Those who say King did not condemn gays and would have supported gay rights today point to King’s theology.

Though King was a Christian minister, he didn’t embrace a literal reading of the Bible that condemns homosexuality, some historians say. King’s vision of the Beloved Community – his biblical-rooted vision of humanity transcending its racial and religious differences – expanded people’s rights, not restricted them, they say.

Rev. C.T. Vivian, who worked with King at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, says King would have championed gay rights today.

“Martin was a theologian,” Vivian says. “Martin starts with the fact that God loves everybody, and all men and all women were created by God. He based his whole philosophy on God’s love for all people.”

King’s relationship with ‘Brother Bayard’

Those who say King would have championed gay rights also point to King’s treatment of one of the movement’s most important leaders, Bayard Rustin.

Rustin was an openly gay civil rights leader who is widely credited with organizing the 1963 March on Washington. He was an organizational genius, the man who insisted that King speak last on the program, giving his “I Have a Dream” speech the resonance it would not have had otherwise, says Jerald Podair, author of “Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer.”

“He was the kind of guy who could tell you how many portable toilets you needed for 250,000 people in a demonstration," Podair says. “He was a details guy. King needed him for that march.”

But Rustin could do more than arrange a demonstration. He was also a formidable thinker and debater. He was born to a 15-year-old single mother and never graduated from college.

The movement was led by intellectual heavyweights like King, but even among them, Rustin stood out, Podair says. He read everything and was a visionary. One aide to President Lyndon Johnson described him as one of the five smartest men in America, says Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

“People who heard him speak were transfixed,” Podair says.

Rustin became one of the movement’s most eloquent defenders of its nonviolent philosophy, says Saladin Ambar, a political scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

“He was one of the few individuals not afraid to debate with Malcolm X in public,” Ambar says. “Rustin more than held his own and really challenged Malcolm to push his thinking.”

Rustin was a special assistant to King and once headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. During the planning of the March on Washington, King resisted calls to jettison Rustin because he was gay, Podair says.

King, though, didn’t speak out on behalf of gay rights because he was doing all he could to hold the movement together, historians say.

He had to constantly fend off rumors that the movement was infiltrated by communists. He was also criticized for expanding the movement to take on poverty and oppose the Vietnam War.

“The movement superseded any discussion of gay rights,” Ambar says. “King was dedicated to the cause at hand.”

With all that was going on, King couldn’t afford to wage a public campaign defending Rustin’s homosexuality, says Vivian, a SCLC colleague of King’s.

“Any employee that would employ a gay person at the time who was outwardly gay would have problems,” Vivian says. “I don’t care if you were the president of the Untied Sates, you would have trouble doing that.”

After the 1963 March on Washington, Rustin remained as King’s adviser. The two, however, drifted apart when King became more radical during the last three years of his life, says Adair, Rustin’s biographer.

When Rustin died in 1987, he was starting to receive attention from gay and lesbian activists who linked civil rights with gay rights, Podair says.

Rustin was a late convert to their cause.

“He never put it [homosexuality] front and center,” Podair says. “He never politicized it until the end of his life. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

It’s no longer unusual today for gay and lesbian activists to draw parallels between their struggles and King’s legacy. Vivian, King’s SCLC colleague, says the comparison is apt.

“There was a time when black people were afraid to be themselves among white people,” he says. “You had to fit a stereotype in order to be accepted. They’re going through the same thing but now they feel better about themselves.”

Vivian says the movement shouldn’t be limited to race.

“As we were freeing up black people, we’re freeing up the whole society.”

Long, author of the upcoming books on King and Rustin, says King’s vision transcended his personal limitations. Maybe he could have said more to that anonymous boy who wrote him at Ebony. But he did leave him a key to the Beloved Community– even if he didn’t realize it at the time, Long says.

Now, Long says, it’s up to those who claim King today to use that key.

“A turn of that key and a gentle push on the gate, swinging it wide open so everyone can enter into the Beloved Community,” he says. “That’s the best way to advance the legacy of Martin Luther King.”

[california boy]

Just now, kiwi57 said:

IOW, you refuse to address what the documents actually say, and you have nothing in support of your "position" except some verbal reports of what some people said.

To be clear: I don't for a minute doubt that those things were said. But it takes a whole lot more than that to establish a "policy," and you haven't even tried to support your claims with anything approaching the level of evidence.

Yes.  I refuse to be bated by you.  Done that way too many times already.

[kiwi57]

4 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

Long, who recently settled out of court with four young men who filed lawsuits claiming he coerced them into sexual relationships, publicly condemned homosexuality.

Note the standard ad hominem of the gay attack piece. Mr Long may or may not have homosexual issues of his own, and may or may not be something of a hypocrite on this topic. I'm sure there are plenty of people will all possible perspectives on this issue who have skeletons in their closets, but only those on one side of the debate get to have their skeletons aired in public.

I wonder why?

[kiwi57]

8 minutes ago, california boy said:

Yes.  I refuse to be bated by you.  Done that way too many times already.

How very noble, or something. But I'm not trying to bait you (or even to "bate" you, whatever that may mean.) You keep throwing out there these casual references to a "policy" which, on investigation, has been shown to never have existed. You've offered evidence for that policy which, on examination, has been shown to mean exactly the opposite of what you think it means. I've pointed this out to you - and yet you keep right on blithely asserting a claim that has been discredited.

Why can't you just own up that there was no such "policy" as you claim?

[rockpond]

2 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

Interesting Rockpond would argue the single most important factor in the success of Prop 8 can be disregarded because the vote was so overwhelming.  Not too logical, but interesting.  

The single most important reason Hillary lost is that she didn't campaign in Wisconson. but we can disregard that nettlesome statistic, I suppose.

If you can take the Black vote out of the equation and have the same result, I'm not sure how it was the single most significant factor.  On what criteria are you making the conclusion that the Black vote was the "single most significant factor in the [passing] of Prop 8"?

[Daniel2]

On ‎1‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 3:32 PM, Calm said:

I think the point of BC was that while there may be some blacks that are comfortable and even encouraging of the comparison of the civil rights movement to the gay rights movement, that the majority of blacks disagreed based on the reaction of the black population in California to Prop 8 (I agree that given the fast change in society in acceptance in the past ten years, a ten year old vote is not a good measure of today's general opinion).

Whether or not Mrs. King has an inherent claim to her husband's work and therefore can pronounce the appropriateness of any usage is debatable, I believe, though her opinion is more weighted than anyone else for me because of her familiarity with her husband and the likelihood of her knowing his opinion on the subject or at least being able to extrapolate it.  OTOH, just because something is a cause for her doesn't automatically mean her husband would be for it as well.  It would be nice to see what he actually said on the subject of homosexuality as well as expanding civil rights to nonracially defined groups.

Dr. King also wasn't the determiner of black opinion nor was he forced to accept the majority of black opinion as his own.  His words and opinions should first be taken as his own views without them being automatically applied to the general movement unless there is evidence from multiple activists and general opinion polls and votes that show the rest align with him.

Much like one would view someone like Romney when made the Republican candidate...all it meant was that there were a lot of Republicans that agreed with him, that the leaders were comfortable with him being a spokesperson on some issues, but it hardly demonstrated that he could be used as the source for Republican opinion on anything.

add-on:  or pretty much what Gray said in one sentence above.

Hi, Calm,

As I mentioned yesterday, my intention was to get a better personal response to your post when I had a bit more time.

I understand and appreciate that you're trying to give some context and maybe read between the lines of what Bob was saying in the above, and I think there are many points that I understand and don't dispute, namely:

• some/many people (regardless of their own race) are uncomfortable with and don't agree with comparisons between the struggle for racial equality to the struggle for LGBT equality
• some/many people see some clear differences between 'race as an observable physical trait' vs. 'sexuality as a behavioral trait'
• the majority of black voters in California voted in support of Prop 8 in 2008
• your point that prop 8 was 10 years ago, and isn't a good measure of today's general opinion
• Dr. King wasn't the determiner of black opinion, nor was he forced to accept the majority of black opinion as his own
• Each of us (including, but not Dr. King, you, me, and every other person in the world) should first be taken as our own views without them being automatically applied to any general demographic group which we may or may not be a part of
• but if there's evidence from multiple activists/polls/sources, that at least provides further context to how to interpret unknowable questions such as "How would Dr. King feel about invoking his metaphors/verbiage/tactics with regards to the struggle for gay rights today?"
• And I agree with Gray's succinct comments just prior to yours, as well.

Further, I understand that it will always be debatable about whether or not Dr. King would have agreed with the extension of his dream to include equality for same-sex couples and their families. 

With all of that said (and again, I think it's almost always helpful to clarify context), my point really had very little to do with how black voters felt about marriage for same-sex couples, or even how the majority of blacks feel about people like me using King's words to draw parallels to the LGBT civil rights movement. 

My point was far simpler: regardless of how many blacks may object to same-sex supporters' use of the metaphor, if Dr. King's wife could invoke it (as she did forcefully and on numerous occasions), then I don't think it's Bob's place to tell me NOT to use the same verbiage Dr. King's wife used.

Further, the implication that if a black person/group of people (in Bob's words, the young black woman, and in subsequent posts, the entire black voting population that voted 'yes' to Prop 8 ) might object to my use of the verbiage of King's dream, that then, because of the color of their skin, black people have a higher moral claim/authority to the invocation of King's dream than a white gay man like me--that is, to control how King's verbiage is used--is, I believe, contrary to the color-blind vision that King himself sought to promote--where people aren't judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character (whether black, or in the case of blacks objection to whites adoption of King's values, because they are white--and gay).

You mentioned that if there's input from multiple activists/polls/sources, that greater credence would be given.  The article that I posted mentions that one of Kings' daughters (today, the Rev. Bernice King ) and I'm aware of one of King's extended family members, a niece--both of who's religious beliefs don't sound particularly gay-affirmative--object to the words of their father/uncle by gay activists.  In my mind, the fact that they were children during their fathers' most active efforts in the civil rights movement is noteworthy. 

Whereas the following adult contemporaries hold the opposite view:

• Coretta Scott King, Dr. King's widow, who (as you said) likely knew him best forcefully and on many occasions drew the parallels and called for the extension of her husbands' dream to include our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. 
• Reverent C.T. Vivian, a contemporary of King and co-director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• 'Brother Bayard' Rustin, one of Kings' closest allies, confidants, friends, and co-leaders with whom he closely worked was also openly-gay
• Lynn Cothren, Mrs. Kings' assistant and one of her closest aids was also openly gay.

Besides those contemporaries of the Kings, the article does a good job detailing the lack of any personal or public condemnations or negative sermons about gays and lesbians by King himself, despite extensive (and intrusive) government wire-tapping.  Additionally, religious contemporaries of Dr. King, themselves say King would have championed gay rights today, and gives content as to why King felt he couldn't publically call for gay-inclusion, as it would have destroyed the civil rights movement in 1958 at a time when homosexuality was classified as a clinical disorder. Finally, given all of the above, several political historians and authors close to King, his contemporaries, and the details of their lives, work, and efforts all assert that King would likely have been supportive of gay inclusion and equality, including:

• Ravi Perry, a political science professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts
• Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and author of “Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer"
• Michael Long, author of, “I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters" and “Keeping it straight? Martin Luther King, Jr., Homosexuality, and Gay Rights.”
• Saladin Ambar, a political scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania

Now.... if all of these people can invoke Dr. King's dream, vision, verbiage, and legacy, then I don't understand how Bob can feel justified in telling me to stop doing so, even if he disagrees. 

Additionally, he told me, instead, to use the words of a British playwright--someone I'd never even heard of and who, in my experience, has absolutely no philosophical connection that I'm aware of to the modern LGBT civil rights movement other than merely being gay himself, while according to Wikipedia, not even openly so during his lifetime.  THAT attitude is what I objected to... that merely because some other black people disagree, and because Bob himself finds it inappropriate, that Bob felt a moral superiority to tell me to stop doing something.  Initially, I had expected him to respond to my quotation of Ms. Kings' words with something along the lines of "Oh... I hadn't realized that King's widow likewise used Kings' vision and verbiage in describing the struggle for equality by gays and lesbians... While I still personally disagree that the comparison is apt, I suppose it's at least understandable that you might do the same."  Instead, Bob responded with "well, let's focus on facts, not who said what about who."   And that's where I was expecting a bit more good faith.

In the end, it's not really about Bob or me or anyone else, I suppose.  And in all honesty, I've learned a lot myself about Dr. King, his legacy, and those that were around him and knew him best.  So whether or not I got what I was expecting from Bob, I'm still grateful for the conversation and for all the participation, as well all continue to learn together.

Best,

D

[Scott Lloyd]

On 1/6/2018 at 10:59 AM, rockpond said:

As I finished watching this HBO news segment, it did make me wonder... Why does the Church keep letting John Dehlin seemingly be the uncontested "expert" on Mormonism?  I understand that the media is choosing him and the church doesn't have control over that.  But if the Church would grant requests to let these media outlets interview an apostle or other GA, journalists would certainly jump at the chance to include that in their reporting, right?

In saying this, I also acknowledge that the Church has a very savvy public affairs group and so I assume they have good reasons for not granting more interviews.  I'm just not sure what those are.  Anyone is welcome to enlighten me.

The indecent ambush that the British broadcaster inflicted on Elder Holland some years ago is reason enough to be wary of these bottom-dwellers masquerading as journalists. Alas we live in different times than when President Hinckley met Mike Wallace. 

[kllindley]

3 hours ago, Daniel2 said:

Further, the implication that if a black person/group of people (in Bob's words, the young black woman, and in subsequent posts, the entire black voting population that voted 'yes' to Prop 8 ) might object to my use of the verbiage of King's dream, that then, because of the color of their skin, black people have a higher moral claim/authority to the invocation of King's dream than a white gay man like me--that is, to control how King's verbiage is used--is, I believe, contrary to the color-blind vision that King himself sought to promote--where people aren't by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character (whether black, or in the case of blacks objection to whites adoption of King's values, because they are white--and gay)

I agree with all you wrote. I have heard people try to assert that King himself saw sexual orientation as equivalent to race. I think you would ageee that is not a very provable or historically supported. That is not at all what you have done or in anyway suggested.

I think the point I quote above is also a very good point to consider in the context of our discussions here about LGBT issues. It often seems that in these discussions, more progressive voices try to invalidate comments made by straight Mormons and even suggest straight individuals don't have the right to voice opinions on things like the 2015 policy or the Church's history regarding homosexuality. Or that those opinions are somehow less valid than the opinions of gay individuals. It's like if some gay people might object to a certain verbiage, by their orientation they have a higher moral claim or authority on how those words should be used. 

 

[Calm]

"someone I'd never even heard of"

Ouch, you just made me feel ancient.

[Bob Crockett]

On 1/10/2018 at 3:48 PM, rockpond said:

If you can take the Black vote out of the equation and have the same result, I'm not sure how it was the single most significant factor.  On what criteria are you making the conclusion that the Black vote was the "single most significant factor in the [passing] of Prop 8"?

My published Rutgers piece cites the evidence.  Polling and statistics. I didn't make it up.  The second most significant factor was being black and a church goer. 

These statistics were ignored by the press.  Also ignored was that the get out the vote effort in the black community focused on two issues. One was Obama and the second was gay rights and Prop 8. 

I was there and saw the interfaith effort on Prop 8.  Mormons, Catholics, Muslims, Evangelicals worked together. The black churches were doing their own thing. Turns out the first group had almost no statistical impact. The second group, black pastors, was united and monolithic. 

I supported gay marriage at the time but opposed the tactics of suppressing the rights of religious believers to have their say. I took a lot of extra vile heat because my views were public and I had a platform as a partner in one of California's best-known law firms. Efforts were made to stop my UCLA Law speech on the religious freedom issue, like a boycott against my law firm, death threats, vandalism.  Even on this board I suffer the claim of bad faith from an anonymous Daniel. 

At my UCLA speech there were people holding signs in front to obstruct me. Even when said I disagreed with the Prop 8 "six points" campaign and I said I said I disagreed with the argument that gays should not be adoptive parents, because I was then a Mormon bishop I deserved to be silenced. For libertarian views. 

Gays need friends like me. Libertarian support of their rights. But often, like Daniel observes, if I don't say it the PC way, my views - published and peer reviewed - are bad faith. 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2018 by Bob Crockett

[Gray]

1 hour ago, Bob Crockett said:

My published Rutgers piece cites the evidence.  Polling and statistics. I didn't make it up.  The second most significant factor was being black and a church goer. 

These statistics were ignored by the press.  Also ignored was that the get out the vote effort in the black community focused on two issues. One was Obama and the second was gay rights and Prop 8. 

I was there and saw the interfaith effort on Prop 8.  Mormons, Catholics, Muslims, Evangelicals worked together. The black churches were doing their own thing. Turns out the first group had almost no statistical impact. The second group, black pastors, was united and monolithic. 

 

 

Black people make up 6% of the population in California.

Edited January 12, 2018 by Gray

[Bob Crockett]

7 minutes ago, Gray said:

Black people make up 6% of the population in California.

And, point supported. 

[Gray]

9 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

And, point supported. 

Not sure how you think 6% of Californians were an overwhelming monolith, but okay.

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, Bob Crockett said:

My published Rutgers piece cites the evidence.  Polling and statistics. I didn't make it up.  The second most significant factor was being black and a church goer. 

These statistics were ignored by the press.  Also ignored was that the get out the vote effort in the black community focused on two issues. One was Obama and the second was gay rights and Prop 8. 

I was there and saw the interfaith effort on Prop 8.  Mormons, Catholics, Muslims, Evangelicals worked together. The black churches were doing their own thing. Turns out the first group had almost no statistical impact. The second group, black pastors, was united and monolithic. 

I supported gay marriage at the time but opposed the tactics of suppressing the rights of religious believers to have their say. I took a lot of extra vile heat because my views were public and I had a platform as a partner in one of California's best-known law firms. Efforts were made to stop my UCLA Law speech on the religious freedom issue, like a boycott against my law firm, death threats, vandalism.  Even on this board I suffer the claim of bad faith from an anonymous Daniel. 

At my UCLA speech there were people holding signs in front to obstruct me. Even when said I disagreed with the Prop 8 "six points" campaign and I said I said I disagreed with the argument that gays should not be adoptive parents, because I was then a Mormon bishop I deserved to be silenced. For libertarian views. 

Gays need friends like me. Libertarian support of their rights. But often, like Daniel observes, if I don't say it the PC way, my views - published and peer reviewed - are bad faith. 

 

 

Yes, as a fellow libertarian, I share in many of your views. 

And, you’ll note that I used your stats (from your Rutgers article) for my calculations. 

But I’m still unclear on which criteria you base the conclusion that the Black vote was the most significant.  I’m not saying you are wrong, it’s just that I don’t understand the criteria you used to determine the “single most significant factor.”

[Bob Crockett]

17 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Yes, as a fellow libertarian, I share in many of your views. 

And, you’ll note that I used your stats (from your Rutgers article) for my calculations. 

But I’m still unclear on which criteria you base the conclusion that the Black vote was the most significant.  I’m not saying you are wrong, it’s just that I don’t understand the criteria you used to determine the “single most significant factor.”

It is in the statistical report from Pew in my article.  In terms of being of statistical significance, being black when interviewed in exit polls had the most significant relationship to a vote for Prop 8 than any other factor, like being religious or a Mormon.

[Daniel2]

Bob,

I’ve asked before, and haven’t seen an answer yet. Can you please post a link to where we can read/purchase your article?

[Bob Crockett]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Not sure how you think 6% of Californians were an overwhelming monolith, but okay.

May I quote myself from my Rutger's article?  "The difference between the “yes” and “no” vote for Proposition 8 was 504,479 votes; the number of black voters who voted in favor of Proposition 8 was 718,997."

Fundamentally I believe that government should get out of the marriage business so we don't have this dispute.  If you really want to bind yourself to raise children and lock yourself into community property laws, it seems one can just sign a domestic contract.  Leave marriage to your rabbi.  

But if the government is going to empower your rabbi to perform a governmental function, i.e., marriage, then gays shouldn't be denied the right (nor polygamists) but, on the other hand, we shouldn't complain when pastors denounce government marriage as a government-sponsored abomination.

The whole reason government had an interest in marriage in the first place was to create a conclusive presumption of paternity (ie to protect the children) and provide support rights for the woman sacrificing work skills.  The law has done away with these notions, science has overtaken us on paternity, and there is no need whatsoever for government-sanctioned marriage.   I think Joseph Smith had it right in ignoring government strictures on marriage -- avoiding such nettlesome issues as divorce before remarrying.  The state governments discriminated against Mormon elders and didn't give them the right to perform marriages, so the church just treated the law as a nullity.  For awhile. True libertarians. 

Edited January 12, 2018 by Bob Crockett

[Bob Crockett]

40 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

Bob,

I’ve asked before, and haven’t seen an answer yet. Can you please post a link to where we can read/purchase your article?

Google my name and Rutgers.

[CA Steve]

13 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

May I quote myself from my Rutger's article?  "The difference between the “yes” and “no” vote for Proposition 8 was 504,479 votes; the number of black voters who voted in favor of Proposition 8 was 718,997."

In order for these numbers to mean anything, one would also have to know how many black voters voted against it. (Or the total number of black voters). Do you have that information?

[ALarson]

23 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

May I quote myself from my Rutger's article?  "The difference between the “yes” and “no” vote for Proposition 8 was 504,479 votes; the number of black voters who voted in favor of Proposition 8 was 718,997."

And how many Mormons voted in favor of Proposition 8?