Thursday, November 27, 2008

Mormon is the New Black - A Thanksgiving Story


Tonight (or I guess I should actually say last night) I watched Glory Road. Based on a true story, the inspirational movie chronicles a 1960's Black college basketball team who, against all odds, wins the NCAA Championships. The team was not completely made up of African American players, but after several incidents of racism, discrimination, and intimidation aimed at the Black members, Coach Haskins and "the White" teammates got fed up and turned the fight for the NCAA Championship over to their Black Brothers. In doing so, the NCAA win became a sort of "stick-it-to-the-man" victory.

Rising out of obscurity in a racist world, these Black basketball players were viciously targeted by White supremacists. At one point in the movie the players returned to their motel room after a game to find racial slurs, threats, and profanities splattered on their walls in blood. At another point, one of the players was surrounded by three White men in a bathroom, brutally beaten, and dunked in a toilet almost to the point of drowning.

In the wake of Proposition 8, a popular phrase has sprung into being and is being widely circulated on the Internet and throughout media outlets. I have heard it often alleged that "Gay is the new Black." Supposedly gays are the oppressed, battered, African-American sequels. I protest that comparison and would suggest a more accurate one. In a near-perfect echo of the horrific monstrosities played out against the Black Texas Western basketball players, I propose that in truth, "Mormon is the new Black." Seeing those blood-splattered motel walls immediately brought to mind the graffiti-littered LA Temple walls and angry, anti-Mormon epithets hoisted up on homemade signs, swaying to and fro above a seething, volatile crowd. "Ban the Mormons!" This is the current and beloved call of gay rights activists. Watching that Black basketball player being beaten senseless in a filthy public bathroom reminded me of the elderly couple beaten mercilessly by their neighbor for exercising their freedom of speech by placing Yes on 8 signs in their yard, and the young Hispanic women attacked by gay rights activists while trying to remove vulgar signs from sacred temple property, and the elderly woman in Palm Springs who endured the mockery and rage of a vicious crowd who promptly snuffed out her freedom of speech as they ripped her cross from her hands and crushed it under foot. The anger of this mob knows no bounds and the religious - Mormon, Evangelical, and Catholic alike - are the unfortunate victims.

The gay "rights" movement is steam-rolling forward powered by blood-lust and rage, leaving in its wake a carnage the likes of which this country has not seen since Blacks were sent to the back of the bus. While this new, millennial movement claims love and equal rights as its objectives; lying in its wake is the antithetical and conspicuous reality - the tattered remains of freedom of speech and religion. At the end of the rigidly pointing homosexual fingers stand the Mormons, being sent to the back of the bus for equally unfair reasons as their beloved African American brothers - they voted.

Mormon is the new Black.

Today, Thanksgiving 2008, I recognize and express gratitude for many wonderful things in my life. And at the same time I watch the steady vanquishing of freedoms so dear and so sacred. It's clear our country is in need of a Religion champion in the same way Lincoln championed Blacks.

["Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established nor to have a particular religion favored by government. They wanted religion to be free to make its own way. But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church.

Notice the terrible irony if this trend were to continue. When the secular church goes after its heretics, where are the sanctuaries? To what landfalls and Plymouth Rocks can future pilgrims go?" - Neal A. Maxwell]

["When they came for the gypsies, I said nothing, because I wasn't a gypsy. When they came for the homosexuals, I said nothing, because I wasn't a homosexual. When they came for the Jews, I said nothing, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I said nothing, because I wasn't a Catholic......then they came for me, and there was no one left to defend me." - Neimoller in Nazi Germany]

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you for this post.

the only similarity i've ever seen between the gay marriage issue and the civil rights issue is that many many (not all, but many) gay marriage supporters look like the white people screaming at black people participating in the non-violent civil rights demonstrations.

it's kind of ridiculous. the sad thing is that the civil right demonstrators knew the ugliness they would face. they made sure the media was present as often as possible-- so everyone could see the evil of racism in action.

ruby eliot

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving Pearl! This is such a great post! You're a terrific writer. It is mind boggling to me that gays seem to think that they are "the oppressed, battered, African-American sequels." They seem not to know exactly what the definitions of these words are. It seems to me like they are the ones doing the oppressing and battering....to everyone else, just like you said. Things are getting ugly. I'm go grateful for the knowledge we have! Happy Thanksgiving!

~Journalista

The Kolste Family said...

I am one of your blog stalkers. I found you through a friend of a friend. I hope you don't mind if I put a link to this blog on my own. Thanks for all of your work to protect marriage! You are an excellent writer.

Pearl said...

Stalk away, Kolste Family! I'm glad you've found some useful information here. I would love for you to link to my blog. The more attention traditional marriage gets, the better. Thanks for visiting. I hope you keep coming.

FS Carrie said...

Really? Is this really the route you want to go? Comparing a religion with a history of official, church-sanctioned (and recent) racism with the people oppressed by church dogma? I mean, really? Isn't that just a bad PR move?

Pearl said...

Well, first, it's not a PR move, it's an opinion. I do not speak for the Church. And second, the Church has never been racist. Since its creation, we have always welcomed people of all races and creeds in our Church. Blacks may not have been able to receive the Priesthood for a time, but they've always been welcomed as members, and they are able to hold the Priesthood now. Women cannot receive the Priesthood, but our Church is not sexist either. Churches have the right to decide who will be clergy and what members' roles will be - that does not mean that they are automatically racist or sexist.

Homosexuals have not been "oppressed by church dogma." Californians voted, gay marriage lost, end of story. Conspiracy theories are just that, theories...ridiculous ones.