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| Dear Daniel, Today, across this country, there are millions of kids struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identity. They are literally under attack, often by the very people they look up to, people in positions of authority or power, who think little of the consequences of their words and actions. The danger of these hateful, hurtful and false messages are amplified when they come from a leader of faith. And nothing has made me more angry than the recent demagoguery by the second highest official in the Mormon Church. Elder Boyd K. Packer, the president of the Mormon Church's Quorum of Twelve Apostles, delivered a message to Mormons worldwide that called same-sex attraction "impure and unnatural" – an affliction that can be overcome with prayer. Elder Packer went on to tell Mormons everywhere that same-sex unions are morally wrong and go "against God's law and nature." Certainly, we must — and do — call out religious bigotry wherever it is. Still, what was particularly horrifying about Elder Packer's irresponsible missive is that it literally came on the heels of the suicides of a number of teenagers over the past month, each of them victims of anti-gay bullying. Just today, in an astonishing turn of events, something I'm told never happens, the Mormon Church attempted to rewrite history by making a slight alteration to Elder Packer's remarks on its website. The Church actually changed one set of words and eliminated an entire passage from Elder Packer's sermon online. The problem is, it didn't go nearly far enough. People still need to hear from Elder Packer that he was wrong and that his statements are dangerous. Trying to massage history in some minor way doesn't begin to address the far-ranging consequences of his words. Elder Packer and the Church must immediately and fully correct the factual record: sexual orientation and gender identity are immutable characteristics of being human and praying won't change that in me or you or anyone else. That's why on Tuesday, I'm going to Salt Lake City. There, I'll join the good people from Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons, Equality Utah and the Utah Pride Center. Together, we will again call on Elder Packer to retract his statements. We will then walk to the headquarters of the Mormon Church and deliver over 100,000 petition signatures calling on the Church to correct the record. When we all meet in Salt Lake City and head to the Mormon Church headquarters, I'm sure Elder Packer won't be there to greet us. So be it. But what I hope is conveyed is that we will no longer sit by while our young people are at risk. We must send the message to LGBT youth through this action that they are loved and needed. We will not give Elder Packer, or any other leader, religious or not, the space or the authority to tear our young people down any longer. It has to stop. And if you haven't signed our petition, please take a moment on this long holiday weekend and add your name and pass it onto your friends and family. Elder Packer needs to hear our roar and the Mormon Church needs to leave us and our kids out of their pastoral fulminations. Thanks so much.  Joe Solmonese President, Human Rights Campaign  | ||||
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Thousands of protesters gathered in Salt Lake City's Temple Square last night to denounce remarks by LDS Apostle Boyd Packer, who called gay people "impure and unnatural." Packer’s speech, delivered during the LDS Church’s 180th Semiannual General Conference, hit a nerve, protesters say, because it came after a string of gay teen suicides in the national news. Boys as young as 13 took their own lives after reportedly being bullied by their peers for being gay. On Thursday, protest organizers estimated that 4,500 people ringed the two downtown blocks that make up the LDS Church’s headquarters. Participants wore black, and some carried signs. Lying head to toe or sitting shoulder to shoulder, they encircled Temple Square two times. “Tonight, we are symbolic of all the children who have been killed by messages like Boyd K. Packer’s,” said organizer and Salt Lake City blogger Eric Ethington. “When you hear nothing from [church leaders] but that you are nothing but evil and you need to change the unchangeable nature of yourself, that is only a message kids can take for so long.”LDS officials shrugged off the protest, merely noting that those thousands of angry people had a right to be there. No apology or retraction is expected from Packer.
"All the recent attention to bullying helped us realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not," said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, the group that sponsored the event this year. Called the Day of Truth, the annual April event has been pushed by influential conservative Christian groups as a way to counter to the annual Day of Silence, an event promoted by gay rights advocates to highlight threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. The Day of Truth, held on the same day as the Day of Silence, "was established to counter the promotion of homosexual behavior and to express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective," according to a manual for this year's event published by Exodus International.Focus On The Family said yesterday that they would continue to fight the Day Of Silence.
"Without question, Day of Truth is a loving and redemptive way students of faith can express their views positively in response to GLSEN's Day of Silence which only presents one point of view," Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family, said in a statement. "In contrast to the whole idea of 'silence,' Day of Truth has encouraged students to exercise their free speech rights and have an open dialogue while respectfully listening to others," Cushman said.The Christianist-led Day Of Truth was created by the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund, who handed over media responsibilities for the day to Exodus International earlier this year.
"The fire department did the right and Christian thing. The right thing, by the way, is also the Christian thing, because there can be no difference between the two. The right thing to do will always be the Christian thing to do, and the Christian thing to do will always be the right thing to do. If I somehow think the right thing to do is not the Christian thing to do, then I am either confused about what is right or confused about Christianity, or both.
"I dream of a day where every gay youth in our country will have access to safe spaces, where no gay kid will live more than 100 miles from a space where LGBT youth can go to find community and support. But the creation of these life-saving spaces will require the passionate commitment and attention of the adult LGBT community. We need to pay attention to what is available to teens in our local communities. We need to raise funds and resources to support these spaces, and be aggressive in advocating that our tax dollars be used to support spaces where our teens receive the support they need.
"To the angry folks: I admit that IGBP doesn't do the impossible. It doesn't solve the problem of anti-gay bullying, everywhere, all at once, forever. The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope. The point is to let them know that things do get better. For some people things get better once they get out of high school, for others things get better while they're still in high school. And some kids, like the kid above, are helping to make things better for other kids who are in still high school. But things do get better and kids who are thinking about suicide need to hear that.
