The grotesque bigotry of the modern Republican Party’s evangelical base is the 10,000 pound elephant in the room. We already knew they elected public officials on the backs of LGBT people, kept African Americans down through a Southern Strategy, and have a notable hostility towards all Muslims and immigrants.

They also don’t like Mormons and believe the religion is a non-Christian cult.

USA Today mentioned that a LifeWay research survey of 1,000 pastors nationwide, conducted last October, found three in four Protestant pastors disagree with Mormons’ claim that they, too, are Christian.

The ugly whispers burst into full public view at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC this weekend. Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress, who introduced Rick Perry at the event, brought up the “M” word and the “C” word (Mormon and Cult). When asked about Mitt Romney’s religion he said: Romney is “a good moral person” but Mormonism “has always been considered a cult by mainstream Christianity.” The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer seemed to agree with this assessment.

I predict that Romney may run into a fundamentalist brick wall in South Carolina — the home of dirty Lee Atwater-style politics. I can easily see an audience member in a town hall meeting, who secretly works for Perry or Bachmann, asking Mr. Romney: “Boxers, briefs, or magic”?

They could send out a direct mailer or start a whisper campaign questioning why Romney has so many gigantic houses. Is he trying to conceal secret wives and furtive families in these homes, much like they did on the Big Love television series? If Republicans could portray John McCain as having an illegitimate black child in South Carolina, it would be easy to portray one of Romney’s son’s wives — as HIS wife. By the time the fact checkers come — the race would be over and the slime would stick. I’m afraid that this is what may occur down south, given what I heard in the dark corners of the Values Voter Summit — and on stage.

Today’s GOP is the party of fear and smear. Why Mormons vote Republican is a mystery. They should hear what social conservatives really say about them when they think Mormons are not listening. From what I heard several times in the hallways at the Values Voter Summit this weekend, Mormons are foolish to remain Republicans. Their popularity barely registers above that of gays and lesbians.

My favorite thing about when churches change their minds, even slightly, on the subject of church teachings or sin or whatever else, they always move immediately into this “We have always been at war with Eastasia” stance, where the new definition of sin is, of course, timeless and eternal and revealed by the almighty Wizard God, and certainly not subject to the whims of the man behind the curtain, etc. It’s all so arbitrary.

So anyway, apparently the Mormon church now probably feels that their old guidelines on gayness were hurting their bottom line financially, so they’re tinkering a bit with the Revealed Eternal Truths to try to appear a little bit nicer. Don’t be shocked or anything, though — it’s not like they’re recognizing gay peoples’ dignity or anything:

Changes to LDS Church policy on homosexuality will be presented to LDS lay clerical leaders worldwide this Saturday, November 13.

The changes are being introduced through a global leadership training satellite broadcast for the release of the newly revised Church Handbook of Instructions (CHI), a 400-page lay priesthood manual reserved for use by LDS Church members in local and regional lay leadership positions.

Multiple advance copies of the CHI leaked on the internet reveal significant changes to Church policy on homosexuality.

Basically, here’s what’s changed: You’re no longer a hellbound sinner just for thinking gay thoughts, and they’ve decreed that if you are one of those homosexual thought-havers, but you promise to live under the authoritarian thumb of the church and never seek personal fulfillment, they will let you have all the perks of being a Mormon, which, from what I’ve heard, is quite a goodie bag!

Anyway, I don’t see that the fundamental message has changed. If you’re a gay person of integrity and love, you’re still unwelcome in the LDS church.

[Djamila Grossman, The Salt Lake Tribune]

On the heels of extremely bigoted, anti-gay remarks the other day from Boyd Packer, one of the highest ranking leaders in the Mormon church, thousands gathered in Salt Lake City, dressed in black, to protest his words, coming as they did after a spate of gay teen suicides:

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.”

It’s getting louder. Keep turning up the volume.

[h/t Joe]

As P.Z. Myers says, here’s a pretty good reason not to attend a religious university.  A Mormon student at Brigham Young wrote a letter to the school’s newspaper addressing the LDS’s positions on Prop 8 and gay rights, which was published for a hot minute before the paper decided to censor the student and pull the letter:

Yesterday, Brigham Young University’s student paper The Daily Universe featured a letter to the editor that argued that the legal case for Proposition 8 is “indefensible.” Its author, BYU student Cary Crall, also asked Mormons to admit that their only opposition to gay marriage is religious. The letter attracted enormous attention and praise from both the Mormon and ex-Mormon online communities. People were most impressed that BYU—in a refreshing display of academic freedom—published it.

But shortly after the letter was posted to the Universe‘s website, it was quietly pulled. This is disappointing, but not terribly surprising; the letter nearly didn’t get published at all. Crall told me in a Facebook message that he submitted the letter to the Universe a few weeks ago, but it was rejected by the summer editor who felt it was inappropriate for a “newspaper funded by the LDS Church.” It wasn’t until after some edits and the approval of a new editor that it was published, albeit briefly.

If you click the above link, the letter is posted in its entirety, and it’s probably getting more attention than ever for being censored, so that’s good. Here’s a key passage:

It is time for LDS supporters of Prop 8 to be honest about their reasons for supporting the amendment. It’s not about adoption rights, or the first amendment, or tradition. These arguments were not found worthy of the standards for finding facts set up by our judicial system. The real reason is that a man who most of us believe is a prophet of God told us to support the amendment. [This is a privately held religious belief that we are using to support legislation that takes away a right from a minority group. If our government were to enact legislation based solely on such beliefs, it would set a dangerous precedent, possibly even more so than allowing a homosexual to marry the person he or she loves.] We must be honest about our motivation, and consider what it means to the delicate balance between our relationship with God and with His children here on earth. Maybe then we will stop thoughtlessly spouting arguments that are offensive to gays and lesbians and indefensible to those not of our faith.

I tend to agree with P.Z.’s assessment — the letter is just a tad bit too honest for the Mormon church.

Group espousing treatment of gays cites her work

By Brian Maffly
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

A national group that advocates “treatment” of homosexuality is being criticized for allegedly distorting a Utah researcher’s work to advance the theory that people choose their sexual orientation – a controversial notion rejected by mainstream psychology.

Lisa Diamond, a University of Utah psychologist whose sexual identity studies suggest a degree of “fluidity” in the sexual preferences of women, said in an interview Tuesday that the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, or NARTH, misrepresents her findings. Position papers, some penned by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, an adjunct professor in the U.’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, point to Diamond’s research as evidence that gays’ sexual orientation can be straightened out through treatment – much to Diamond’s dismay.

“If NARTH had read the study more carefully they would find that it is not supported by my data at all. I bent over backward to make it difficult for my work to be misused, and to no avail. When people are motivated to twist something for political purposes, they’ll find a way to do it,” Diamond says in a videotaped interview posted on the Internet.

Diamond made those remarks two weeks ago as Californians were debating Proposition 8, the divisive ballot measure that mandates marriage as solely between a man and a woman.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints encouraged members to give time and money to the successful campaign, triggering a cascade of criticism and protests.Diamond’s comments specifically targeted Encino, Calif., psychologist Joeseph Nicolosi, co-founder of NARTH and the author of “Healing Homosexuality,” and “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.”

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” says Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies, in the videotape. “There’s no chance this is a misunderstanding or simply a different scientific interpretation. … It’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you should stop doing it.”

Nicolosi did not respond to an interview request and Byrd claimed he did not know why Diamond, a fellow U. faculty member, took umbrage with NARTH’s citation of her work.

“NARTH’s view is that people can adapt any way they want and there is freedom of choice,” Byrd says. “If it says ‘fluidity’ it says ‘fluidity.’ How you interpret it is something else.”

Diamond, who has never met Byrd, said in an interview that NARTH “cherry picks” findings or references from her work that appear to support their position. Her denunciations of NARTH was instigated by Truth Wins Out, a New York City-based watchdog that patrols social conservative groups’ use of social science in support of hot-bottom agendas.

“They use these fake statistics and distort science to support bigotry and discrimination. It’s important to take these tools away from them,” founder Wayne Besen says.

NARTH is based in Nicolosi’s California office, but maintains an office in the same downtown Salt Lake City building as Evergreen International, a Mormon faith-based group that encourages gays to abandon same-sex attraction. While the two groups do not advertise their association, NARTH’s sole paid staffer last year was Evergreen’s executive director David Pruden, according to tax documents.

NARTH is no stranger to controversy. One past president, the late psychiatrist Charles Socarides, campaigned for years against the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to discontinue listing homosexuality as a mental illness. The American Psychological Association likewise maintains a stance of deep skepticism toward reparative therapies that seek to convert patients to heterosexuality.

“To date, there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation is safe or effective,” the APA says on its Web site. “Furthermore, it seems likely that the promotion of change therapies reinforces stereotypes and contributes to a negative climate for lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons.” Diamond goes even further.

“The therapists are saying, ‘We can change your orientation,’ when all of the data, all of the data suggest that is not the case. They say same-sex attractions can disappear – they don’t,” she says. Reparative therapies “do additional damage” with techniques that incorporate electroshock and nausea-inducing treatments “that leave people feeling greater shame, greater guilt, worse about themselves.”

Evergreen Also Whitewashes Suicide of Stuart Matis, Says TWO

NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out (TWO) slammed “ex-gay” Mormon group Evergreen International today for gross violations of ethics and morality. The “pray away the gay” ministry listed convicted sexual predator therapist Christopher Austin as a resource and also covered up the suicide of Stuart Matis, a Mormon who took his own life because he could not change his sexual orientation.

“Evergreen should be ashamed and apologize for the unethical and immoral way it conducts business,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Instead of admitting the group’ failures, Evergreen has engaged in a series of omissions and cover-ups that whitewash reality at the expense of their victims.”

The blog, Ex-Gay Watch, discovered that Evergreen listed Christopher Austin on its site. What Evergreen failed to mention was that Austin, a disgraced therapist in Irving, Texas, was convicted of sexually assaulting a male client in Sept. 2007. Austin was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but received seven years probation, had to register as a sex offender and was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine.

“Unfortunately, Evergreen continued to promote Austin’ therapy and hold him up as an example of success,” said Besen. “Under pressure, Evergreen finally scrubbed him from its website this week, but the appropriate action would have been to let people know the truth. Sadly, Evergreen’ answer is to bury the facts in order to promote their fiction that one can change from gay to straight.”

In an equally disturbing incident, Evergreen whitewashed the heartbreaking suicide of Stuart Matis. On its website, Evergreen lists Fred and Marilyn Matis as past speakers and blithely says, “Their oldest son, Stuart, had same-gender attraction.”

This, of course, leads readers to believe that their son is now “ex-gay.” What Evergreen fails to tell readers is that the dangerous “ex-gay” message led Stuart to end his life. In his suicide note, Stuart Matis wrote:

“The church has no idea that as I type this letter, there are surely boys and girls on their callused knees imploring God to free them from this pain. They hate themselves. They retire to bed with their fingers pointed to their heads in the form of a gun. I am now free. I am no longer in pain and I no longer hate myself. As it turns out, God never intended for me to be straight. Perhaps my death might be a catalyst for some good.”

Leaders of the largest world-wide advocacy and support group for gay Mormons announced today that they intend to keep their date to be in Salt Lake City to discuss ways in which they and the LDS Church can work together to better minister to church members who are gay and to their families. In February of this year, leaders of Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons had invited the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to meet with them to discuss areas of mutual concern. LDS President Thomas Monson accepted the invitation, and, in early April, the meeting was set for Monday, August 11, in Salt Lake City. On July 24, the church declared in an e-mailed letter that they were postponing the meeting until next year.

Executive Director Olin Thomas has confirmed that the Affirmation Executive Committee members scheduled to attend the historic meeting have secured a meeting location and will be in Salt Lake City, ready to meet with President Monson or any other General Authority of the Church at 9:00 AM Monday morning as planned. Thomas, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, noted that Affirmation has no paid officers or staff and that leaders travel at their own expense, using vacation and leave time from their regular jobs.

The group has called a meeting with members of the press for 10:00 AM, Monday, August 11, at which they will present the material that would have been presented in the original meeting.

Utah holds one of the highest suicide rates in the United States. Affirmation has documented over 30 suicides of gay Mormons, and Affirmation leaders believe the LDS leaders have contributed to these tragedies by the way they talk about and to gay people. Tonight, a gay teenager will be thrown out onto the street by his or her LDS family, contributing to an above-average homeless rate for adolescents in the Mountain West and Northwest states. Throughout the church, families are being broken apart, often forever, because family members don’t know how to deal with a loved one who tells them that he or she is gay.

“In recent years, the Church’ view towards gay and lesbian people has changed, and Church leaders now recognize that being gay is a biological characteristic,” noted David Melson, Affirmation’ Senior Assistant Executive Director. “The items that we had planned to discuss all focus on education and on toning down some of the rhetoric. Nothing that we will be proposing requires any change in doctrine.”

“We are concerned at the Church’ decision to not attend the meeting on August 11. The deaths, the homelessness, and the grief that occur because of well-intentioned but misguided practices are real, and they must all stop, now.”