A demonstration in front of Manhattan’s Mormon temple drew a good 2,000 people this evening and made a mess of rush hour all along Broadway. The crowd turned out to denounce the church for its role in pushing Proposition 8 in California, which overturned marriage equality for same-sex couples the same night as Obama’s triumph.
‘Tax this church!’ they chanted while the signs alluded to touchy issues in Utah like pedophilia-laced polygamy.
People are pissed. But what’s interesting is that the issue isn’t homosexuality this time around, and it’s not even really about gay marriage either.
It’s about Mormons.
Somehow I don’t think that’s quite what the LDS elders bargained for.
It’s a sign of the new times that gay leadership has taken this fight right to the steps of the temple. That’s a ballsy approach and a much more attractive one than yet another protest down at City Hall, where the march originally was to be held. People don’t have an issue with the mayor on this one. They have a beef with the guys in bad suits dulled by a lifetime of caffeine deprivation.
I suspect the Mormons are going to regret being so visible on this issue and turning themselves into an object of mass hatred. After all, people don’t really like Mormons to start with, and they’re not going to get a lot of sympathy from their erstwhile fundamentalist or Catholic allies. They’re a vulnerable group that prospers when left alone to contemplate their golden tablets.
Next we’re going to hear appeals from Mormon spokespeople—no, make that spokesMEN—about respecting other people’s beliefs and how they are only defending their way of life, blah blah. It won’t fly, guys. Get ready for the debates on CNN: gay parents v/s Mormon ‘weddings’ featuring 12-year-old girls.
You asked for it.
[Update] The crowd estimates now range from 10 to 14 thousand, so I was off by several orders of magnitude. It was a lot of people.
[Update II] My favorite placard so far: “They get five wives, and I don't even get one!” Oh, is that unfair?
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