In Salt Lake City, “Love Doesn’t Separate”

For all the ugliness in the world, there’s still incremental steps towards the light. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

More than 1,000 inactive and active Mormons — along with their backers — rallied in City Creek Park on Saturday to protest the LDS Church’s recent policy decisions involving same-sex couples and their children.

Many who attended the Salt Lake City event brought rainbow flags in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. They also hoisted signs with slogans such as “LDS: Love Doesn’t Separate.”

At one of several tables, attorney Mark Naugle helped Mormons expedite their paperwork to resign their memberships in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their forms were then dropped into a file box, which was rapidly filling 90 minutes after the event began, for mailing to nearby LDS Church headquarters to have those members’ names removed from the faith’s rolls…

Top LDS authorities have a new policy in place that states Mormons in same-sex marriages or similar relationships must face disciplinary councils — and possible excommunication — and that their children generally must wait until they turn 18 to be baptized into the faith…

“The church’s decision about families was the final straw for me,” said Connie Walker, who carried a bright pink sign that read “I’m Resigning Today Because Jesus Says Love Everyone.”…

Also in Salt Lake City, per NBC:

Former Utah lawmaker Jackie Biskupski on Tuesday became the first openly gay mayor of Salt Lake City, the capital of the conservative state where the Mormon church and a small town judge delivered setbacks last week to the LGBT community.

The victory by Biskupski marked another milestone for LGBT people in Utah who have made major strides in recent years.

“Today is not just about making history,” Biskupski said. “It is about people. It is about affecting change.”…

Salt Lake City voters also elected Derek Kitchen, who became the second gay member of the City Council.

He and his husband, Moudi Sbeity, were one of three couples who sued to overturn the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

Biskupski takes over after progress on gay rights was temporarily marred in recent weeks when a judge ordered a foster child to be removed from a lesbian couple and placed with a heterosexual couple. The judge cited the child’s well-being as the reason for his order.

The ruling set off a firestorm around the state and nation. The judge quickly reversed his decision and took himself off the case…

Earlier this year, the church endorsed a statewide anti-discrimination law that protected gay and transgender people from discrimination in housing and the workplace.

It’s a contrast from 1998, when Biskupski became Utah’s first openly gay lawmaker and some of her colleagues in the heavily Mormon and conservative Legislature wouldn’t shake her hand.

Asked about her win in light of the recent controversies, Biskupski said, “It’s 2015, and we’ve come a long way from, gosh, when I first got elected.” …

Back in the 1970s, when our acquaintances were resigning from the LDS church over its outraged assaults on Mormon feminists and women in general, some of us were slightly jealous that they could actually register their rejection so formally. (I was never really a Catholic, but my parents had me baptized when I was too young to protest, so as far as the Vatican is concerned I’m still counted as Catholic when they’re touting their membership figures.) Further on the weight of this religio-secular ritual from the NYTimes:

Ever since she was an infant being blessed during a church naming ceremony, Lindsay Matson had been on the books of the Mormon Church. As it has done with millions of other members, the church kept note of her spiritual life as she moved from congregation to congregation, took youth leadership posts and married at age 19 in a Mormon temple.

But now, she and other Mormons upset over new church policies that declare same-sex couples apostates and restrict their children from baptism and other rites are venting their objections by demanding that their names be struck from the church’s meticulously kept records.

During the weekend, Ms. Matson and two daughters, one of whom is gay, joined more than 1,000 people lining up in a park here beside the church’s temple spires for a mass resignation. Most had not been to church in years, but they described deep ties: They had grown up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gone on missions, raised their children as Mormons. Even as their faith and attendance ebbed, they remained members on paper…

But walking away can be complicated, both emotionally and administratively, several Mormons at the mass resignation said.

Ms. Matson said she started the process in July with a letter to the church’s records unit at its headquarters. She said she had gotten a brochure asking her to reconsider. A few weeks later, the local bishop visited her home to ask whether she really wanted out. She did, and last month, she said, she got a letter from the church saying she had been removed from its roster.

“That was the end of it,” Ms. Matson said…

On Saturday, organizers of the mass resignation brought forms and envelopes and talked people through the process. Notaries were there to stamp the letters. Mark Naugle, a lawyer and former Mormon who often helps people leave the church, took form letters from people and mailed them to the church’s records office. He said he received 1,500 resignations on Saturday.

Some said they no longer felt any ties to the church, but others said resigning their faith had never been their first choice. They still had a brother who was a bishop, a father who goes to church every Sunday. One woman who refused to give her name, saying she did not want to antagonize her family, said she had waited until after her mother died to resign…

I know some of you are going to scoff that it’s all mumbo-jumbo BS for the easily led, but there actually are people who hear such comments as one step removed from “Well, if it’s such a *burden*, why don’t you just stop being gay?”