OMG! What the hell did I do?

@Jesse> That's what I told him.

While I think Mormons are the most gullible group around, I think this wasn't really helping. Because if you want to fuck Mormons then, to be fair, you have to fuck everyone who voted for it.

@Mizsarah> Tax exemptions allow influencing legislation, only prohibiting involvement in elections. Personally, I'm okay with this. I don't think we should prohibit organizations from having opinions (except for Scientology) and expressing them. Merely that, as the law states, it can't be a substantial part of an exempt organization's activities.

It's amazing to me that Scientology is still classified as a religion. Hello, anyone? It's a failed sci-fi novel with a self help fantasies.

I don't blame the Mormons as a whole, but I was very sad to read Orson Scott Card's response to gay marriage. And I do think perhaps the church crossed the line.

Way to go man!

If we all act nice and polite, maybe those M*rm*ns will like us and we can all be friends!

If you hadn't sparked the controversy, Mister Darcy, I'm sure someone else would've come along to take a similar pic and get things going on some local website. So don't feel bad about your part in this either way.

That said, the sign doesn't help the discourse, but it is a nice cathartic expression over the bullshit bigotry of Prop 8.

@soulcamp RE: ALL religions: AGREED

@retro joe: I agree about non-citizens and out-of-staters. I disagree about tax exempt organizations influencing legislation. They're tax exempt, therefore they don't get any representation.

@Reamworks: There's an old 70s Latter Day Saints commercial in there somewhere...

Personally, I think the bigger problem is this stupid California proposition business in the first place. Direct democracy gives us stupid results. I'd rather just stick to voting people in and out of office.

There was a supreme court case 10 years ago when a M*RM*N (along with a Catholic), who lived in the Baptist Bible Belt didn't like the prayers that were done at school and sued to have them stopped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Independent_School_Dist._v._Doe

Seems like Mormons and Catholics sued to protect their MINORITY rights. They didn't want the school to conduct prayers that weren't in THEIR religious tradition.

The case was described in a M*rm*n publication that I found with a little googling:

"The Mormon family was upset when their daughter's junior high school teacher passed out fliers for a Baptist revival. When the girl asked a question about the revival, the teacher asked her what her religion was. On learning that the girl was Mormon, she said that Mormonism was a "non-Christian cult.""

So if these M*rm*ns were to let their county or state decide with a DIRECT VOTE if their school should hand out Baptist information they would have LOST. The STATE didn't side with them. That's why they had to take it to the Supreme Court.

Conclusion:

M*rm*ns are lying when they say: "Look! The public voted on it! That makes it the law, and therefore, right" because when it doesn't work that way for them, THEY SUE.

@soulcamp & andrewj> I am a deist and an intelligent, rational to a fault, human being. Would you care to discuss?

@andrewj> If you make less than $15k a year and don't pay taxes, should you not be allowed to vote?

They exist under the rules and legislation of the government. I think they should have some voice in processes that affect them. It's just a shame that they had to stick their nose into something that DOESN'T effect them.

also, as for the religion thing... I am also a deist that thinks of himself as intelligent and rational... belief in God (or a god) can easily be separated from religion

@retro joe: My computer's desktop image is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). It is a picture of about one thirteen-millionth of the sky - roughly equivalent in size to a 1 mm square bit of paper held at arm's length. It is the deepest image of the universe ever taken using visible light. Contained in the image are approximately 10,000 galaxies, some of which are nearly 13 billion light years away, formed a few hundred million years after the big bang.

In my mind, to believe that any of words contained within the Bible (or the Quran) came directly from the creator of the universe is no less plausible than the belief that people were transported to Earth 75 million years ago in airplanes by an evil galactic ruler, who then detonated hydrogen bombs in volcanos.

Religion is a collection of stories and traditions, passed down from generation to generation, and should not be considered a synonym for faith.

I'm not going to get involved in the debate, but just wonder aloud if the same thing would have happened to me if I hadn't been so lazy and actually gotten my camera out of my bag and taken the picture.

interesting info Reamz... I'm looking into this.

@Art: Also, I don't think the current legal challenge being prepared has a snowballs chance in hell. There is absolutely NO clarity regarding the differences between an amendment and a revision to the CA constitution.

I'm saying things are going to continue to go back and forth in the states until it's resolved at a federal level. What happens right now to people who are married in CA, or MA or CT who travel into another state? What if something happens to their SO? They have no legal rights, even if they are legally married in another state. That's a violation of Article 4 of the Constitution. Right now, the DOMA allows this, but it's not yet been challenged in a federal court. There's a chance the DOMA could be repealed before it gets challenged, but it seems rather unlikely.

This issue will be decided by the Supreme Court. Until then, everything else is just a battle in futility.

Read this about a very similar 1967 case (I was 5 years old!)

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=94098995246&h=8haMQ

Also the Wikipedia on Loving v. Virginia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia