Isaac Higham’s letter (“Divisive viewpoint,” Nov. 12) is a classic example of false propaganda by the LGBT community.
First, nobody is trying to stop the LGBT lifestyle. There is no law banning homosexuality and they are free to do as they want with their lives.
Secondly, if the analogy of the LGBT people as pioneers is not offensive, it is at least inappropriate at best. The pioneers traveled thousands of miles away from their homes to escape persecution and death. Many died or suffered terrible hardships of hunger, fatigue and cold. The LGBT group walked for two hours, downhill on a paved surface and then returned home. Hardly an event of the same caliber.
I reject the idea that the LGBT community suffers any immense, systematic discrimination. LGBT as a whole are well tolerated, and it is simply not true.
I submit the facts to every fair-minded person to consider and judge for themselves who really is the persecuted group today. After Prop 8 passed, were LGBT centers attacked or LDS church buildings?
Were LGBT businesses boycotted or those that supported traditional marriage? And if this event really wasn’t politically motivated, then why did the LGBT community take a jab at the LDS church when invited to dialogue later — and ask to meet in a coffee shop?
Don’t be naive. LGBTs have an agenda of silencing anyone who disagrees with their lifestyle by legislating, slowly but surely, laws that will criminalize anyone who speaks against them.
Cole Stapp
North Pole, Alaska
Feeds 
What you like to know what the REAL "Gay Agenda" is? It's the right for Gay individuals and couples to be treated equally to our Straight counterparts under the law. Nothing more, nothing less.
Exactly how is allowing Gay couples the exact same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted going to affect “traditional marriage?" Marriage equality for Gay couples will have precisely ZERO impact on your life, your marriage, your church, and your children. Your church will never be forced to marry Gay couples, any more than it is forced to marry non-Christian couples. Public schools will not be forced to “teach” about Gay marriage, any more than they are forced to teach about Straight marriage.
Instead you should ask yourself why law-abiding, taxpaying Gay Americans should be forced to subsidize all the legal benefits and responsibilities that Straight couples enjoy, when we are unable to take advantage of those same incentives to marry? And since when do voters get to decide that the rights that apply to them DO NOT apply to minorities?
Chuck, as far as I know as a native Californian, civil unions are allotted the exact rights as married couples except for the title of marriage. This argument seems to be a purely semantic one. The other points that you make are correct as far as what it could force religious people to do.
I was mostly concerned about how religious beliefs informing one's political action was completely attacked during the Prop. 8 campaign. To me that's the same as saying that someone's lifestyle shouldn't affect how they vote. We all develop our viewpoints in one way or another. Whose to say which is correct and which isn't? As long as we are living in a pluralistic democracy, we vote on these matters and that's how it is. My hope is that people do their best to become informed on the issues, truthfully, and then vote according to their findings.
You speak of wanting the same rights as everyone else, and I think that's fine. I don't see why that can't be done without pulling the word marriage into it, one that has significant symbolic meaning for millennia and which, unlike the word 'gay', seems to continue to hold that same meaning in the eyes of the voting community. I also worry that this will have future implications for the freedom of religion, a belief that also informs my action and one to which I should be entitled.
The whole argument over the importance of the word "marriage" is suffused in contradictions. Indeed, in the Gay community there seems to be a great deal of disagreement over what's really more important: The word "marriage" or just the legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that marriage confers, even if the operative term was "civil union."
As far as I can determine, YOU seem to fall into the former camp: You want to keep the word "marriage" for Straight couples (out of some sense of tradition), but you have no problem granting Gay couples the same benefits as long as they are granted under some other term.
But consider what just happened in the State of Washington: Whereas Straight couples have always been allowed to "marry," Gay couples were recently granted the right to "domestic partnersships," which guaranteed them all of the legal benefits of marriage except the WORD. Now, to you and me this might seem like an acceptable compromise. But consider how VICIOUSLY social conservatives and conservative Christian organizations fought AGAINST that designation. They even succeeded in putting a referendum on the November ballot that would have struck down "domestic partnerships" for Gay couples, because apparently they feel that ANY legal arrangements for Gay couples is absolutely out of the question. Fortunately that referendum was defeated.
As for myself, I would prefer not to quibble over terminology. If "marriages" are equal to "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships" for all practical, legal purposes, I can live with that. But you would be surprised how many people who view law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples with extreme disdain are absolutely dead-set against ANY such compromises.
Care to respond?
LGBT are absolutely not tolerated well "on the whole." If they were, I would not hear slang like "that's so gay" from adolescents. If they were, I would not be seeing bumper stickers that say "AIDS cures homosexuality." If they were, I would not be reading such dark statistics about teen LGBT suicides after endless bullying. If they were, I would not see my Christian brothers and sisters presuming to know that our LGBT brothers and sisters are all going to hell, period. It doesn't matter where you stand on political issues - anyone who assumes that LGBT individuals don't face daily insults, slights, and discrimination has obviously never spent a day in their shoes. As a "Christian nation" we have collectively failed to love our LGBT neighbor, both historically and currently.
You're absolutely right. Just go back and read some of the responses to the original letter by Isaac. I believe one post said "We're not after your church so get over it" or something like that. It doesn't sound like they're looking for dialogue, but rather the opportunity to start and argument and then blame it on everyone who does not agree with them. I appreciate your letter. Thanks for standing up for what is right and not being seduced by the pseudo intellectuals parading half facts and half truths. Do not let them dissuade you.
I find irony in your pointing to post-Prop 8 discrimination as a type of persecution. How is this an example of persecution when the actions of some groups, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, is not? You could also argue that Mormons as a whole are well tolerated, thus (per your logic) denying them the right to complain about persecution.
However, ultimately, the argument is not which group suffers more, but which group suffers at all. It's true, both Mormons and the LGBT community have outside pressures. The movement, slowly, on the Church's part to find ways to support fundamental rights of LGBTs is a step in the right direction. This can happen without calling into question the institution of marriage.
Have you ever met a gay person? And I don't mean at some rally where you held the sign telling them they were going to hell, I mean ACTUALLY known a gay person?
LGBT community is extremely prejudiced against. The general population tends to look down on them as a whole. Just walk across BYU campus; you'll hear the word "gay" being used as a swear or insult word quite frequently.
Yes, I know my viewpoint is going to be bashed because I'm in conservative central, but I have known many gay and bi-sexual individuals throughout the years (several are my closest friends), and as a fellow straight person I can tell you that you have NO idea what they go through.
So, it's nice you posted this to cater to the remainder of the BYU population (who, from what I've experience, also have never had any serious interactions with members of the LGBT community), but your opinion is completely misguided and spoken from an ignorant viewpoint. Get out in the world, and maybe you'll understand exactly how things work outside of Provo, UT.
Please, don't forget that the word 'gay' has been around for decades, and it's meaning has changed. It's definition has changed. I use the work gay frequently, to mean happy or pleased. Are you saying if I cannot say my friend is gay if I don't the word according to your definition?
Vernacular does indeed change. Slang terms come and go. As for the word "gay," it began coming into usage as a synonym for homosexual in the early part of the 20th century. Today virtually NO ONE uses the word "gay" as a synonym for carefree, lighthearted, or festive.
But if you want to call your friends "gay," fine by me. I hope they have no problems with that. I wouldn't. If someone said to me, "You're so GAY," I'd say, "Why, YES! As a matter of fact, I AM!"