Sure, Utah is beautiful, and has some of the most striking natural landscapes and best skiing anywhere in the lower 48, but if you’re gay and you want to get married in Utah, or honeymoon in Utah, you’d better think again.
The main reason I’m so down on Utah right now is that this state is controlled by and contains the headquarters for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more familiarly known as the Mormon Church.
The Mormon Church and its members generated approximately 45% of all out-of-state donations in support of Proposition 8 in California, which bans gay marriages in the state.
This is more than three times more than any other state.
ProtectMarriage, the organization that got Prop 8 on the ballot, estimated that about half of all the donations they received came from Mormon sources, and that between 80 to 90% of the volunteers who went door-to-door to sell Prop 8 to the public were members of the Mormon Church.
Now, I’m not proposing any kind of organized bigotry against the Mormons and their church.
That would be just as foul and un-American as what they did in trying to deprive some of their fellow citizens of a basic civil right.
No, what I suggest for all gay men and women who would eventually like to marry their partners is that they simply vote with their pocketbooks.
Don’t visit Utah, don’t vacation there, don’t spend any money there, and don’t buy any products that originate in Utah.
Moreover, you should write to the Elders who run the Mormon Church and let them know that you will continue boycotting the state of Utah and all its products until the Mormon Church formally renounces its campaign of organized bigotry against America’s gay community.
I also think it’s a good idea to inform you friends and family about your Utah boycott and try to enlist as many of them as you can.
Heck, use your MySpace and FaceBook pages as platforms from which to launch a nationwide boycott of Utah by all of America’s gays, lesbians, transgender people, and their sympathetic friends and families.
About a week after Proposition 8 passed dozens of LDS houses of worship were vandalized.
Let me be clear about this: I am firmly against doing anything illegal or destructive to chastise the foes of gay marriage, but I feel that staging a boycott is perfectly legitimate and will show the rest of America just how little tolerance there is in the 21st Century for religious organizations that promote bigotry and divisive hatreds of any kind.
Feel free to pass my ideas on to your friends.
You can even take credit for them yourself if you want to.
Just go out and make it happen!
