Online Petition Gains Steam To Reduce Mormon Participation in Prop 8 Fight

The Courage Campaign is promoting this open letter to the head of the Mormon Church, Thomas Monson, to urge him to end his church's involvement with Proposition 8, despite the estimated $20 million Mormons have donated to eliminate the right of gay couples to marry in California, imposing their own religious views of marriage on all Californians. That is simply unfair and wrong.

Dear President-Prophet Thomas Monson,

One of the most cherished freedoms granted to Americans in our Constitution is the freedom to choose our own religious beliefs. It is a freedom we firmly support. But that freedom also brings an obligation on the part of churches to not impose their religious beliefs on other churches, on the rest of society, or to dictate public policy. Under your leadership your church is now actively doing all of the above by supporting the campaign to pass Proposition 8 here in California.

We are particularly troubled that your church is funding television and radio ads that are lying to Californians about the effects of a "No" vote against Proposition 8. We are disappointed that you have chosen to break the Ninth Commandment - "thou shalt not bear false witness." The ads that you have funded bear false witness by not telling Californians that parents actually have absolute rights to remove their children from sex education classes, unlike in Massachusetts.

We ask you to recognize that every education authority in the state has rejected the lies and distortions of the Prop 8 campaign, including the California Teachers Association and the California School Boards Association. We also ask you to listen to a member of your church, Brigham Young University adjunct law professor Morris Thurston, who has called on the Mormon Church to "instruct its members that reliance on misleading and false 'consequences' is not worthy of our basic values of honesty and fair dealing."

We are especially saddened to see your church, which has suffered discrimination and the loss of basic legal rights based on lifestyle and belief in the past, now attempting to do the same thing and take away Californians' rights. We had hoped your church had moved beyond its discriminatory past when you rescinded the ban on African Americans entering the priesthood in 1978. We fully respect your religious freedoms - but your freedoms do not include the ability to take away rights from anyone.

We, the undersigned, call upon you to direct your church to cease funding the "Yes on 8" campaign and to cease all forms of advocacy for Proposition 8. We ask you to stay out of our state's governance. We ask you to respect the religious freedoms of those churches that choose to conduct same sex weddings, just as we respect your church's right to refuse to do so. We ask you to uphold both the spirit and the letter of the California and United States Constitutions and not attempt to eliminate the fundamental rights of Californians.

Sincerely,

I urge MadProfessah.com readers to sign the STOP THE LIES petition.