September has been an exciting month for those who breathlessly anticipate LDS Church statements. Such statements regularly emanate from 50 E. North Temple, but two of them have garnered considerable attention this month.n
One, optimistically interpreted by the hospitality industry as suggesting that the church thinks it would be OK to revoke Utah’s Byzantine private-club laws, states: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that Utahns … can come together as citizens, regardless of religion or politics, to support laws and regulations that allow individual freedom of choice.”
That’s all very well and good for Utahns. However, as far as the LDS Church is concerned, Californians can suck it: The other statement explains how individual freedom of choice, while desirable in Utah, is not so good in the Golden State. Gays and lesbians there have a little too much freedom of choice for the comfort of the church, which supports a California ballot proposition seeking to strip gays and lesbians of equal protection under state marriage laws.
