It’s amazing how a label can sway your perception and support of an idea or a movement. When abortion was being decided upon in the Supreme Court, both sides sought out labels to present their best side and win the most support to their cause: hence pro-life and pro-choice.

These days, it’s the gay-rights movement that is making the headlines, and organizations are picking their labels again. Opponents of gay rights are trying to label themselves as pro-family, not antigay. The truth of the matter is that they’re both anti-family and anti-gay.

Of course, that’s not 100 percent correct. They’re pro-their-own-family, just anti-my-family. Why is it that the radical religious right will only recognize their own families and not others? Sure, I can’t marry my fiancé because of Utah’s Amendment 3, but we’re still living together and love each other; we’re still a family.

I know many others, some with kids, some without, but all of which are families—just not the families for which the Eagle Forum or the Sutherland Institute are pro-. Every family is sacred, every family is special, and every family needs protection.

If you don’t believe so, then you cannot use the label of pro-family. In this fight, it’s the gays and lesbians that are pro-family, yours and mine, and it’s the religious right that is just downright anti-gay.

Use common sense and put the right labels where they belong.

Drew Cloud
Salt Lake City