Its so hard to understand why this is happening. This is a very intelligent movement -- they're very educated -- they are arguing under the auspices of something more than respectable (human rights) -- and yet they can't see that storming a church is the wrong thing to do? Seriously? Its like Palestinian terrorists -- educated, high-minded -- yet utterly out of touch with the world around them.

There's a certain kind of person (all the ones I know are liberal, but I don't see why it has to be that way) who thinks that if the cause is just, then any action in furtherence is acceptable. If the outrage is merited, then any expression of it is acceptable. If the person opposed is in the wrong, then any injury or accusation inflicted is acceptable.

Whatever happened to dignity and class? Some still have it. Too bad the media doesn't and sees no reason to encourage it.

Just my two cents... I think the activists are not harassing Muslims because any Muslim support of Prop 8 would have been negligible compared to the monetary support provided by the Mormons. There simply aren't as many Muslims in California as Mormons, and there is no evidence of any coordinated fundraising effort from the California Muslim community. By contrast, a significant portion of the fundraising in support of Prop 8 was provided by coordinating efforts among Mormons. In addition, the reactions one could expect from protesting Mosques versus protesting Mormons are quite different. This doesn't in any way excuse the activists' behavior (which is, in any case, deplorable), but it does provide a little context.

What strikes me as at least a little odd is a point you touched tangentially, Muslims could have been for gay marriage because that would open the door for polygamy.

I absolutely agree. That's the next logical step, as soon as you open the meaning of marriage, then you can't arbitrarily stop it (and I say this as one who couldn't care less. I am mostly against the gov't being able to decide who can marry whom).

So considering that.... why weren't the Mormons supportive of gay marriage? The day after gay marriage is legalized, they can start their own lawsuits to extend it to polygamy.

Interesting that they seem to have chosen their religious beliefs over political expediency.

Just like their attackers who choose their religious beliefs (leftism is a religion anymore, just question any global warmmonger) over political expediency by being so arrogantly rude that their cause is damaged.

Veeshir.

Why would the Mormons start lawsuits to extend marriage to polygamy when polygamy is not part of the LDS doctrine and is opposed by the Church?

Mormons have a history of polygamy, social shame and political expediency is why the doctrine changed and is now opposed. The reality is that most people are NOT INTERESTED in more than one spouse at a time.

I must admit that I've often fantasized about having more than one husband. I would have loved to marry all the Cartwright's, for example. Including Hop Sing. A woman needs that kind of male complexity :-)

That the muslims were quiet makes a lot more sense because polygamy is acceptable and nothing has changed for 14 centuries.

classical values? um, you do know the greeks and romans were into homosexuality, don't you...?

Elizabeth, if you hang around a bit, you will soon learn that Eric is into homosexuality as well.

I am, but should not be surprised with this toady post expressing feigned shock at some very minor excesses of a few unthinking gays.
Yes of course any violation of property rights, like invading a church service, should be dealt with.
But to compare free speech - name calling of Mormons, picketing of Mormon Temples - or even boycotts as some kind of "scorched earth policy" is just hyperbole.

A better tactic would be to legally go after the Mormon-borg central committee in SLC.

As to Jonah Goldberg, he really doesn't know gay outrage; he wasn't around for the Dan White riots. He thinks these tactics are over the top?

I was at the Dan White riots:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2003/05/24_years_ago_to.html

While I don't support rioting, I think there's no comparison between murdering a gay leader of the stature of Harvey Milk and opposing same sex marriage.

I don't excuse the Dan White riots, but under the circumstances (and the times), the tactics were less over the top than invading churches and threatening people and trying to get them fired because of their opinions.

If I remember my PBS correctly, Harvey Milk was not murdered because he was a gay leader. His sexuality had nothing to do with it. He, along with the nearly forgotten mayor, were killed by an insane political rival.

Just a thought:
People scream that every vote must count when it is convenient for them. But, when the populace votes against their wishes, those votes are wrong are should not be counted.
Whether or not you agree with the vote on Prop 8, the majority has voted and the majority rules. I seem to recall a few laws/rules supporting this...

"Tonight is for every time you have been called a 'faggot' in your life!"
Yes, maybe the White Night riots were an appropriate response to the twinkie verdict.
But that was just the most notorious of the easy-off verdicts up to that time. There have been many others, before and since, that have gone almost unnoticed:
Remember the Bud Kramer murder back in 1983? He had his head split open with a hatchet by a drifter who later claimed in defense that Kramer had made a pass at him, you know, it was just self-defense. The Jury convicted Jeffrey Long of arson only, because he had tried to cover up the murder by torching Kramer's body in his house in Rio Nido, California. See Randy Shilts article in the March 14, 1983 SF Chronicle.

Or, the Involuntary Manslaughter conviction of William Tyack in May of 1982 in Bakersfield, California for the brutal murder of two gays. He ran Jack Blankenship and Sid Wooster off the road, then shot the unarmed gay men in the back. Wooster crawled 50 feet trying to get away before dying. At the trial of Tyack, there was testimony that Tyack, speaking of his gay neighbor's, had said "I don't like those people. If they give me any reason, I'll kill them."
See page 35, SF Chronicle June 11, 1982.

So, if we now call some Mormon pinhead a juicy name, it's for those injustices, and thousands of others gone unnoticed and unreported. Be thankful that WE respect individual rights. Those "Christians" don't, since they just voted by direct democracy (read: mob rule) to deny 30,000 legally married gay couples their rights under the law.
The California Supreme Court decision was in keeping with this state's pioneering of individual rights. That it could be reversed by a religious based campaign of deception, 50% of which was funded by the Mormon Church, is every bit an outrage to gay couples like me and my spouse.
Like most fundamentalist religions worldwide, their real hang-up is sex. In this country, they just look the other way when some gay is murdered, and do the least possible to avenge the killing.
But, BY GOD, let some gay couple marry, and the whole of heaven opens to stop it.

Is it possible that some Machiavellian Mormon analyst (an advocate for the covert Polygamy Lobby, perhaps the RLDS or FLDS) collectively pulled them over and said, "Pssst! If same sex marriage is legalized, lawyers say that this will ultimately lead to the unraveling of all restrictions on marriage including polygamy, so let's just sit this one out!"?

Or was Big Love just anti-Mormon Hollywood propaganda?

"Or was Big Love just anti-Mormon Hollywood propaganda?"

You do know that Big Love was created by gay men explicitly to "find the values of family that are worth celebrating separate of who the people are and how they're doing it."

http://www.washblade.com/2006/3-10/arts/television/feeling.cfm