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Broken Eggs

Saturday, 12 Sep 2009 at 10:47 pm

This video of Todd Whitaker standing up and speaking his mind in sacrament meeting about the involvement of the LDS church in the fight against marriage rights has been making the rounds. The bishop eventually has enough and cuts off the mic. Here’s what you can’t hear:

…I Leave you today in hopes that maybe just one of you will take to heart and question the wrong doing and the rights that have been robbed from millions of Californians. I would never vote to take away your right to marry so why did you take away mine? Tolerance is not the same as love. Mormons confuse the two quite often. I know that God loves me unconditionally. He will be the final Judge in the end, so any church court, judge or jury cannot condemn me nor will I succumb to such evil ungodly treatment from this church. You have done enough damage to many lives and ruined many family’s because of your strict rules concerning gays. I am done being a hypocrite and will ask that you remove my name from all church records, as I am divorcing my membership here today in this church. I will not allow you to revoke me. Amen.

A longer video is also available if you want more context, though I wish I knew what happened immediately after he walked out.

Some may say that it is disrespectful to stand up in someone’s church meeting and criticize them. I can agree with that. I wonder if this kind of outspokenness would be necessary if the LDS church encouraged open discussion instead of the carefully correlated message that has been the standard fare since 1972. In any case, you can’t make omeletes without breaking some eggs, as we say. I think breaking down decorum is justified when fighting to have your civil rights recognized by an unwilling majority.

2 Comments

  1. chanson said,

    September 13, 2009 @ 4:12 am

    That’s an amazing speech! I agree with your point that this type of confrontational display wouldn’t be necessary if the LDS church allowed and encouraged open discussion instead of correlation.

    I just have one issue with your use of the “broken eggs” quote: I’m not a history expert, but I thought that was a quote from Stalin, and that he was actually talking about killing people in order to achieve his ends, not about breaking decorum and ruffling a few feathers. So I wouldn’t use that quote as something we say or agree with…

  2. Jonathan said,

    September 13, 2009 @ 5:38 am

    I had never heard that the phrase was used by Stalin, so I tried to track down the context. I found various authoritative-sounding attributions: to Stalin, Lenin, Robespierre, and Napoleon.

    Apparently, the phrase predates all of the above and is a centuries old proverb in many European languages.

    Regarding the larger issue of the end justifies the means, I must buck the trend to say that sometimes the ends do justify the means. And sometimes they don’t. It’s a slippery slope, but one that we have to tread every day if we want to accomplish something.

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