Does the name Cary Crall ring a bell? If not, it should. Cary Crall is a young hero in the struggle for gay and lesbian equality not only in the secular sense, but also in the world of religion. Cary Crall is a student at Brigham Young University, a Mormon-operated academic institution in Utah. On September 7, Crall’s editorial regarding California’s Prop 8 was initially posted and then removed from BYU’s student-run newspaper’s website… why? Because the newspaper claimed that the content of Crall’s letter was “offensive.” Fortunately, Joanna Brooks at Religion Dispatch preserved the letter; here is the editorial in its entirety:
Defending Proposition 8—It’s time to admit the reasons
By CARY CRALL
Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the recent United States District Court case that overturned Proposition 8, highlighted a disturbing inconsistency in the pro-Prop. 8 camp.
The arguments put forth so aggressively by the Protect Marriage coalition and by LDS church leaders at all levels of church organization during the campaign were noticeably absent from the proceedings of the trial. This discrepancy between the arguments in favor of Proposition 8 presented to voters and the arguments presented in court shows that at some point, proponents of Prop. 8 stopped believing in their purported rational and non-religious arguments for the amendment.
Claims that defeat of Prop. 8 would force religious organizations to recognize homosexual marriages and perform such marriages in their privately owned facilities, including LDS temples, were never mentioned in court. Similarly, the defense was unable to find a single expert witness willing to testify that state-recognized homosexual marriage would lead to forcing religious adoption agencies to allow homosexual parents to adopt children or that children would be required to learn about homosexual marriage in school.
Four of the proponents’ six expert witnesses who may have been planning on testifying to these points withdrew as witnesses on the first day of the trial. Why did they go and why did no one step up to replace them? Perhaps it is because they knew that their arguments would suffer much the same fate as those of David Blankenhorn and Kenneth Miller, the two expert witnesses who did agree to testify.
Judge Vaughn Walker, who heard the case, spent 11 pages of his 138-page decision meticulously tearing down every argument advanced by Blankenhorn before concluding that his testimony was “unreliable and entitled to essentially no weight.” Miller suffered similar censure after it was shown that he was unfamiliar with even basic sources on the subject in which he sought to testify as an expert.
The court was left with lopsided, persuasive testimony leading to the conclusion that Proposition 8 was not in the interest of the state and was discriminatory against gays and lesbians. Walker’s decision is a must-read for anyone who is yet to be convinced of this opinion. The question remains that if proponents of Prop. 8 were both unwilling and unable to support even one rational argument in favor of the amendment in court, why did they seek to present their arguments as rational during the campaign?
It is time for LDS supporters of Prop. 8 to be honest about their reasons for supporting the amendment. It’s not about adoption rights, or the first amendment or tradition. These arguments were not found worthy of the standards for finding facts set up by our judicial system. The real reason is that a man who most of us believe is a prophet of God told us to support the amendment. We must accept this explanation, along with all its consequences for good or ill on our own relationship with God and his children here on earth. Maybe then we will stop thoughtlessly spouting reasons that are offensive to gays and lesbians and indefensible to those not of our faith.
Crall’s editorial asks the tough questions that all faiths must begin to ask about their teachings regarding homosexuality and same-sex relationships in the secular sense. So where did Crall’s strong editorial end up? Joanna Brooks explains:
After running online for hours, Crall’s editorial disappeared from the Web edition of The Daily Universe by the morning of September 8. (I called The Daily Universe’s Editor in Chief on September 8 at about 11 a.m. PST to inquire about the status of the article; my call was not returned.) At 4 p.m. MST on September 8, The Daily Universe issued the following statement on the Web page where Crall’s article had been:
The Daily Universe made an independent decision to remove the student viewpoint titled “Defending Proposition 8” after being alerted by various readers that the content of the editorial was offensive. The publication of this viewpoint was not intended to offend, but after further review we recognized that it contained offensive content. This is consistent with policy that he Daily Universe has, on rare occasions, exercised in the past.
Offensive? Are you serious? So much for freedom of speech! This is a shame. Crall’s editorial provided a much-needed voice on a campus that is probably in need of the prophetic message that Crall and others have for our world today.
No government or legislative body is asking religions to officiate over marriages between people of the same sex and no one is asking religious leaders or followers to attend a wedding ceremony or reception for two people of the same sex. The reality is, that the debate over same-sex marriage is a secular debate, it is not and should not be a religious debate. Let’s talk about “findings of fact” rather than theological arguments that are no basis for policies in a secular society.
We need more Cary Cralls to stand up and be counted. We needed more Cary Cralls to speak out and break the silence. We need to stop the censure.
Queer Faith News 