Attorney General Brown Renews Call for California Supreme Court to Strike Down Proposition 8

Sacramento, California - Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today renewed his call for the California Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8 because it deprives people of the right to marry - an aspect of liberty that the Supreme Court has concluded is guaranteed by the California Constitution.

The rest is here in the Imperial Valley (Calif.) News.

Focus on the Family dumps Beck interview because he's a Mormon

For passing Proposition 8, tolerance of Mormons is fine, says the behavior of Focus on the Family chairman & founder Dr. James Dobson.

He signed the AboveTheHate.com letter which opens with:

We write firstly to express our deep gratitude to you and the entire LDS community for the large and impressive contributions of your church and its members in protecting marriage in California and Arizona.

When Underground Apologetics objected to Mormon author Glenn Beck's interview promoting his book "The Christmas Sweater," though, Focus caved. They pulled it off the Focus on the Family's CitizenLink site.

The Focus explanation to Joel Campbell of The Mormon Times:

You are correct to note that Mr. Beck is a member of the Mormon church, and that we did not make mention of this fact in our interview with him. We do recognize the deep theological difference between evangelical theology and Mormon theology, and it would have been prudent for us at least to have pointed out these differences. Because of the confusion, we have removed the interview from CitizenLink.

Bruce Tomaso wrote for the Dallas Morning News Religion Blog:

Focus on the Family represents itself as promoting Christian values. Many -- but clearly not all -- Christians believe that one of those values is tolerance.

Learning to love Rick Warren

Saturday at the annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Pastor Rick Warren tried to deflect criticism by emphasizing the need for Americans in general to find common ground.

Implying that the media were somehow the cause of the controversy that has erupted around him since he was asked to read the invocation at President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration, Warren said:

Let me just get this over very quickly. I love Muslims. And for the media's purpose, I happen to love gays and straights.

Wrong, as Juan Cole indicated in his blog about the same gathering:

Warren will read the invocation at President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration, a choice that angered the gay community. Warren supported Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage (and forcibly divorced or 'de-married' 18,000 gay couples already married in California). Warren also has compared legalizing gay marriage to legalizing incest, pedophilia and polygamy.

Of course Prop. 8's fate is in the hands of the California Supreme Court and Warren, it seems, is very much a man in process.

Warren, for all of his bigotry, still supports something like civil unions for gay couples, and even won over Cole, who wrote:

I came away liking and looking up to Warren. In fact, I wonder whether with some work he could not be gotten to back off some of the hurtful things he has said about gays and rethink his support for Proposition 8.

Cole's detailed account, here, suggests there may be a lot more peace to be made among us. All of us.

Fire over California's Prop. 8

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is under external fire for heavily promotinng the campaign for California's Proposition 8, which is intended to overturn a state Supreme Court ruling that permits gay marriage.

There is also fire within as some Mormon families to leave. ABC affiliate News10 in Sacramento, California reports:

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - There's backlash against the LDS church over Proposition 8. LDS members in Utah, even some entire families are leaving the church because of its opposition to gay marriage.

Division within the church began well before the Nov. 4 vote in California, according to the Salt Lake Tribune and others.

Dissent has reached so high into the church's hierarchy of members that in at least one case, that of Nebraska's Andrew Callahan, steps toward excommunication are being taken.

Callahan, who describes himself as a "high priest in good standing" in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has apologize for and explained his stand in a letter.

At the letter's conclusion he asks several questions:

When gay marriages began to be performed in Massachusetts and later California, did it cause you to want to leave your wife? Did it cause you to become gay or want to become gay? Did it cause your you or your wife to abandon or want to abandon your children? Did it cause you to fall into a life of debauchery and sin? Did it cause you to change your life in any way for the worse? If none of these things happened to you, was that because you are superior to others, or because there is no real harm to come from gay marriage? If you didn’t experience these terrible things and I didn’t, and President Monson didn’t, and I can find no one else who did, then what harm is there to the family? Please, tell me what catastrophes or terrible outcomes await us if gay marriages continue as opposed to if they are stopped? Would not the precedent of a religious minority able to codify its own morality offer a greater risk to Mormonism and to society than gay marriage? Is going down the slippery slope of taking rights away from minorities really a good idea?

If only it were merely an internal church argument now.

Intensity of the rhetoric appears to be escalating.

Anti-gay violence has been linked to the matter.

Catholic Church and Mormon involvement have built, largely because of questions about nonprofit church involvement in electoral affairs, a terrible fire.