The 5 W's - Who, What, When, Where and WHY

Paul Rolly's column in today's Tribune is (in my humble opinion) a must read.

While I personally support same-sex couples having the same legal right to marriage as heterosexuals, I also believe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had the right to take a stand on the issue and counsel its members to do the same.

The church currently is taking intense heat for its statements at the pulpits encouraging support of California's Proposition 8 and for the $22 million or so its members contributed to the cause.

To church leaders and many of its members, the amendment banning gay marriage is a moral issue and, while I disagree, they have the right to push their agenda using any political means under the law.

Now I don't completely agree with Rolly on his support of same-sex marriage (more on that later), I do agree (as I said before) that the protests have gone way to far when it comes to the tactics of some of the protesters. I also disagree with Rolly when he says...

Religious leaders like the Moral Majority fundamentalists have often used their substantial clerical influence to push for secular laws compatible to their faiths and help elect government officials who comply with their wishes.

Liberal organizations, too, use a commonality of belief or lifestyle to raise money and elect politicians who promote their agendas.

Issue advocacy groups on both sides of the aisle do not look for politicians who "comply" with their wishes as much as they look for politicians who share the same BELIEFS that these groups do. There is a big difference.

One of the puzzling things about this column was that the headline ("Many groups besides LDS Church push political agendas") didn't seem to match up with the column itself. The column only mentions one group (the Moral Majority). If there are other groups Rolly, how about naming them? Or would you like me to? Maybe it was simply a matter that the headline writer wrote the headline without reading the column? It would be nice to know.

If Rolly's column were to do the headline justice it really needs to spend more time focusing on these "other groups" rather than focusing (as he does) solely on the LDS Church. There are indeed many groups that lobby legislators and citizens on issues, including Prop 8. Many organizations who also lobbied voters to approve Prop 8 have not been attacked like the LDS Church has and SOMEONE needs to ask the most pressing question....WHY? Why is the Catholic Church not taking the same kind of heat that the Mormon Church is? Why are these activists not going after groups like the American Family Council for their support of Prop 8?

Rolly's continuing focus on the LDS Church and it's past lobbying efforts have - for good or for ill - continued to make the focus of this current debate the LDS Church and not the people who are shooting out windows, vandalizing LDS Churches and setting fires to copies of the Book of Mormon! The glare of the spotlight needs to be on THESE bad actors and not the LDS Church! We need to focus on the actions of people who want to scare their opponents into silent submission.