c. 2008 The Salt Lake Tribune

SALT LAKE CITY _ The thought of going to church makes Carol Oldham cry. She can’t face one more sermon against same-sex marriage. She can’t tolerate the glares at the rainbow pin on her lapel.

Oldham, a lifelong Mormon, is troubled by her church’s zeal in supporting a California ballot initiative that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. She feels the church is bringing politics into her sanctuary.

“It has tainted everything for me,” Oldham said, choking up during a telephone interview from Southern California. “I am afraid to go there and hear people say mean things about gay people. I am in mourning. I don’t know how long I can last.”

The campaign to pass Proposition 8 represents the most vigorous and widespread political involvement by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) since the late 1970s, when it helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. It even departs from earlier efforts on behalf of traditional marriage, in which members felt freer to decide their level of involvement.

This time, Mormon leaders have tapped every resource, including the church’s built-in phone trees, e-mail lists and members’ willingness to volunteer and donate money. Many California members consider it a directive from God and have pressured others to participate.

Some leaders and members see it as a test of faith and loyalty. Those who disagree with the campaign say they feel unwelcome in wards that have divided along political lines. Some are avoiding services until after the election; others have reluctantly resigned.

“I do expect the church to face a high cost _ both externally and internally _ for its prominent part in the campaign,” said LDS sociologist and Proposition 8 supporter Armand Mauss of Irvine, Calif. He believes church leaders feel a “prophetic imperative” to speak out against gay marriage.

Robert Rees, a former LDS bishop in California, says he has not witnessed this much divisiveness in the church over a political issue in the last 50 years.

Whatever the vote’s outcome, Rees says, “it will take considerable humility, charity and forgiveness to heal the wounds caused by this initiative.”

Latter-day Saints are free to disagree with their church on the issue without facing any sanction, said L. Whitney Clayton of the LDS Quorum of the Seventy. “We love them and bear them no ill will.”

Still, he emphasized that most Mormons in California support the church’s efforts on behalf of the initiative.

“Our doctrine affirms that marriage is important to Heavenly Father’s plan of action on Earth,” he said. “It is the center of religion. We also believe (traditional) marriage is good for society.”

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In 1999, Mormons joined other churches in California to promote Proposition 22, which also prohibited gay marriage. Mormons canvassed their neighborhoods and completed other assignments in support of the initiative, which passed. The California Supreme Court overturned it in May, however, and the move to up the ante with a constitutional amendment took hold.

Earlier this year, Catholic Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco, the former bishop of Salt Lake City, wrote LDS President Thomas S. Monson enlisting LDS support for the amendment.

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The LDS First Presidency announced its support for Proposition 8 in a letter read in every Mormon congregation. Since then, California LDS leaders have prompted members to sign up volunteers, raise money, pass out brochures produced by outsiders and distribute lawn signs and bumper stickers. Bishops have devoted whole Sunday school classes and the weekly Relief Society and priesthood meetings to outlining arguments against same-sex marriage. Some have pointedly asked members for hefty financial donations, based on tithing. Others have even asked members to stand or raise their hands to publicly indicate their support.

Gary Lawrence, writing in the online Meridian Magazine, compared opponents of Proposition 8 to those who sided with Lucifer against Jesus in the pre-mortal existence. Others have questioned such members’ faith and religious commitment, accusing them of undermining the prophet.

Literature written by Proposition 8 proponents is freely distributed in Mormon wards, giving the impression the church approves it, but much of it is “misinformation,” said Morris Thurston, an LDS attorney in Orange County, Calif.

Thurston has circulated a point-by-point refutation to an anonymously authored document that has been widely disseminated by Mormons, “Six Consequences … If Proposition 8 Fails.” Thurston argues that most of its arguments are either untrue or misleading.

He welcomes critiques of his analysis, but some have been hostile and many question his motives.

“I feel like I am entitled to my opinions, especially when they involve legal matters,” Thurston said, “and I don’t think I should be compared to Satan’s minions.”

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Many opponents choose to keep quiet at church, while seeking kindred spirits online. Several Web sites have emerged, including Mormonsformarriage.org, which give participants a chance to tell their stories, share their perspectives on the measure and swap information.

“We wanted to provide information and fact check the claims, and we wanted it to be provided by people who are still active and involved,” said Laura Compton, one of the site’s managers. “We get between 400 and 800 hits per day.”

Compton’s views are well known in her LDS ward, but she and her husband, LDS writer Todd Compton, have not been pressured at all. Their leaders have done a good job, she said, of keeping politics out of church.

She knows, though, that the conflict has taken its toll on California Mormons.

“Our wards are falling apart,” Compton said. “But we still have to sit next to each other after the election.”

(Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.)

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A version of this story first appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune and is available for RNS subscribers.

A photo of L. Whitney Clayton is available via https://religionnews.com.