Moonlight, wine, a kiss, and handcuffs.

July 31, 2009 5:41 PM

The Mormon church's plaza walkway runs through the heart of downtown Salt Lake. It was originally a public sidewalk, and is still used as such by the city's downtown residents. It is common to see couples holding hands and walking arm in arm as they stroll. This hasn't been a problem, until recently. The church claims the couple was necking and groping. Video obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune doesn't show this., but it does show Mormon security in action. Charges were dropped, and the city's gay community is weighing in with a series of "kiss-ins."
posted by Crotalus (46 comments total)

From the "doesn't show this" link:

The grainy black-and-white film lacks sound and is shot from one camera, which appears to have a human at the controls, panning and zooming in to capture the encounter.

More than can be said for the security guards.
posted by yoink at 5:48 PM on July 31

More than can be said for the security guards.

You laugh but do you have any idea how hard it is to wear your special underwear and abstain from coffee long enough to be granted control of your very own planet? Oh wait, Scientology's the cult and Mormonism is the "religion." Riiiiiiight. Resuming smooching.
posted by joe lisboa at 6:03 PM on July 31

Imagine Jesus wielding a pair of handcuffs and giving someone a good shoving around like that.

Heh.
posted by loquacious at 6:03 PM on July 31

WWJD

who would Jesus detain?
posted by joe lisboa at 6:04 PM on July 31

"Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said in a statement Friday that the men were 'politely asked to stop engaging in inappropriate behavior — just as any other couple would have been.'"

"But," added a church member, "if two hot chicks are making out, Jesus says that's totally cool."
posted by mattdidthat at 6:07 PM on July 31

Now, see... I find this a much more interesting protest than merely holding hands in public.
posted by hippybear at 6:09 PM on July 31 [1 favorite]

they own the property. they didn't approve of what 2 people were doing on their property. they asked the people to stop, when the people didn't stop they were asked to leave. when they didn't leave they were charged with trespassing.

if you remove the outrage filter, i'd say that this isn't much of a story.

news flash: mormons don't like teh gays! wait - that's not a news flash. next you'll tell me that the amish don't have much use of cars and that the catholics are against abortion.
posted by nadawi at 6:20 PM on July 31 [3 favorites]

A "kiss-in" would be fun. I'd still like to see the IRS investigate the Mormon church and its leaders for tax fraud.

Less sexy, definitely, but bankrupting hate groups does work. For example, it has done a lot to minimize the influence of white supremacists elsewhere in the country.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:24 PM on July 31 [1 favorite]

"Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said in a statement Friday that the men were 'politely asked to stop engaging in inappropriate behavior — just as any other couple would have been.'"

I never realized they spoke such a different dialect in Utah. Apparently "politely asked to stop" means "thrown to the ground and handcuffed" in Salt Lake City. You know, a "kiss in" is really a brilliant response to this. I just hope it's done in a kind of light hearted way; this is a good chance to win a media battle against the Mormon church; it would be sad to see it become a propaganda victory for them. The focus should remain Mormon intolerance not become "gays attack God fearing Mormons."
posted by yoink at 6:24 PM on July 31

It was originally a public sidewalk, and is still used as such by the city's downtown residents.

Does Utah not have easement laws?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:25 PM on July 31 [2 favorites]

Does Utah not have easement laws?

Well, even if they do, they still have to apply them to the church then. A brief wiki'ing of how this works seems to indicate that if the land is currently private property of the church, the government would have to take the land by eminent domain and then give an easement back to the church instead of full property rights.

I imagine taking on the Mormon Church in such a way in Utah is a career-ender for politicians.
posted by wildcrdj at 6:34 PM on July 31

(er I guess the government has the easement in that case, but whatever. Based off wiki, assuming its accurate...)
posted by wildcrdj at 6:36 PM on July 31

If I lived in Salt Lake City, I do believe I'd have to attend the kiss-in. I don't know that I want to risk oral diseases by lip-kissing a bunch of strangers, but I'd sure as heck would be doing that Euro-style cheek-pecking greeting with everyone there. Enough with religious stupidity in our public spaces: time to assert our rights and freedoms from religion.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:37 PM on July 31

And while the Mormon church may own the property, it is defacto public space. If this is the same space as hit the news years ago, it was public for the longest time, and was given (sold?) to the church with conditions attached afaic remember. Namely, that the sidewalk area would remain open to the public.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:39 PM on July 31 [2 favorites]

religious stupidity in our public privately owned spaces
posted by nadawi at 6:40 PM on July 31

Well, that's the real question then, can it be demonstrated (through deed or whatever) that the property came with the condition that the walkway be public or not. If it was just a "hey, we trust you guys" then that's a lot murkier.
posted by wildcrdj at 6:41 PM on July 31

posted by Blazecock Pileon Does Utah not have easement laws?

Probably, but the public's right to use the sidewalk (the "right to pass by permission and subject to control of owner") depends on whether SLC got an easement for the sidewalk when the property was sold to the Church. According to this: In 1999 the church paid the city $8.1 million to close a portion of Main Street and connect the main LDS administration building and Temple Square. While allowing an easement for public access on the sidewalk, the agreement restricted such activities as loitering, picketing, begging, using tobacco, and distributing literature.
posted by mattdidthat at 6:42 PM on July 31 [2 favorites]

they own the property. they didn't approve of what 2 people were doing on their property. they asked the people to stop, when the people didn't stop they were asked to leave. when they didn't leave they were charged with trespassing.

if you remove the outrage filter, i'd say that this isn't much of a story.

No, the property was sold to the Mormon church so they could be bigots on "public" land. This is misappropriation of government property so the church can enforce their views on the common space.
posted by zabuni at 6:48 PM on July 31 [7 favorites]

the property was sold to the Mormon church so they could be bigots on "public" land [citation needed]
posted by nadawi at 6:53 PM on July 31

Link to complete article here.
posted by mattdidthat at 6:55 PM on July 31 [1 favorite]

Apparently, the Church subsequently bought the easement.
posted by mattdidthat at 6:58 PM on July 31

Isn't there some kind of 'implied public walkway' in the law? 'Implied easement' turns up quite a few hits on Google.

If so, then there was no trespassing.
posted by eye of newt at 7:15 PM on July 31

While I had understood for a long time that the Deseret News (the source of the first link) was Utah's largest newspaper, I hadn't realised until yesterday, when I finished reading Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, that (a) the Deseret News is wholly owned by the LDS church, (b) the name of the paper derives from the original, Mormon-proposed State of Deseret, and that (c) post-statehood, many Mormons continued to think of, and operate, Deseret as some Ultra-Orthodox Jews do Israel - as God-given, independent and expansive, to its original borders. Continuing to call the paper "Deseret News" after Utah was admitted to the Union can therefore be seen as a bit of nose-tweaking to the federal government that's gone on for more than 110 years.

On the other hand, they've come out strongly against torture, so there's that.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 7:23 PM on July 31 [1 favorite]

Continuing to call the paper "Deseret News" after Utah was admitted to the Union can therefore be seen as a bit of nose-tweaking to the federal government that's gone on for more than 110 years.

calling something deseret in utah is very popular. i don't think it's nose tweaking, as much as it's a common word among mormons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret
(see also: beehive)
posted by nadawi at 7:36 PM on July 31

Isn't there some kind of 'implied public walkway' in the law?

Rights-of-way can happen like that. Wikipedia refers to an "easement by prior use", for example, as well as adverse-possession-like easements. The WP article is almost entirely about English common law, though, and while a lot of that does apply in the US, it can be different in every state.
posted by hattifattener at 7:59 PM on July 31

I'm going to Godwin the fuck out of this thread, but why is it that when someone identifies as a Nazi, we're immediately able to label them as fuckwads and imply that they fully agree with all doctrines, and dismiss them out of hand, but when it's a Mormon, we have to treat each and every one of them as individuals, and we can't paint them with a broad brush?

Seriously, I am so fucking tired of the Mormon "church" and their bullshit.
posted by explosion at 8:04 PM on July 31 [4 favorites]

why is it that when someone identifies as a Nazi, we're immediately able to label them as fuckwads and imply that they fully agree with all doctrines, and dismiss them out of hand, but when it's a Mormon, we have to treat each and every one of them as individuals, and we can't paint them with a broad brush?

Because that's doing exactly what they do to gay people?
posted by blucevalo at 8:16 PM on July 31

Because that's doing exactly what they do to gay people?

You choose whether or not to be a Mormon.
posted by Malor at 10:09 PM on July 31

Because that's doing exactly what they do to gay people?

The "gay people" didn't spend millions funding an initiative (Prop 8) taking away the right for Mormons to marry their loved ones.

explosion is right. Hell, they're worse than the Nazis.* At least the Nazis had great fashion taste.

*Ignoring that whole holocaust thing of course.
posted by formless at 10:42 PM on July 31 [1 favorite]

It wouldn't surprise me to find the city ended up quietly selling the easement to the church. A two-step around the public interest. Probably some lousy greedhead made a profit by screwing the public. Typical politics.

We need change.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:39 PM on July 31

I'm going to Godwin the fuck out of this thread, but why is it that when someone identifies as a Nazi, we're immediately able to label them as fuckwads and imply that they fully agree with all doctrines, and dismiss them out of hand, but when it's a Mormon, we have to treat each and every one of them as individuals, and we can't paint them with a broad brush?

This. Also, Christians, Republicans, Hipsters, Windows-users, USians, Eurotrash, Israelis, Arabs, The Steve Jobs Mafia, and 4Chan. Who else? Oh yeah, I'm sick of all those right-handers and their backwards-ass pencil sharpeners!
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:38 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]

No, the property was sold to the Mormon church so they could be bigots on "public" land. This is misappropriation of government property so the church can enforce their views on the common space.

It's kindof amazing to me how much fuss a private party buying a sliver of land that's maybe a 1/4 acre downtown from a city has caused over the last decade.

I'd agree that the whole question about what happens when formerly public land is bought by a private party is pretty interesting, particularly if the behavior ends up writ large or there's some other kind of reasonable argument that there's a negative community-wide impact on fundamental freedoms.

But if the Mormons bought this particular spot of land as a plot to aggressively impose their views and standards on the citizens/visitors of Salt Lake City, it has got to be the most bumbling ROI fail ever. I suppose that idea could go over just fine if one considers the leadership ineffectual and mentally feeble, but I thought we were talking about a hyper-organized cult of millions that singlehandedly passed Prop 8. And that was in California, where their influence is diluted, this is in Salt Lake, the seat of their power, where some even whisper that they simply outright control the whole state!

Seriously. I've been to this space. It was already in between between two 10 acre city blocks that the Mormon Church fully owned. When they bought it the city got a chunk of cash, lost maybe 300 yards of sidewalk, and probably improved traffic in downtown SLC as a whole. Meanwhile, the church got to unify two blocks of property, make some building changes underneath the former street, route pedestrian traffic over a plaza instead of a downtown street, and spend a few years in court to finally exchange a bunch of other property in order to get what they wanted in the first place. And there's still plenty of space downtown for anybody to protest any of the actually problematic things the Mormon Church does, or if you like, smoke, drink your Mo-forbidden beverage of choice, or get your PDA on and generally exercise your civic right to make local passersby uncomfortable at the spectre of sin.

But for some reason, the rest of the mile of sidewalk that surrounds church property in downtown SLC apparently isn't as attractive for speech or whatever floats your boat.

Maybe part of the problem is that they've made that space actually nicer than it used to be, but it still somehow feels public. If you haven't taken an interest in the issue it's easy to forget that it's private property. They could probably have solved this problem by just walling it right off like the rest of the property on either side or otherwise but that would have been so... Nazi. Or Commie. Or something, right?

Yeah, escorting people off in handcuffs isn't a lot better, but on the other hand, if you're on someone's property and you decide to resist their requests to leave, I'm not sure what you expect to happen.

You choose whether or not to be a Mormon.

Well, if they're a fearsomely effective brainwashing cult whose membership comes largely from people raised in the faith, and/or if religious experiences are essentially biological, then I'd say that position is a somewhat tenuous one.

why is it that when someone identifies as a Nazi, we're immediately able to label them as fuckwads and imply that they fully agree with all doctrines

I wasn't aware this was generally considered insightful discourse. Godwin's overused, yeah, but the rule got started for the pretty good reason that most Nazi comparisons aren't very apt.

but when it's a Mormon, we have to treat each and every one of them as individuals, and we can't paint them with a broad brush?

Higher standards? An understanding of what hate and bigotry actually are?
posted by namespan at 2:11 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]

when it's a Mormon, we have to treat each and every one of them as individuals, and we can't paint them with a broad brush?

Cognitive dissonance is an individual process. When you get a group of people and you teach them a set of self-inconsistent beliefs, and then you throw on a set of facts that are additionally inconsistent with some of those beliefs, even if everybody gets the same sets everybody is not going to react the same way. Add in personal experiences, which again are likely to contradict a few beliefs but which aren't even the same from individual to individual, and you're guaranteed that the reactions are going to be different.

The currently most common rationalization modern Mormons have for Mormonism's past anti-black bigotry seems to be "that was just the personal prejudice of their times, no matter how certain they acted that it came from God, and God helped us move past it when the culture was ready". I've talked to a few (too few...) Mormons who are thoughtful enough to realize that the exact same "logic" could apply to Mormonism's present anti-gay bigotry; it would be a little unfair to lump them in with their peers and leaders who are actively encouraging that bigotry.

And, although the comparison was ridiculous, treating people like individuals goes for Nazis as well as Mormons. For a couple famous examples, the Pope's Hitler Youth registration rightly is the subject of more comedy than moral outrage, and it wasn't just out of self-interest that we didn't put Von Braun on trial for war crimes. Even Nazi evils varied in magnitude and their members varied in complicity.
posted by roystgnr at 6:52 AM on August 1

The church claims the couple was necking and groping. Video obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune doesn't show this.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure most religions have flexible rules when it comes to lying.
posted by DU at 8:24 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]

they didn't approve of what 2 people were doing on their property.

California is Mormon private property?
posted by DU at 8:25 AM on August 1 [4 favorites]

I'm confused. Exactly how does the polygamy work without the implied homosexuality of at least some of the members of the family?
posted by mikelieman at 9:40 AM on August 1

To be fair, I'm pretty sure most religions have flexible rules when it comes to lying.

All Mormon lying is done for the greater glory of the Lord. You wouldn't understand!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:40 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]

I'm confused. Exactly how does the polygamy work without the implied homosexuality of at least some of the members of the family?

Star topology. I think there's also some kind of token wedding ring protocol.
posted by DU at 11:48 AM on August 1 [6 favorites]

Polygamy != polyamory, per se.

From what I understand of polygamous households, the women are married to the man, not to each other.
posted by hippybear at 4:27 PM on August 1

mormons (as in the LDS church) haven't practiced polygamy in over a hundred years.
posted by nadawi at 4:44 PM on August 1

Fundamentalist Mormons, however, have.
posted by Amanojaku at 5:30 PM on August 1

mormons (as in the LDS church) haven't practiced polygamy in over a hundred years.

Likewise, Christians (as in the Church of England) aren't science-denying political activists who wouldn't know Jesus if he really came again.
posted by DU at 5:53 PM on August 1

fundamentalist mormons have nothing to do with the LDS church. they aren't involved in temple square or prop 8. they aren't allowed to partake in LDS rites or rituals. they are a different group of people.
posted by nadawi at 9:33 PM on August 1

Mormonism is ludicrous, fundamentalist or not. The "religion" doesn't even have the excuse of being an ancient cultural artifact¹. It was founded by a man who is obviously a lying nutcase². There's no "once upon a time" aspect to soften and mellow its history. It just hasn't a hope of qualifying as a "respectful" religion.

I'm an atheist. I think global society would be much, much better-off without religion. It's the last tribal institution and it needs to go away. So it's not that I particularly give religion any respect whatsoever. But as religions go, the Mormon one is particularly ridiculous. Puh-lease.

So, uh, yeah, meet you down in the plaza for a five-second affair for the benefit of the security cameras! Kissy kiss!

¹ Society's appendix.
² Seriously. Don't even go there. It is recent history, you aren't going to get past the known facts.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:54 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]

It wouldn't surprise me to find the city ended up quietly selling the easement to the church. A two-step around the public interest. Probably some lousy greedhead made a profit by screwing the public. Typical politics.

A little research research refutes this.

In essence, the Mormons paid this small parcel of downtown property twice, the initial time with 8 million dollars, and a second time with another 4 1/2 million and more property (multiple times the size of the disputed area).

How did the public get screwed? It doesn't look like they got shafted in terms of value for the land. If anything, the Mormons got the short end of the stick. And if you're going to say "in freedoms," please read my above post.

o it's not that I particularly give religion any respect whatsoever. But as religions go, the Mormon one is particularly ridiculous. Puh-lease.

So, uh, yeah, meet you down in the plaza for a five-second affair for the benefit of the security cameras! Kissy kiss!

Look, you wanna make a point-by-point list of things you find ridiculous about the Mormon beliefs, I can probably outdo you, and I don't think there's anything wrong with telling the world what you find objectionable about anybody's beliefs. But if you want to flout what looks like a legit claim to property rights just to show disrespect, you're doing it for the satisfaction of your own biases, not because it's part of a path to some kind of more enlightened world.
posted by namespan at 4:12 PM on August 2

I'm glad to hear it wasn't politics as usual. There is a lot of that happening in my neck of the woods, where public resources are being privatized in ways that harm the long-term interest of the public.

There is an intermingling of public and private functions in the Salt Lake City situation. It would be best to separate them in the interests of ensuring misunderstandings do not occur. Either the space is truly public, or the public should be respecting private space. Clearly there is some confusion at to what type of space it is.

Kissing will, at the least, resolve the issue. Hopefully for the better. That could be acceptance of gays in publicly-accessible spaces; or it could be the further distancing of the Mormon church from modern society. In the long run, it is all the same. The queers are here to stay. Get used to it, Mormons.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:14 PM on August 2