Woah, it has been a LONG time since we've done a WHHS!!! But with Pride London coming up this weekend (so exciting!!), we thought it was about time. Prepare to be caught up!
Today, we were happy to find out that the wonderful Anderson Cooper has come out of the closet (finally)! He is a talented and charismatic reporter, and while he is great whether gay or straight, we are happy to have another positive role model come out of the closet. We are so proud of you Anderson! And loved watching you with Kathy Griffin do the New Years Countdown a few years ago!! (The below video makes us love him and her so much!)
This past Saturday, 150 members of the Latter Day Saints church have left the religion, citing the church's extreme opposition to equal marriage and inconsistencies in teachings about polygamy as reasons for the 'Declaration of Independence from Mormonism'. This mass movement is very unusual, because the Mormon church promotes a culture of obedience. However, the last few years, as the church leaders have become more vocal about their disagreement with gay rights and homosexuality, in our opinion, the church's followers have in turn become more accepting and vocal in their beliefs about what is right. Chic-Fil-A, a LDS owned chain of restaurants, donated over $2 million to anti-gay groups (what a waste of money). In contrast, this year, 300 or so gay and straight members of the LDS church walked in Salt Lake City's Pride parade, and BYU students have made their own It Gets Better video. In Idaho, Laura grew up with lots of Mormons, and is proud to call them her friends - we have not received any negativity or anything except support from the LDS church members we know in regards to our relationship - in fact, Laura's childhood friends have met Sarah and are happy and excited for us! This is just wonderful, though honestly, a little unexpected. We hope that this mass walkout is a wake-up call for the Latter Day Saints Elders - in order to be respected, you must show respect to all of your followers - and be leaders that people aspire to be like. The church should take a page out of some of our wonderful Mormon friends and fellow bloggers with open minds and open hearts!Like our gorgeous blogger friend Jennie over at Oh...This Is Awkward who featured us in a little guest post to get to know us better! Check it out HERE, and scroll down to the comments section to read her pretty inspiring thoughts about the LDS church and gay rights!!
In personal gay rights news, our lovely friends Megan and Whitney are FINALLY together for good!!! Whitney had her Visa approved to move here to the UK (from the USA) and we got to see them both on Saturday!! We had a wonderful time catching up, stayed over at their new house, and are very thankful that we have such great friends so close to us to visit! Congrats, girls!!
Our other favourite girls, Sarah and Lauren, are planning their wedding, and so far have had some very interesting experiences planning their British Civil Partnership - some good, some bad, and some we hadn't even thought about! Check out their blog to read all about it. They are such wonderful and thoughtful friends, and we are so excited to see them this weekend for Pride!!!!
And you know what else? We are very excited about this. We got the new Samsung Galaxy S3 phones!! They are absolutely incredible, and we couldn't be happier with our decision to go for them. Now we have matching covers for them (Laura's pink and Sarah's purple, of course!!)
Are you going to be at Pride in London this year?? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to find out where we are, and make sure to say hi if you see us on the day!!
Love always,
Laura & Sarah xo
The LDS church phenomena is interesting to me. I am both a Mormon and a huge supporter of gay rights. I work with the people that put out the BYU It Gets Better video and it is a personal mission of mine to make it comfortable and normal for the LGBTQ community to feel accepted within the LDS church.
ReplyDeleteLast year one of my work friends who is gay found out I was Mormon. He said, "So you don't support gay marriage?" and it REALLY bothered me because I DO support gay marriage. I honestly think that the way the LDS church is going about this is hypocritical to it's core teachings...which is being Christlike and loving everyone. People are slowly coming about. I am very vocal about my support of gay marriage to my parents and they just barely coming around to see where I'm coming from....four years later. Sigh. It's a process.
Lovely post ladies!
Jenny, it's a generational thing. Generally speaking, people under 35 can't even understand what the fuss is about. What's interesting is to see the rate of change in public opinion is moving very fast, I think we're at the tipping point where it's becoming a majority opinion.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I think language is important in these discussions. It isn't "gay marriage" just like it isn't "black & white marriage" or "japanese marriage" it's just marriage, and the issue is one of marriage equality.
In a very real respect laws like the DOMA, "Defence of Marriage Act", are nothing less than "Jim Crow" laws for Gay people. i.e. the people who are voting for DOMA today are the same as people who voted for "whites only" drinking fountains in the 50's. The passage of time will show these people they are on the wrong side of history - again.
My two penneth.
I am a LDS, very happy to be. I however; do not believe that I have the right to tell anyone else how to live their lives. I don't judge other people's sexuality. That is not what I was put on this earth for. I cannot make another person's choice, I have lived my life in a manner that most people would judge but that is up to me to live with, not anyone else. Just be happy and forget the people that judge... Heavenly Father will not be happy with people that think that it is their right to judge.
ReplyDeleteAww yay thanks for our mention :) see you on saturday! M & W xxx
ReplyDeleteThe LDS news is something friends and I were discussing last night at dinner actually. One of my best friends was raised Mormon, but does not consider herself to be Mormon, for many reasons - but one of the largest is the church's unwillingness to accept the LGBT community. I love that the light is being shone upon it now.
ReplyDelete