74-79_news.qxd 10/15/2003 10:21 AM Page 74 SUNSTONE UPDATE CONFERENCE SPEAKERS DENOUNCE in two arrests during General Conference—and those arrested IMMORALITY IN THE MEDIA were on the Mormon side. In one incident, a man was arrested after allegedly assaulting THE DANGERS OF television, movies, and the Internet were a street preacher Devin Allen. Allen was apparently sneezing into recurrent theme in the October 2003 General Conference. an LDS temple garment, carrying it around his neck, and “What comes out of Hollywood, off the Internet, and in much placing it on his buttocks in front of the conference-going of today’s music creates a web of decadence that can trap our crowd. About half an hour later, a second man grabbed a gar- children and endanger all of us,” said Elder M. Russell Ballard ment from street preacher Lonnie Pursifull, who was waving of the Quorum of the Twelve during the Saturday morning ses- the sacred clothing in the air. The man was cited and released. sion. Ballard counseled Latter-day Saints to “speak out and join Some local residents, including some who are not LDS, went with many other concerned people in opposition to the offen- to Temple Square specifically to protest the protesters. Some sive, destructive, and mean-spirited media influence that is took a low-key approach, such as the Church member who sweeping over the earth.” stood with a sign reading, “Joseph Smith was a prophet and a Ballard’s message was echoed by Elder Quentin L. Cook of martyr,” or the group who sought to muffle the preachers’ the First Quorum of Seventy. “We are bombarded with visual yelling by standing images of violence and immorality,” decried Cook. “There has nearby and signing been a coarsening of dialogue and increased exposure to that LDS hymns. Others, which is base and vulgar.” such as Josh Peters, President Boyd K. Packer denounced the dangers of the took a more light- Internet. “To [Satan], the Internet is . a net to ensnare you hearted tactic, into a wicked addiction with pornography,” he said. standing between Salt Lake Tribune “Unhappiness will follow.” two of the street Referring to immorality in TV, President Gordon B. preachers with a RICK EGAN, Hinckley praised the Church- sign with arrows Preacher protester Josh Peters stands next to Lonnie Pursifull with an “I’m with Stupid” sign. owned TV station KSL for re- pointing at the fusing to air a program “of zealots that read, “I’m with stupid.” Another protester against salacious nature.” This was the preachers shouted and carried a sign that read, “I’m loud, apparently a reference to the so I must be right!” NBC sitcom, Coupling, which NBC’s “salacious” new focuses on the sex lives of six CHURCH TO REDEVELOP sitcom, Coupling friends. DOWNTOWN SALT LAKE AT CONFERENCE TIME, TEMPLE IN A PROJECT that will cost “hundreds of millions of dollars,” SQUARE BECOMES BATTLE GROUND LDS officials have unveiled a plan to redevelop entire blocks of downtown Salt Lake. The Church, which recently purchased EVEN THOUGH HECKLERS and protesters did not tread on the Crossroads Plaza mall, will redevelop it, adding two up- the Church-owned LDS Plaza, Temple Square clashes resulted scale residential towers to the two blocks where it and the ZCMI mall now are. LDS Business College and the Salt Lake ex- tension of Brigham Young University will be relocated to a spot on South Temple Street which is now a parking lot but which was the site of the medals plaza for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Few details were revealed regarding the new downtown colleges, but Presiding Bishop H. David Burton said in a press conference that the project is intended to revitalize not only downtown Salt Lake, but also the whole corridor between Temple Square and the Gateway Plaza, which is located to the west. Salt Lake Tribune Bishop Burton declined to say whether the Crossroads mall will join the ZCMI Center mall in closing on Sundays, or whether prospective commercial tenants, such as restaurants, will be permitted to sell alcoholic beverages. Burton empha- PAT BAGLEY, courtesy of the sized that no tithing funds will be used for any of the redevel- opment projects. PAGE 74 OCTOBER 2003 74-79_news.qxd 10/15/2003 10:22 AM Page 75 SUNSTONE LDS LEADERS RESPOND TO LEGISLATION CONCERNING SAME-SEX UNIONS IS THE CONSTITUTION HANGING BY A THREAD? bers of Congress a document reaffirming the Church’s position ONLY DAYS AFTER the U.S. against same-sex marriage which quotes a 1999 statement by Supreme Court decriminalized President Gordon B. Hinckley: “God-sanctioned marriage be- sodomy and Canada legalized tween a man and a woman has been the basis of civilization same-sex marriage, LDS leaders, for thousands of years. There is no justification to redefine members, and lawmakers vigor- what marriage is. Such is not our right, and those who try will ously reaffirmed their opposition find themselves answerable to God” (Ensign [Nov. 1999], 54). to same-sex unions. GAY MORMONS RESPOND Elder M. Russell Ballard “The family continues to be as- saulted relentlessly through the TWO WEEKS AFTER world,” said Apostle M. Russell Ballard at a BYU Education Elder Ballard’s BYU Week devotional address. “Gender is being confused, and speech, the executive gender roles are being repudiated. Same-gender marriage is committee of Affirm- being promoted in direct opposition to God’s primary purpose ation: Gay and for His children to experience mortality.” He added, “When Lesbian Mormons, de- Satan wants to disrupt the work of the Lord, he doesn’t send a clared that gay Mor- plague of laryngitis to afflict the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He mons are “embar- Scott MacKay, Darran Holman, and Olin doesn’t legislate against green Jell-O or casseroles. When Satan rassed and saddened” Thomas, executive committee, Affirmation truly wants to disrupt the work of the Lord, he attempts to by Ballard’s remarks. confuse gender and attack God’s plan for His spirit children.” “It is difficult to understand how LDS leaders, who in the Also speaking at Education Week, BYU professor Brett past have been so persecuted and excluded for practicing an Latimer compared the battle over gay marriage to the fight alternative family model, could be now so invested in con- over slavery, which in the nineteenth century divided families demning and making illegal another alternative family and splintered churches. “We’ve survived these things before,” model,” reads a statement published in the Salt Lake Tribune said Latimer, “but we’ve never had one this dramatic. This is and on the organization’s website. bigger than the Civil War issue. This is about whether or not “Elder Ballard and other LDS leaders view the prospect of there is truth at all.” same-sex unions as nothing short of apocalyptic. But many of Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision concerning us are already living with same-sex partners, raising children, sodomy, LDS Senator Orrin Hatch stated that a constitutional and providing for our families—and we have been doing it for amendment might be necessary to ensure that homosexual many years. The sky has not yet fallen!” marriage remains illegal. “I favor a constitutional amendment Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn, who has studied the that basically establishes marriage as a family institution be- LDS involvement in the fight against same-sex marriage, finds tween a male and a female,” Hatch told the Deseret News, “so similarities between the kind of discrimination Church leaders that we can continue to preserve our families and not get fam- once practiced against blacks and the current campaign to ilies mixed up with politics.” Richard G. Wilkins, managing deny gays the right to marriage. “It takes a peculiar kind of director of BYU’s World Family Policy Center, has also argued blindness to currently affirm that [discrimination against the need for such an amendment. blacks] was ethically and morally wrong, yet argue that it is Elder LaMar Sleight, director of the Church’s office of gov- now ethically and civilly right to discriminate against [homo- ernmental affairs in Washington, D.C., has given several mem- sexuals]” (Dialogue 33, no. 3 [Fall 2000], 48). The photo at right is taken from the Church’s official website, <lds.org>, and shows the new development highlighted in white. The photo is taken from the north, looking south (note Church Office Building in center foreground and Temple Square in right foreground) OCTOBER 2003 PAGE 75 74-79_news.qxd 10/15/2003 10:22 AM Page 76 SUNSTONE People commitment to protecting natural resources,” states the group in a letter to the Committee, “and we therefore believe he is DIED. LDS actor Gordon Jump, of pul- not the right person to head the EPA.” monary fibrosis, in Los Angeles. Jump is best known for his TV role as the sta- SURPRISED. Long-time White House tion manager Arthur Carlson on the correspondent, Helen Thomas during a sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati” (1978–82) recent speech on the BYU campus. After and for his role as the repairman, “Ol’ audience applause unexpectedly greeted Lonely,” in Maytag appliance commer- her statement that President George W. cials (1989–2003). Bush is “more conservative than any president I’ve ever covered,” a flustered CONGRATULATED. Elder David B. Thomas asked, “Am I in enemy terri- Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve, tory?” for turning 97 and becoming the oldest apostle ever. Elder Haight has FEATURED. The art of President Boyd outlived President David O. McKay K. Packer. Packer is known as a World and Elder LeGrand Richards, both of War II pilot, an educator, and acting whom died at age 96, and Presidents Joseph Fielding Smith President of the Quorum of the and Ezra Taft Benson, who died at age 95 and 94, respectively.