8: The Mormon Proposition

Joanna Brooks, a scholar of religion who grew up in a conservative Mormon household, writes about Mormon opposition to same-sex marriage, which she argues is regularly ignored by progressive Americans as fringe politics:

But what I’m hearing from a number of Mormons deeply familiar with the Proposition 8 campaign is that the film gets it mostly right. [See also Holly Welker’s review here. – Eds] Some take exception to editing choices that sequence events out of context for dramatic effect; others wish that the filmmakers had not been so cartoonish in their depictions of anti-gay-marriage standpoints, using only notorious bigots like Utah Representative Chris Buttars.
 
But most of the Mormon folks I’m hearing from agree: to see this film is to know what we on the inside saw unfolding all around us during election season 2008.

Read the full article here.

Jake Alter is an intern for projects on religion and the public sphere at the SSRC and a former contributor to here & there. He is currently a senior at Haverford College, where he is pursuing a major in religion, a minor in political science, and a concentration in Middle East studies, with a focus on the role that Islam plays in the political dynamics of Muslim-majority nations.

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