LDS apostle Dallin H. Oaks on Tuesday likened the post-Proposition 8 backlash against Mormons to the persecution blacks endured during the civil-rights struggle.

"Were four little Mormon girls blown up in the church at Sunday school? Were there burning crosses planted on local bishops' lawns? Were people lynched and their genitals stuffed in their mouths?" asked University of Utah historian Colleen McDannell. "By comparing these two things, it diminishes the real violence that African-Americans experienced in the '60s, when they were struggling for equal rights. There is no equivalence between the two."

Oaks, in a strongly worded defense of the church's efforts opposing same-sex marriage, told students at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg that Latter-day Saints "must not be deterred or coerced into silence" by advocates for "alleged civil rights."

Last year, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urged its followers to donate money and time to pass Prop 8, the successful ballot measure that eliminated the right of same-sex couples to wed in California. Afterward, protests, including several near LDS temples, erupted along with boycotts of business owners who donated to Prop 8 and even some vandalism of LDS meetinghouses.

"In their effect," Oaks said, "they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation."

Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP's Salt Lake branch, said there is "no comparison."

"I don't see where the LDS Church has been denied any of their rights," she said. "What the gay and lesbian communities are fighting for, that is a civil-rights issue."

"We follow Jesus Christ by adhering to God's law of marriage, which is marriage between one man and one woman. This commandment has been in place from the very beginning." See: http://www.sltrib.com/Faith/ci_135548...

"Whatever the merits of current controversies over the laws of marriage ... if the decisions of federal courts can override the actions of state lawmakers on this subject, we have suffered a significant constitutional reallocation of lawmaking power from the lawmaking branch to the judicial branch and from the states to the federal government."

"Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

"My duty as a member of the Council of the Twelve is to protect what is most unique about the LDS church, namely the authority of priesthood, testimony regarding the restoration of the gospel, and the divine mission of the Savior. **Everything** may be sacrificed in order to maintain the integrity of those essential facts. Thus, if Mormon Enigma reveals information that is detrimental to the reputation of Joseph Smith, then it is necessary to try to limit its influence and that of its authors."

"I referred to these fundamentals as the divinely inspired principles in the Constitution, and I here affirm my belief that they are."

"I mention first what is probably the most important of the great fundamentals of the United States Constitution-the principle of popular sovereignty"

"The dominance of state law will also be changed if, after full review, federal courts decree that a state law on marriage is invalid under the United States Constitution."

"Another source of differences in the accounts of different witnesses is the different meanings that different persons attach to words. We have a vivid illustration of this in the recent media excitement about the word 'salamander' in a letter Martin Harris is supposed to have sent to W.W. Phelps over 150 years ago. All of the scores of media stories on that subject apparently assume that the author of that letter used the word 'salamander' in the modern sense of a 'tailed amphibian.'

"One wonders why so many writers neglected to reveal to their readers that there is another meaning of 'salamander,' which may even have been the primary meaning in this context in the 1820s.... That meaning... is 'a mythical being thought to be able to live in fire.'...

"A being that is able to live in fire is a good approximation of the description Joseph Smith gave of the Angel Moroni:... the use of the words white salamander and old spirit seem understandable.

"In view of all this, and as a matter of intellectual evaluation, why all the excitement in the media, and why the apparent hand-wringing among those who profess friendship or membership in the Church?"

"Along with many others, I see a serious threat to the freedom of religion in the current assertion of a 'civil right' of homosexuals to be free from religious preaching against their relationships. Religious leaders of various denominations affirm and preach that sexual relations should only occur between a man and a woman joined together in marriage. One would think that the preaching of such a doctrinal belief would be protected by the constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion, to say nothing of the guarantee of free speech. However, we are beginning to see worldwide indications that this may not be so."

• No marriages for gay and lesbian members
• No adoption services
• No Church employment
• No Temple admittance
• No admittance to BYU or other church run schools
• No trespassing on church-owned property (arrests of 2 gay men found on church property, and the church owns a lot of property)
• No enforcement of ethical treatment for gay and lesbian patients who patronize LDS owned hospitals. (I once heard someone day that "gays are pretty much worthless and they should all be gased" right at LDS Hospital.)
• No leasing, renting or selling of housing to gay or lesbian persons
• No protections against hate crimes or hate speech if the person who is making the threats is doing so for "religion".

Today millions of these private “associations”–religious and charitable–are responsible for tens of millions of jobs and innumerable services that benefit our citizens at every level. I speak of private educational institutions, hospitals, social welfare agencies, and innumerable other organizations ministering to the needs of children, youth, the aged, the poor, and citizens generally. The financial well-being of this private sector is dependent upon private contributions that qualify for the charitable deduction. And the impact these private institutions have on those they serve is magnified by the millions of volunteers motivated by the ideals they pursue.

For example, in the aftermath of Katrina and the other 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints aided the cleanup efforts with almost 3,000 tons of emergency supplies, over $13 million in cash and use of heavy equipment, and its members gave more than 42,000 man-days of service. Other non-profit organizations provided over $3.5 billion in cash and in-kind donations to help with relief efforts.

"The particular powers that are reserved to the states are part of the inspiration. For example, the power to make laws on personal relationships is reserved to the states. Thus, laws of marriage and family rights and duties are state laws. This would have been changed by the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.). When the First Presidency opposed the E.R.A., they cited the way it would have changed various legal rules having to do with the family, a result they characterized as "a moral rather than a legal issue." I would add my belief that the most fundamental legal and political objection to the proposed E.R.A. was that it would effect a significant reallocation of law-making power from the states to the federal government."

"14. Would the ERA further erode the constitutional division of powers? It would transfer from states to the federal government much of the power to deal with domestic relations, and further shift much law-making authority from locally elected legislators to nonelected federal judges."

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, an apostle of the church, spoke about family, the value of life, and the importance of loving everyone - all worthy subjects. He also spoke about bullying and the "permanent" psychological damage that bullying can cause children by making them feel "worthless, unloved, or unwanted."

Then, in what seemed an about-face, Oaks changed themes. After describing a long list of supposed social ills, he said that church members should "assume" that "children raised by parents of the same gender" are "disadvantaged" and "victimized" by this circumstance. He did not bother to properly support his claim, apart from vague references to an unnamed "scholar" or a supposed "New York Times article."