Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons

Russell Kennedy, a member of the student senate at SUU who is working against discrimination, addressed the crowd in downtown Cedar City.

SUU Students to Waddoups: Listen to LDS Church
LGBT Community Responds to Threats Made by Utah Senator Michael Waddoups

28 February 2010

Some 50 people attended a rally in Cedar City last Saturday and voiced the need for laws to bar discrimination against LGBT people.

Benjamin Smith, president of the Queer Straight Alliance at Southern Utah University (SUU), told the crowd legislators should be encouraged to pass such legislation.

“Now there is no legal recourse for the [LGBT] community,” Smith said. “We can be openly fired or denied jobs and housing.”

He said he planned the rally in response to comments by Utah Senate president Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, who is opposed to further anti-discrimination legislation. Waddoups is making threatening statements against the GLBT community at a time when the LDS Church is expressing itself against GLBT discrimination in areas such as housing.

“Utah should start looking at the facts,” Smith said. “They should listen to the LDS Church when they say what is good for one people is good for all people.”

He also quoted Matthew Arnold: “Free thinking in one age is the common sense of the next,” he said.

Russell Kennedy, a member of the student senate at SUU, told the crowd he wrote a resolution adopted by the school that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. “Our time is now. We deserve to live our own truth with respect for who we are and others for who they are,” he said.

In an interview, Kennedy recalled growing up in Delta and being afraid to reveal he was gay. He shared the fear he felt after the torture death of Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming in 1998. “We're here for every Matthew Shepherd,” he said.

Christopher McArdle, former president of Southern Utah Pride Association Inc., stood on Main Street with a sign promoting equality and waving to drivers. He said acceptance of LGBT is gaining momentum in southern Utah.

“Especially in St. George, it's amazing,” said McArdle. “There are gay-straight alliances in the high schools and students can now be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. ...We're building a foundation [of tolerance] for the future.”

Sala Tumanuvao traveled from St. George for the rally, which she described as “awesome.” She said she helped start a gay-straight alliance at Desert Hills High School despite resistance from school administrators.