Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons

Anti-Gay LDS Activities

Infamous “Sodom = Argentina” banner displayed during the demonstration co-sponsored by the LDS Church

Elder Carlos Agüero: LDS public affairs director in Argentina who represented the LDS Church in the coalition

Benigno Blanco: Spanish member of the secretive Opus Dei and one of the main advisors for the Argentine coalition against equality

LDS Church Was Part of Coalition Against Equality in Argentina
Mormon Director of Public Affairs Represented LDS in Conservative Coalition

by Seba Martínez
July 16, 2010

Despite the LDS Church’s claim last week that it had not taken a stand on Argentine lawmekers’s move to allow gay marriage, a high-ranking church official represented the LDS Church in a coalition of religious leaders opposing marriage equality in Argentina.

Several Argentine media outlets, including La Nación, La Capital, El Tribuno, and Cronista, revealed that Carlos Agüero, LDS public affairs director for Argentina and a former Area Authority Seventy, attended a July 7 meeting with leaders from several conservative Christian churches and so-called “traditional family” organizations. The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate a massive anti-equality demonstration, which was held last Tuesday, led by Argentina’s Catholic hierarchy.

The First Presidency instructed Mormon leaders in Buenos Aires to read to all members a letter asserting that “marriage is between a man and a woman and is ordained of God.” The timing of the letter was no accident: It was read 48 hours before the anti-equality demonstration. Many believe the letter, sent only to Buenos Aires units, therefore had a coded message: Attend and support the Catholic-led demonstration to be held this Tuesday.

The Argentine newspaper Página 12 reveled that one of the main advisors for the Argentine coalition against equality was Benigno Blanco, a member of the secretive and powerful Catholic group Opus Dei. In order to advise the coalition, Blanco flew from Spain, where he helped design the Catholic Church’s strategy against marriage equality in that country. Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005.

Despite his highly visible role as the LDS Church’s Argentine director of public affairs, Agüero refused to respond to phone and e-mail queries by The Salt Lake Tribune or to explain his involvement in the coalition.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of opponents of marriage equality attended the protests that Agüero and other religious leaders had organized, but their opposition was not enough to stop Argentina’s Senate from legalizing gay marriage.

Since 1996, the LDS Church has been part of a worldwide coalition which actively fights against women’s equal rights and opposes LGBT families. In 2005, British reporter Brian Whitaker wrote that the coalition includes Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a controversial Islamic scholar who approves of wife-beating; Alfonso Trujillo, a Catholic cardinal who campaigns against condoms; and Mahathir Mohamad, the dictatorial former prime minister of Malaysia.

Since the 1990s, the LDS Church has aggressively campaigned against LGBT families in Utah, Hawaii, Washington, Alaska, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Nebraska, Texas, and other states. In California alone, the LDS Church made Mormons contribute $30 million of the $42 million total raised in support of Proposition 8.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission recently determined the LDS Church violated the state’s political contributions law in its aggressive campaigning against marriage equality.