Holyfield "Beats" Romney In Two Rounds

Via Fox News:

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and five-time heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield squared off in the ring Friday at a charity fight night event in Salt Lake City. Romney, 68, and Holyfield, 52, sparred, if you could call it that, for just two short rounds before Romney ran away from the boxer and threw in the towel, giving up a round early in the lighthearted fight that came amid several other fights by professional boxers and an auction. The two barely threw any punches and largely just danced around, occasionally lightly jabbing each other in the midsection in what was much more of a comedic event than an actual bout. The black-tie affair raised money for the Utah-based organization CharityVision, which helps doctors in developing countries perform surgeries to restore vision in people with curable blindness.

Romney Vs Holyfield: The Weigh-In

Via NBC News:

In this corner, weighing in at 236 pounds: Evander Holyfield, the former heavyweight champion of the world. And in this corner, weighing in at 179 pounds — Mitt Romney? The former Republican presidential nominee? Relax. It's for a good cause: They're stepping into the ring Friday night in Salt Lake City to raise money for Charity Vision, which fights blindness in some of the poorest countries in the world. "You've heard my critics say that I'm out of touch. That I'm stiff. That I just don't relate to people," Romney deadpans in a promotional video. "For years I've been listening to garbage like that. And I've decided to fight back."

UTAH: Openly Gay State Sen. Jim Dabakis To Run For Mayor Of Salt Lake City

"I believe a great mayor needs a big heart! The mayor is the leader of the City. It is the mayor's job to bring people together. Find common ground. Unite the community! A mayor needs to be out of his office. Out in the community - every day. Checking the pulse. Out in the neighborhoods. At the festivals. At the neighborhood barbecues. Sitting down with the Hispanic Community. Invading the west side with attention, jobs, and clean development. The mayor should be equally comfortable at the Utah Pride Festival or sitting at the LDS Conference! The mayor needs to be an active, uniting force, bringing our communities together! I pledge to do that." - Openly gay Utah state Sen. Jim Dabakis, in a press release announcing his bid for mayor of Salt Lake City.

RELATED: Dabakis, who is the co-founder of Equality Utah and the Utah Pride Center, married his husband in 2013 on the day that same-sex marriage became legal there. The ceremony was officiated by current Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, a Democrat, who has already announced his plan to run for a third term.

UTAH: LDS Church Backs LGBT Rights In Return For Stiffer Religion Carve-Outs

Via Salt Lake City's Fox affiliate:

In at least one big and bruising culture-war battle, the Mormon church wants to call a partial truce. Convening a rare press conference on Tuesday at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, Mormon leaders pledged to support anti-discrimination laws for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, as long the laws also protect the rights of religious groups. In exchange, the Mormon church wants gay rights advocates — and the government — to back off. “When religious people are publicly intimidated, retaliated against, forced from employment or made to suffer personal loss because they have raised their voice in the public square, donated to a cause or participated in an election, our democracy is the loser,” said Elder Dallin Oaks, a member of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles. “Such tactics are every bit as wrong as denying access to employment, housing or public services because of race or gender.”

At today's press conference Oaks cited Houston's subpoenaing of pastors as a recent example of Christians being oppressed. In 2009 the Mormon Church backed an LGBT rights ordinance in Salt Lake City and while they say they still oppose same-sex marriage, today's announcement is meant to indicate support for similar legislation elsewhere. With one condition.

UPDATE: Openly gay Utah state Sen. Jim Dabakis just sent us a statement.

"I am proud that the LDS Church has seen fit to lead the way in non-discrimination. As a religious institution, Mormons have had a long history of being the victims of discrimination and persecution. They understand more than most the value and strength of creating a civil society that judges people by the content of their character and their ability to do a job. Since serving as a Senator, and as the only LGBT member of the Utah legislature, I can say one of the joys of the job has been to meet and enjoy the company of LDS officials. I know that together, we can build a community that strongly protects religious organizations constitutional liberties and, in addition, creates a civil, respectful, nurturing culture where differences are honored and everyone feels welcome. Now, lets roll up our sleeves, get to work and pass a statewide Non-Discrimination Bill."

Dabakis is the co-founder of Equality Utah. Hours after same-sex marriage became legal there in December 2013, he married his husband in a ceremony officiated by Salt Lake City's mayor.

LDS Explains Mormon Underwear

Via the Washington Post:

For years, the Mormon Church’s undergarments have been mocked and misunderstood. Often referred to jokingly as “magic Mormon underwear,” the garb, which resembles a T-shirt and shorts, has been ridiculed on Broadway, referenced in political campaigns and exploited online for profit. That’s why the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has come forward to explain one of its most sacred Mormon mysteries. The church released a four-minute video on its Web site, comparing the white two-piece cotton “temple garments” to the priest’s cassock, nun’s habit, Jewish prayer shawl, Muslim’s skullcap and Buddhist monks’ saffron robes. It rejected the perception that the garments have protective powers. The term “magic underwear” is “not only inaccurate but also offensive,” the video said. “There is nothing magical or mystical about temple garments, and church members ask for the same degree of respect and sensitivity that would be afforded to any other faith by people of goodwill.”

Anti-Gay World Congress Of Families To Hold Convention In Salt Lake City

The World Congress of Families, an international coalition of anti-gay hate groups, will bring its annual convention to Salt Lake City next year. The will be the first US convention for the Illinois-based coalition.

The organization had to cancel this year's international conference in Moscow due to turmoil related to Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Its previous world conferences were in Madrid, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Mexico City, Geneva and Prague. The World Congress of Families chose Salt Lake City for its October 2015 gathering because it has many good partner organizations in Utah, spokesman Don Feder said. The Sutherland Institute is leading the planning for the event, which is expected to draw about 3,000 people. "Marriage between a man and a woman forms the sole moral context for natural sexual union," the World Congress of Families' website says. "Whether through pornography, promiscuity, incest or homosexuality, deviations from these created sexual norms cannot truly satisfy the human spirit." The theme of the Salt Lake City event likely will be religious liberty, Feder said.

One of the leaders of the World Congress of Families is Breitbart columnist Austin Ruse, who was fired from the American Family Association radio network earlier this year after declaring that liberal college professors "should all be taken out and shot." More on Ruse below.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: In November 2013, US House Speaker John Boehner provided federal office space to the World Congress of Families after Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) had them booted out of the space they had reserved in the Senate office building. The WCF has colluded with NOM president Brian Brown in furthering Russia's pogrom of hate and violence against LGBT people and its leaders have endorsed Uganda's proposed death penalty for homosexuals. In September 2013, the WCF colluded with local neo-Nazis to successfully pressure the Serbian government to ban Belgrade Pride for the third year in a row.  In 2012 WCF leader Austin Ruse, who is also a Breitbart columnist, spoke at CPAC where he denounced the United Nations for a resolution that condemned the "extrajudicial executions" of LGBT people. Ruse is the president of C-FAM, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. Also in 2012, the WCF protested against the US Embassy in Prague for its support of local gay pride events. Signees of a letter to the government were a virtual who's who of hate.

UTAH: Cop Who Refused To Ride In Salt Lake City Pride Parade Has Resigned

Via the Associated Press:

A Salt Lake City police officer who rejected an assignment riding a motorcycle at the front of last weekend's gay pride parade and was put on leave has now resigned. Salt Lake City police officials said Tuesday they received written notification of the officer's resignation. The officer, whose name is being withheld, was put on leave last week after police said he refused to provide traffic control at Sunday's parade. Police said they would not tolerate bias and bigotry. Bret Rawson, an attorney hired by the officer, said this week that police defamed his client. Rawson said his client didn't refuse to work, but asked to be reassigned other duties because he felt uncomfortable being viewed as an advocate for gay pride.

Salt Lake police have been notified that the cop will sue. (Tipped by JMG reader Will)

UTAH: Cop Who Refused To Work Pride Parade Threatens To Sue For Defamation

There's more to this story. Via the Salt Lake Tribune:

A Salt Lake City police officer says the department defamed him and violated his rights when he was put on leave after a conflict over his assignment at Sunday’s Utah Pride Parade. "He feels that the same protections that afford individuals to participate in a parade like we had yesterday, are the very constitutional protections that were not afforded to him," Bret Rawson, the officer’s attorney, said Monday. Rawson said the officer did not refuse his assignment — to join other motorcycle officers in choreographed maneuvers at the beginning of the parade — but instead asked his commanders for a "less conspicuous" role at the parade, such as traffic enforcement or security. "The officer simply felt that the level of participation required in the event could be perceived as endorsing or advocating in favor of the LGBTQ community, a position which made him uncomfortable, given his personal and religious beliefs," Rawson wrote.

The Salt Lake City police department has declined to comment on the officer's claims, citing their having been notified of pending litigation.

UTAH: Cop Placed On Leave After Refusing To Work Salt Lake Pride Parade

Via the Associated Press:

A Salt Lake City police officer has been placed on leave after refusing an assignment to work at a gay pride parade. The officer was among about 30 officers assigned to provide traffic control and security for the annual Utah Pride Parade on Sunday in Salt Lake City, said department spokeswoman Lara Jones. "We don't tolerate bias and bigotry in the department, and assignments are assignments. To allow personal opinion to enter into whether an officer will take a post is not something that can be tolerated in a police department," Jones told KSL. She declined comment on the officer's reason for refusing the assignment.

Salt Lake City's police chief has marched in previous parades. The parade is today.

UTAH: Gays Banned From Mormon Parade

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Days of ’47 Parade organizers have denied a float application from Mormons Building Bridges, saying an entry from the group founded to improve relationships between Latter-day Saints and the gay community would be too controversial. "The parade is very specific in its requirement that no float can enter that will create controversy," Executive Vice President Greg James said Tuesday. "We wouldn’t have the Mormons Building Bridges float in there any more than we’d have the NRA [National Rifle Association] or something else that might turn people off." The July 24 event, which celebrates the Mormon pioneers’ 1847 arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, is Utah’s biggest parade. "We’re nonpartisan. We don’t take a position on any issue," James said. "One of the problems in the country right now is everyone is too polarized. We’re just trying to stay as neutral as we can."

Other groups rejected for the parade: PFLAG, Utah Pride, Equality Utah. (Tipped by JMG reader Chris)

Editorial Of The Day

From the editors of the Salt Lake Tribune:

Same-sex attraction, far from being unnatural, has been around since the dawn of time, and in recent decades mainstream America has come to accept it as something other than deviant. The American Psychiatric Association has considered homosexuality a normal sexual variation, not a mental disorder, since 1973. The Supreme Court in 2003 made same-sex sexual activity legal in every state, and then last June the court took that step of saying same-sex couples have a due-process right to marry. Younger people by and large take a more libertarian view of same-sex relationships, and that is what has fueled the nation’s shift since Utah passed its ban in 2004.

There are 32 states with laws still in effect banning gay marriage, but only one state has passed such a law since 2006. Since that time seven state legislatures have passed laws to allow same-sex marriage, and three more states did so through popular vote. Court decisions have struck down the laws in another seven states, including Utah. One of those states is California, where state officials stopped defending their same-sex marriage ban when it became obvious where the future lies. Utah’s ban passed with 66 percent of voters approving it, but it’s a legitimate question whether it would pass today if another election were held. Even the LDS Church has gone from actively participating in the marriage wars to simply explaining its own beliefs and practices.

The tide has turned. It’s time for Utah to turn with it.

(Tipped by JMG reader Matthew)

UTAH: Boy Scouts Delivered Pizza To Workers Processing Gay Marriage Licenses

Note the rainbow kerchief. Source.

At The Salt Lake County Clerk's Office

Salt Lake City's Fox affiliate is live-streaming their news.

UTAH: Salt Lake City Mayor Performs Wedding For Gay State Senator

Endorsement Of The Day

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?" The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear.[snip]

In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem-solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust. Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first.

(Tipped by JMG reader Jeremy)

Mormon Allies March In Salt Lake Pride

Hundreds of straight Mormon allies marched yesterday in Salt Lake City's gay pride parade.

Before the drag queens in heels danced across Main Street, more than 300 members of the LDS Church left Utah Gay Pride Parade spectators in tears Sunday morning. One Mormon father turned to the crowd and thanked people for forgiving him. The group, Mormons Building Bridges, said they wanted to send a message of love to the state’s LGBT community, a message they believe is compatible with their faith. Emily Vandyke, 50, carried a sign with the words from an LDS children’s song: "I’ll walk with you, I’ll talk with you. That’s how I’ll show my love for you." Several blocks along the parade route, she embraced a tall woman weeping at the edge of the crowd who said, "Thank you." "I haven’t recognized them as equals," Vandyke said a few minutes later. "They have been invisible to me." Later, parade Grand Marshal Dustin Lance Black, tweeted: "In tears. Over 300 straight, active Mormons showed up to march with me at the Utah Pride parade in support of LGBT people."

America's Gayest Town: Salt Lake City?

So sez the Advocate's, using the above formula for the calculations.

Now Seen In Salt Lake City

(Source)

Photo Of The Day: Salt Lake's Pink Dot

Inspired by Singapore's event of the same name, yesterday Salt Lake City residents gathered for their first Pink Dot celebration. [Photo credit: Steve Griffin/Salt Lake Tribune]

Oct. 11th: Utah's Pink Dot