Anti-Gay LDS Activities     

Karen Johnson

Testimony by Karen Johnson
Ms. Johnson is LDS and a Republican Member of the Arizona Legislature

My name is Karen Johnson, Representative for District 30. As far as I am looking at this bill, there were three different components that I think involve this bill. And they would be tax dollars, health issues and moral issues. And I would just like to cover those if I could.

Should the state be using tax dollars to grant insurance benefits to couples who are cohabiting, be it whether they are heterosexual or homosexual? I don't believe it is the proper role of government to in any way reward couples with tax-dollar benefits when they are breaking the law on cohabitation, which is found in our Arizona statutes.

Under health, the medical consequences of promiscuous sexual activity is well known. Without a marriage commitment, the heterosexual relationship often is short-lived and results in various STDs.

In homosexual relationships, research affirms that the average length of a relationship between homosexual partners is 2.7 years. The life expectancy of a homosexual male with AIDS is 39 years, without AIDS it is 42.

The insurance rates of other covered employees will rise with the added cost of insuring the types of diseases that follow the types of activities of those involved in a promiscuous heterosexual lifestyle as well as the homosexual lifestyle.

Under moral, I just think it is critical to our national health and survival to restore social virtue and purity to our state and nation. Is living together without the benefit of marriage good? Is homosexuality good?

If cohabiting and homosexual behavior is essentially detrimental to the individual and to society, besides breaking the law, then society has the responsibility to resist it and certainly not endorse it as acceptable by rewarding it with state tax benefits.

What matters morally must be determined on the basis of our best understanding about what constitutes human well being. Generally speaking, those behaviors and lifestyles which I've spoken of that promote physical health are to be encouraged, while those that essentially are injurious are to be avoided.

Today we have restaurants, airlines, public businesses and private businesses, even cities, that have increasingly adopted policies that are discriminatory toward a significant section of Americans--that is those who smoke.

How does promiscuity and homosexuality pose any such health risk? Do the behaviors practiced by homosexuals and often times heterosexuals and the consequences of these behaviors constitute a socially significant threat?

HIV and AIDS is only one of the many infections to which homosexuals are significantly prone. Since their kind of sex involves contact with human feces, such behavior carries with it a high risk of contracting such diseases as hepatitis A, Kaposi's sarcoma, anal carcinoma and other rectal infections involving gonorrhea, herpes simplex, syphilis, as well as a group of rare intestinal diseases that have been grouped together under the title gay bowel syndrome.

If the focus is kept on the medical consequences alone, moral judgments against such behavior are overwhelmingly supported by the best scientific data presently available.

Again, please let it be remembered that such a judgment does not proceed from prejudice, bigotry or homophobia. It is grounded in the concrete effects brought about by the kinds of sexual acts in which gays, lesbians, bisexuals and promiscuous heterosexuals often participate in.

Given the extreme medical risks, and the fundamental psychological problems involved, the undermining of the natural family and the threat to basic freedom, which the sexually promiscuous lifestyle constitutes, wisdom seems to point to only one solution.

These kinds of lifestyles are at best, morally suspect. They clearly are not harmless and certainly not beneficial. It does not promote the welfare of either its adherence or of the society in which it is practiced. Just the opposite is true.

Even those who place a high premium on tolerance are obligated to recognize that in matters of sexual lifestyle, socio-ideology and political agenda, sexually promiscuous sex threatens to undermine the very values and institutions, especially the family, upon on which a vital and stable society are built and sustained.

Because of this, public policies must be established by which promiscuous heterosexual activity and homosexual activity is firmly resisted.

While all people themselves must be guaranteed their full rights as citizens, and more importantly embraced as much as they will allow, and offer the hope of the significant healing and restoration of available to them, that needs to happen.

Unlike laws, morals are carved in stone and are therefore immutable. Due to the clearly recognizable consequences waiting at the lower end of the behavioral spectrum, history tells us that good public policy cannot accept variable levels of morality.

Steve May

Testimony by Steve May
The first openly gay LDS Republican Member of the Ariziona Legislature

I had hoped not to testify today. But I don't think anyone from the public should have to respond to the comments you just heard.

Let me say, I don't know if these lies are born of ignorance or bigotry or prejudice, but I am 27, and I guess Mrs. Johnson is telling me I am going to die when I am 39 or 42.

I'm offended. I'm disgusted. It's a lie. It's hard to re... (breaks off). Many members expected me, I guess, to stay in my office quietly and don't understand why I would come out publicly and oppose this ridiculous legislation. But when you attack my family, and you steal my freedom I will not sit quietly in my office. And that is exactly what this is. It's an attack on my family, and an attack on my freedom.

This Legislature takes my gay tax dollars. And my gay tax dollars spend the same as your straight tax dollars. If you are not going to treat me fairly stop taking my tax dollars. I'm just so flabbergasted at the lies we just heard.

Mrs. Johnson I am shocked. I don't know what else to say. This gay bowel syndrome does not exist. Speak to any real medical professional. It is just a silly creation of the radical right, big government theocrats.

I hope you understand my anger and my concern. For many of you here this is an academic, public policy discussion, but for me, it is about defending my family and my freedom.

This is very personal to me. My family and my freedom are under attack, and I don't understand where in the constitution it says that I should not be treated fairly and equally under the law.

Mrs. Johnson, members of the committee, Mr. Chairman, you can hate me. You can discriminate against me. You can be as bigoted as you want to be. But treat me fairly under the law.

Specifically to this bill, let me say this, Tucson spends about $14 million a year in health benefits. Their domestic partner benefits cost $25,000 a year. In Pima County they spend about $225,000 on domestic partner benefits, which is 1-1/2 percent of their total expenditure on health insurance benefits.

I think this is very poor public policy. Beyond all that we heard from Mrs. Johnson, the bill is poor public policy. Why are we dictating to the cities and counties and other political subdivisions management decisions? Why are we removing their right to reimburse and compensate their employees as they best see fit?

That's really the issue. But Mrs. Johnson raised other silliness that unfortunately I have to respond to.

Let me ask you this, I don't think divorce is good. Why don't we stop people from getting married third, fourth and fifth times? Why isn't that part of the problem?

I'm not asking for the right to marry, but I would like this Legislature to leave my family alone.

And as far as undermining the family, whether Mrs. Johnson or this body wants to recognize it or not, I have a family. I have chosen to create a family. You might not love my partner the way I do. You might not understand why I have the family that I do. But the only thing you can do, the only thing you can do, is prohibit me from taking care of my family.

You cannot make me break up with my partner, whom I love. You can't change what we do in our private lives. But you can take away my ability to care for the people I love. That's all this legislation is about.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I did not want to talk today. I think the public should be able to express to you their concerns about this bill, but I am disgusted and offended by the lies that were told to you by Mrs. Johnson, and I challenge you Mrs. Johnson to come up with some real facts, instead of the lies that you just gave the committee.

I am just appalled. I am appalled and offended as a member of this body. I don't know what else to say, but I guess I should start planning my funeral since I am going to die in 12 years.