BIG LOVE
few months later, the actor Tom
Hanks, then serving as an executive producer of Big Love, an HBO
drama about a family of fundamentalist Mormons in Utah that
practices polygamy, blasted the
church’s support for Prop 8 as
“un-American” at a premiere
party for the show. (Hanks later
apologized without backing down
from his basic premise: “No one
should use ‘un- American’ lightly
or in haste. I did,” he said.)
In August 2010, CNN released
a poll showing for the first time
that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage. President Barack Obama
announced his “evolution” on the
issue two years later. And then
came June 26, 2013, when the
Supreme Court both overturned
Prop 8 on technical grounds and
ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996
law barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex
marriages, was unconstitutional.
In his dissent, Justice Antonin
Scalia predicted that the court’s
DOMA decision would lead to
judges striking down same-sex
marriage bans in states throughout the country. Judge Shelby,
in his December ruling on Utah’s
HUFFINGTON
03.09.14
ban, said he agreed with Scalia’s
interpretation that such a move
was “inevitable.”
The official Mormon response
was tepid. “The Church has been
consistent in its support of traditional marriage while teaching
that all people should be treated
“I need the world to
see that our family,
these kids, we’re no
goddamned different
from anyone else.”
with respect,” it said in a statement after Shelby’s X