Good point about the textbooks.

I did not blame ALL LDS members. I have relatives who are LDS and do not agree with it. As I said, though, it is no surprise to me that it came about in Utah and that nothing important happens there without the Church's sanction.

Joe, somewhere on here I wrote about that day in Casper. The pro-Mathew people were quiet and respectful. They did carry signs, some of them, which counter the hate-filled ones his people had and were screaming about. The really neat things were the cops kept phelps and co. behind a barrier in a small space AND, out of a clear blue sky, dark, somber clouds amassed very quickly and let down a silent, noise-dampening, gentle snow which shut phelps and co. up immediately. They left. Mother Nature really helped out and it was a most unusual snow for WY with no wind.

When I was PR person for the Natrona County Grassroots Project, a human rights org. and working with the WY Grassroots Project, we had a monthly seminar, speaker, movie, etc. which we invited the public to, free of charge. We always made it a point to reach out to those who we knew were anit-gay, abortion, etc. any of the human rights issues we were working on, most of them not all that popular in WY. I think we made an impact. We certainly got a lot of press when there was a hate crime and we offered help to those who were targeted. We wrote letters, articles, attended school board mtgs., etc. in support of them.

One of the women who trained us was a lesbian who travelled around the northwest teaching non-violent skills to people like us. She had been to meetings in Montana where big, intimidating men would come stand in the back of the facility with their arms crossed and their guns strapped on, visibly a threatening stance. She was a very courageous young woman.

I'll tell you the most significant and effective response I've heard about as far as communities goes and it happened in Billings, Montana. You may remember my writing about it:Not In Our Town how it all started.