Protest, civility in democracy

Dallas Morning News: After the Proposition 8 victory in California overturned the state Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriages, outraged gays and lesbians and their supporters have launched protests. This is entirely understandable. They believe that their civil rights have been rescinded and that their families are under assault. The protests, which have gone beyond California, have been largely peaceful.

Good. This is American democracy at work.

Hate speech

But a vicious minority is not satisfied with that. Some gay rights protesters have voiced sentiments about Mormons, whose church was active in advocating Prop 8’s passage, that if said about gays would be condemned as hate speech. Vandals have struck a number of Mormon temples. Bash Back, a pro-gay group in Olympia, Wash., trashed a Mormon temple there, then issued a statement saying, “Let this be a warning to the Mormon church: Dissolve completely or be destroyed.”

And in San Francisco’s predominantly gay Castro district, an angry mob last week surrounded a small group of Christians who had been peacefully praying on a public sidewalk and chased them away. Riot police safely extricated the Christians from the area. Chilling video of the confrontation is making the rounds on YouTube.

None of this is doing the same-sex marriage cause any good, to put it mildly. Destroying property, smearing opponents with bigoted slurs, intimidating people who are exercising rights of speech and assembly — when has that ever won people over to a cause? Does violence at abortion clinics win sympathy for pro-lifers?