Recently, according to a story in The Salt Lake Tribune, the city council of Kanab, Utah, a picturesque Southern-ish Utah town where many a John Wayne movie was filmed, adopted some sort of resolution in an effort to ensure that Kanab remains the kind of town it was WHEN John Wayne was visiting there. And long before that.
The resolution, drafted by the conservative Sutherland Foundation, is pretty scary. (Who are these people?!)
The nonbinding resolution – drafted by the conservative Sutherland Institute – calls marriage between a man and woman “ordained of God” and urges homes to be open to a “full quiver of children.” It also encourages young women to become “wives, homemakers and mothers” and young men to grow into “husbands, home builders and fathers.”
Okay, there’s a few clues here. A FULL QUIVER of children? Wives, homemakers and mothers? Who the hell talks like that anymore? I’m wondering if the Sutherland Institute got caught in a time warp and if you entered their doors, you would find a passel full of harried looking middle-aged men, in lab coats and horn-rimmed glasses, scurrying around with worried looks on their faces, and the only females would be young, single, and answering the phones “Sutherland Institute, please hold. Sutherland Institute, please hold. Sutherland Institute, please hold. I’m sorry, Mr. Sutherland is not in today. His wife just had their fourteenth child and he took some time off to tell his mother-in-law how to take care of the children while his wife is in the hospital.”
It sends a shiver down my spine.
To give credit to Kanab residents, most of them don’t seem all that hot about the resolution. Other than that Baptist minister guy who is excited it won’t encourage homosexuals to come to Kanab.
The Rev. Doug Hounshell says he “thanks God for a community that doesn’t think it has to be ‘gay-friendly.’ ”
“We don’t mean to be mean-spirited,” says Hounshell, pastor of Cliffview Chapel Baptist Church in Kanab. “But the message to a homosexual might be that this is probably not the friendliest town for that type of thing.”
That “type” of thing? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Repressed latent homosexuality. There is NO OTHER REASON for people to be so damned scared of gays. None. Can I shout this from the rooftops one more time? THERE IS NO GAY RECRUITMENT CENTER! This is not something you can recruit for. Please.
As for the resolution, well, as a “non-binding” resolution, how are they going to enforce it? The answer? They aren’t. In short, the ONLY REASON to enact something like this is to tell the world how uptight, repressed, backward, bigoted, short-sighted, and downright stupid you are.
Get a grip, Kanab city council. And kudos to the Kanab-ians who are standing up AGAINST the “resolution.” Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Writer in a Bubble 
And to think, I once thought I wanted to move to Kanab. That didn’t last long, though. Just as soon as the interviewer, upon seeing I was not from Utah, asked me, “Would you feel out of place in a district that is 100% LDS?” Hmmm. Didn’t know whether to take that as a warning, or a round-about way of asking if I, too, was LDS. To my surprise, they actually invited me for a further interview–probably either to fulfill a quota or to show that they were open-minded enough to consider someone who wasn’t “of their kind”. I declined.
LikeLike
What is really scary is that the law only focuses on “subservience of women” and on keeping gays out. The resolution doesn’t seem to touch what most Christians would see as the pervasive moral issue in Kanab … polygamy.
One man with many wives … even worse, a prophet assigning and reassigning wives would probably fall under the heading of natural family.
This quote from the tribune is hilarious:
“The measure is not meant to discriminate or be exclusionary, adds the mayor”
Kanab is a synonym for sick, sick people.
LikeLike
How is this award presented? Who presents it? One size fits all?!
LikeLike
I have to say I agree with your analysis of homophobics, I do know that a lot of people base their belief on the laws handed down to the rabbis in (what? Leviticus?) but those same people have no problem breaking the hate, lying, or coveting, and oh let’s not forget adultry, but gosh didn’t Jesus come and die on the cross to forgive us of ALL of those sins?
Okay so I veered (kinna sorta not really) off course. As long as communities like Kanab have the backing of a large religious corporation er organization they will continue to pawn off and mandate their hate and skewer beliefs. Only people will be able to change that fact of life.
LikeLike
Do those “sheep” in Kanab have a stick up their ass or have they been on that horse too long? Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to reform.
Mark Twain
I know where Utahaha came up with the name Kanab….spelled backwards BANaK. Brother Brigham sittin on his perch.
His hand to the bank and his ass to the church.
LikeLike
Recruitment centers? You mean I could have been collecting toasters? I had no idea! The things ya learn from straight people 🙂
LikeLike
Great site….
LikeLike
I just want to point out that the vast majority of feedback from the Kanab community has been against this proclamation. So although the Mayor , City Council, and their cronies deserve the Stick -up-the-Ass award, Kanab is not “a synonym for sick, sick people.”
I truly believe that sane heads will win the day despite a mentality that allows City Council Member Tony Chatterly’s to say, “If every resident of Kanab asked me to change my vote I wouldn’t” and still remain in office. I’m not sure who he thinks he was elected to serve….
LikeLike
I totally agree with this award for the city council and I totally disagree with this ridiculous proclamation. The local paper is loving it though; yeah so many letters to the editor they keep running out of space. Newspapers are flying off the counters without even being folded into one of those dumb airplane shapes.
It has become the joke of Kanab with the majority of citizens, no matter what their religion, against it. However, the use of the word “quiver” has certainly opened up plenty to ponder. Like “Is a woman no longer natural if her quiver has been surgically removed?” or “If a man has a vasectomy and is no longer shooting arrows, is he now un-natural?”. And what the heck IS a “quiver of children?”
signed,
a proud member of the “non-natural” family community
LikeLike
Check out this site and pass it along ….
http://www.whatsupwithKanab.com
LikeLike
Great post! Altho we (well I’m a formerly “we”) typically refer to Kanab residents as Kanabites…..you know….like Nephites, Lamanites, Luddites, etc.
from another proud member of a “non-natural family”
LikeLike
Dear Resident of Kanab,
As you may be aware, your city council has adopted Resolution 1-1-06R, which is generating more national publicity for Kanab than any other single event in the city’s history. Due to its maudlin tone many residents assume the resolution was drafted by local civic leaders. The concept’s actual author, however, is Paul T. Mero, president of the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City. Last fall Mr. Mero presented his proposal to 232 Utah cities, as well as every county government in the state. To date Kanab’s city council is the only entity of any kind to adopt Mr. Mero’s “vision for the Natural Family.”
The people who have staked their reputations on Mr. Mero’s vision are:
Mayor Lawson; Council Member Honey; Council Member Mower
Council Member Chatterley; Council Member Sorensen
RESOLUTION 1-1-06R
The Natural Family: A Vision for the City of Kanab
Whereas, ALL legal Utah residents are entitled to equal protection by local and state government; and
Whereas, a city council’s authority and obligations are limited to proper management and maintenance of municipal infrastructure; and
Whereas, city council members are rarely experts on constitutional law and patently unqualified to pass measures bearing on broad social issues; and
Whereas, crime, delinquency, drug abuse, domestic violence, and poverty are often by-products of a free-market culture which bases a person’s social value on his or her level of material wealth; then,
Be it resolved the City of Kanab adopts this resolution as a guide for balancing the annual budget, getting the lowest bid on a new fire truck, and fixing the potholes on 200 North.
Resolution 1-1-06R, as translated from mawkish to English, states: 1.) heterosexual monogamy is divinely sanctioned; 2.) said monogamy is in the best interests of the spouses; 3.) said monogamy is in the best interests of law and order; 4.) said monogamy is in the best interests of material success; 5.) family ownership of private property defends societal liberty; 6.) monogamous sexual intercourse is the sole source of new human life; 7.) homes with numerous children enable ethnic expansion; 8.) bonds among spouses, children, and extended family are desirable; 9.) homes, lawns, and gardens performing useful tasks while children laugh is desirable; 10.) parents shape a child’s first notions of right and wrong; 11.) families providing care for sick and elderly relatives is desirable; 12.) good neighborhoods are second in importance only to good families; 13.) local businesses aligning their practices with the aforesaid paradigm is expected; 14.) local elected officials showing partiality to heterosexual monogamous households with children is expected.
Kanab is an isolated, unsophisticated, self-contained community. If four-thousand Methodists moved to Kanab and began bloc-voting as instructed by their pastors only then would Kanab’s sheltered population understand why our founding fathers were ADAMANT about separating religion from government. Kanab’s ingenuous nature caused it to become Paul T. Mero’s one and only adherent. Mero’s Natural Family initiative has otherwise been a resounding failure. The devastation of Kanab’s public image proves Utah’s other city councils and county commissions were prudent to reject the Natural Family resolution. Moreover, while Kanab is becoming a national laughingstock, Mr. Mero is apparently trying to distance himself from the controversy. Recently his editorials and comments in the media have dwindled remarkably. This may be a wise choice on Mr. Mero’s part considering many of his cringe-worthy quotes from the past several weeks:
“Diversity in our private lives is obvious; diversity in public policy is a disaster.”
–Paul T. Mero, February 12, 2006
“The point of the resolution is that our morality and public mores should be developed in private. Government should be out of it.” [Mero pitched the resolution to more than 250 city and county governments] “Families should be the incubators of morality. It is through family, church and neighborhoods that we learn to be who we are.”
–Paul T. Mero, February 21, 2006
“Family structure is infrastructure. What good is a city with nice roads if nobody wants to live there?”
–Paul T. Mero, February 24, 2006
This last question is ironic since backlash from the Natural Family debacle is making Kanab a place where nobody wants to live PERIOD.
Many local residents, however, are already collecting evidence to demonstrate Paul T. Mero’s actions in this matter have directly impinged on their sources of livelihood. The credibility and political futures of Kanab’s mayor and council MEN have been thoroughly torpedoed by this episode. What remains to be seen is whether or not Paul T. Mero and the Sutherland Institute will be dragged under with the rest of the wreckage.
THEREFORE, be it resolved that Paul T. Mero is a sappy writer as evidenced by his now infamous “quiver of children” metaphor, and that his rapturous idealism is heading for a brick wall of real-time civics, real-world economics and real-angry plaintiffs.
LikeLike
Greetings from behind enemy lines. Good God! Now the douchebag mayor Kim Lawson is attacking a 17 year old intern high school student that wrote an op-ed piece against the natural family resolution in the newspaper. Mayor Lawson wrote letters to the high school superintendant and to the kid’s LDS stake president, asking “is his(the kid’s) tone and verbiage consistant and in concert with the principles embodied with his church and scouting?”…………………………….gawd! If I was that kids dad, the mayor would be picking up his teeth.
Every time these city council morons make a move or open their mouths……It makes our case for us.
LikeLike
You can’t make this stuff up.
Joe Tucker, U.S. Congressional candidate for Utah’s 2nd District, issued the following statement regarding the City of Kanab’s endorsement of the Natural Family:
“It is often difficult in today’s world to stand up for what is right. We have been preached separation of church and state by secularists for so long that we begin to believe that our moral beliefs have no place in government. To the contrary, many of our laws are based on moral belief. Clearly Utah has a religious majority. Religion influences our moral beliefs as it should. Standing up for our moral beliefs is not forcing our religion on anyone. It is simply standing up for our moral beliefs. We have the right to do so and the duty to do so. I admire the courage of the Kanab city council in endorsing the Natural Family. I hope they don’t give in to fear as a few loud voices express their anger. I believe it was fear that caused the Provo [Utah] school district to allow the gay-straight alliance club at Provo High. We need civic leaders with the courage to stand up for morality and the family. The Kanab city council has my support.”
The Natural Family resolution begins: “We envision a local culture that upholds the marriage of a woman to a man, and a man to a woman as ordained of God.” It ends with: “And we look to local government that holds the protection of the natural family to be their first responsibility.” The NF resolution brazenly states an elected official’s first responsibility is to people who believe in God, specifically a God who ordains heterosexual monogamy. Atheists, Buddhists, secular humanists and plain old Pagans are thus relegated to what? A government’s “second” responsibility? Third? Fourth?
Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor created a simple criteria for situations like this: “A law is unconstitutional if it favors one religion over another in a way that makes some people feel like outsiders and others feel like insiders.”
Amen, Sister O’Connor.
Joe Tucker, however, supports the NF resolution because, “Standing up for our moral beliefs is not forcing our religion on anyone.” He further hopes Kanab’s city council won’t rescind the resolution and thereby give in to “fear.” Eh? The council members have passed a resolution which clearly makes God’s ordained spouses their first responsibility. With Heaven on their side what in Hell do they have to fear?
Joe Tucker also states on his website that separation of church and state is not in the U.S. Constitution. This refers to the semantic debate over the “establishment” clause of the First Amendment which has been raging for decades. Mr. Tucker states. “We have been preached separation of church and state by secularists for so long that we begin to believe that our moral beliefs have no place in government.” Briefly, then, Mr. Tucker feels secularists hinder morality in government. His feelings are validated by the fact that one-hundred percent of the major political scandals in U.S. history have centered around people who belonged to one organized religion or another.
Mr. Tucker also illustrates why a citizen’s right to brandish a lethal weapon is embraced by the U.S. Constitution with the following analogy: “We have just seen in New Orleans how quickly civilization can deteriorate into lawlessness in a crisis. As a member of Congress I will fight to insure that the right of good citizens to bear arms is not infringed.”
Which is why I say, vote JOE TUCKER for Congress! We’ll never get a Democrat elected in THIS district, so a Republican who openly supports city-wide gunfire after a hurricane as well as Kanab’s Natural Family resolution is our next best strategy… he’ll at least enter the Halls of Congress with a limp since he’s already shot himself in the foot. Twice.
LikeLike
Hounshell won’t let it rest.
ONE YEAR AFTER, MARCH 2007:
An update on Kanab, Utah, Birthplace of America’s Natural Family Resolution.
KANAB’S CURRENT STATUS: AA-FUBAR:
As always, fucked up beyond all recognition.
Navigate to:
http://www.cliffviewchapel.org
click on the “Read Bible Answers Column” box.
click to view PAST columns.
click on “Why The Natural Family’s Full Quiver Is Good?” ( February 14, 2007 )
Here you will finally be taught why both Muslims AND queers mark the end of Western Civilization as we know it.
LikeLike
I truly appreciate you taking the time to share this . Look forward to more posts from you
LikeLike
Very Nice Post. I love it. Have a Great day.
LikeLike
Pingback: soma muscle relaxer
This documentary was all about the Kanab fiasco: http://www.naturalfamilyvalues.com/
They have a quote from Emily Pearson on the front page saying “An important look at the small town values of the nicest bunch of people that have ever scared the living crap out of me.” LOL
LikeLike