Protest Scheduled – Friday, 6 pm – Salt Lake City

A protest against LDS Church support for California’s Proposition 8 is scheduled for Friday, 6 p.m., at North Temple and State Street in Salt Lake City.

If Jacob Whipple gets what he’s hoping for, at least 1,000 Utahns will turn out Friday night to protest the involvement of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in helping pass Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that effectively killed, at least for now, same-sex marriages in that state.
The call for people to gather at 6 p.m. at North Temple and State Street in Salt Lake City is to show solidarity with those protesting in California, Whipple explained. Among those hitting the streets were about 3,000 who gathered Thursday afternoon outside the LDS Temple in Westwood, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, bearing signs including one featuring a photo of a gay couple with the words,”Why is this joy and love so scary,” The Los Angeles Times reported.

“We want to show we share their pain, and here, at the heart of the church, we want to stab it,” said Whipple, of Salt Lake City.

The 29-year-old former LDS Church member, who served a mission in Argentina, was helping to get the word out late Thursday about the Utah protest. He said he and others were seeking support through e-mails, text messages, social networking Web pages and old-fashioned phone calls.