Mormon persecution

Re "Mormon apostle Packer warns against 'tolerance trap'" (Tribune, April 7):

In the 19th century, Mormons pleaded with the rest of the nation to show them tolerance for their divergent, non-traditional marriages. But self-righteous Victorian America could not "tolerate legalized acts of immorality," what Mormons called celestial marriage, and so the nation mercilessly beat the Mormons into submission.

Today, another persecuted minority is begging for tolerance for their choice of whom to love, but Mormons see it as an "act of immorality" and any tolerance of it as a "vice." Incredibly, the persecuted have become the persecutors.

It's more than ironic, it's hypocritical, that Mormons won't grant the same tolerance that they once begged for.

There was love and goodness in Mormon polygamy, and there's love and goodness in same-sex coupling.

No one's asking Mormons to perform gay marriages in their chapels and temples, only to allow those who want to to do so in theirs. It is highly arrogant for Mormons to not "tolerate legalized acts of immorality," as they see it, in someone else's church. Keep to your own affairs.

Brian Barber

Salt Lake City