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Advocate for Gay Mormons Opposes World Congress of Families

Dan Bammes
Mormons Building Bridges Co-founder Erika Munson (center) marches in Salt Lake City's 2014 Pride Parade

  A co-founder of the group Mormons Building Bridges doesn’t think the World Congress of Families should be welcome in Utah.  But the group is moving ahead with plans to hold its meeting in Salt Lake City next October.

Erika Munson with Mormons Building Bridges wrote an op-ed piece that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday, criticizing the World Congress of Families for what she sees as an anti-gay agenda.

Munson tells KUER, “I feel like the presence of the WCF would really drive a kind of a wedge between Utahns at a time when we’re all trying to figure out how to work together in this paradigm of legal same-sex marriage.”

The World Congress of Families has never held a meeting in the United States.  The Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank based in Utah, bid to host the Congress after its plans to meet in Russia next year fell apart.

Dave Buer with the Sutherland Institute says they’re asking the Tribune for an opportunity to respond to Munson’s op-ed piece.  And he says they’re talking with some who support same-sex marriage about participating in next year’s meeting.

“We’re open to that idea," Buer tells KUER.  "To this point, however, what we’ve seen is that those who support same-sex marriage have been very hostile to those who support traditional marriage.”

Buer says an organizing meeting for the Congress was held a few weeks ago in Salt Lake City.  They’re expecting as many as four thousand delegates from dozens of different countries. He says the issues on the agenda will be much broader than just the definition of marriage, and could include sex trafficking, parental rights and home schooling.

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