So one of the top authorities in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is saying that persecution of Mormons in the wake of their support of California’s anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment is akin to intimidation of blacks in the South during the civil rights era.

And with that, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has automatically been elected mayor of Ironyville.

What Oaks may not recall — but certainly should — is that one of the prime institutions discriminating against blacks during the civil rights era (and beyond) was the Mormon church itself! In fact, it wasn’t until the year 1978 that the church — after a “new revelation” from God — allowed blacks to join the Mormon priesthood, reversing a racially restrictive policy begun by church leader Brigham Young in the mid-1850s.

So, yeah, comparing yourselves to the people you once declared unworthy of full participation in your church is probably not the best rhetorical device. But far be it from us to stop a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! Mr. Oaks, please continue.

“It [the comparison] may be offensive to some, maybe because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from that bygone [civil rights] era,” Oaks said. You mean, Mormon church leaders? Oh, no, wait, he meant Southern oppressors. Got it.

See, in the wake of the church’s heavy support and funding of the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 — Mormons churchgoers were encouraged to vote for the measure and to donate money to the cause — some gays were upset. And those gays subsequently spoke out against the church, protested at church sites, taunted churchgoers with slogans and, in some cases, vandalized churches. And while we totally condemn the vandalism (or any other act of physical violence), we totally understand the anger.

See, what Oaks doesn’t realize is that it’s the Mormons who are, once again, trampling upon the civil rights of an oppressed minority. Gays simply want the right to be married in civil, secular society. Mormons don’t want them to have that right, since they have a religious conviction that marriage is to be between men and women only. But while gays don’t seek to barge into Mormon temples and force Mormon clergy to conduct their weddings, Mormon clergy do seek to barge into City Hall and prevent gays from getting married. So, it’s actually the Mormons who are doing the oppressing, not the gays.

This may be an offensive thought to Mormons, but maybe it’s because it hadn’t occurred to them that they were putting themselves in the same category as people we deplore from the bygone era of civil rights.

But wait, there’s more.

“Those who seek to change the foundation of marriage should not be allowed to pretend that those who defend the ancient order are trampling on civil rights,” Oaks continued. “The supporters of Proposition 8 were exercising constitutional right to defend the institution of marriage.”

Put aside for a moment that the “ancient order” included multiple wives, and not just in the Mormon church, either. The Bible depicts men having sometimes hundreds of wives, in addition to arranged marriages. Of course, the Mormons practiced polygamy from the 1830s (the brainchild of church founder Joseph Smith) to 1890, well after it was regarded as wrong by Christianity and civil society. Is it that ancient order we’re defending, or can we all agree that the nature of marriage has evolved from biblical times (and the 1800s) to today?

The fact is, gays were also exercising their constitutional right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, and for the equal protection of the laws. And when Mormons opposed them, speaking out against the church is but a further exercise of constitutional freedom under the First Amendment. See, the same right to free speech that allows Mormons to argue for a prohibition on gay marriage allows gays to exclaim that Mormons are assholes for arguing against gay marriage. It’s kind of a two-edged sword thing. And if a person or an institution is going to step into the political arena, he cannot reasonably expect to be able to say his piece while at the same time seeking — via ugly allusions to white racists — to stymie his opponent from speaking his piece.

Oaks isn’t quite done, however.

“As such, these incidents of ‘violence and intimidation’ are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like well-known and widely condemned voter intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective civil rights legislation,” he said. And he should know: According to the Associated Press, Oaks once was a law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

As we said, violence is never right: Anyone who vandalizes a church or commits assault or battery should be arrested, since that’s not political speech, but lawbreaking action. However, a lawful protest — even one outside a church that, by policy, is acting to deny a right to an oppressed minority group — is the very definition of democracy. That’s how people react when oppressed. In the South, it took the form of bus boycotts and marches that annoyed the white power structure. In California’s gay marriage debate, it takes the form of church protests and angry denunciations that annoy the white power structure. Again, Oaks is not on the side of Martin Luther King Jr. but of The Man who tried to keep King down. And his repeated attempts to identify with the oppressed only serve to show how out of touch he — and perhaps his fellows — are when it comes to this issue.

A wee bit more? Well, OK, then.

“There are civil rights involved in this — the right to speak your mind, to participate in the election. But you don’t have a civil right to win an election or retaliate against those who prevail,” Oaks said.

Indeed, you don’t have a civil right to win an election. But you do have an absolute right to retaliate against those who have, whether it be tea party protesters comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, or gays boycotting Mormon-connected businesses and protesting outside churches. Ultimately, it’s the public at large that makes up its mind about who is silly and who is right. In this case, the silliness extends to Oaks, who seems to think he and his church have a civil or religious right to intervene in an election, exercise political power, and escape judgment for having done so. That right doesn’t exist, and so long as Oaks and his church participate in politics, they need to be prepared for the political pushback that inevitably comes.

We’d suggest that churches should be about the business of saving souls, ministering to the downtrodden, feeding of the hungry and clothing of the naked, and that politics should be left to the politicians, but we’ve a hunch that Oaks probably would disagree. And that’s fine: He and his fellow churchmen — from all religions and creeds — are more than welcome to take the political field. It’s their constitutional right as Americans. But guess what? The gays have those same rights, and they haven’t been shy about exercising them, nor should they be. We suspect they’ll continue to do so, since history has shown that gaining one’s rights is often a long, hard-fought process.