White Powder Sent To Mormon Temples

The AP is reporting that a white powder was sent to at least two Mormon temples:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Letters containing a suspicious white powder were sent Thursday to Mormon temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City that were the sites of protests against the church's support of California's gay marriage ban.

The temple in the Westwood area of Los Angeles was evacuated before a hazardous materials crew determined the envelope's contents were not toxic, said FBI spokesman Jason Pack.

The temple in downtown Salt Lake City, where the church is based, received a similar envelope containing a white powder that spilled onto a clerk's hand.

The room was decontaminated and the envelope taken by the FBI for testing. The clerk showed no signs of illness, but the scare shut down a building at Temple Square for more than an hour, said Scott Freitag, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City Fire Department.

None of the writing on the envelope was threatening, and the church received no calls or messages related to the package, Freitag said.

Protests in recent days have targeted the Mormon church, which encouraged its members to fight the recently passed amendment banning gay marriage in California.

I'm really, really, really hoping that a gay person didn't do this. I think it's worth noting that this was automatically linked to the Prop 8 issue. This is what happens when one minority targets another the way we attacked the Mormons -- we are pitted against each other, possibly physically if this white powder is eventually tied to a gay person, and metaphorically in the minds of the people watching our struggle from the outside.