Here’s one thing the internet still can’t provide: advocacy ads printed in the NY Times.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has placed a full-page ad in the New York Times today assembling various religious leaders to denounce the recent attacks on the Mormon Church in the wake of Proposition 8. You can see the ad at its companion site NoMobVeto.org.

The ad begins:

We’re a disagreeable lot. We differ about a great many important things. Most, but not all of us, are religious believers. We likewise differ on important moral and legal questions, including the wisdom and justice of California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage.

Nevertheless we’re united in this: The violence and intimidation being directed against the LDS or “Mormon” church, or other religious organizations - and even against individual believers - simply because they supported Proposition 8 is an outrage that must stop.

This is the latest of efforts to rally behind the Church’s as it has faced backlash in its support for Propostion 8 (also, see AboveTheHate.com and its open letter to President Monson). There has been speculation that the Church’s involvement with Prop has been a “fiasco.” But such handwringing seems to be from the perspective of those who think a boycott of Sundance would hurt Mormons.

Instead, the Prop 8 aftermath appears to have won the Mormon Church new appreciation among social conservatives. Whether that is momentary or incremental remains to be seen. I don’t think that’s necessarily a gain for the Mormon Church, but it is among those religious conservatives who were too religiously blinded to realize the Church should be a natural ally in many causes.

Did Church critics really want to push the Mormon Church closer to the religious right?

UPDATE: The LDS Church expressed appreciation for the ad:

Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expresses its gratitude to the signatories of the full-page advertisement that appeared today in the New York Times. This was a thoughtful and generous gesture at a time when the right of free expression of people of faith has come under attack. We join with those of all religious faiths and political persuasions who have called for reasoned and civil discourse on matters that affect our nation.”