Mormons for Gay Marriage
Not all Mormons blindly follow the bigoted dictates of their church leaders, thank goodness.
Jeffrey Nielsen, a professor at the Mormon church's Brigham Young University, has an editorial in today's Salt Lake Tribune in favor of gay marriage.
Among other things, he says:
Amen.
Read the entire article.
Jeffrey Nielsen, a professor at the Mormon church's Brigham Young University, has an editorial in today's Salt Lake Tribune in favor of gay marriage.
Among other things, he says:
I believe opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral.
Amen.
Truly, God would be unjust if He were the creator of a biological process that produced such uncommon, yet perfectly natural results, and then condemned the innocent person to a life of guilt, while denying him or her the ordinary privileges and fulfillment of the deep longing in all of us for family and a committed, loving relationship.
...virtuous moderation and loving kindness require us to exercise caution before making constitutionally binding discrimination against a whole class of people based only on fear and superstition. In fact, when we examine the statements opposing gay marriage, we find few reasonable arguments. It is not enough to claim that we should oppose gay marriage because historically it has never been recognized. This is the fallacy of appealing to tradition, which was also used to fight against civil rights and equal treatment of women.
Further, to say that gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage and the family without giving any reasons why is the fallacy of appealing to fear. Indeed, once you get past the emotion, it is quite an unfounded claim.
How could the union of two committed and loving people negatively affect my marriage? I believe that quite the contrary is true; namely, legalizing gay marriage reinforces the importance of committed relationships and would strengthen the institution of marriage.
Ultimately, any appeal to religious authority to create law is misplaced. Our Founding Fathers were inspired by their study of history to separate constitutional authority from religious belief, recognizing as they did the potential for tyranny in unchecked religious influence.
Read the entire article.
posted by Stenar at 12:18
2 Comments:
I completely agree with Jeffrey Nielsens statement. There is plenty of Mormon scriptural evidence to show that Morality requires choice, and anything removing choice would thus be anti-Moral, or immoral.
I think the multitude of LDS people who were coming out in support of the FMA just shows how little they are looking into the core of matters and the core doctrines of their faith.
Veiled in the amendment also seemed to be an subtle agenda against Polygamy, which possibly be seen as an anti-Islamic agenda, in light of the perceived terrorist activity that Bush wants us so caught up in. This fundamentally goes against letting all men (including Muslims) worship how, where, or what they may, not to mention being contrary to the Traditional Family supported in Latter-day Saint doctrine and Biblical history, as well.
It doesn't even take a "Gay Rights Activist" to realize that Gay-marriage SHOULD be permitted by a free, non-denominational government, whether or not individuals deem this behavior morally wrong or "sinful".
This is very true. Perhaps we should ask it the other way around, too... Could politics actually be a branch of religion? :-) I feel like politics and religion overlap on so many issues that to consider one without considering the implications and interactions with the other is ignorant. I think you are wrong to say that religion is about controlling the masses, however. The problem is, the highly visible forms of religion in society are of course the ones that succeed in controlling masses of people. The more individualistic, humble religion gets lost in the shuffle, but there are probably just as many of them.
-Jeff,
a "Mormon Gnostic"
Tried to express the lunacy of plumbing-based commitment once, myself. [URL from this post.]
All I have to say is that my hetero husband's junk just drove him off in all directions -- none of them toward the family.
Caveat emptor if junk-configuration is your commitment gauge.
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