For those of you who are unaware of what Prop 8 is, it has to do with the gay marriage question within the State of California. Earlier, the State decided to pass a law to allow same-sex marriages and Prop 8 is the initiative to abolish that law. Now to give you a background as to the Church's involvement: The Brethren have sent letters and had firesides officially asking Church members within California to vote for Prop 8 in order to destroy the ability for gays to challenge the sanctity of marriage.
I've heard many members that have stood up and strongly begun campaigning to have this proposition passed, but I have also heard the fight from many Church members that don't really agree with the stance of the Church itself. The arguments for this are most often two fold: 1- Gays are not asking to be married in our Church by our authority, just by any Church that is willing to perform the ceremony, and they are asking for that marriage to be allowed by the state. Since we still have the authority, even if it is allowed, to say no within the Church, why should we care what other Church's do? 2- The Church is once again, as they did during the time of women's rights, getting involved in a political process and has no right to do so if they wish to keep their tax exempt status as a non-profit organization with no specific political agenda.
I think that people that think either of those things forget one very very important detail. There are a great many things in our Church, doctrinally or historically, that we just don't understand. But if you believe this is God's true Church, you have accept that God does know things better than we do. If not you are (even if not knowingly) stating that you think you can lead God's Church better than he can, and that you can make better decisions as to what the Church should or should not do than he can. That, I think, is a dangerously fine line. Even in Joseph Smith's time there were a great many things that many of the members did not understand, and on occasion there were times when nearly the entire body of the Church even wished to depose the Prophet. Did he waiver, thinking that the world must be right, and God was wrong? Absolutely not. He stood by the decisions that we as Saints believe were given him by the Lord himself.
How is this any different? If I'm missing something, someone please tell me.
3 comments:
Proposition 8 is divisive and morally wrong. The whole point of it is to deny basic civil rights to two loving, consenting adults (most of whom have been in their relationships for years and even decades). Absolutely the ONLY people who seem to have a problem with it are the religious. Just because your god says it's wrong does not mean my god feels the same. Take out religion and there IS NO ISSUE.
Instead of showing tolerance and understanding and love for these people (who generally already live together and behave as a married couple) and granting them the simple civil rights of being allowed to claim marital status on their taxes and visit eachother in the hospital and make end-of-life decisions for their mate... instead of unity, all I've heard from people of faith is how horrible it would be for the good of their respective church itself, and how it's going to "destroy marriage". As though the decision of two consenting adults to love one another in private is somehow going to destroy all the heterosexual marriages out there. That's infintile, alarmist, and preposterous.
I'll leave you with some interesting quotes to think about:
"Straight Americans need... an education of the heart and soul. They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul." ~Bruce Bawer
"Each individual's journey through life is unique. Some will make this journey alone, others in loving relationships - maybe in marriage or other forms of commitment. We need to ponder our own choices and try to understand the choices of others. Love has many shapes and colors and is not finite. It can not be measured or defined in terms of sexual orientation." From the Statement of Affirmation and Reconciliation by the Quaker meeting in Aotearoa
"[Their relationship] is essentially different from that of man and wife joined in lawful wedlock." A North Carolina judge, 1858, referring to a marriage between two slaves, unrecognized by the state.
I can't just allow this kind of talk to go unchallenged as the sister of a lesbian and the friend of many with that sexual orientation who are hurt and made bitter by all of this callousness and hate.
And on a personal note: I hope you're feeling better after all that surgery... bummer that this had to happen to you but you'll be cycling and rock climbing again before you know it.
-Nikki
Oh I just realized I went off on my own soap box and didn't really address the whole query of your post. The main question to ask here is.. is your God infallible? I would argue that he is not. I say this on 2 BIG counts:
1) Why would God, knowing the future and anticipating all events, institute polygamy in the church, knowing full well that it would be despised by most of the members, increase the hostility of the general population against the Mormons, and would play no small part in getting the Mormons driven out of the United States, only to be rescinded by him years later. Why? You might counter that HEY! It helped lead the church to Utah and flourish there. But AT WHAT PRICE? How many hundreds of people died to cross those plains? It haunts us today: we live in 2008 and there are thousands of individuals, thousands of lives being brought up in backward submission in Colorado City and other polygamous sects throughout the western U.S. It may have been well and good for the church, but imagine being brought up in such a town. Where, if you're a boy, at the age of 15 you become competition for the older men and are exiled from the community. Wearing your britches and suspenders in a modern world. If you're a girl, you're married off as one of many child-bearing trophies at the age of 14, 15, 16, to a man 2 or 3 times your age. Uneducated. Knowing no other life. It sickens people to think about because they rightfully view it as inherantly suppressive, controlling, and evil.
2) Most people in the church had a problem with the fact that black men could not hold the priesthood. They had a problem with it because their conscience told them it was wrong and it was. Your God chose not to make the priesthood available to its black males until 1978. 1978. Four years before we were born. Years after the great civil rights movement of the 60's. It should not have taken so long. And it is my firm belief that the only reason it happened was because people had a major problem with not allowing their black brothers to enjoy all the privileges of their religion.
So what does this mean? It means that the world dictates to God. Not the other way around.
Who is this Nikki chick? It isn't me (Joe's sister) for those of you who were wondering...If she is that passionate in dissagreeing with you maybe she should stop reading your blog!!!
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