An unpopular minority - Mormons – trying to limit the rights of another unpopular minority – Gays - on an issue - Marriage - which Mormonism has a somewhat vexed (and very very famous) history, reminds all and sundry about said vexed history, are on the wrong side of history (again – see any number of issues, but perhaps blacks and the priesthood is the closest), hurts the reputation of the church in society at large, does nothing to lessen the distrust of the church felt by the Evangelicals who are the main supporters of the amendment, and is the exact opposite of what the church should be doing.
As to the argument that male-female marriage is "traditional," balderdash. These people mistake there ignorance of history for something akin to fact.
For all of you folks proclaiming that traditional marriage has always been between a man and a woman; right here (for me at least) in the good ol’ U.S. of A, before it was such, for a very very long time (certainly long enough to be called “traditional”) a very wide assortment of native american tribes had (and some still do) “two-spirits.” Basically, these are men who chose to live as women. They could marry, and were considered good luck, or even holy by some tribes. The Navajos, for example saw and still see them as especially gifted at teaching children. So here, in the US, it is not “traditional” for marriage to be between a man and a woman exclusively unless you define traditional to mean “my traditions that I got from somewhere else geographically and haven’t quite forgotten.”
We won’t even get into Hawaiian group marriages.
Soundtrack for post; only one possible.
Pic of Joseph F. Smith, the 7th president of the LDS church with his 6 wives and 45 offspring.
1 comment:
I find myself wincing whenever I hear people saying that it is the obligation of the government to protect the sanctity of marriage. Seems to me that separation of church and state requires that the government not even acknowledge the sanctity of anything.
The government should only recognize civil unions, and every marriage should be recognized as having established a civil union. Civil unions should also be available to anyone who desires no religious mumbo-jumbo. It should be entirely up to religious organizations to decide whom they will marry to each other.
Many religions already accept gay marriage. For the government not to accept these unions is an unacceptable breach of separation of church and state.
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