LDS Church on same-sex marriages

[pne]

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement on favouring a constitutional amendment preserving marriage as the lawful union of a man and a woman. (See also a related new story.)

Hm. Not sure what I think about this, since my position was essentially "I think that same-sex marriages are Wrong but that it's not the duty of government to legislate on this".

Comments

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

I joined the church right around the time of the whole Equal Rights Amendment thingy in the Yoo Ess. The church got a lot of flack for opposing the amendment. I remember there was a special insert in the Ensign listing all the reasons why the church was against the amendment — one of which, natch, was a concern that it would lead to legalising same-sex marriages. At the time, critics of the church said "yeah, right, you're just fear-mongering." Well, here we are, not quite a quarter-century later....

Now that Bush is pushing more for such an amendment, I see the fertiliser hitting the ventilation system. This year's presidential election will be ugly with a capital UG. The current trend among many Mormons (esp. Utah ones) to criticise all Mormon Democrats as being evil backsliders will undoubtedly get worse, which means that free and open political discussion among members will become even harder than it is already.

Heaven knows what's going to happen in Canada now. The Conservative party here lost the election — one in which they were expected to at least be within 10 seats of the Liberals, rather than being 40 seats behind as it turned out — because one of their candidates/MP's opined on video the idea of using a controversial clause in our Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Will pharisaical Mormons now assume that I'm a dangerous backslider because I'm not Conservative?

I support the leaders of the church in making such a statement, and I agree with where they're coming from. I am, however, somewhat worried about the manurestorm that is just beginning to swirl around North America.

By the way, pne, I sort of agree with your last sentence. My preferred solution to the whole conundrum is for the state to get out of the marriage business. Make laws that say "If you meet <criteria similar to those in place to define 'common-law marriages'>, then you get <this set of marriage-ish benefits>. You can register for these benefits by waving a piece of paper from your church at us, or by coming in and signing an affirmation that yes, you do indeed meet the above criteria."

I don't think it's gonna go down that way, though.

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

Your last (or-second-to-last) paragraph is pretty much how I feel about it; I don't feel that same-sex marriages are wrong, but in any case, I think the government is overly involved in it. If we came out of this mess with a law like that, I would be rejoicing.