People are very upset about this. These two arguments are the ones that have been thrown in my face lately:
Why was this decision left up to a group of unelected officials? This should have been left up to the People.
and
If you are a Mormon and you support gay marriage, you have been deceived and are not following the Prophet.
So I see we're no longer talking about religious freedom, definitions of marriage, or the social implications. Now we're just ignoring essential principles of government and questioning the testimony of faithful members.
My wife has suffered more slings and arrows for this than I have because her extended family is extremely Conservative, with a capital C. Don't-Teach-Evolution-in-Schools Conservative. Mostly they open with the first argument, then when confronted about it, will either act indignant and leave the thread or resort to the second argument.
Before we go on I have to apologize for the sloppy organization of this post. These ideas just come out in whatever order they want to.
One of my wife's cousins is a political science major, and fails to see the irony in making the first argument. So I'll start with that one. This will be quick.
Why Didn't We Get a Vote on This?
I'll glaze over the reason why the Supreme Court is unelected because I am not confident enough in my education on the judicial branch of our government to offer a concrete argument. Instead I'll offer my own explanation, which is to ask people to imagine what our Supreme Court would be like if every person there had to win a popular vote. Imagine the agendas, the roadblocking, the defilement of common sense that would go on. Even my limited knowledge of history on this branch will demonstrate that it is not immune to corruption, but I find it far more comforting that the people appointed to that position are experienced judges and lawyers who have dedicated their lives to upholding and philosophizing on the relationship between law, the Constitution, and liberty. These individuals don't get their qualifications from constituents, incumbents, and war chests. They get them from being educated and fair.
So to sum up, I don't see the point in complaining that they're unelected. We're lucky they're not.
Speaking of popular votes, let's talk about why we didn't get to vote on marriage equality. I explained this pretty well, I think at least, in my previous post on this issue. To reiterate: democracy is the domain of the majority, and it makes no sense to leave rulings on minority rights up to the majority, especially where they are legally unaffected either way. I've since learned that this principle has a fairly apt name: "tyranny of the majority". This was a problem that James Madison was especially passionate about, and not something you'll find on the dossier of most high school-level American Civ curricula. And why would we bother? In my lifetime there's never really been a reason to devote precious class time to it, up until now. But I consider it something that every self-proclaimed patriot should have at least a basic understanding of. It's irresponsible to leave it out of any discussion on minority rights, and the idea that this issue should have been left up to the People is dangerously wrong.
So those are the legal complaints out of the way. Let's move on.
Does This Make Me Less of a Latter-day Saint?
These are some of the things I've been told personally:
"The truth is, homosexual behavior is a sin. The doctrine and message have not changed. It is never good to promote or encourage people to commit sin. The Church's current position is extremely compassionate, recognizing the political divisiveness on the subject of gay marriage, however the Church will continue to welcome people who currently disagree with the doctrine and will continue to teach. The hope is, in time, people will come to gain a testimony for themselves."
"The Church has said that people are allowed to disagree with them. They never said that doing so was correct or good though. In fact, numerous recent Conference talks have said the contrary."
For anyone who has some sort of debilitating myopia when it comes to unrighteous piety, I'll translate: I have been accused of promoting sin and turning a deaf ear to our wise leaders.
My wife and I, along with basically any other faithful member who supports marriage equality, have also been accused of making the temptations Mormon homosexuals face more challenging. The accusation comes from an unreasonably popular blog post which I refuse to post the link to. It's utter nonsense...projection of self-hatred disguised as a "unique perspective on the issue."
If it wasn't already abundantly clear: I have no reason to disagree with the doctrine. It's not about that. I've been asking people if they went around telling non-members to stop drinking coffee and if I was less of a Latter-day Saint for not doing that. I think it's a fair question. What part of our doctrine implies we have to force non-believers to follow it? So far from what I've found, the score on that is -1. I'll be pulling out the 11th Article of Faith a lot while this nonsense is going on.
As far as I'm concerned our leaders should be discouraging us from trying to force others to live by our values. Instead they have used public channels away from the pulpit to create a ubiquitous network of logos-barren fallacies, aiming to imply that we are permitting our society to devalue the family by letting private individuals practice what we consider to be a sin. A sin that, like drinking coffee or tea, does no harm to the uninvolved. Their reliance on arguments like "It takes a man and a woman to have a child" and "Households with a mother and father have proven to be the best environment for raising a child", both of which present huge problems that I've addressed in my previous post, put them no further above any other religious conservative with a blog. I am under no obligation as a Latter-day Saint to agree with their thinly veiled irrevelatory vitriol. As I'm about to demonstrate, this is not the first time our leaders have abused their positions to enforce their temporal opinions, and it won't be the last.
Will the Doctrine Change?
When Official Declaration 2 was presented in 1978, it marked an end to the question of whether God was racist. Despite the vague rhetoric apologists for the Church have devised, before then our leaders' answer to that question was yes. Ezra Taft Benson called members who supported civil rights "traitors". George Albert Smith accused them of having "lost sight of the revelations of the Lord". N. Eldon Tanner, the same apostle who read aloud the Declaration, previously responded to concerns of the Church being racist by saying there's nothing we can do to change it and that it was the law of God. Benson, in particular, was insistent on associating civil rights with the moral decline of society--much like the current leaders are doing with same-sex marriage.
We can argue all day over whether this means the actual doctrine changed, or if we thought it was doctrine but have since discovered it's not. But it's one or the other with nothing in between: Either God suddenly changed His mind on a fundamental law that has existed since before mortality, or our prophets were mistaken. Since we've all read 2 Nephi, we can rule out the first one right away, along with the possibility that God was--for whatever absurd reason--lying to us. So that means the majority of our leaders since Brigham Young all the way up to Spencer W. Kimball were teaching false doctrine, or at least allowing false doctrine to be taught.
So naturally the idea has been tossed around that it's perhaps a possibility that the Church will change its doctrine (or, if you prefer, modify their understanding of doctrine) regarding homosexuality and possibly even same-sex marriage.
I am open to the possibility. That's not to say I'm pushing for it or anything. I believe all things and hope all things, and my faith will not be shaken one way or another, but I don't think it's very likely to happen. Race is one thing, and we have scripture to back up our current beliefs on race (2 Nephi is awesome). Race is a product of mortal heritage. God is raceless. But God is not sexless. God is, in our eternal purview and by revelation, male. Jesus Christ is male. Sex, and by extension this union of sexes we call marriage, and the product of this union called family, is very deep near the core of our understanding of the divine. It would take much more to detangle it than simply and suddenly saying it doesn't matter to God anymore.
But that's fine. The Church doesn't need to change. The Church just needs to do what a church of Christ should: maintain personal purity among its willing followers, and love all mankind unceasingly.
Feelings of the Spirit
To borrow an argument from a former teacher of mine whose words and philosophy have had a deep personal impact on me: Like Milton, when all doctrine and scripture has been exhausted, all I can do is rely on the Spirit to guide me. When I read words published by apostles in response to this landmark ruling, I am not filled with feelings normally attributed to the Holy Spirit. I feel despair, anxiety, and a little bit of anger. This is not the Church I grew up in, at least I thought so. I was only a year and a half old when the September Six were excommunicated, but from then until 2008 I don't recall the Church really doing anything disagreeable. Gordon B. Hinckley's points of focus were personal growth, temple work, and reading the scriptures. The common denominator in all he preached was building a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father. If we have a good relationship with God, we have a good relationship with God's children, and we need not fear any man. This is a drastically different tune, and it just doesn't ring true to me. It's divisive and combative. It invites those saints who often defer personal investigation to the teachings of apostles to challenge the faith and testimony of people like you and me. Although in my soul I know I am a true Latter-day Saint, and that aside from personal failings I have no quarrel with God, I still feel the pointing fingers which silently whisper "traitor", and darnit if it doesn't make me feel a little less welcome at church.
What brings me comfort in this trying time is that I know this will pass. In a month's time we will hear none of it. Everyone will forget why they're angry and move on with their lives. And, though Heaven ought forbid, in five or so years I predict we will see a large number of these more "loyal" saints claiming they were supportive of it all along.
History would be less boring if it weren't so repetitious.
No comments:
Post a Comment