The LDS Church has a new official website, PreservingMarriage.org to support their efforts to preserve the traditional definition of marriage in California. Check it out. Also, LDS members everywhere can help support the effort by embedding church sponsored widgets and video from the site into their own blogs, websites, and facebook or myspace accounts. Check out the video below and embed it on your own website. You can get the embed code at the website.
I watched the Vice-Presidential Debate last night. I think both candidates did quite well.
If you missed it you can watch it online at:
One issue that stuck out to me that hasn’t received much commentary in LDS circles that I have seen is the exchange concerning same-sex marriage and rights policies of the respective candidates (probably because everyone is sick of the topic in general).
In his first response to the issue, Biden clearly stated, “We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.” (emphasis mine)
So Biden, either on purpose, or by Freudian slip, refers to “committed couples in a same-sex marriage” as if it were a given. Perhaps he meant “same-sex relationship” but he said “same-sex marriage.”
As I’m sure you already know, last Sunday the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent an official letter to congregations throughout California asking the members of the church to “do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman.” The full letter is available on the official church website.
In an interesting contrast, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States, Barack Obama, has issued a letter of his own addressed to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club which was read at the group’s annual Pride Breakfast. In the letter, not only does he express strong opposition to the California amendment, but he goes even further and advocates “repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy.”
Since the California Supreme Court struck down the state’s ban on same sex marriage yesterday, I have seen a number of people make an argument that has been accumulating disciples during the last few years. A growing number argue that marriage should be left to religion, and that the government should “get out of the marriage business.”
While this view may sound reasonable and is a seductive sounding solution, I believe it is overly simplified, contrary to history and good government, and ultimately a pernicious proposal.
The Deseret News reports that the Church has released a new pamphlet on the subject of Same-Sex Attraction.
Some excerpts from the pamphlet:
These blessings are based on obedience to eternal principles. The importance of families is one of these principles. Heaven is organized by families, which require a man and a woman who together exercise their creative powers within the bounds the Lord has set. Same-gender relationships are inconsistent with this plan. Without both a husband and a wife there would be no eternal family and no opportunity to become like Heavenly Father. In some circumstances a person defers marriage because he or she is not presently attracted to a member of the opposite gender. While many Latter-day Saints, through individual effort, the exercise of faith, and reliance upon the enabling power of the Atonement, overcome same-gender attraction in mortality, others may not be free of this challenge in this life. However, the perfect plan of our Father in Heaven makes provision for individuals who seek to keep His commandments but who, through no fault of their own, do not have an eternal marriage in mortal life. As we follow Heavenly Father’s plan, our bodies, feelings, and desires will be perfected in the next life so that every one of God’s children may find joy in a family consisting of a husband, a wife, and children.
Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous article about Superchastity and Same-Sex Attracted Members of the LDS Church.
I was writing a response to a comment by m&m and it started getting long enough that I figured it deserved to be a follow-up post instead of just a comment.
I have two cousins, brothers, who near the ages of 16 and 17 years were in a terrible automobile accident that left one paraplegic and the other quadriplegic.
I have been thinking a lot about the interview with LDS authorities Dallin H. Oaks and Lance B. Wickman on the topic of Homosexuality and the Church, which I recently posted about here. I wish that they had elaborated more about the issue of celibacy. Perhaps they would have if the interviewers had asked a question raising the issue.
In general, single members of the church are only required to refrain from specifically sexual behavior. They may appropriately express physical and emotional intimacy with members of the opposite sex through close physical proximity, dancing together, holding hands, dating, writing love letters or poetry to each other, and affectionately kissing and still be celibate and chaste.
However, members who struggle with homosexual temptation are expected to refrain from all physical and emotional intimacy with members of the same sex to whom they are attracted.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has published what I consider to be an very important interview with Apostle Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Lance B. Wickman, a member of the Seventy, on the topic of Homosexuality and the Church.
Some Excerpts:
ELDER OAKS:
Yes, homosexual feelings are controllable. Perhaps there is an inclination or susceptibility to such feelings that is a reality for some and not a reality for others. But out of such susceptibilities come feelings, and feelings are controllable. If we cater to the feelings, they increase the power of the temptation. If we yield to the temptation, we have committed sinful behavior. That pattern is the same for a person that covets someone else’s property and has a strong temptation to steal. It’s the same for a person that develops a taste for alcohol. It’s the same for a person that is born with a ‘short fuse,’ as we would say of a susceptibility to anger. If they let that susceptibility remain uncontrolled, it becomes a feeling of anger, and a feeling of anger can yield to behavior that is sinful and illegal.
On May 26th, the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his two counselors sent a letter to be read in all of the LDS congregations in the United States urging members to contact their Senators to support proposed amendments to the Constitution that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman to prevent the establishment of legal, homosexual marriage in the United States.
Since the release of this letter of counsel to the members, I have heard of several critics of the church, internal and external, who try to discredit the Church’s position against homosexual marriage as hypocritical in light of the Church’s own struggle against the United States government’s prohibition of the former LDS practice of Polygamy in the late 19th century.
These critics try to draw a parallel between the church’s fight to keep the government from prohibiting its religious practice of plural marriage and the modern fight by homosexuals to prevent the government from prohibiting same-sex marriage. “How can the church support government prohibition of same-sex marriage,” they ask, “when the church itself fought to prevent the government from interfering with their right to marriage in the 19th century?”
This criticism reveals a very superficial understanding of history and the church’s 19th century position in regard to congressional proscription of polygamy. Like the common comparison of the homosexual movement to the civil-rights movement, it is an effective rhetorical device with emotional appeal, but has little basis in reality. It is effective because it is superficially compelling and easily expressed in only a few words while an effective refutation of it requires a lengthy explanation.
In debates I have participated in over same-sex marriage, its proponents have often asserted that the practice would have negligible societal effect. They maintain that after the standardization of gay marriage everything will continue as it has. Such an assertion, it seems to me, requires an unbelievable degree of willful self-delusion or dishonesty.
The Weekly Standard has a sobering article that gives us a thorough preview of the upcoming train-wreck:
