To set things up, let me share my personal experience with the economic crisis.

Depression

In January 2009 I found myself sitting in a conference room of the company I had worked for during the last four years listening to the chairman of the board of directors explain that the company was running out of money and that they were replacing the company founder and president with a new, hand-picked CEO.

Only six months earlier the company had been on top of the world: honored with prestigious awards and accolades and a three-year sales growth of 620 percent.

As if the mood wasn’t somber enough, the chairman then went on to explain that the economy was in a very bad way, and that it wasn’t just a cyclical recession, but it was going to be a depression.  He expected that many, many companies would fail but that those companies that survived the depression would be wildly successful afterward.

Now, from any board chairman this kind of talk would be alarming, but from our chairman, Mark H. Willes, it was downright horrifying.  You see, Willes had been president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1977 to 1980.  He had been President and CEO of of General Mills, Inc., President and CEO of The Times Mirror Company, director of Black and Decker, and a somewhat controversial publisher of the L.A. Times.

In other words, he was very, very well connected to insiders across a large number of industries. He had been involved with recessions from various angles for nearly four decades.  He said that neither he nor his associates had never seen anything like what was happening in the economy in their lives.

Within a month or two of our meeting, Mark was named as the new President and CEO of the Deseret Management Corporation by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Deseret Management Corporation oversees all of the church’s for-profit commercial enterprises.

Within three months of the depressing company meeting with Willes, my award winning company had dwindled from layoffs and resignations.  I was fortunate to find employment with a more stable company.

Now, experts will certainly argue with Willes about whether the current economic crisis actually constitutes a depression.  In fact, a good number believe that the economy is already well on its way to recovery from a severe recession. Others disagree and are predicting that the supposed recovery is superficial and will not last.

I have no idea who is right.  Though, as I watch increasing numbers of friends lose their jobs, I am not very optimistic.  But regardless of whether this is an actual depression, everyone seems to agree that it is among the worst economic crises we’ve had in a very long time.

The Causes of the Economic Crisis

In order to draw my analogy, it is important to first look at how this economic crisis came about.  As usual, even experts disagree about some of the roots of the crisis, and like the Great Depression, I am sure that they will be arguing about them for decades to come.  However, most of the explanations I have seen point to the Housing Market Bubble , Subprime Mortgages and Mortgage Backed Securities as the crux of the crisis.

Perhaps the most layman-accessible explanation I have seen is an 12 minute video entitled “The Crisis of Credit Visualized” by Jonathan Jarvis.

I encourage you to watch the video.

Now, one thing that I should point out is that the video puts the blame for subprime mortgages squarely on the lenders and investors without mentioning that government programs intended to promote home ownership among lower income, minority families as a form of social engineering created artificial incentives for lenders to lend to subprime applicants.

It also neglects the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act passed by the Republican controlled 106th Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1999 which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which had prohibited individual institutions from acting as both an investment bank and commercial bank, or as both a bank and an insurer; prohibitions that had been enacted specifically to prevent the kind of circumstance they believed led to the Great Depression.

The key point here is that the the credit crisis was incubating for a long time before it actually hit.  Laws and policies enacted nearly a decade ago, if not more, did not bear fruit until this last year.

A decade ago  I was newly married and worried more about school, work, and family problems than obscure shifts in banking law and social initiatives being made by the Clinton administration and my Republican representatives in Congress.  I would have never believed that the bad subprime lending practices of lenders and the greed of investment bankers far away from my simple, honest attempt to make a living could damage my own job and threaten the value of my home.

And that is why the subprime credit crisis provides a good analogy for the potential dangers of redefining marriage.

An Analogy

Over and over again I hear supporters of same-sex marriage ask derisively how a same-sex marriage could possibly destroy anyone else’s marriage.  More recently they point to Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been legal since May 2004, and declare triumphantly that the societal meltdown prophesied by opponents has not materialized.

But as the subprime mortgage crisis demonstrates, in complex systems seemingly small policy changes, and millions of individual decisions, can over a longer time-scale cause disastrous results for even those who were not involved in the bad decisions, even if things look peachy in the interim.  Five years ago we might have asked derisivly “How can my neighbor’s subprime mortgage hurt my mortagage?”  And now we know how.

Redefining marriage to include same-sex couples is analogous to redefining lending guidelines to offer mortgages to applicants who under previous definitions would not qualify.  We are creating subprime marriages.

The motivation for changing the definition is also similar.  Home ownership is a stabilizing institution.  Government programs sought to lower the standards for mortgage qualifications in order to encourage the stabilizing influence of home ownership among lower-income families and minorities.  Plus everyone wants the benefits of home ownership, and the government and businesses wanted the increased revenue by lending and taxing people who were previously not eligible.

But by lowering the standards they set up a system that in the long term destabilized the entire housing market.

Likewise, marriage is a stabilizing institution.  Some same-sex marriage proponents argue that by allowing homosexuals to marry they will stabilize relationships that are at the present notoriously unstable.  They want the benefits of marriage. Who doesn’t?  But just like home ownership, but even more so, marriage is a long term investment.  It is an investment in the next generation of citizens consisting of the children raised by marriages, and by proxy an investment in society.  By redefining marriage, we potentially destabilize the entire system in the long term, even if things look peachy in the interim.

Of course, same-sex marriage is only one type of subprime marriage.  For decades now we have been investing in other forms of subprime marriages as we grow increasingly tollerant of pornography, infidelity, abuse, and divorce.  In many ways same-sex marriage is as much a result of these existing subprime marriages.

To look at five years of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and declare triumphantly that there are no deleterious consequences is like declaring in 2005, at the height of the housing bubble, that extending homeownership to people who were previously inelligibe and breaking down the barriers to banking, the whole country has benefitted across the board.  It’s short term thinking.

The possible effects of subprime marriage may not be felt for decades, or even two or three generations.

While I empathize a great deal with same-sex couples and their desire to redefine marriage and claim its benefits, like subprime mortgages, in the long run investing in subprime marriage is a bad investment with the potential to be amplified through the complexity of society with disasterous long-term results that affect everyone.

While there are certain to be fools and bigots among the opponents of same-sex marriage, just as there are among its proponents, opposition to same-sex marriage is not irrational. It is not ignorant or uninformed.

Just as those in favor of same-sex marriage have legitimate concerns and rational arguments for their stance on the subject, so do those of us who oppose it. Going around trolling the blogs and facebook walls of those who support the traditional definition of marriage and describing their position as irrational and ignorant certainly isn’t going to win you many converts.

So rather than shut down constructive conversation by treating those with whom you disagree as idiots, why not acknowledge that at least some of their points are valid concerns; that you can see how they would be concerned, even if you think that other considerations should overrule that concern.

Same-sex marriage advocates certainly have some strong arguments in their favor. So do opponents. That fact should be acknowledged.

Those who oppose Proposition 8 frequently like to claim that the concerns of those who want to preserve traditional marriage are all hypothetical slippery-slope arguments based on fear. Just because something is hypothetical does not mean it is irrational. While slippery slope arguments are often dismissed, there are plenty of historical examples of slippery slope hypotheticals that ended up being accurate. Just because you cannot conceive of any immediate consequences to allowing same-sex marriage, doesn’t mean that there wont be unintended consequences that emerge later. Reality is not limited by your ability to imagine consequences. Just look at the current financial crisis.

As Jane Galt has argued so well, the history of the U.S. Income Tax, or extending government welfare to unwed mothers, or easing the access to no-fault divorce are all examples of slippery slopes. In complex systems, even small changes can have large, unexpected consequences.

It is like adjusting the water temperature in the shower. The full effect of increasing the hot water isn’t immediately felt. So you can’t judge the effect until you wait long enough or else you might get burned because while the immediate temperature felt fine, the water hadn’t made it through the pipes yet. It is not irrational to be concerned about flippantly changing something so central to society as marriage to a definition that it has never had in all of history. While there may not be an immediate effect, we are likely to get burned down the road, once the water has made it through the pipes.

Proponents of Proposition 8 say that allowing same-sex marriage could lead to an abridgment of their religious freedoms and parental rights, and already see signs of this happening. Opponents dismiss this concern as a lie used to promote fear. California law already allows parents to opt their children out of sex education, they argue, and religious freedom is guaranteed by both the U.S. Constitution and California state law.

However, a simple assertion of freedom of religion is an oversimplification of the complexity of religious freedom and law in the U.S. When the LDS church was persecuted for polygamy in the late 1800s’, the Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of religion extended only to religious belief, not to religious action or practice. So, while the Latter-day Saints were free to believe in polygamy, they were forbidden to practice it. The government confiscated the property of the Church and revoked the right to vote of many of the members.

In other words, people in the U.S. are free to believe whatever they want, but if they act on beliefs that the Government deems immoral, the government can restrict and punish their religious actions.

So churches who teach that homosexual behavior is a sin and that same-sex marriage is inferior or wrong have a legitimate concern that the legalization of gay-marriage could effect their freedom of religion down the road. Their beliefs are protected, but any attempt to act on that belief could be conceivably restricted or punished. Labeling their concerns as discrimination and bigotry only reinforces that concern.

[For those of you who scoff at what you consider the hypocrisy of the LDS church’s resistance to government proscription of polygamy in the face of its support for the proscription of same-sex marriage, see my previous article here .]

While it is true that California law allows parents to opt out of the sex-education section of the curriculum, the fact is that laws are not static. They change all the time in subtle ways. Just because religious parents will not face an immediate threat that their children will be required to be taught about same-sex marriages, doesn’t mean that they are not justified in being worried that once same-sex marriage is established, the laws will change. As a current example, while the ADL, the ACLU, and HRC are in California saying that it is a lie that parents will have to let their children be educated about same-sex marriage, those same groups are in Massachusetts filing amicus briefs arguing parents don’t have any right to opt their children out of the pro-gay marriage curriculum (see here= ).

It’s like chess: just because your King is not in immediate danger doesn’t mean that your opponent’s current move wont set up a check-mate scenario. Parents and Churches are looking a couple of moves ahead and rightly worried. That is very rational and wise, not irrational.

In addition to these concerns, the manner in which same-sex marriage has been foisted on our nation through judicial overreach should be a major concern for those who support our constitutional, democratic republic. The California supreme court went well beyond its power and created ex-nihilo a fundamental right to marriage that has never before existed. In doing so they have usurped the democratic process and unconstitutionally claimed powers that they do not have. Even those who support same-sex marriage should be very concerned about the way in which it is being forced upon the nation and destroying our constitution. (See Orson Scott Card’s recent article)

The concerns of those of us who oppose same-sex marriage are not inherently irrational or fundamentally bigoted. They are legitimate concerns. I hope that some of you who want same-sex marriage to be legal will at least acknowledge that fact, even if in your mind your rational concerns about discrimination and rights trump ours.

If you live in California, Vote “Yes” on Proposition 8 to keep the traditional definition of marriage.

[Link to Video]

Also from the church’s newsroom, excerpts from the special broadcast given for the members in the state of California:

[Link to Video]