“To compare a civil mariage to that of the Lord’s way is like comparing a big flashlight to the sun. A civil mariage has two basic ingredients: The bride and groom make certain promises to each other; The bride and groom can legally live together according to the laws of the land.
(…)But not matter how it is packaged, that’s all a civil marriage will ever be. The addition of words from scriptures, so often incorporated into civil ceremonies, such as “What therefore has God joined together, let not man put asunder” Matthew 19:6, does not change that fact. Just as the baptisms conducted without authority in the meridian of time (see Act 19:2-5) were eternally powerless, so too is a civil marriage powerless to do anything but qualify the man and the woman to live together under the laws of the land. Adorning the ceremony with a minister or even an LDS bishop, a beautiful church or other building, tuxexos, limousines, music, and all of the other trappings will not change that. An empty box is not given substance by the most beautiful gift wrapping. So it is with civil marriage. It is not the Lord’s way and no amount of rationalizing will ever change that enchangeable fact.”
Elder Kree L. Kofford of the Seventy, Ensign, June 1998, 7.
What happens to the poor souls victims of these (sub-prime) marriage after death? The answer is not Doctrine and Covenants 132:15-17 They become servants to those who have celestial marriage.
Another quote this time by Joseph Fielding Smith from Doctrine of Salvations 2:67 “They [husband and wife] are not bound by any law of the gospel. It has no claim upon them[the family]; when they are dead, their contract, their obligations, and bonds come to an end; they have no claim upon each other, and no claim upon their children. Their children are left without parents, only as they themselves through their own faithfulness maybe adopted into some other man’s family.”
I will drive the nail even further by taking the example of Brigham Young who married (celestial marriage)six women who were still married to their living first husband(as in not divorced). Three of them to non-mormons Mary Ann Clark Powers, Mary Elizabeth Rolling Lightner, and Anna Tapfield King.
I therefore contend that in Mormon theology a civil mariage is a non binding contract in the eyes of God (after death) and inconsequential for eternal matters and salvation (clearly you loose everything even your children). After all, one can only enter the presence of God if he/she is married in the Temple.
So I don’t think I was VERY misleading, if misleading at all. Any good standing Mormon would not consider a civil marriage as a valid marriage for their salvation. In so much, that in countries like France, where civil mariage is an obligation and has to precede a religious wedding, young women will abstain from intercourse until their “real” temple marriage which can take place one to two days later as they have to travel to Germany, England or Switzerland to have access to a temple. It is of course not required by the Church but often time talked about in Young Women and Relief Society…
So for a people who has such disdain towards civil marriage, it is quite peculiar that Mormons would spend so much money and time in protecting an “empty box”.

I’m proud to be your friend. I’m grateful for you ability to explain things so clearly, and with compassion.

You say that I fail to show an outcome in the effect same sex marriage would have on our civilization.

If either side of the debate could convincingly demonstrate what the long-term outcome of institutionalized same-sex marriage would be then the debate would be over very quickly. However, in complex systems it is very difficult to trace cause and effect because they are neither linear nor proportional. A small change can be amplified through coupled feedback loops to have unexpectedly large consequences, and sometime large changes can be dampened through negative feedback and have virtually no long term effects.

All I can do is look at what we do know, and try to deduce the potential outcome. But I am not postulating in a vacuum, as you imply. We know that changes to the structure of the family very often have long-term negative effects on child development that correlate with increased societal problems. Communities that have fewer traditional father-mother households have greater amounts of crime, poverty, and violence. Many of these effects are not fully manifest for several generations.

Additionally, new studies in cognitive and brain sciences are demonstrating that brain development is highly affected by socialization. Our familial and social interactions trigger hormones that are also neurotransmitters (Oxitocin in females and Vasopressin in males) that play important roles in the development of neural pathways that affect social recognition, bonding, anxiety, trust, and parental behaviors. We have no idea what affect changing the traditional/biological male-female parental structure will have on developing brains of children. But the very fact that the neurotransmitters that affect the brain’s bonding pathways are different for men and women contradicts the notion that there is no material difference between the two, and that should give us pause when contemplating purposefully contradicting the biological nature of family by redefining marriage.

As you point out, there were a number of people who predicted the disaster that would result from the subprime mortgage practices. But they were ignored and marginalized. Ron Paul, for instance, is widely considered a fringe conspiracy nut, not a financial guru. And yet, he now appears to have been right on this point. At the time, their predictions were contradicted by other so-called experts. But we only know who was correct in hindsight.

You point to Denmark and France’s civil unions as examples of 10 and 20 year experiments with gay-marriage that have not had the kinds of results I predict, saying that they have not created more homosexuals and straights are still reproducing at the normal rate.

But your contention here is a straw-man argument for multiple reasons. First of all, while I do have concerns about civil unions, they do not represent the kind of redefinition of marriage that was attempted in California, which also already had civil unions with full rights. You know well that Same-Sex Marriage is illegal in France. Secondly, I have not argued that same-sex marriage would lead to more homosexuals or less population growth. I am concerned about the affect counter-biological family arrangements will have on child development and also the long term societal effects in terms of crime, violence, poverty, and loss of liberty, including religious liberty.

You wonder whether I think that heterosexual couples who marry without any desire or intention to bear children are a menace to society and should likewise be stripped of their right to marry. I admit that I think they are making a serious mistake, but I do not think that they should be forbidden marriage. How do I justify this difference? Because there is a fundamental difference between a decidedly childless biological couple and a homosexual couple: the childless couple can accidentally have a child; a homosexual couple can never become accidentally pregnant. Additionally, the childless biological couple still exhibits and develops bonding and parental brain patterns based on the sex-specific neurotransmitters involved in their relationship.

I am sure that many of the children raised by homosexual couples are wonderful individuals. But that does not mean that there is not good cause to be concerned about the long-term aggregate influence same-sex marriage will have on society.

I should point out that while I do believe that there are religious reasons for opposing same-sex marriage, this post was not arguing from a religious point of view. Your jabs at the LDS church concerning pornography use and depression drug prescriptions are a form of ad-hominem argument that are irrelevant to the this debate. However, even if they were relevant, your conclusions are not necessarily supported by the statistics you cite. Utah and LDS are not synonymous. LDS and active, faithful LDS are not always the same. 37.5% of the Utah population is not LDS. A number of LDS are also less active. These studies do not show what proportion of their statistics are LDS and additionally what proportion is active, faithful LDS. And they ignore cultural and societal influences that may be influencing the numbers. In the case of the pornography stats, the data came from a single company and was probably not a statistically valid sample. But they make great headlines with which to distract from the real issue don’t they? They are irrelevant to whether or not the definition of marriage should be changed and what the long-term effects of the change will be.

You larger point about the church seems to be to try to make the church’s stand against same-sex marriage look bigoted. You are saying “If the church were really worried about problems in society, why is it concentrating on the relatively innocuous homosexuals when it could be doing something about the real societal problems, like depression, suicide, abuse and pornography in its own home state?” But your point falls flat. The fact is that the church HAS spent far more resources on these other problems than it has on same-sex marriage. The church sponsors its own 12-step addiction recover program for pornography, drug, alcohol, and other addictions. It has its own social services for family and marriage therapy and counseling. The church’s welfare program alleviates poverty and enables self reliance. To employ your own words, the church has many big fish to fry, and it is doing an admirable job of frying them all. The church is very concerned about infidelity and divorce, as well as same-sex marriage. The church’s opposition to same-sex marriage is part of a tapestry of concern over the break-down of the traditional family. The church spends considerable resources on all of these things. It is consistent and balanced.

Your etymological foray into the Norman-Franco-Latin roots of the word “marriage” is interesting. You seem so intent on demonstrating that it is not either religious or romantic in origin. Again, my post was not a religious argument, nor was it a romantic argument. So your railing against religious/romantic marriage is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, your etymological argument does more to contradict same-sex marriage than support it. Even if we accept your etymology, What you demonstrate is that marriage was a legal contract, involved in the transfer of property from a father to a husband. But you conspicuously neglected to mention the property being transferred: the daughter. Maritare is actually Latin meaning “to give a husband to.” Maritus means a “married man, husband.” The contract being enacted was ALWAYS to create a union between a man and a woman for the purpose of establishing inheritance and paternity (the blood relationship of children and the implied rights and responsibilities therefor implied). If we expand the linguistic argument further, there has never existed in the history of the world a language in which the words for each of the parents were not gender-specific. There has always been one word for the female parent or mother, and a separate word for the male parent or father. This further demonstrates that male-female marriage is not just deeply ingrained in our biology through neurotransmitters, but that it is deeply buried in our collective linguistic consciousness. You point out that marriage is not etymologically a romantic relationship. And I agree. It is the same-sex-marriage movement that is claiming that their sexual/romantic/emotional/commitment relationship should qualify them for marriage– a position that by your own analysis is ahistorical. It has always been about biological male-female relationship for the purpose of producing children.

Your idea that the opposition to same-sex marriage is because we wrongly believe that it is a “Judeo-Christian” institution is yet another straw-man argument. You spend a lot of time fighting these scarecrow arguments that are easier than addressing what is actually being said. Judeo-Christian Marriage vs Muslims, Buddhists, etc and LDS civil marriages vs Temple Marriages are really irrelevant to my argument as well. In all of these various marriage traditions, it has always been about procreation between a man and a woman.

Now, let me return to the argument you have actually made against what I have said here. In your first paragraph you say that I have failed to demonstrate how same-sex marriage will cause the kind of upheaval I predict. That is true. In such a complex system it is hard to demonstrate cause and effect. But bringing this whole essay together here is what I can respond:

Given that

1. we know that changes to family structure, such as widespread divorce, have demonstrated long-term generation problems in society,

and given that

2. we know that sex-specific neurotransmitters affect brain development in relationship to bonding, parenting, and social interaction that have long term implications for society,

and given that

3. across all cultures, marriage has always been a contract between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation and not primarily concerned with emotional or romantic commitment,

and that

4. Across all languages, linguistically marriage has always created a male parent and a female parent,

it falls upon those who wish to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples to demonstrate that going against biology, brain chemistry, cross cultural history, cross language linguistics, and tradition will not have negative social effects that we fear. If you cannot explain why traditional, biological marriage is important to our society then I am certainly not going to let you change it.

I have demonstrated that the redefinition is unprecedented and has the potential for serious negative consequences, even if I cannot show the specific path. My analogy was to help people understand that potential by draw comparisons to something that they have experienced.

Now, there is room here for compromise. I do empathize. I mentioned that I have serious concerns about Civil Unions. As you say with candidness that is rare in same-sex marriage supporters, Civil Unions with full rights are just marriage with a different name. in other words, once you get the Civil Unions, it is just a matter of changing terminology.

I think that the solution is to establish something like civil unions, but without the implications of a romantic/sexual relationship. This is known as the Salt Lake City plan and it has recently been enacted by the state of Colorado. The idea is to establish domestic partnerships between people that grant rights, like hospital visitations, insurance, as well as obligations, like bill collection payment etc, for any two people who are willing to enter into a domestic partnership agreement.

For instance, two widowed sisters who live together would be able to enter into a domestic partnership that would allow them hospital visitations and the ability to be included on employment insurance as a dependent, as well as other rights and protections. Under this system, homosexual couples would be able to get the kinds of benefits and rights they need, by entering into a domestic partnership just like the widowed sisters, but their homosexuality would be irrelevant.

Once we remove the sexuality and romantic involvement of the applicants from the equation, I believe few people would oppose such a system because they would no longer fear that it would institutionalize behavior that they believe is bad for society.

So, Jean-Luc, what do you think of this idea for Sexuality-Agnostic Domestic Partnerships? The Salt lake City Plan. Is that a reasonable compromise? If not, why not?

You also imply that there has not been enough time for us to see the effect of gay marriage considering that it’s only been 5 years in Massachussets and it would take several generations to see the repercussions. Well I have news for you, Denmark has had civil union (with full rights) since 1989 and France since 1999 (full rights).
So we are talking two decades in Denmark and one decade in France with absolutely no dire societal changes. It did not create more gays and straight folks are still procreating at a normal rate.

You say of heterosexual marriage: “It is an investment in the next generation of citizens consisting of the children raised by marriages, and by proxy an investment in society.”

Are we to understand then that heterosexual couples who marry with no intention nor desire of procreating are menaces to society? Should we also strip these people from their rights to get married then?

Thus being said there are many gay/lesbian couples who have and raise wonderful children for the future of our society. You can debate all you want on the righteousness of that kind of parenting but then I don’t think Mormons should throw the first stone. Are you aware that Utah is the online Porn capital of America?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/160566/utah_online_porn_capital_of_america.html Really? What’s the problem there?
Oh and as an aside are you also aware that: More Utahns take Prozac-style drugs than in any other state, according to a study conducted in June of 2001 by Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit management firm. The Beehive State is included in the region with the highest suicide rate in the nation. Source: Daily Universe / BYU NewsNet
URL: http://newsnet.byu.edu/story/37883
(It seems to me that the Church has bigger fish to fry at home than gay marriage outside)
You took time to explain the financial crisis and did a very good job as a matter of fact. So humor me for a minute and let me explain the origin of the word marriage which brings up so much contention. Marriage, the word itself doesn’t come from the Hebrew, nor the Arameic and not even the Greek language. It is a French word (mariage) derived from a latin root “mas”, “maris” which means male. The verb “maritare” appears during the Roman empire. It is a legal term used to describe the passage of property/authority from the father to the husband. Nothing romantic or religious there. At any rate, the word “marriage” appears in the English language with the invasion of William the Conqueror along with a plethora of French words. In the old testament the Hebrew word “laqach” (to take) is used and translated as marriage. In the new testament the greek word “gamos” (wedding celebration, feast) is used and translated as marriage.

So it would seem that the word marriage in its origin is not biblical, semantically speaking, but a French word derived from a Latin root to describe a legal contract. As an aside it is not until the XIIth century that the Catholic church turns marriage into a sacrament.

But never mind the semantics and let’s pretend for a minute that marriage is a Judeo-Christian covenant, a religious sacrament. What are Buddhists, Indus, Muslims, atheists and other non Judeo-Christian couples to do when it comes to legalize their union in this country? Seriously Christians should be revolted that they would dare using the word marriage, such a lovely Judeo-Christian institution. I would like to also point out that in Mormonism “civil” marriages performed outside of the temple are null and void in the eyes of God as only Temple marriages are valid.
And truly if the word marriage then represents a religious practice, should we not remove the term all together from civil legal documents , after all the constitution requires the separation of church and state.

Personally I could not care less about the word marriage, all I care about is to have the same protective rights as any other heterosexual couple who willfully commit their lives together. I would be plenty happy with civil union on a federal and state level. Can you empathize with that? But food for thought, if you say your ok with civil union with full rights, you then agree to gay marriage, just with a different name. Hypocritical isn’t it?

In conclusion, the word “marriage” semantically does not find its origin in a religious practice but was a legal term crafted in France from an original Latin word also used for a legal act.
There is no evidence to this day, that granting marriage or civil union with full rights to gay people will affect our society nor its population. (Two decades of experience already).
If we consider marriage to be a religious word then it needs to be removed from federal and state documents as it breeches our constitutional contract of separation of church and state.
And finally if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was the ultimate example for happiness and righteousness through their gospel model why on earth is Utah the number one consumer of Prozac and Porn and has the highest incidence of suicides than any other states?

On another note, I am pleased that you were able to find more stable employment.