Source: Deseret News
Top leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) last month released a six-page statement on the
church website that attempts to clarify why the church is opposed to marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples.
In response, the gay Mormon group Affirmation released a statement last week that lauds Mormon officials for some of the clarifications they make in the statement, but also levels strong criticism of the justifications used by church officials for their support for Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that seeks to overturn the California Supreme Court's recognition earlier this year of marriage equality.
The church statement raises objections to marriage equality based on what a church newspaper calls "the potential legal consequences for families and children if same-sex marriage remains or becomes legal."
Affirmation says the church officials use "half-truths and fear to paint a picture of gay marriage leading to an end of religious freedom and of societal standards."
But Affirmation also praised officials for saying the church supports some rights for same-sex couples, including those offered by California's domestic partnership law that provided most of the benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples.
"The church does not object to rights (already established in California) regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference," church officials write in the introduction to the new document.
"We applaud the courage of the leaders who chose to make this statement, which is contrary to many of the church's words and actions of the past, and we see this as a positive step," David Melson, media spokesman for Affirmation, told Deseret News, a church-owned newspaper in Salt Lake City.
But Melson added, "We would have been more pleased if it had not been issued during a time of contradictory action by the church to repeal the civil rights of gay U.S. citizens and to seek to break apart families."
Affirmation also took issue with a statement in the church's document that says "strong families, headed by a father and mother, are the anchor of civilized society." The group's press release said that statement "marginalizes families headed by widows, single parents, adoptive parents, grandparents or foster parents and ignores the church's own history honoring polygamous marriage," Deseret News reports.
The new LDS Church document, called "The Divine Institution of Marriage," follows the release of a letter in June from the church's top leaders -- the First Presidency -- to church members in California, asking for their donations of time and money in support of Proposition 8.
The LDS church in California is one the most active of several "faith-based" groups that are supporting the campaign for Proposition 8 with money and volunteers.
Affirmation has had increasingly public interactions with the Salt Lake City based church since early this year when church officials announced that a mid-level official of the church would hold an unprecedented meeting with Affirmation leaders to discuss the gay support group's concerns.
The meeting was canceled when the official scheduled to host the meeting was transferred to a new job, but Affirmation held a series of high-profile public events to air its criticism of treatment of gay church members.
Melson told the Deseret News that "it's hard not to think our actions didn't have some influence" on the new church document.
He said the introduction to the statement "directly addressed gay issues in a manner much more straightforward and positive than the church has done before."
"The church has recognized this is an issue they need to deal with. I think they are starting to prepare the way for that day," Melson told Deseret News.
The church's statement claims that the church has been accused of intolerance and "hate speech" for speaking out against marriage equality.
"The Church does not condone abusive treatment of others and encourages its members to treat all people with respect," the official statement says. "However, speaking out against practices with which the Church disagrees on moral grounds – including same-sex marriage – does not constitute abuse or the frequently misused term 'hate speech.' We can express genuine love and friendship for the homosexual family member or friend without accepting the practice of homosexuality or any re-definition of marriage."
The church document says, "tolerance as a gospel principle means love and forgiveness of one another, not 'tolerating' transgression."
In an extended response to the church document on the website Mormons for Marriage, Leland Chan, a California lawyer and BYU graduate, argues that definition of tolerance used by church officials is too narrow.
He writes:
The point is well taken. Opposition to gay marriage is not equivalent to hate speech. It is a contentious issue that reasonable people disagree about. It would be worthwhile to discuss what “tolerance” and “acceptance” mean in a civil society. Does my desire not to tolerate or accept the "sins" of divorce or adultery entitle me to legally prohibit others from divorcing or committing adultery? Or am I only entitled to choose not to divorce or commit adultery myself? Since a law allowing gay marriage does not prevent me from marrying a woman or require me to marry a man, the imposition on me to tolerate and accept is rather narrow. It is part of our obligations of living in a diverse civil society.
Source: LDS Church issues statement on same-sex marriage | Deseret News