Proposition Opposition

Since November 4th, the Obama hype has settled down considerably. The Proposition 8 discussion, however, continues on with immediate backlash and side effects. People opposed to the outcome are speaking out in despair and outrage, some going as far as to boycott the entire State of Utah (which means not visiting here, buying products from Utah-based companies, or in any other way putting money into the Utah economy—it’s very similar to the embargo the US has maintained against Cuba since JFK). People proud of the outcome are “bracing for persecution” as one email put it. I have received more chain letters, heard more people discussing, and read more online about Proposition 8 since the election than I did pre-November 4th. Being a Mormon has made it even more interesting for me as I hear arguments for one side from friends and co-workers (many of who are not LDS, though some are), and arguments for the other side from friends and family (many of who are LDS, though some are not).

I absolutely oppose the church’s involvement in the Proposition 8 issue and in anti-gay marriage efforts in general. I’d like to state the reasons why, as well as address the reasons people have given me for supporting it, and maybe even ask a few questions to those who favor Prop. 8, since I am perplexed as to why so many Mormons support what seems to me an obviously unfair and unchristian measure. I’m open to discussion and alternative ideas, and hope to learn from this discussion as well as maybe open people’s eyes to a different way of looking at it.

I’d like to start with a question regarding the church’s support of Prop. 8 (I realize that the church itself didn’t contribute money to the campaign, however its leaders did officially urge its members to participate, which is an act of direct involvement—especially when one understands the extensive degree to which Mormons are willing to follow our leaders’ urgings). The question is this: When the church has stated time and time again that its policy is one of political abstinence, why did it suddenly break its own rule and jump into the Prop. 8 campaign? One might respond, “It generally refrains from involvement in political issues except when those issues are of a moral nature, in which case it is obligated to stand up for morality.” That answer seems to make some degree of sense, but then I would respond with another question: Then why has it not spoken out against the awful and immoral wars that have been waged by the U.S.’ political leaders? Doesn’t Mormon doctrine state that next to denying the Holy Ghost, God considers taking the life of another human as the worst sin one can commit? If the church’s policy is to speak up when the issues are of a moral nature, then why does it not actively work to fight the politics that keep the impoverished destitute? It claims that it only gets involved when morality is at stake, yet it has been, and continues to be, completely absent on enormous moral issues that have been visibly affecting its members and neighbors for much longer than the question of gay marriage.

I agree that the church should become active in moral issues. I wish it would more often take a stance against the atrocities committed by our political and social leaders who maintain a system that keeps the poor poor while making the rich richer, that allows us to exploit workers in our own country and abroad while we bask in the tainted sunshine of ultra-consumerism and gluttonous over-consumption, that allows us to drop high-tech bombs on innocent families and write it off as “that’s just the way war is,” and that allows us to send our children overseas to fight and die in wars invented by politicians, or to return home psychologically screwed for the rest of their lives. It’s for this reason that I’m unconvinced that the church’s purpose in fighting gay marriage is because it is a moral threat.

The issue of homosexuality has always been treated strangely in the Mormon Church. Beyond the occasional lesson on the Old Testament story of Jehovah destroying Sodom and Gomorrah due in part to the two cities’ homosexual practices, the church rarely discusses it. Gay members are simply taught that the way they are goes against God’s plan, and that they need to deal with their trial just as the rest of us deal with our individual trials. Some members even compare being born gay to being born addicted to drugs, and suggest that gay members can overcome their unnatural homosexual tendencies through prayer and scripture study. That’s like someone telling me that I can overcome my heterosexual tendencies if I try hard enough. I know people who still believe that people aren’t born gay, they choose it like they would choose between two political parties, between two new cars, between two wedding dresses.

The truth is, Mormons in general know very little about homosexuality beyond the fact that we’ve been taught that it’s evil. We avoid talking about it (except when we’re condemning it) and often don’t involve ourselves in social groups that openly accept or interact with homosexuals. Many will argue, “I have nothing against gays. I have a gay cousin,” or “I went to high school with a gay kid,” or “There’s a gay guy at my work—I have no problem with him, but I can’t accept what he does.” Those who maintain close relationships with gay friends and family members are much more likely to view and treat them as real people, rather than someone that is nice but has a serious case of moral deficiency that we just can’t overlook.

The excuse of fighting immorality is used in some part to justify the persecution of something we clearly do not understand. Once we make a situation so black and white (which is easy to do when we know so little about it), declaring one side evil and the other side righteous becomes much less difficult. Part of the reason we are anxious to back Prop. 8 is because it allows us an outlet to satisfy the human instinct to persecute those different from us. With so much politically correct watchdogging that goes on in our society today, our innate human desire to criticize those that are different than us has been suppressed. The civil rights movement and a policy change in the late seventies put an end to the church’s (and many of its members’) open discrimination against blacks without criticism from other members. The same doctrine-based persecution seems to be being applied in this new millennium to homosexuals. We can still persecute homosexuals for being different without being criticized from within our religious walls.

I have my religious beliefs. If I feel something is wrong, I am free not to do it. But if that “sin” doesn’t affect others, I don’t have the right to force others to refrain from doing it. I’m not forcing my morals on someone else if I tell them they can’t steal, kill, lie, threaten, or abuse another person because their actions are directly targeted at another person. Many supporters of Prop. 8 claim that gay marriage does affect them. They say that under a system that allows gay marriage, their children will be forced to be taught that gay marriage is right and acceptable. I’ve read that in the state of California there are laws that prevent public schools from teaching children about certain issues “pertaining to family and health,” under which gay marriage falls. But whether or not those laws really exist is irrelevant. I have absolutely no right to dictate someone else’s morals to them. It is totally unacceptable for me to force my religious beliefs on others. Even in the church’s most intense gospel-spreading programs (like full-time missions) we are taught to seek out those that are willing and eager to listen, and let those uninterested persons continue in their beliefs, as a person can only change if they want to change, that true conversion comes from within and not from going through a list of outward motions dictated to you by someone else. In the case of Prop. 8 we’ve decided it’s o.k. to force our set of morals on those who believe differently than us.

If the issue really is that you don’t want schools to teach your kids about gay marriage, then you need to propose a bill and organize a campaign around a list of things you don’t want the school teaching your kids, rather than dictate to a minority group of adults how they can and can’t be married. We don’t outlaw amusement parks because one of the chilidog carts might give us food poisoning. Instead we have a health department which dictates specific methods for preparing food.

Some are concerned that the LDS Church could possibly be sued or lose its tax-exempt status after refusing to marry gay couples. There are multiple problems with that argument. First, that is no excuse to persecute. If the extremely wealthy church loses its tax-exempt status in exchange for ensuring freedom of others to practice or not practice religion as they see fit, than it is a small price to pay. Second, it’s absurd to think that the government can or would force a religious organization to perform certain civil ceremonies to its members. I think people are confusing religious marriage (a union performed based on theological beliefs as an attempt to fulfill the wishes of one’s deity of preference) with civil marriage (a legal ceremony, secular and unreligious in nature, whose purpose is to grant tax/insurance/etc benefits and lessen the economic blow to couples). In order to be married in a Mormon temple, a member must pass a strict test of worthiness. Individuals and couples are constantly being denied temple recommends to enter the temple to be married. It is the LDS Church’s right to dictate what it considers right and wrong, and to allow or prohibit anyone it wants from entering the temple. That has always been the case and it has never threatened the church’s tax status.

Couples who are not deemed worthy to marry in the temple can still be married in a chapel, reception hall, or anywhere else they choose by a Mormon bishop or other authority figure. These cases, however, become civil ceremonies rather than religious ceremonies and the man performing the marriage is doing it as a favor (he’s not paid for it) and has the right to refuse to do it if he likes without any legal repercussion. He is under absolutely no obligation to marry anyone. Again, the law requires no religious organization to marry anyone. There are no legal grounds for a lawsuit or tax-exempt status revocation. The marriage that Prop. 8 deals with is a civil function, not a religious one. Churches can continue marrying or not marrying however and whomever they choose, just like they always have.

The part that weirds me out is that the Mormon Church prides itself on its history of being persecuted. We, through stories from our ancestors as well as modern-day personal experience, understand what it’s like to have a different viewpoint and set of practices than the majority. We relish our religious right to practice as we choose. We love it. Our ancestors fled the United States and came to Mexico (now Utah) to escape the government’s and the people’s discriminatory policies against us, including against our strange methods of practicing marriage. Yet despite all of that we fail to respect another group’s right to practice marriage as they see fit. We don’t even show sympathy towards them as we disagree. Instead, we show contempt. We make comments like, “It’s not our fault you choose to disobey God,” and “The gay agenda is trying to ruin the core family unit,” as if there is a secret evil coalition of gay people sitting in a dark boardroom, wearing lace and plotting a sinister attack. Members of the church who oppose the church’s persecution of gay rights (like me) are told, and this is a real quote, “If you don’t like what the church is doing, then leave. We don’t need you—you’re only slowing us down,” and “If you can’t obey the prophet (Pres. Thomas S. Monson), then you’ve obviously lost your testimony and are no longer one of us.”

The truth is that Pres. Monson and past church presidents urge members to listen to their prophetic counsel, then ponder and pray to decide for ourselves if we feel it’s right. Church leaders are called upon to fill leadership positions, rather than running for them or vying for them in other ways. One does not apply for a position, rather he/she works in a capacity until asked by higher-ups to fill a new position. So it is commonly taught that the church is run by fallible, imperfect human beings who will make mistakes in judgment, but that that doesn’t lessen the fact that God guides the overall movement of the church. Therefore, the fact that a church member disagrees with something said by a church leader in no way implies that said member has gone apostate. Long-time members will recall many instances in their life when people they know have been given erroneous council by bishops, stake presidents, and yes, even General Authorities. Anyone who has studied Brigham Young’s writings and speeches (outside of the general Sunday school manuals) will find numerous incidents of the Lion of Zion saying some of the craziest, false, and contrary-to-church-doctrine things you’d never think you’d hear from a president of the church. If you don’t agree with every single one of his statements, you can still consider yourself a faithful member of the church.

Many members today are “bracing for persecution.” That they fail to see the irony in that statement is saddening. People are saying, “Why is everyone so upset that we exercised our constitutional right to defend our beliefs. It’s just another case of the liberal media singling out people with conservative values and finding another way to crucify us. We must brace ourselves for the oncoming persecution.” The fact that the majority democratically voted in favor of Prop. 8 (winning by a very small margin) in no way makes it right. If you were to take a vote in Atlanta just before the Civil War began whether or not all slaves should be freed, the result—which would have been vastly in favor of continuing slavery—would by no means be just or fair.

There is a difference between persecution and protest. Some people will respond to the LDS Church’s persecution with right-back-atchya persecution (again, it is very easy, maybe even innate, to persecute those different from us). But some of us will openly and verbally protest a severe violation of civil rights, the same rights that guarantee us Mormons to practice our peculiar religion, in an attempt to protect those same rights. Equality for all should never be sacrificed to the god of one specific religion. Mormon belief teaches that the forcing of people to obey is Satan’s plan, while ensuring free agency at all costs is Christ’s doctrine.

In the end, it comes down to a question of fairness. It’s not my business to tell others how to marry. If I believe their way is morally wrong, I don’t have to do it. I can even attempt to teach them my belief and leave it up to them to accept or reject. But by forcing it on them not only violates their guaranteed right to worship or not as they see fit, but it perpetuates an already long history of oppression, discrimination, and hate against them. I strongly oppose my church’s direct involvement in the issue. Some say it is the church’s right to push Prop. 8 just as it is others’ right to fight it. But it is never anyone’s right to discriminate and persecute. I am morally opposed to any measure that oppresses any group. I think the church is taking a strong stance on this not because it is a moral issue (where is it politically on war, poverty, starvation?), but because many of the leaders and members, though trying to follow Christ’s teachings in other areas, are still caught up in old conservative prejudices and bigotry. The LDS fight against Proposition 8 isn’t based in Christ’s doctrine rather it is the manifestation of old fear, non-understanding, and prejudice coming through in new ways.