This is going to have to be shorter than I would like it to be but Laura and I have been thinking and talking about this a lot lately and I thought I would share a few of our thoughts and a good article that will make you think about it. As I am sure most of you know California, Florida, and Arizona all have propositions to constitutionalize marriage as being between a man and a woman. The church is strongly supporting these propositions and has laid out their reasoning clearly on lds.org.
One of the many issues that has been brought up is that defining marriage more liberally as between any two people will clash with the freedoms of churches and parents. That is what the article I have linked to this blog is talking about. (Click on the Title and you will go to the article) It's really a very interesting topic that forces one to re-evaluate freedom and what it means.
Laura and I watched a little clip of an interview with Elder Bednar where he talked about the issue. One of the main points he made was that tolerance has to be a two way street and it seems often times people want it to be a one way street. The Gay-rights movement is fighting very hard to have equal rights, but they seem to look past the fact that their fight for rights is tromping on the rights of religions to believe and practice as they would like. But that is the big question whose rights should be protected?
I am sure that after reading the article some of you thought that the Catholic church having to pull their adoption services out of Massachuset because they wouldn't place babies with homosexual couples, or a woman being sued because she wasn't willing to photograph a gay-couples wedding, sounds pretty ridiculous. Now think about similar issues but now imagine them being about race, or gender (women's rights). What if a woman today chose not to photograph a black couples wedding, or if the Catholic church refused to place children in African-American homes? I think our first reaction would be to say "but that's different," and I think that they are but the issues are similar. When should a church have the right to prevent someone from joining, or when should a photographer be able to chose who they photograph? The line is not black and white and I am afraid we are going to just keeping moving closer and closer to everyone and everything having legal rights to anything that they want. "I was treated unfairly, I should be able to sue, or the government should force them to let me do what I want" will become the way we think as Americans. I don't know what the solution is, but I what I do know is that not everyone can be satisfied. It seems to me that we should protect the rights of the largest amount of people that we can. In this case, those of us who believe that marriage is between a man and woman and cannot be anything else. This is why America is so great, in a few days there will be a vote and the majority will have their way!
4 comments:
Very thoughtful. You really opened a can of worms on this one though. Rather than touch on every single issue raised, I will try to limit myself to a few points.
1) Traditional marriage is not threatened by gay marriage. People in favor of proposals such as these often speak of "defending marriage." The simple rebuttal is this: whose marriage is being threatened if a gay couple gets married? Nobody's. Not mine, not yours, and certainly not the millions of heterosexual couples that get divorced every year. If you want to look for a group that has undermined marriage is undermining marriage, look no further than heterosexual husbands and wives. If the people who support these propositions really wanted to protect marriage, they would be trying to ban divorce. And that cannot happen, politically or legally.
The real issue is that they disapprove of homosexuality. But such disapproval should not have the force of law. Besides I think that the institution of marriage would be strengthened if it were legal everywhere.
2) I read the article you linked to, and though I would disagree with certain of the decisions, in my opinion in the overwhelming majority of the cases the negative consequences were the result of the religious institutions or individuals' own free choices. No one forced the psychologist to deny treatment, the Catholic adoption service to discontinue its service, etc. These were actions and decisions freely made by them in order to make a statement about their disapproval of people who had done them no wrong. I do not feel much sympathy for them.
You have touched on the intersection of the spheres of public policy and private beliefs. Private beliefs do not give one the right to capriciously discriminate. Homosexuality is not a crime, is not a sickness, is not something deserving of reactionary condemnation. You probably disagree and I won't try to change your mind.
As to the idea that "...we are going to just keeping moving closer and closer to everyone and everything having legal rights to anything that they want," I cannot agree with that either.
Discrimination against say, neo-Nazis is of a completely different type. Neo-Nazis are free to get married, probably in most cases free to adopt too! If someone didn't want to adopt a child to neo-Nazis I don't see that there would be the same issue -- Nazis have a hateful and poisonous ideoology, gays are just, well gay. Numerous studies have shown that kids growing up in gay households are just fine when compared to heterosexual households.
In the case of gay marriage moreover, the real issue is about the legal rights and benefits that come with marriage, like the inheritance of property, health benefits, tax breaks. These are all very nuts and bolts issues, and before we dismiss gays as undeserving of this, again please ask why heterosexuals can get married in Vegas and an anullment the next week, but a gay couple of 20 years has no legal rights at all. It is inconsistent and unfair.
As you can probably see, I am 100% in favor of gay marriage, not civil unions or whatever other halfway measures have been proposed. The real issue that the backers of Prop 8 et al are dancing around is their fundamental disapproval of homosexuality. The real issue is whether discrimination against gays should be legally allowed. I believe it should not be.
Whew. You just had to bring that up the night before election day huh?
Matt,
Thanks for your comment. It is obvious that we disagree on this subject and I have to say that I knew that already, but I just want to make a few things clear.
I really have thought a lot about this. The issue that I was trying to focus on in my blog was not necessarily gay marriage, although that was the vehicle that I used to try and make my point. The issue is that there are situations among us where the rights of both sides can not be protected fully. In this case the legal right for gay couples to marry will limit the rights of religions and families. u mention that it is the catholic churches fault for pulling out of Massachusets or the photographers fault for choosing not to photograph the gay couples wedding. The whole point of the article was stating that it wasn't there choice. The catholic church' adoption services could not function in Massachusets without them having to fundamentally change what they believe. Although, I am sure this is what you want them to do, their right to believe as they wish and to act on that belief was certainly being challenged. Both sides can't be satisfied. (I am pretty sure that you will disagree with me on that statement, but I really believe that it is true)
Another important issue to make. Prop 8 in California, and
prop 102 here in Arizona, says nothing of homosexuality. (although homosexuality was the certainly the issue that brought it to the table) It simply states that marriage is between a man and a woman and can be nothing else. Of course that has huge ramifications in the homosexual community and is being taken by them as a direct blow. (Which I don't blame them for feeling that way) The fact is they cannot have their rights and the churches still maintain their own right to believe and act as they should.
I forgot to address the first point that you made by asking the question "whose marriage is being threatened by a gay couple being married?" I agree that my marriage nor that of anyone's is being threatened, but as I stated above the real issue here (for me, I can't speak for everyone else) is the rights of churches and parents being threatened. Parents rights in deciding how their children learn about and are exposed to alternatively ways of living. I know that comment probably opened up a bigger can of worms, but again I really think rights will be violated otherwise.
I don't know if you have read about the response the gay-rights movement is having towards the mormon church, but in my opinion it is very infantile and embarassing for them. Instead of trying to legally or politically challenge the issue, they are childishly taking a lot of their frustration out on the LDS church.
Post a Comment