In late 2002, as President George W. Bush began building his case for preemptive war in Iraq, a remarkable thing happened. In contrast to the general timidity of American churches in response to the conflict in Vietnam, leaders of faith were speaking out. Observed the Reverend Jim Wallis at the time:
Opposition to war with Iraq has come from a wide spectrum of the churches - Roman Catholic, Protestant denominations, Evangelical, Pentecostal, black churches, Orthodox. All of the statements, letters, and resolutions from church leaders and bodies take the threat posed by Saddam Hussein seriously, but they refuse war as the best response.
Importantly, these church leaders are not making their decision based on whether or not they approve of President George W. Bush - some do and some don't. Rather, they are doing so on the basis of Christian theology and moral teaching.
One notable exception to this dissent: the Mormon Church.
The LDS Church's cautious official response to the war (one of the most consequential decisions in recent American history) and near-unconditional subsequent support for the Bush Administration (in 2005, Dick Cheney was awarded an honorary doctorate and invited as the commencement speaker at BYU, the Church's flagship institution), raise important questions about the Church's involvement in political affairs, particularly when an issue has moral/ethical implications. When should it speak out? When should it stay neutral? And how does it treat its members with minority views?
Nearly six years and thousands of lost lives since the war began, Mormon authorities still haven't weighed in on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, or Guantanomo Bay. Neither have they directed semi-annual Conference addresses to the genocide in Sudan, human rights violations caused by multi-national corporations, or climate change that could have devastating effects on future generations. Instead, in the past few months they have decided to take action on a "moral issue" of a different sort: denying gay couples the constitutional right to get married in California.
In support of California's Proposition 8, the Mormon Church has gone into political overdrive. Under the direction of Church leaders' admonition over the pulpit, they have formed a formidable grassroots machine, providing boots on the ground, making phone calls, writing letters, forwarding emails, while donating an astounding $19 million to the cause.
"What we're about is the work of the Lord, and He will bless you for your involvement," apostle M. Russell Ballard proclaimed in a broadcast to church buildings in California, Utah, Hawaii and Idaho.
This stand, sadly, follows a disturbing trend of being on the wrong side of history on issues of social justice and equality for the LDS Church.
For nearly 150 years, the Mormon Church stubbornly held to a racist policy that refused all members of African descent the privilege of entering temples or receiving the Priesthood. Even as slavery, segregation, and Jim Crowe receded into the American past, the Mormon Church still treated its own black members as second-class citizens. The practice was justified as the plan of God. Apostles and prophets, the highest authorities in the Church, rationalized the continued discrimination by pointing to the "curse of Cain" and disobedience in the pre-existence. Other leaders said they simply didn't know but were sure God had some mysterious reason for keeping the full blessings of the Gospel from black people. Only a rare few leaders, including apostle Hugh B. Brown (and many more grassroots members), spoke out on behalf of civil rights. So the infamous ban lived on until 1978.
This blatant institutional racism is perhaps the most regrettable scar in Mormon history. Though progress has been made, race remains a taboo subject to this day for most Mormons, shrouded in shame and myth. It hasn't helped that the Church still hasn't publicly acknowledged or apologized for its racist past.
Yet sadly this is not the only example of the Mormon Church attempting to stifle progress and equality. In the 1970s the Church went to great efforts to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment for women. Much like Proposition 8, they argued that it undermined the traditional structure of the family. Church leaders called it "a moral issue with many disturbing ramifications for women and for the family as individual members and as a whole." President Spencer W. Kimball said it "would strike at the family, humankind's basic institution."
Sound familiar?
So here we are, in 2008, and now the threat is gay people who are already gay, who love each other and in many cases live together, and want to get married. How does this hurt the average Mormon family?
If the concern really was the practical welfare of the family, perhaps the Church could instead invest its vast resources into making healthcare universal and affordable, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, cracking down on child predators, and improving the quality of our educational system. All of these issues have a direct impact on my family and millions of others.
You hear of marriages ruined all the time because of abuse, neglect, or stress over finances. But I have personally never heard of a divorce caused by another gay couple getting married.
Yet instead of focusing on issues that can really help nourish our families we obsess over a word. A word we refuse to share. A word that has never been perfectly fixed. There was a time, after all, when inter-racial marriage was just as taboo and illegal as gay marriage. Marriage has been many things, but the common ideal has been and should continue to be a relationship built on love and commitment.
So to my fellow Mormons: I ask you to please re-consider. Take the time you would spend fighting this errant cause with your family. Go to a movie. Take a drive together. Watch the World Series.
Maybe you don't completely understand homosexuality. Maybe you think it's a sin. But shouldn't we leave that to God and allow others to be who they are and make their own choices? As followers of Christ, isn't it always better to err on the side of compassion and love?
Martin Luther King once lamented in his famous letter from Birmingham Jail:
So often the contemporary Church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church's silent---and often even vocal---sanction of things as they are.
In case after case when the moral chips have been on the table, I have hoped for my Church what Dr. King prayed for in his time: that "the Church as a whole will meet the challenge of [the] decisive hour." But sadly, so often on the issues of peace, equality and social justice, it has failed, whether by silence or misguided support.
With Proposition 8 it is time to stand for justice, not discrimination. It is time to stand for equality. It is time to be on the right side of history. Regardless of race, gender, or sexuality human beings are human beings and deserve to be treated as such. Today I voice my public support in favor of treating my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as equals, and ask my fellow Mormons to do the same.
UPDATE: To clarify, I commend all the good, charitable work the LDS Church does and have written about it in the past. The purpose of this article is specifically on the Church's response to political issues with moral implications.
UPDATE 2: To those publishing hateful words in the comments towards Mormons, I ask you to re-consider. I'm with MLK: we should strive for moral ends by moral means. Healthy criticism is fine. Hate and intolerance perpetuates hate and intolerance whether it is directed at gays or Mormons.
Follow Joe Vogel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/joevogel1
Holly Welker: The LDS Church's Unequal Treatment of Gay and Feminist Activists
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There are civil unions and domestic partnershi
Armed with those legal protection
http://www
When Gay Rights and Religious Liberties Clash
Could it be that the bigger, "telestial
Just a thought. Yours?
The truth of the matter is this. The LDS church believes that there is a prophet of God on the earth today. Members do not blindly lead this prophet. They are given the oppurtunit
To the mormons, this is no time for spiritual weakilings
Jedediah Bigelow
Age: 21
At least there are a few other voices of reason -- Steve Young and his wife have given $50,000 to No on 8 and have more than a few No on 8 signs in their yard.
I am acting on my faith and exercising something called free agency. I find it insulting that the church would try to dictate my behavior and rights or that of anyone else -- ESPECIALLY people who aren't even LDS.
If any group should understand discrimina
Suddenly when there IS something asked of them they LEAP into action: calling trees to California
Little to no thought is spent asking if the cause is just. The prophet asked us = The Lord asked us. Members are looking for opportunit
He said the script was given him by mormon church leadership
I'm embarrasse
1) I have read the scripts from the phone calls and NONE of them state that God is going to cause calamities
2) If you really were a Mormon, you would realize that being an 8th generation would be relatively impossible
The fourth generation could have been born 20 years later, in 1850.
The fifth generation could have been born 20 years after that, in 1870.
The sixth generation could have been born 20 years after that, in 1890.
The seventh generation could have been born 25 years after that, in 1915.
The eighth generation could have been born 25 years after that, in 1940.
The ninth generation could have been born 25 years after that, in 1965.
The tenth generation could have been born 25 years after that, in 1990.
In short, Rawkcuf could be anywhere from 18 to 68 years old, depending on which generation he was born in and how accurate my generation
(My friend said it was given him by his Stake President. I'm not sure where it originated
My friend was so upset about it, he called me. I told him there were enough disasters waiting to occur, what with drastic climate change happening, and California being on active fault lines...it sounded like what was to be expected; the emotional appeal of a superannua
As for my lineage, one forebearer was born 1799, converted 1833. Another was born 1804, converted 1836. (Both figure in the D+C and leadership positions in the church, as did succeeding generation
Though I am a member in good standing, Scott, I oppose Prop 8. I don't see it as a matter which concerns my salvation. I believe in latter day scriptures which address this. D+C 134:9 states, "we do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government
Was the U.S. government justified in the measures it took to outlaw polygamy?
If your answer is yes, then you believe that God's decrees should be subject to man's law and that the separation of church and state is so important that it must sometimes error on the side of limiting religious freedom.
If you answer is no, then you believe that the government has no right to deny a union that some citizens support- even if it is viewed by the majority as perverse.
Either way, I cannot see how the Mormon community can vote yes on 8 with a clear conscience
Furthermor
I agree that the fear mongering tactics are below the belt but I don't have a problem with any of the church's warnings including Elder Benson's remarks. He was simply erring on the side of caution in terms of how he felt the US should behave in response to some of the more EXTREME behaviors of the civil rights movement while also warning that it wasn't as simple as it appeared on the outside by pointing to white agitators as being the instigator
Here is a modern instance of white agitators using black population
http://www
(It's an odd and ironic parallel actually. Please feel free to look carefully at the site and film if possible. It's very interestin
Back to the talk by Elder Benson, these are the words he uses before directing his remarks in the direction of the civil rights connection to communism: "Now there is nothing wrong with civil rights--it is what's being done in the name of civil rights that is alarming." I think that's a pretty key concept to emphasize.
And I'd say that language like this is much more than "erring on the side of caution:"
"With fires raging in every conceivabl
It seems to me that while we are always supposed to treat the leaders of the Church as inspiring visionarie
So why should we trust them now?
I'm just not sure about your assertion that the concept of marriage has been eternally fixed, never wavering. My understand
Your article was thoughtful and smart. I enjoyed it. I'm a 7th generation member of the LDS church and a very painful journey over the past three years finally led me to the most amazing clarity and peace: JOE, THE CHURCH ISN'T TRUE. You might want to consider not trying to resolve conflicts in your heart and mind with what many of us were taught from birth. I'm 57, the mother of four, married to an active member, and finally for the first time in my life I'm not angry anymore. Consider the possibilit
You received lots of comments so I hope you have the time to read mine. I wish you all the best in your life. I admire your courage.
Religion is a highly personal choice, a choice each individual must make for themselves
If they want separation of church and state, not having the government tell them how to worship, then they should stay out of politics, which the LDS have failed to do time and time again.
Considerin
But they don't do that. Instead, they go on their initial decision to believe the church's teachings, and they
try their damndest to adjust their own best judgement, to fit whatever nonsense the church is selling that day. This is like sticking with a particular gas station that increases their price to $10.00 a gallon, when across the street it's selling for $3.00.
Churches work best (or at all), when they uphold and support the morals and ethics that their congregant
Such tactics may indeed lead to short-sigh
Is it even possible to make people like that see reason and know true equality? I'm beginning to think no. You can't use facts--or even apparently other reasonable LDS church members--t
All opposition falls into the following catagories
1- Religious/
2- Slippery Slope Fallacies ("If gays marry, people will be marrying animals/ch
3- Unsupporte
4- Disasterou
Christ's two commandmen
"...and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
As the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter Day Saints, I would figure that these two commandmen
I plead with all of those in support of this Propositio
The other much more brief reading (an 8 page article) is the LDS Church's explanatio
As Joe said, let us speak civilly, even about difficult issues that matter greatly to each of us.
FredrickB
The question I suppose is why are we going off of the Christian view of what a "tradition
“The greatest fear I have is that the people of this Church will accept what we say as the will of the Lord without first praying about it and getting the witness within their own hearts that what we say is the word of the Lord.” - Brigham Young
In my previous post, all I have done is asked everyone to "find for themselves their answers no matter what it is". If you feel that Propositio
The other much more brief reading (an 8 page article) is the LDS Church's explanatio
As Joe said, let us speak civilly, even about difficult issues that matter greatly to each of us.
FredrickB