[Vision2020] LDS Stand on Prop. 8 Oozes Irony

[Tom Hansen]

LDS Church criticized for supporting California's anti-gay marriage 
proposition, maintaining marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a 
woman and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman and a . . .

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>From the Salt Lake Tribune at

http://tinyurl.com/6ylgop
 
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Walsh: LDS stand on Prop. 8 oozes irony 
By Rebecca Walsh 
Tribune Columnist
 
Mormons understand a little bit about getting picked on for being 
different. 

    Tales of Haun's Mill, Reed Smoot and Mitt Romney fill Sunday School 
and Family Home Evening lessons. Years of violence and lampooning and soft 
bigotry drive The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' historical 
narrative. Persecution is in the psyche of the people. 

    But now the victims seem to have turned into the aggressors - and 
over, of all things, an alternative definition of marriage. 

    "This is a church that has been persecuted for its flavor of 
Christianity, for its past marriage practices, for its past religious 
practices. And here they are turning around and persecuting another group 
of people," says Jay Redd, a gay lapsed-Mormon movie director whose San 
Francisco marriage ceremony was featured last week in Salon. "I feel like 
it's very shortsighted, and it's not a very Christian way of treating 
people." 

    In a four-month offensive, the LDS Church has deployed its faithful as 
partisans for California's Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would 
ban gay marriage - the largest mobilization since the faith fought the 
Equal Rights Amendment three decades ago. In June, members were asked 
to "do all you can." And they have. 

    As a result, the Salt Lake City-based church gets the credit and the 
blame for leading the cause. According to Californians Against Hate, 
Mormons have donated more than $19 million to the cause - nearly four out 
of five dollars raised. 

    At the same time, wards are splitting as members' beliefs about gay 
rights become a litmus test of righteousness. Families are also divided 
between the über-faithful and the conflicted. 

    Church leaders insist there is a higher cause: "Freedom of religion is 
at risk," says L. Whitney Clayton, a member of the LDS Presidency of the 
Seventy. 

    The irony is thick here. But it seems lost on church leaders and many 
members. 

    More than 150 years ago, Mormon settlers were driven from their homes 
and their prophet was killed, in part, because of their polygamous 
definition of marriage. After years of isolation and marginalization in 
the desert, the church abandoned the practice to achieve statehood, 
political legitimacy and validation in American society. 

    Now, Mormons are using the same words that were used against their 
ancestors. It's not completely inconsistent with a history and doctrine 
centered on procreation. 

    "I don't think the church ever compromised on its sense that marriage 
is the institution through which families are formed and people are 
saved," says Sarah Barringer Gordon, a scholar of the law of church and 
state who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. 

    Comparing polygamy to gay marriage, she says, "in many church members' 
eyes is comparing apples and oranges. You can't compare gay marriage to 
polygamy." 

    Still, in this electrified climate, the church can't escape legitimate 
reminders of its muddled history. Officially, Mormon polygamy is now a 
quandary for heaven. But California bloggers speculate that the church's 
support is really a ploy to legalize polygamy. After all, the thinking 
goes, the initiative language says "only marriage between a man and a 
woman is valid or recognized in California." But what about one man and 
two women? 

    On the other side, a whisper campaign speculates that if the 
initiative fails, church elders will be forced to marry gay couples in the 
temples. Others bring up the faith's embarrassingly tardy decision to give 
black men the priesthood and marry interracial couples. This scrutiny is 
the price of leading the campaign against gay marriage. 

    Apostle Dallin H. Oaks rejects the notion that the church's history of 
polygamy conflicts with its judgment of homosexuality. Many 19th century 
Mormons, he says in a 2006 interview on the church's Web site, were 
reluctant to live polygamy. 

    When a new revelation ended the practice, "I think the majority were 
greatly relieved and glad to get back into the mainstream of Western 
civilization," Oaks says. "If you start with the assumption of continuing 
revelation, on which this church is founded, then you can understand that 
there is no irony in this." 

    But that still seems to leave the door open. If polygamy can end with 
a revelation, wonders Washington Post columnist David Waters, what about 
Mormon opposition to gay marriage? 

    Given the LDS Church's reliance on procreation theology - the role of 
the traditional family in salvation - Gordon says that's unlikely. 
    "There's an awful lot of theology involved - the centrality of the 
family and the ways families are created and perpetuated," she says. "It 
seems a significant hurdle." 

    If anything, the church may be left behind as other conservative 
congregations soften and adapt. 

    Affirmation assistant executive director David Melson says the church 
has done damage to its own members and its reputation. "Win or lose, the 
actions of the church over the past 90 days will result in damage to the 
LDS Church in California and beyond from which it may take a generation or 
longer to recover," he says. 

    The ERA failed. But feminists still went to work. 

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Seeya at the polls, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college 
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)


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