"I have immeasurable issues with Utah's mob rule oppression of civil rights (seriously, I could write a Stephen King sized novel).
But for right now, let me focus just on the Utah Governor's decision to not recognize couples who have been legally married in counties throughout the state.
To illustrate the illegality of it, imagine the following scenario in Nebraska:
1. Imagine that the majority of the voters in the state of Nebraksa were against mormon marriage.
2. So the state of Nebraska passed a law banning mormons from marrying. Marriage could only be between two non-mormon individuals.
3. Some Nebraskan mormons who wanted to get married were denied and sued the state.
4. The judge in the case ruled that the law was discriminatory against mormons, and overturned the ban on mormon marriages.
5. Understand that the moment the ban was overturned, it legally did not exist anymore, which meant that mormons were no longer banned from getting married.
6. After the ban was overturned, around 1300 mormon marriages were legally performed in the state. Then a stay was granted to stop mormon marriages until appeals could happen.
7. Soon after, the Nebraskan governor decided not to recognize those legally performed 1300 mormon marriages.
--------------------------------- Q: Would it be right for Nebraksa to pass laws banning mormons from getting married?
Q: Would it be acceptable for those laws to exist just because the majority of Nebraska voters were in favor of it?
Q: Would such laws be discriminatory?
Q: If a judge stopped the ban on mormon marriages, would that be the right action or the wrong action?
Q: If marriages between mormons were performed during any time it was legal, would it be acceptable for a Governor to not recognize them?"
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2014 11:06AM by redkoolaidmonster.
Why not? After all, being Mormon is a choice, so it's their fault. I mean, if the majority believes that being Mormon is harmful to society, then it's Nebraska's constitutional right to vote for the ban.
Eh. There is already a better analogy out there for the gay marriage issue. The issue of interracial marriage. It's a closer parallel substantively, and it already has precedent in our courts.
Isn't that kind of what happened to Mormons back in the pioneer days? The good people of Missouri and Illinois felt polygamy was ungodly and a sin and ran them out of the borders of the United States. These people today are seen as persecutors, haters, anti-Mormons, driven by Satan to attack the Mormons. You'd think Mormons would be a bit more understanding about not attacking someone else's freedom to live their life the way they see fit.
Typical Mormons. The MAIN reason they are disliked is that they treat outsiders in ways they would never TOLERATE being treated. Thanks for illustrating that.
While I get where you're coming from, polygamy didn't really factor into Missouri, and while it was ultimately JS's downfall in Illinois, it wasn't the cause of tensions, and the public was outraged at his destroying of a press without really being aware that he destroyed it due to polygamy accusations. Polygamy would only come to light in Utah, in Missouri and Illinois the Mormons would have been called a lot of things by their neighbors, but they wouldn't have been called Polygamists.
The locals were also outraged that the treasonous narcissist repeatedly evaded arrest through his habeas-corpus-abusing-banana-republic court in Nauvoo.
Oh absolutely, they had a large number of legitimate issues with JS and the Mormons, I'm just saying that at this point in history polygamy wasn't one of them. If anything it was building up as a rumor but not the core concern of those who took him down.
But wasn't the whole mess started when the printing press was about to confirm the rumors of Joe's polygamy, so he had his henchmen destroy it? And weren't some of his biggest opponents those whose sisters he had proposed polygamy to?
"The good people of Missouri and Illinois felt polygamy was ungodly and a sin and ran them out of the borders of the United States."
And I wrote:
"while it was ultimately JS's downfall in Illinois, it wasn't the cause of tensions, and the public was outraged at his destroying of a press without really being aware that he destroyed it due to polygamy accusations"
The underlying cause of the whole thing doesn't equate to the "good people of Missouri and Illinois" being aware of polygamy in large numbers.
Excellent. I have been using the same analogy (substituting California for Nebraska) and can't get a straight answer from anyone as to why this is any different. In fact, I think that Gay couples are much more nurturing and caring than the Mormons that have 6+ kids and then expect a village to raise them.
I think the difference is that religion is an established "protected class", whereas the same is not yet true for the LGBT community. They will eventually achieve that status through the courts, but that is ultimately what this fight is about.