Also published here:
https://unexaminedfaith.blogspot.com/2019/03/put-paid-to-lie-equal-treatment-of-lds.html *the version in the blog contains references, footnotes, hyperlinks.
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(Rather than accept the terminology widely accepted by gay persons themselves, the LDS Church typically uses its own term to describe LGB persons, “Same Sex Attracted,” or (SSA). In this post I will generally eschew the label placed upon our LGB brothers and sisters by the Church, and simply use the more common “LGB,” or “gay.”)
Recently, in the midst of a conversation about gay relatives, a co-worker casually mentioned that the Church treats its “same sex attracted” members in exactly the same way it treats its heterosexual members. It is a sentiment that we have heard from LDS leaders and publications, from friends and family, and on social media. The Church, it is said, only holds its SSA members to the same standards as it does its hetero members —all are expected to be equally obedient to the law of chastity. This, according to many a sincere believer, is equal treatment for LGB and hetero members.
Let’s put paid to that lie right now.
When I attended the temple prior to doing the mission, I “covenanted” to obey the law of chastity. What I agreed to was to not “have sexual intercourse except with [my] wife to whom [I was] legally and lawfully wedded.” The most recent revisions have attendees covenanting that “the women of my kingdom and the men of my kingdom shall have no sexual relations except with those whom they have legally and lawfully wedded according to my law.” So to live the Law of Chastity, sex has to be restricted to within the confines of legal marriage.
If same sex marriage does not exist, then in a sense it is true to say that LGB and hetero members are equally expected to not have sex outside of marriage.
With the legalization of same sex marriage, holding LGB members to the same standard would imply, at minimum, accepting that same sex couples having sexual relations with their partners with whom they are “legally and lawfully wedded” are not violating the law of chastity.
Having historically been on the receiving end of persecution for practicing a form of marriage that was both not legally recognized and not accepted by society at large, one might be forgiven for tenaciously hoping (though not expecting) that the Church would be empathetic to marginalized group likewise being discriminated against for hoping to practice a form of marriage not legally recognized and not accepted by society at large.
However, instead of accepting that married LGB members are not violating the law of chastity, (at least) two salient things occurred that diminish the case for the Church’s earnestness in its ostensible equal treatment of hetero and LGB members.
First, at the behest of the First Presidency , the Church led the fight to try to ensure that same sex marriage not be legalized. In the fight to “protect marriage” in California, 80-90% of canvassers and some 50% of money raised came from the LDS.
Second, just months after the Supreme Court in the US legalized gay marriage, the Church quietly revised its Handbook of Instructions to explicate that same sex marriage is a form of apostasy requiring discipline, and made it official policy to exclude the children of same sex married parents from full participation in the Church, denying these children what it believes to be necessary saving ordinances, until the age of 18 when they could renounce their parents relationship.
In fact, The Church has gone so far as to call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between opposite sex partners.
If LGB members were being held to the same standards as hetero members, with the legalization of same sex marriage, married LGB couples would not be violating the Law of Chastity. The reaction of the Church to the gay marriage issue indicates that the Church does not even want the possibility of having to hold its LGB members to an equal standard. The fact that the Church reacted the way it did, to try to block marriage equality and redefine marriage equality as apostasy is one way that the Church broadcasts its disingenuousness when it asserts that LGB members are held to the “same standard.”
The above raises an obvious question as to why the Church would be so adamant in its opposition to the legal acceptance of same sex marriage.
The answer is found in an official communication from the Church, “The Divine Institution of Marriage,” issued in response to the fight for marriage equality in California.
The communication starts by quoting the Church’s Proclamation on the Family: “Marriage is sacred and was ordained of God from before the foundation of the world.”
A majority of the piece is focused on the procreative role marriage:
"From the beginning, the sacred nature of marriage was closely linked to the power of procreation. After creating Adam and Eve, God commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth…” Only a man and a woman together have the natural biological capacity to conceive children. This power of procreation—to create life and bring God’s spirit children into the world—is divinely given. Misuse of this power undermines the institution of the family.
…in almost every culture marriage has been protected and endorsed by governments primarily to preserve and foster the institution most central to rearing children and teaching them the moral values that undergird civilization.
The special status granted marriage is nevertheless closely linked to the inherent powers and responsibilities of procreation and to the innate differences between the genders. By contrast, same-sex marriage is an institution no longer linked to gender—to the biological realities and complementary natures of male and female. Its effect is to decouple marriage from its central role in creating life.
…same-sex marriage…is a far-reaching redefinition of the very nature of marriage itself. It marks a fundamental change in the institution of marriage in ways that are contrary to God’s purposes for His children and detrimental to the long-term interests of society."
From the above text it ought to be self-evident that the Church’s fight was primarily concerned with their own private religious morality—“Divine Institution,” “sacred nature,” “ordained of God,” “Adam and Eve,” “God commanded,” “create life,” “God’s spirit children,” “divinely given,” “God’s purposes. The Church’s choice of language indicates that it is seeking to impose its own private supernaturally derived morality into legislation that would constrain the rights and freedoms of those who do not share its religious values.
But there is, as you read above, a second line of reasoning contained in the article. The Church is asserting that marriage equality will be “detrimental to the long-term interests of society.”
I suppose that a typical reaction to such an assertion (well, mine anyway), would be to suggest that the fact that, at least on the face of it, making the category of marriage and family a little more inclusive ought not negate the value of those already included in the category, that what happens privately in the home of my neighbor has no effect on my family. A carefully stage managed “interview” with Elders Lance B. Wickman and Dallin H. Oaks, intended to put forth the Church’s position on same sex marriage, states that the opposite is true: “What happens in somebody’s house down the street does in very deed have an effect on what happens in my house…”
So what is this detriment of which the article speaks?
On one hand I suppose that there is an alleged spiritual harm for those who are engaging in “sinful” behaviors. However, “sin,” per se, is not the province of governments, and so private religious moralities should not be grounds for legislation. There is scriptural authority for having the Church avoid interference in political matters found in D&C 134: 9.
A second harm is never explicitly stated but is implied by asserting that marriage has (i) “almost” always been about procreation, and that (ii) it is within the family that “the moral values that undergird civilization” are propagated.
Let’s briefly deal with (ii) first. It may be entirely true that the moral values that undergird society are transmitted through the family unit. For the sake of argument, let’s accept that at face value. But even if 100% true, there is a huge lacuna here. The link between the premiss that “families transmit essential values” and the conclusion that “therefore there should be no legal recognition of same sex marriages” is left for the reader to fill in. It is difficult to think how one could move from that premiss to that conclusion, unless, of course, one presumes that same sex parents are somehow less capable or willing to teach the values in question, or that the values that undergird society include the rejection of the legitimacy of same sex relationships. I think it is clear why the essay wants the reader to fill in this unstated (homophobic) assumption for themselves rather than state it explicitly.
The claim that (i) marriage has always been about procreation…
When confronted with the illegal plural “marriages” of Joseph Smith, including “marriages” to women who were already married to other living men , and to girls that were below the average age of puberty for that time, a favored response from apologists for the Church is to suggest that at least some of those “marriages” were not sexual, and were for the purposes of creating “loose dynastic bonds.” Putting aside for the moment that non-sexual plural marriages violate the very purpose of plural marriage as stated in D&C 132—to raise up righteous seed, I find it slightly hypocritical to hold that same sex marriages are immoral because they are not about procreation, while at the same time defending Joseph Smith’s “marriages” as moral by holding that they were not about procreation.
The Utah State legislature, 90% of whom are LDS, passed a law in 1996 allowing first cousins to marry if either they are over 65, or if they are over 55 provided that “either party is unable to reproduce.” The Utah Legislature is not governed by the LDS Church (*stifled snicker*), but the fact that influential Mormons would pass a law in Utah that allows a marriage only on the condition that it is not about procreation, and that the LDS Church did not fight it, at least suggests that the Church’s justification for opposing same sex marriage on the grounds that it is not about procreation is not altogether genuine.
Furthermore, if it not being about procreation really is a moral objection to same sex marriage because it “decouple[s] marriage from its central role in creating life,” then surely the Church ought to be opposed to marriage for people who are infertile, or who indicate that they intend to remain childless, or for seniors who, like President and Sister Nelson, are past their childbearing years at the time of marriage. The fact that the Church does not fight such marriages casts some doubt on the assertion that they oppose same sex marriage on the grounds that it is not about procreation.
What if the Church is correct in their description of same sex marriage, that it decouples marriage from its central procreative role? That, in and of itself does nothing to detract from the value of those couples who have chosen to have children. Exactly nothing.
The Church is advertising its biases by claiming that its opposition to same sex marriage is rooted in it not being about procreation while at the same supporting other types of marriage that no more about procreation than same sex couples.
A faithful member, when reading the above, might counter with the notion that those who marry late in life, or those who are infertile, will have perfected bodies in the resurrection, and thus be able procreate then. That’s as may be, but it is a private religious point of view, and churches ought not try to make those who do not share their privately held religious views conform to those views through legislation.
The essay goes on to state that “[a]nother purpose [for publishing the article] is to reaffirm that the Church has a single, undeviating standard of sexual morality: intimate relations are acceptable to God only between a husband and a wife who are united in the bonds of matrimony.” The Church went out of its way to try to deny marriage equality to our LGB brothers and sisters because it violated that “single, undeviating standard of morality.” If this is the real reason for the Church’s apoplectic response to marriage equality, then where is the equivalent fight to make pre-marital sex illegal? If there is, as they say, “a single, undeviating standard of morality,” then pre-marital sex is a moral and legal equivalent of same sex marriage. That conspicuous lack of a corresponding legal battle lays bare the lie that the Church only wants to hold its hetero and LGB members to the same standard of sexual morality.
The essay mentions one more potential harm: “As governments have legalized same-sex marriage as a civil right, they have also enforced a wide variety of other policies to ensure there is no discrimination against same-sex couples. These policies have placed serious burdens on individual conscience and on religious organizations.” It then lists off ways in which marriage equality requires people or organizations of faith to treat LGB’s that are contrary to said faith. If I may be so bold as to restate that in more common parlance, the essay is saying that being denied the right to discriminate against gays is itself a form of religious discrimination. Dallin H. Oaks has said so on other occasions. This principle is clearly illustrated in the LDS Church endorsed “Utah compromise” law that says that it is wrong to discriminate against LGB’s unless doing so for religious reasons.
I find myself quite unsympathetic to this final alleged harm. I find it about as harmful to religious freedom as being forced to recognize the validity of interracial marriage. Sorry. No sympathy.
Finally, I’d like to suggest that even if the Church is holding LGB and hetero members to the same Law of Chastity, the lived experience of members means that the standard being upheld is very different. “Abstinence” is the correct term for what is required of hetero members, but it doesn’t quite capture what is required of the faithful LGB member. The faithful LGB members is required to commit to lifelong “celibacy,” with no chance of ever being able to fully express their sexuality. To illustrate consider a few elements of my heterosexual experience:
When I was 12, I would have a crush on the cute girl in social studies class. In so doing, did I violate God's law? Was I engaging in "sexual" behavior?
When I was 13 I would daydream about cute girls, wonder what sex was going to be like. Was that engaging in sexual behavior? Was that violating God's law?
When I was 14 I would go to church dances. I would ask the girls to dance with me. And I would be thrilled at the prospect of the slow dances. It was fun to “bear-hug,” and it was funny if a chaperone caught us, and insisted that we stayed “Book of Mormon width apart.” Was I violating the Law of Chastity? Sinning?
At 16 I would go on the occasional date. I would love to enjoy the company of a young lady my age. I thrilled at the prospect of holding her hand. And sneaking a cheeky kiss at the end of the night! Again, was it a violation of God's law? Was I engaging in sexual behavior? If my bishop found out, would he judge me harshly?
At 18 I had a steady girlfriend. She would sometimes accompany to my ward, sometimes I’d go to hers. At church we would hold hands. Before separating for Priesthood and Relief Society, I’d give her a quick kiss. Did anybody look at us with condemnation for unnatural or sinful behaviors?
I intended to marry that girlfriend, post mission, and truth be told, I wanted to shag her senseless. The debate about whether I should give in to temptation and then repent before the mission, or to muzzle that drive and abstain until marriage was a constant internal dialogue. I waited, by the way. In my bursting desire, had I violated any of God’s commands? Was there any doubt that I would be found “worthy” to serve a mission?
After doing a two-year mission for the Church, I was at a stake conference, I saw my future bride for the first time across a crowded room, and my heart skipped a beat. The moment I met her I thought to myself "I could spend the rest of my life with this woman!" While we dated I frequently thought of how wonderful it would be to make love to that beautiful woman. We didn't, we waited. But oh my heck! We thought about it and talked about it! (And we made our marriage work for a couple of decades). Did I need to repent? Was I violating God's law? Was I engaging in sexual behavior?
To all of the above questions, I hope the answer is an unambiguous, clear and resounding "NO!"
It was OK for me to hold hands with a girl at a church dance; how OK will it be for two boys or two girls to hold hands at a church dance? Everything I described above is perfectly acceptable for a hetero member, but denied to our LGB brothers and sisters. If I had not had those experiences growing up, my life would be the poorer. Not just a little bit. My life would be considerably emptier.
If the church is telling its LGB members that it forbids them from engaging in those same behaviors that were a necessary part of the formation of my personal identity, then I take with a grain of salt the claim that it holds gay members to the same standard. The lived experiences of hetero members practicing abstinence and LGB members practicing celibacy are worlds apart.
My heart aches for my gay brothers and sisters who are being denied those wonderful growing learning experiences.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2019 07:32AM by srichardbellrock.