Yesterday a joint letter by various religious leaders was released. It was signed by many leaders of many denominations including "H. Bishop H. David Burton, Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

The letter specifically warns that "employment discrimination, employment benefits, adoption, education, healthcare, elder care, housing, property, and taxation" are areas that will be affected if same-sex marriage is legalized. It seems that the Church is now on record as favoring discrimination against gay people across the board.

http://usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/promotion-and-defense-of-marriage/upload/Marriage-and-Religious-Freedom-Letter-Jan-12-2012-4.pdf



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2012 02:04PM by baura.

I don't understand why members have trouble admitting their own homophobia. If that's not homophobic action, I don't know what is.

"We also recognize the grave consequences of altering (the) definition (of marriage). One of these consequences - the interference with the religious freedom of those who continue to affirm the true definition of 'marriage' - warrants special attention..."

That's a riot! By changing the definition of marriage, we are interfering with their religious freedom to have it defined otherwise! Or are they worried that they're going to be forced to perform gay LDS marriages? Doesn't that seem like a completely separate battle?

How does redefining marriage interfere with LDS rights to continue performing and perceiving their own marriages like they've always done? It's not like polygamy, where actual mormon marriages were made illegal. I don't get this.

A few days ago I heard Newt G. refer to the "marriage sacrament" in talking about same sex marriage. Nobody called him on it but it tells me that his point of view is probably based on his religious doctrine and not his own analysis. Watch out for the little things.

All very European except one Jew, one Hispanic.

One woman.

They sound very frightened. They won't be able to feed at the public trough any more while indulging in discrimination. I believe all the legal cases they cite are based on use of public assets by religions.

That's an outrage. If they had just reached out to the Taliban, they could have had plenty of non-christian religious leaders, many of whom happen to be brown, sign up to show that they have the same opinion on this subject.

>
> The letter specifically warns that "employment
> discrimination, employment benefits, adoption,
> education, healthcare, elder care, housing,
> property, and taxation" are areas that will be
> affected if same-sex marriage is legalized. It
> seems that the Church is now on record as favoring
> discrimination against gay people across the
> board.


Well, that's actually a true statement. There will no longer be discrimination that is upheld by the law based solely on the fact that the person that you love and want to be married to is of the same sex.

What I really don't get is that marriage (as practiced in history) is a method to transfer ownership of women and property. So, it's already been redefined as it is now a legal union between equal people of the opposite sex. It's not too far of a stretch to say that marriage is now defined legal union between ANY two people.

I just forwarded the document to my TBM mom who is the mother of 2,5 gay children. She keeps trying to convince us that TSCC is coming around on this issue, but clearly it is not and I do not intend to let her forget it.

Amazing! Mom wrote back and criticized the letter for reducing gay relationships to a sex act and expressed her hope that TSCC stays out of the current marriage debate in Washington. I can only hope that more individual members are prepared to push back like this.

Is it me or does it sound like they are just as worried about the lost revenue to their organizations as they are about the effect of same-sex marriage on society? The gravy train of government contracts will be coming to an end. Maybe they don't like same-sex marriage, but losing all that money is what drives them to write a letter.

They are worried about how unfair it will be when they are discriminated against for wanting to discriminate.

Waaaaaaaaaaaahh.

And the argument is just as stupid as the phrase I just used sounds.

F. Burton Howard needs a good kick in the @$$.

What they don't say is that their precious, pious, bigoted lives will continue to go on as if nothing has changed. Separation of church and state BENEFITS them too...why don't they get that???

A couple of other noteworthy bits from the letter:

1. The letter predicts (threatens?) "conflict" if pro-gay marriage laws are passed.

2. The letter opines that religious persons will suffer from being called bigots if marriage laws are changed so that they no longer support anti-gay bigotry.

Yes. Bigots will be called bigots. The letter harps on this issue at length, so I think the sheeple are truly very worried about not being able to avoid the "BIGOT" label.

Good.

Consider the issues of the blacks and the priesthood:

Black citizens argued that their own taxes were helping to subsidize a religion that turned around and discriminated against them. If the Mormon Church insisted on denying the priesthood to blacks on the ground of religious freedom, then the Mormon Church should no longer be granted tax exempt status. In effect the black community was saying this: "If you insist, believe what you will, but don't require us to help pay for it through America's tax policies."

The Gay/Lesbian community could press the same point. "Believe what you want according to the Bill of Rights, but pay for it yourselves. Don't expect us to subsidize it."

Just wondering why this letter wasn't signed by the prophet himself?....

How many times have gays been promised "civil unions" that granted gays all the rights of Marriage so long as we didn't use the word marriage. Now we see that those promises are a smoke screen, we see that denying Marriage IS about hate and is about denying rights and protections.

Oh, and we do notice that the hate is, as it has ALWAYS been, lead by religious people and groups that claim to be about love.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2012 11:41AM by MJ.