Illogic of Prop. 8

[Flystripper]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

LOL.

I know, right? Clearly he did not forsee hydrolics and spinning rims on a caddy.

[Levin]

The inclination to find pragmatic arguments for God's will is understandable. That is why "wickedness never was happiness" is one of the most powerful catch phrases in the BofM. The pragmatic reason to follow any of God's commands? An increase in happiness.

Ultimately, then, the Church believes that the gay person who refrains from having gay sex will be happier. But how does that argument work for a sexually active gay couple who want to get married? Surely marriage would bring them an increase in happiness. So it goes back one step to the gay sex argument: that if they had ultimately decided to refrain from gay sex, they would be happier. But that is not the world we live in. Committed couples are having gay sex. Marriage would bring them an increase in happiness. The pragmatic arguments, including the ultimate "happiness" argument, fail with gay marriage. You have to go back a step to gay sex.

How does Lehi's refrain work for the person who was born with strong, complete same-sex attraction? For the person who is raised outside of conservative religion and is taught that being gay is okay and a good, then I suppose it only works if we believe they will initially feel a natural impulse of guilt from the light of Christ that is in them. But that cannot last long. Do they always feel a huge void inside, a loss of the presence of any Godly spirit? That is not the experience of my gay friends who are close to God.

It is more complicated for the person who is born in the Church. Apart from the light of Christ, they feel the guilt of repeated teachings that they were born with a predisposition to sin (how else to explain it?), and if they drink to satisfy their thirst, it is a grave and damnable thing. The wickedness-never-was-happiness catch phrase works well with them; apart from the guilt, there is the shame.

In the end, the First Presidency wants to fight against a "wicked" world as it defines wicked. And as for pragmatic reasons, the ultimate one is the one Lehi gave: wickedness never was happiness. Explaining to a gay member how they will be happier if they refrain from having gay sex is a difficult undertaking. Explaining it to a person not raised in conservative religion, is next to impossible. Explaining it to a couple who wish to get married is close to offensive.

The Church should not be making pragmatic arguments in the Prop. 8 debate.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by Flystripper

I know, right? Clearly he did not forsee hydrolics and spinning rims on a caddy.

I keep thinking about Eddie Murphy as "Velvet Jones" in those old SNL skits.

[Levin]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Apostle Mark E. Petersen

would have been a first-rate preacher in the antebellum South.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

LOL.

Correction:

Originally Posted by Elder Mark E. Peterson

I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it.

[YOhio]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

LOL.

Elder Peterson was channelling Sonny Corleone. If the church was smart, they would have set up some policy banks in Harlem.

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Your post sounds a lot like this, indeed sort of runs in parallel to it:

It did/does indeed and that's the toughest part of all this for me. It has a very "here we go again" feel to it.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I think the legitimization of gay sex is a good thing. I have not the least problem with it. I don't see a trade off here. You have a choice of letting someone fully realize the joys of matters of the heart, or live a life deprived of such. I don't believe being gay is a choice, and that is the crux of my position. If you can't disabuse me of that conviction we have no place to go in this discussion. So yes, even though normalization of gay sex may have resulted in more divorces, I say it's a societal good. Gay marriage will arguably repair whatever damage has been done to marriage by normalization of gay sex.

I am not a big opponent of gay marriage, I'm pretty indifferent to it actually. What I have never understood is why gays want the right to undergo a ceremony that is religious in character (I don't care that it is now secular, it is the codification of a religious tradition) when the religion(s) who are the basis for it have rejected them. Why not simply reject it all and have a new kind of relationship. To me, it is a little like leaving Christianity and then wanting to be baptized. I can't argue that you don't have a right to have someone baptize you if that is what you want, but what meaning does it have for you if you have rejected Christianity?

I am not telling gay people they can't be married, I just don't know why they want to be. Pseudo-acceptance by a tradition that rejects them? Maybe you can explain.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

I am not a big opponent of gay marriage, I'm pretty indifferent to it actually. What I have never understood is why gays want the right to undergo a ceremony that is religious in character (I don't care that it is now secular, it is the codification of a religious tradition) when the religion(s) who are the basis for it have rejected them. Why not simply reject it all and have a new kind of relationship. To me, it is a little like leaving Christianity and then wanting to be baptized. I can't argue that you don't have a right to have someone baptize you if that is what you want, but what meaning does it have for you if you have rejected Christianity?

I am not telling gay people they can't be married, I just don't know why they want to be. Pseudo-acceptance by a tradition that rejects them? Maybe you can explain.

I don't know if you follow religious news, but a lot of mainline Christian congregations allow gay pastors/reverends/priests and allow gays to marry.

It seems like for some gays, religion IS important.

While we reject them, gays don't reject religion (at least not all of them).

So your point isn't fair.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I don't know if you follow religious news, but a lot of mainline Christian congregations allow gay pastors/reverends/priests and allow gays to marry.

It seems like for some gays, religion IS important.

While we reject them, gays don't reject religion (at least not all of them).

So your point isn't fair.

I do recognize that some religions accept it. But if you were to add up the memberships of Islam, Judaism and Christians who belong to congregations that don't accept it, you would be talking about 99% of all "people of the Book." So the weight of the religious tradition behind marriage is pretty much all on the side that rejects homosexual behavior.

My point is that I assume that like gays who are raised Mormon, that vast majority of people who are gay and raised in some other faith will reject organized religion rather than seek out a denomination who accepts them. If you have rejected organized religion as all but the tiny minority who seek a new one out do, then what you desire is that trapping and ritual of a tradition that has rejected you.

Again, I don't say they aren't entitled to it. Maybe I lay to much emphasis on the religious. Perhaps it is a secular enough ritual now that it is really the imprimatur of societal approval that is at issue. I just think if I were gay I would not remotely care what any religion or government thought of my relationship. I would find the idea that I should want their approval demeaning. But that's just me.