Really disappointed in the Church's latest political adventure

[MikeWaters]

If polygamy were legal in the United States, the church's practice of forcing nonmember polygamists to divorce their other wives (in Africa where it is apparently legal and socially acceptable) would seem odd.

But if odd things were anathema to us, we wouldn't be Mormons (those of us who subscribe to the label).

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I can live with a Christian church taking a stand in opposition to same sex marriage or certainly refusing to marry homosexuals. The Bible, after all, condemns it, and people are entitled to take the Bible at face value and suffer the consequences.

But supporting a Constitutional Amendment banning states from recognizing civil same sex marriages is altogether different. It is an abomination. If nothing else, it makes me lose respect for the Church as a thoughtful, politically sensitive, pragmatic, intelligent and rational instition.

At the outset, I note that the Church itself has opposed amendments to the Constitution such as the Equal Rights Amendment on the sensible ground that Constititional amendments ought, as a bare matter of principle, to be rare events, and frugal in terms of avoiding any excessive intrusion into the rights of individual states to establish laws and rules governing the private arrangements of its citizens. I guess sensitivity to states' rights only goes as far as it coincides with the Church's social agenda.

If states began to legalize the murder and toture of, say, gay people would you oppose an amendment to the constitution which prohibited states from doing so? If the answer is no, then your position on states rights is just as situational as that of the church. When I state it in this extreme way, I think you will be forced to concede that it is not the tactic the church used which is offensive to you, but the position itself.

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Moreover, I believe this would constitute the only instance in which the Constitution is amended to limit rather than protect individual liberties. Is there another example of this? Each of the Bill of Rights has as its purpose and function protecting certain individual liberties against a tyranny of the majority.

Again, an amendment against the murder and torture of gays would limit rather than protect the liberties of individuals desiring to do that sort of thing. Are you saying that it would never appropriate to abridge individual liberties which some states might seek to grant? Of course not. You are saying that you find it inappropriate in this case because of the substantive issues involved.

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Further, the proposed amendment gives rise to the twin evils of abridging both indivual liberty AND the will of local majorities. During the past 50 years the fault line separating "conservative" and "liberal" judges has been the basic issue of how liberally to construe the Bill of Rights such that the will of local majorities are thwarted in the interest of protecting individual liberties such as free speech (a classic example: application of the First Amendment to limit efforts by local governments to limit dissemination of pornographic materials in their communities; these cases are generating the bulk of cutting edge First Amendment law these days).

The proposed Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage perversely abridges the prospect of an individual liberty even if a local majority whishes to grant it. It gives, say, Alabama and Utah an excessive hand in local government affairs in, say, Seattle, New York, or San Francisco. No thanks.

Many states afforded, or at least did nothing to restrict, the right of a white man to own a slave until the 13th amendment abridged that personal liberty. Should we repeal it? No one would say yes. So then, it is appropriate to abridge the liberty of some for the benefit of others through the amendment process in some cases. We may disagree about when or to what extent this is occurring in the gay marriage debate, but we cannot say that it is never legitimate to strike at any evil in this way.

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Finally, probably for the above reasons the Amendment is a non-starter, and widely regarded by educated, thoughtful people as political gimmicry. The Church has gotten into the mud with the pigs. Does it get how bad it looks doing so? It should take a principled stand against gay marriage and get out of the business of supporting constitution amendments that expand the reach of federal power to control the lives of individuals AND local majorities.

If pacifism were a tenant of the church would it be wrong for it to publicly support a resolution ending the Iraq war, even where it knew that such a measure was political granstanding on the part of those sponsoring and everyone knew full well it was unlikely to pass? Is it not possible to support something for the sake of principle, separate and apart from the the motives of its sponsors?

I'm a little perplexed as to how the church looks "bad." My sense is that it really only looks bad to those who are affiliated with it, marginally or otherwise, and those who grind some axe against the church, who disagree with the substance of the church's stand. My sense is that you are somewhere in that camp. I think it is legitimate for you wish the church was something other than it is, but I think that your attack on the church's methods doesn't really hold up.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

If states began to legalize the murder and toture of, say, gay people would you oppose an amendment to the constitution which prohibited states from doing so? If the answer is no, then your position on states rights is just as situational as that of the church. When I state it in this extreme way, I think you will be forced to concede that it is not the tactic the church used which is offensive to you, but the position itself.



Again, an amendment against the murder and torture of gays would limit rather than protect the liberties of individuals desiring to do that sort of thing. Are you saying that it would never appropriate to abridge individual liberties which some states might seek to grant? Of course not. You are saying that you find it inappropriate in this case because of the substantive issues involved.



Many states afforded, or at least did nothing to restrict, the right of a white man to own a slave until the 13th amendment abridged that personal liberty. Should we repeal it? No one would say yes. So then, it is appropriate to abridge the liberty of some for the benefit of others through the amendment process in some cases. We may disagree about when or to what extent this is occurring in the gay marriage debate, but we cannot say that it is never legitimate to strike at any evil in this way.



If pacifism were a tenant of the church would it be wrong for it to publicly support a resolution ending the Iraq war, even where it knew that such a measure was political granstanding on the part of those sponsoring and everyone knew full well it was unlikely to pass? Is it not possible to support something for the sake of principle, separate and apart from the the motives of its sponsors?

I'm a little perplexed as to how the church looks "bad." My sense is that it really only looks bad to those who are affiliated with it, marginally or otherwise, and those who grind some axe against the church, who disagree with the substance of the church's stand. My sense is that you are somewhere in that camp. I think it is legitimate for you wish the church was something other than it is, but I think that your attack on the church's methods doesn't really hold up.

I think you are giving some incredibly absurd examples. First of all, legalizing murder and torture would be unconstitutional already at the federal level under the 14th amendment (and probably a few other provisions as well). That wouldn't be a legitimate state's rights issue- ever. The federal government already has set the baseline for that area.

Your argument about abridging the liberty of some for the benefit of others is odd as well. The 13th amendment eliminated slavery specifically to prohibit whites from abridging the liberty of some for the benefit of others, not vice versa. The amendment simply codified a long-standing premise in American jurisprudence: your rights end when they substantially impact someone else's rights negatively. Slavery had always been an odd exception to that rule, and that was only because blacks were not viewed as humans. Prior to the 13th amendment, slaves were legally viewed as property.

In terms of the church looking bad, it certainly is a subjective issue. But when one steps back and realizes that the SSM amendment was nothing more than a political ploy with no possible chance of success, support for that amendment could very easily be construed as support of a political ploy for the benefit of Republicans. If viewed in that context, it most certainly does look bad, or at least hypocritical, given the church's repeated stance on political neutrality.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by hoyacoug

I think you are giving some incredibly absurd examples. First of all, legalizing murder and torture would be unconstitutional already at the federal level under the 14th amendment (and probably a few other provisions as well). That wouldn't be a legitimate state's rights issue- ever. The federal government already has set the baseline for that area.

Your argument about abridging the liberty of some for the benefit of others is odd as well. The amendment eliminated slavery specifically to prohibit whites from abridging the liberty of some for the benefit of others, not vice versa. The amendment simply codified a long-standing premise in American jurisprudence: your rights end when they substantially impact someone else's rights negatively. Slavery had always been an odd exception to that rule, and that was only because blacks were not viewed as humans. Prior to the 13th amendment, slaves were legally viewed as property.

In terms of the church looking bad, it certainly is a subjective issue. But when one steps back and realizes that the SSM amendment was nothing more than a political ploy with no possible chance of success, support for that amendment could very easily be construed as support of a political ploy for the benefit of Republicans. If viewed in that context, it most certainly does look bad, or at least hypocritical, given the church's repeated stance on political neutrality.

You sitting in your Democratic enclave can believe it was nothing more than a ploy, but others might believe otherwise.

Imagine for a moment that Senator Reid had broken ranks, bartered with other Dems to get to the 60 senators number, it could have taken on steam and been passed. This is the last time, in our contemporary history, when people will not be as skeptical of gay marriages. It could have worked.

It will be one of the pivotal periods of our history. We will see even more degradation of morality and families from here on out.

[Robin]

Originally Posted by Archaea

You sitting in your Democratic enclave can believe it was nothing more than a ploy, but others might believe otherwise.

Imagine for a moment that Senator Reid had broken ranks, bartered with other Dems to get to the 60 senators number, it could have taken on steam and been passed. This is the last time, in our contemporary history, when people will not be as skeptical of gay marriages. It could have worked.

It will be one of the pivotal periods of our history. We will see even more degradation of morality and families from here on out.

The interesting thing about the doomsday religious folks is that their message depends on the suggestion that there was some past acme of family life from which all things are declining.

So when was it?

[Archaea]

a legitimate observation.

I don't know when the highwater mark was, but I see the high divorce rates, high teenage pregnancy rates, high STD rates, high abortion rates, increased focus upon gay rights and general malaise as indicative of unhappy families.

Are you saying there is no correlation from all these negative factors to the stability of the American family?

There needs to be a delivery system and a retention system for offspring to perpetuate the species. The family is a logical choice.

Divorce in other centuries was fault based, so people stayed together and reared children, even in unhappy marriages. People probably learned coping mechanisms knowing divorce wasn't easy.

Now we don't need coping mechanisms as it is divorce made easy, except louses get rewarded.

The support fabric of the American family is failing. There are social costs for this, and damn it for me, increased taxes I must pay because you liberal bastards promote policies which disrupt the most cost effective support mechanisms.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by hoyacoug

I think you are giving some incredibly absurd examples. First of all, legalizing murder and torture would be unconstitutional already at the federal level under the 14th amendment (and probably a few other provisions as well). That wouldn't be a legitimate state's rights issue- ever. The federal government already has set the baseline for that area.

Your argument about abridging the liberty of some for the benefit of others is odd as well. The amendment eliminated slavery specifically to prohibit whites from abridging the liberty of some for the benefit of others, not vice versa. The amendment simply codified a long-standing premise in American jurisprudence: your rights end when they substantially impact someone else's rights negatively. Slavery had always been an odd exception to that rule, and that was only because blacks were not viewed as humans. Prior to the 13th amendment, slaves were legally viewed as property.

In terms of the church looking bad, it certainly is a subjective issue. But when one steps back and realizes that the SSM amendment was nothing more than a political ploy with no possible chance of success, support for that amendment could very easily be construed as support of a political ploy for the benefit of Republicans. If viewed in that context, it most certainly does look bad, or at least hypocritical, given the church's repeated stance on political neutrality.

My examples are absurd for a reason. That reason is to show that there are circumstances under anyones belief system where it is appropriate to abridge another's rights though a state may wish to afford them.

Can you think of no circumstance where it would be appropriate?

Seattle laid out a critique of this method and my point is only that no one's objection really has anything to do with the method. You aren't trying to say that the real evil here that you and others object to is proscribing rights (to describe it as "restricting liberty" is spin)
through the amendment process is it?

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Robin

The interesting thing about the doomsday religious folks is that their message depends on the suggestion that there was some past acme of family life from which all things are declining.

So when was it?

Wrong question. There, of course, was never and "acme" of family life from which we are declining. What there was, however, was a time at which the ideal of family life was most upheld by the culture and the state.

I would mark the decline of that as begining during the 60's when the questioning of all things traditional began and the Great Society (welfare state) was created and made it possible for women and children to subsist without the support of men.

The danger has never been that there will be all varieties of families because that is unavoidable. The danger is that the ideal of a mom and a dad raising children (which is clearly best for children) becomes just one of a buffet of options rather than something to be striven for.

[Robin]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

The danger is that the ideal of a mom and a dad raising children (which is clearly best for children) becomes just one of a buffet of options rather than something to be striven for.

Well I don't know that this is the ideal, and I don't know how you would measure 'ideal.' The science doesn't exist to suggest that a mom and a dad raising children is any more ideal than two dads or two moms, or a grandmother and a single mom, or what have you. The science doesn't exist.

And even if the science suggested (and I am not granting this) that there was a marginable better outcome between two great gay dads and a great husband/wife combo... what if the two gay dads were superior parents than a majority of husband/wife combos?

Moreover, I think we might be barking up the wrong tree by acting as if this is all based on positive outcome regarding kids. Another positive outcome of marriage is that it creates mutually committed couples, and that saves the public money. When I get in a motorcycle wreck and become a slobbering pickle-child, my wife will wipe my ass at a significantly lower cost to the taxpaying public than if I was single. Another positive outcome of marriage is the attempt and limited control over the spread of STDs and such... public health benefits from marriage. The republic would benefit from Gay marriage in all of these areas.

But all of the positive outcomes in the world have nothing to do with the main purpose for the existence of marriage in America... it is an institution about freedom to choose one's life partner. it is about freedom to choose.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Robin

Well I don't know that this is the ideal, and I don't know how you would measure 'ideal.' The science doesn't exist to suggest that a mom and a dad raising children is any more ideal than two dads or two moms, or a grandmother and a single mom, or what have you. The science doesn't exist.

And even if the science suggested (and I am not granting this) that there was a marginable better outcome between two great gay dads and a great husband/wife combo... what if the two gay dads were superior parents than a majority of husband/wife combos?

Moreover, I think we might be barking up the wrong tree by acting as if this is all based on positive outcome regarding kids. Another positive outcome of marriage is that it creates mutually committed couples, and that saves the public money. When I get in a motorcycle wreck and become a slobbering pickle-child, my wife will wipe my ass at a significantly lower cost to the taxpaying public than if I was single. Another positive outcome of marriage is the attempt and limited control over the spread of STDs and such... public health benefits from marriage. The republic would benefit from Gay marriage in all of these areas.

But all of the positive outcomes in the world have nothing to do with the main purpose for the existence of marriage in America... it is an institution about freedom to choose one's life partner. it is about freedom to choose.

There are studies that show children will fare better with both a male and a female parent, as opposed to just one. These studies suggest that it is important psychologically for children to receive modelling from both genders.

You are being disengenuous or just stepping outside your field of knowledge.

These studies by implication would suggest that two same gender parents are not as good due to a lack of modeling from each gender.