It’s Church’s Role to Tackle Moral Issues

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has come under attack for opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage. It has been reported that gay San Francisco Supervisor Mark Leno is challenging the church’s tax exemption status because a letter from California LDS leaders was read in California churches encouraging members to support an initiative that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman and denies legal recognition of same-sex unions.

Clearly, gay activists are trying to punish the Mormon Church for opposing same-sex marriage. Frequently those who openly resist homosexuals’ political proposals are attacked. That punishes the resister and sends a clear message to others who might consider opposing gays’ political goals. Leno’s claim that the letter from California’s LDS area presidency to California Mormons is the meddling of “an out-of-state religious organization” implies that the 740,000 California Mormons don’t exist. It smacks of statements one used to hear that U.S. Catholics were disloyal because their church headquarters is in a foreign country. The singling out of Mormons for political beating also ignores the fact that many other churches support the marriage-protection initiative in California.

The retaliation raises serious questions about whether some gays will respect the 1st Amendment free speech rights of those who disagree with them. The specter of gay censorship of speech in churches is disturbing and should be repudiated. The letter that has angered Leno was a letter from the leaders of a church to the members of that church read to congregations of that church. Until gay activists publicized it, the letter was a purely intrachurch communication.

The effort to use government agencies to punish political enemies is a serious abuse of governmental power. Leno’s attempt to get the San Francisco city attorney and California’s attorney general to investigate the Mormon Church is reminiscent of the “enemies list” prepared by the Nixon White House during the Watergate years, and efforts to use the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Nixon’s political enemies. Some of the pejoratives leveled against the church are similar to the vitriolic rhetoric spoken by white supremacists against black churches.

The argument that churches should have no voice on a public issue of such fundamental moral importance as the definition of marriage is stunningly mistaken. Marriage and sexual behavior have been core concerns of religions for millenniums. Western civilization has benefited profoundly from the preservation of religious values about marriage and sexuality. Efforts to suppress responsible expressions about important public policy issues such as the Mormon Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage are repressively anti-democratic. Attempts to exclude religious voices on moral political issues defy centuries of American respect for religion in public life.

At issue in California is a critical moral matter: the preservation of marriage, a moral institution that is the foundation of our beleaguered families and the basic unit of our stressed social structure. The union of a man and a woman is the essence of marriage. Unions of a man and a woman fundamentally differ from same-gender unions. Same-sex unions are not marriages and labeling them as “marriages” would be fraud. Legalizing same-sex unions would damage the institution of marriage, sow confusion and wreak social distress.

The primary victims of that radical social experiment would be the most vulnerable in our society. Marriage between a man and a woman provides children with optimal child-rearing and the best chances in life, offers adults the greatest developmental potential and stability and makes the most important contributions to social order. Reductionist claims for same-sex marriage reduce marriage to a matter of mere physical attraction and private contract. Marriage is much more than that.

If two men or two women must be permitted to marry because they are attracted to each other, what about a brother and sister?

Marriage is a highly preferred, carefully regulated public status. Gays’ claims for same-sex marriage are not claims for tolerance or equality but demands for a special legal status. Future generations will honor the Mormon and other churches for their defense of marriage, if they succeed. If they fail, history will not forgive those who silenced them.