Are you going to commit to, cherish, and build up one another for the rest of your lives?
Will you love and protect your children? Will you teach them morals, values, and a good work ethic?
Then where is the problem?
I don't care if you're straight, gay, polygamist, related (just don't create kids), or any color of the rainbow. You, as consenting adults, deserve those rights.
Where do I see problems in marriage?
- Getting married just to have sex.
- Getting married before you can take care of one another emotionally or financially.
- Treating each other like an accessory or property.
- Putting material things before your spouse (video games, vanity, etc.).
- Emotional cheating.
- Sexual manipulation.
- Being consistently unkind, unloving, and unsupportive to each other.
- Divorce.
(I think we can stop talking about the "sanctity" of marriage now...)
But, as much as I'm personally disgusted with those things listed above, it's an adult's choice to make those (completely legal) decisions in their own life. Who am I to limit one's free agency, even if I disagree with it?
What I will never do is hinder an opportunity for more love in the world. It genuinely makes my heart ache to think about all those amazing human beings out there who just want to show more commitment to each other, but are being told they somehow don't deserve it. It just feels wrong.
I'm a straight Mormon, and I wholeheartedly support consenting adult marriage.
peace,
k.
As a gay, inactive Mormon, I truly wish that your attitude was far more prevalent in this world. Thank you. I couldn't have said it better myself.
ReplyDeletePerfect! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI like this. And I agree, we have no right to tell consenting adults what they can't do. The only problem that I fear is that once gay marriage is legalized it will open the doorway to discrimination law suits against religious institutions that do not wish to marry gay people in their buildings with their priests. I think that churches and religious organizations (as well as any other type of private entity) have the equal right to refuse to perform such marriages if it is against their beliefs. For example, I would be opposed to having homosexuals married in an LDS temple.
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be some protection against that. My personal feeling is that the state should be completely removed from marriages altogether, and that is should be a private (vs. legal) ceremony. But I am open to other solutions that allow religious institutions to keep their rights while allowing consenting adults to have theirs.
Eliminating marriage licensing is obviously a hard thing to accomplish considering how much the legal system is entangled with marriage contracts; alimony, adoption, the tax code, etc. But that just indicates to me a place to start. We ought de-integrate marriage from other aspects of our legal system until being married has no benefits outside of its intrinsic value as a symbol of commitment, or any other religious or secular value placed on it. At that point, we eliminate marriage licenses altogether and move on as a society. Let bygones by bygones.
Why can't related people create kids? Isn't that a human right? I mean, according to your Stance, who are you to tell consenting adults what to do? If we're going for permissiveness, we can't pick and choose.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely up to them, but my personal opinion is it's highly irresponsible to create children in such a gene pool. This gets into the territory of not just involving consenting adults, but innocent children. (For the record I'm 100% in support of gay adoption/surrogacy/etc and do not in ANY way see this as the same argument, though I know others will.)
DeleteFrom a logical stand point I think banning gay marriage is wholey wrong and that they should have the right to make that choice.
ReplyDeleteFrom a belief standpoint, I believe in God and I believe that he loves all of His children equally, but He would not support the marriage of two gay individuals. When I think about leadership and how if Christ was ruling the earth that those he appointed would be an extension of his leadership, just like Bishops and Stake Presidents in the Mormon church are branches of that leadership to reach all of God's children- if God wouldn't marry two gay people, then I can't blame the Mormon church for taking the stand they have.
Again though, from a logical stand point, I think they should be able to have the choice and not be denied the opportunity. Maybe I'm thinking with two heads here, if so...so be it. :)
I know what we've been told, and I know the answer I received when I prayed about it, and all I can say is: if the who gay issue is so important to God, why didn't Christ ever talk about it? The biblical references are a pretty terrible argument given their historical context. Basically all we have is what recent people have said. We can't deny that racism played a part in the blacks not getting the priesthood, so why isn't this similar? 10% of the population is gay, yet God wants them to be alone through their entire mortal existence? It hurts my heart to think of such a brutal punishment for something they are born with.
DeleteI am willing to accept gay marriage is inappropriate for the temple, but why can't it just be treated like any other civil marriage? Logically AND spiritually this doesn't make sense.