Salt Lake City Gay-Rights Ordinances Backed By Mormon Church
November 11, 2009 | Posted by Shannon Bell The Mormon Church has found itself in a bit of a quandary of late. Since their support of Proposition 8 in California, the Church has become a target for many gay rights groups. Many gay groups felt like the Mormon Church single handedly passed Prop. 8. Now, to even things out a bit, the Mormon Church is backing gay-rights ordinances in Salt Lake City, ground zero for Mormons if you will.
Church leaders say that they can support the gay-rights ordinances because they don’t infringe on the institution of marriage. The same leaders say they are still opposed to gay marriage.
The Salt Lake City council passed the gay rights ordinances unanimously with the support of Mormon Church Leaders. In the meantime, get ready for more fireworks when California tries to put the gay marriage issue on the ballot once again. What role will the Mormon’s take next year or in 2012?
The gay-rights ordinance being backed by the Mormons is like Vegans backing the Cattle industry. It just doesn’t fit. Perhaps the Mormons were just looking to relieve a little public pressure? Nah, that would be too PC of them.
Categories: Culture, Religion, U.S. News | 
Tags: Mormon Church, Prop 8, Salt Lake City | 
1 Comment »
I don’t know what the Church’s reasoning on this is, but I don’t see why basic rights should not be granted gay people, like hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, etc. I am glad the Church is standing strong for marriage. There is no institution more vital to our society than marriage and family.
Hopefully the Church’s apparent support for this bill demonstrates that Mormons are not driven by hate against GLBT people. We SHOULD treat them like children of God, even if they make moral or lifestyle decisions we disagree with or that are against Biblical and Church teachings.
Gay people deserve human rights because they are human, not because they are gay. I am against any bill that creates a separate protected class for GLBT people that might be abused OR that would take away religious and speech rights to teach godly lifestyles OR that might distort the education of our children in favor of an alternate sexual lifestyle, but I am for most laws that would allow them freedom to exercise their God-given moral agency in the privacy of their homes or closets.
I don’t know why, as it seems against all the laws of nature and of God. I wouldn’t give a mass murderer the same breathing room when it comes to moral agency, and some days I am not sure which is worse. I am saddened by the moral decline the media, and sometimes the GLBT movement, perpetuate. I guess I view spiritual death from sin, the kind that separates us from God, as worse than physical death.
Those who are gay deserve a place in our prayers along with those who are straight. If Jesus said to love our enemies, certainly he did not justify hating those who make different moral and lifestyle choices and are not our enemies.
At the same time, we can easily overextend “justice” to our detriment. Even if legal equivalency eventually becomes the rule, we should not teach moral equivalency. We should never call good evil and evil good or we will find ourselves morally blind, seeing nothing but gray, as do some (confused) graduates of higher learning. The light of Christ is given to us all to know good from evil, and if we don’t use it, or talk ourselves out of it, we may lose it. What fun are potatoes without steak? I would die if everything tasted like oatmeal, or if music consisted of a single monotonous beat or if we removed the double yellow lines from the center of a street. We should not erase the lines between good and evil, right and wrong, but should celebrate them.
Excuse my diatribe. I feel strongly about this.
Congrats to both the Church and GLBT people, who found at least one place to meet in the middle.