Posted on 03/07/2015 2:14:26 PM PST by yongin
No one in American life is more committed to religious liberty for all than the Latter-day Saints. We disagree strongly on crucial matters of faithincluding the question of what the gospel is and what the church is, even over the question of who and what God is. But we work together for religious liberty, because we can have those debates while simultaneously agreeing that we ought to have the freedom to have them without government interference. We dont have to agree on whether Joseph Smith was right about golden plates to agree that Thomas Jefferson was right about inalienable rights.
A few weeks back, LDS officials announced their intention to craft first-of-its-kinds legislation that would attempt to balance the concerns of the LGBT community with the concerns of religious liberty advocates. The much-anticipated bill has finally been unveiled. So the question remains why weand our Roman Catholic religious liberty alliesdont sign on to this strategy as well. We cant speak for the Catholic bishops, of course, but heres how we see it.
The bill is well-intentioned. We love our gay and lesbian neighbors, and we dont want to see them treated spitefully or unfairly.
Admittedly, in most cases, sexual orientation and gender identity matter little in terms of employment and housing. But this bill leaves wholly unprotected private, for-profit business owners who want to run their business according to their faith. Though it does protect businesses with 15 or fewer employees, this arbitrary threshold doesnt protect Christian or other believing businesses or business owners beyond that. And further, there are no guarantees that the bill would not someday be amended to either reduce that threshold or eliminate it altogether. Indeed, many at the forefront of the Sexual Revolutions legal advance note that what they ultimately want is to accord the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity as a legal status on a par with race, ethnicity, and sex in anti-discrimination law.
As for just one example, this bill would still require a Christian-owned t-shirt printing company with 17 employees to print speech that its owners find morally compromising. Legally compelled speech where the government has not sought out a less restrictive means goes against the letter and spirit of our First Amendment. This is unacceptable.
There are additional problems wrought by this bill. With a religiously conservative body such as the LDS Church voluntarily agreeing to enshrine sexual orientation and gender identity as legitimate legal categories, the bill acts to further cement as protected classes categories based on morally problematic conduct or self-presentation. While the bill does include a provision stating that the bill should not be construed to create a protected class, the idea of protected classes has both statutory and common law constitutional effects. It is possible, even probable, that future courts will cite this as evidence that what is referred to as strict scrutiny in equal protection jurisprudence is required for those classes.
This concession works drastically against religious communities who do not agree with this viewpoint on matters of legal principle. Every law that grants protection for these classes adds to the weight of evidence that constitutional protection and even strict scrutiny is warranted. Despite the broad religious exemptions in the bill, if a court were to hold that gender identity and sexual orientation are classes protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, it is unlikely that that grant would give any protection to churches or religious organizations.
Finally, the more subtle and deleterious effects of this bill arent even in the bill itself. Over time, law works in tandem with other cultural factors to alter attitudes and public opinion. Regardless of protections this bill might offer, it aids and abets the cultural forces that would render historic Christian beliefs on sexuality (and even marriage) suspect and eventually out of bounds. The symbolism of this law represents an historic and incremental concession to those who would leave no room in the public square for those who refuse to bow down before, or offer sacrifices to, the false gods of the Sexual Revolution.
We dont doubt our Mormon friends good intentions, but we dont agree that this is the best way to achieve these goals.
Here’s a Southern Baptist take on the Mormon gay rights compromise.
I do. catering to the pervert crowd.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
ping
You could have a backyard cottage ... and be opposed to cohabitating couples renting it...
...heterosexual or not...
...and if you say "no" to a heterosexual couple...
...that's within your rights...
...but if you say "no" to a homosexual or trans couple...
...the Mormon church and its Lds legislative cronies in Utah say you are guilty of discrimination!
(So much for "religious liberty")
For a while, I thought that the Mormons, though mistaken in their religion, were reliably conservative in their politics.
No more. They seem to be jumping on every bandwagon that passes by.
Good analysis of the problems with this bill, but we’re losing the culture war so doing nothing isn’t an option. Christians are painted as bigots and homosexuals as victims. We’ve seen this bigotry used as a sword against Christians. Realistically, what’s the solution?
The Catholic pope is also leaning towards the homosexuals and is currently upset with his “synod of bishops”
Since the once healthy portion of our society has become sick and unable to segregate the poor wretches a compromise of the type set forth in the article is necessary. The compromise will last only as long as the perverts wish. In this world if you are unable or unwilling to fight you will soon be buried by those who will fight.
No one should have the right to force another to employ or serve them no more than any has the right to force one into their employ or serve them. We need to get away from this idea that LGBT need protections that go above and beyond what the law already provides. Its just another passive aggressive ploy designed to be used to abuse those who disagree with them. They want to be able to sue churches and businesses ran by serious Christians. They want to grow their fortunes on the backs of those who disagree with them.
They lost me with the first sentence: No one in American life is more committed to religious liberty for all than the Latter-day Saints.
Throughout their history, the Mormons have been anything but tolerant. For example, they have killed dozens of soldiers and guardsmen in the four named wars they fought with non-LDS gentiles. They murdered hundreds of their own and mutilated thousands more through the doctrine of blood atonement. They fought six civil wars among themselves, and dozens of wars with American Indians. They carried out the largest peacetime mass murder of gentiles prior to the Oklahoma City Bombing in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. They were largely responsible for the worst slaughter of Indians in U.S. history at the Bear River Massacre. Their treatment of women as bond servants through polygamy, their abuse of children in plural marriages, and their persecution of dark and loathsome non-whites is appalling.
They also lost me on the last sentence: We dont doubt our Mormon friends good intentions, but we dont agree that this is the best way to achieve these goals.
If their goal is to maximize church cash flow through maintaining a positive public relations image in the mainstream media in order to attract new tithe paying converts, then the LDS Church is acting brilliantly.
Brilliant!!!!
SLC is STILL stinging from when it's Leaders put on their spineless weasel act...
To Whom It May Concern:
Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy
I, therefore, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.
One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the Spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.
WILFORD WOODRUFF
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
President Lorenzo Snow offered the following:
I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.
The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous.
Salt Lake City, Utah, October 6, 1890.
Hebrews 11:35-40
35. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37. They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38. the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. |
~ Wilford Woodruff, 4th LDS President
Genesis 18:20-21
20. Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous
21. that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
Genesis 19:4-7
4. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house.
5. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
6. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
7. and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.
Isaiah 3:9 The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.
2 Peter 2:13b Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
Ezekiel 16:49-50
49. "`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
50. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
1. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.
2. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
3. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;
5. if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
6. if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
7. and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men
8. (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)--
9. if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
10. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;
11. yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.
12. But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
13. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
But there IS hope!!!
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:
Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10. nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
If you could NOT change, you would be in most pitiful shape...
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