I promised to pass along any LDS efforts to counter church support for Prop 8. The purpose of the site is to educate people about marriage equality and about LDS people who are lesbian or gay and to provide support to LDS people who oppose the proposition. More videos and blog posts will be added until the California election.
http://mormonsformarriage.com/
Comments are welcome, particularly if you have a related story to tell.
ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
Coalition meeting of all organizations and groups in Orange County working towards the Freedom to Marry and ultimately true Marriage Equality!
Who: As many representatives from different organizations/groups as possible working for Marriage Equality in Orange County
What: Marriage Equality Coalition (1st Meeting)
When: Thursday, August 21st, 2008, 2:30pm
Where: Irvine United Congregational Church
4915 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92604
(949) 733-0220
How: By all coming together in one place at one time
Why: To network, figure out how we can help each other, see what each of us is doing in the fight for marriage equality right now, strategize together, inform each other, meet each other…
If you have any questions please contact Erin Weller, OC Chapter Coordinator for Progressive Christians Uniting, at eweller@pcu-la.org or (714) 721-6554.
Note: This meeting is not being orchestrated by Progressive Christians Uniting, and PCU is in no way attempting to necessarily bring more people to work specifically with PCU. The idea stemmed from PCU’s OC Marriage Equality Strategy Team. The group felt that there was a lot going on in Orange County around marriage equality, but that not everyone knew everyone involved, and felt that that needed to change. PCU is hoping to help bring people together, secular or faith driven, Christian or of another faith, to sit around one table and get to know one another. We must come together and work together if we are to win this very important fight for the freedom to marry.
And please PASS THIS MESSAGE ON!
We want to get as many representatives around the table as possible!!!
Erin Weller
OC Chapter Coordinator
Progressive Christians Uniting
see.pray.act.
http://www.progressivechristiansuniting.org
I do not understand. I have been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for 28 years. How can one be LDS and support same-sex marriage?
Tamara, speaking for myself only here. I am really firmly against church involvement in Prop 8 because I think that the church should follow its own prior pronouncements and stay out of politics. Gay marriage is not going to hurt any heterosexual marriage. This is civil marriage, and does not force the church to perform same sex marriages. http://www.mormonsformarriage.com does a much better job than me of explaining the whole issue in depth.
Paula, I wasn’t sure where the church stood as far as political issues either. Anyone concerned about the church’s political stance should check out http://www.lds.org Go to about the church and click on newsroom. Then click on political neutrality. It really helped me understand it better and there is alot of great info that might clear up any misconceptions. The church does not endorse candidates or political parties but will encourage a stance on moral issues. There is also a document there called the divinity of marriage in the newsroom that is great for any member concerned about this issue.
Although some people are persuaded that the church is politically neutral when it doesn’t endorse a candidate or a party, this reflects a narrow definition of politics. I recognize that this is the definition that many people use, but politics is more fundamentally about social power. Politics concerns an individual’s or group’s relative respect and value in society, their ability to make decisions that affect their welfare, and their ability to access society’s benefits. In this broader sense, the church and other social institutions are deeply involved in politics.
People of good will can disagree about that involvement. For me, I see some of the church’s political efforts as beneficial and consistent with the Sermon on the Mount kinds of ideals that I value, while others seem counter to those ideals. Whether or not one feels duty-bound to agree with all that the institutional church advocates seems, in large degree, to indicate just how comfortable one is here in our cultural hall.
I appreciate the above opinion. In my post I was trying to share what the church’s definition of politically neutral is. I think alot of people are misinformed like I was. According to your definition of political as the “ability to make decisions that affect their welfare” I agree. I am glad this issue has been brought to my attention by the church so I can make a decision on this issue. I might have missed an opportunity to realize how important it is or to help. The church could have done this many times before on different issues and haven’t which confirms how important this issue is to us as a church, state and nation. On the other hand someone else might not feel that way for different reasons. We all have a choice, no one is duty-bound to anything in this church.
On a different note, someone in my family, that I love, is lesbian. I have neighbors down my street who are gay. They have always been kind to us and us to them. I like these people but that doesnt mean I have to agree with their life style. Especially when it effects me and my familys rights. For them is isn’t as much about marriage as it is being equal and for those for prop 8 it isn’t as much about equality as it is about marriage.
christys - just curious how this issue affects your family’s rights in any way? If your gay neighbors down the street are married or just co-habitating, how will that change anything in your life?
Bill, I appreciate you asking. That is the thing, my neighbors will still have their relationship either way. They also already have alot of the same rights as marriage. First of all where it effects my rights is when I voted on prop 22 it passed by 61%. My rights were effected when 4 judges from Sanfrancisco last June ignored the peoples vote and said gay marriage was legal. If people vote and say gay marriage is ok, then that’s different. That’s not how it happened.
California schools are required to teach a unit on marriage at some point before children graduate high school. That would mean my children and other children will be required to be taught about gay marriage as early as kindergarten. A bill sb777 just signed by the governor last october(not by the peoples vote)among other things is about not having homosexual discrimintaion in schools. By the way, there were already laws in place against any discrimintaion. What happens from this bill will be text books can be changed to give equal time. So either they take out any reference to mom and dad or include equal time to dad and dad or mom and mom. Anything less would be discriminaiton. On the emergency card I will not be referred to as mother I will be parent one or parent two. It would be ok for a boy to go into a girls bathroom who associates more with that gender. If he couldn’t use the girls bathroom, under this new law it will be considered discriminating against him. That would be at the cost of my daughters rights. Some of these changes may not have been implemented yet but, they are either in the process or only a lawsuit away. Some of them are already happening in the Los Angeles School district. In Los Angeles boys are allowed to enter girls bathrooms and locker rooms and visa versa.
I guess if someone agreed with gay lifestyle than these things don’t matter much. I can only speak for myself but,anyone who doesn’t agree with gay lifestyle and thinks it won’t effect them is wrong. Here is a link to an article about people being sued because they won’t perform services for those who are gay or lesbian http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91486191.
What if someone in my family was a bishop and wouldn’t perform a marriage for a gay couple because of religious beliefs. He most likely would be sued too.
Yes, the judges did rule contrary to the will of the people in this decision. And if other judges hadn’t ruled against the will of the people a few decades ago, blacks would still be drinking from separate water fountains, and unable to eat at the counter or sit where ever they wish on a bus. It is judges’ job to rule against the popular vote sometimes, just as judges sometimes rule that a law congress passes is unconstitutional. If that is alarming, then we should get rid of the judicial branch. Calling the judges “activist judges”, as I have heard from some commentators (not you, ChristyS), is an effort to delegitimize the 3rd branch of government. Whatever anti-discrimination laws are already in place, the judges found them to be inadequate.
Who knows whether or not kindergarteners will learn that some families have two daddies or two mommies as a result of these changes in society. Simply because the law says that it happen before graduation doesn’t mean it will happen in kindergarten. But even if schools began teaching it in kindergarten, as long as the information is age-appropriate, as I expect it would be if it is part of the curriculum, then I think that it would be a good thing.
Cultures and societies are fluid, changing, growing things. Were that not true, my faithful LDS friends Rick (white) and Krista (black) would not be married and the law of the land would be more consistent with Brigham Young’s and his contemporaries’ ideas on race. Progress can be stressful, but I am glad that society isn’t stagnant.