So, people can marry each other, regardless of gender. It is truly a great day for all Americans!
Does anyone even blog anymore? I remember when it first got started and everyone was having a blog. I like writing, and I do a lot of it in my professional life, but not everything makes it onto this blog, which is where a lot of my personal thoughts come out. I put more into Facebook lately, too, because it's a little easier. But there's something to be said for this long-form writing exercise, and I think I will continue here periodically. You don't mind, do you? Well, in my last post I wrote about how difficult things were for me at the time. That changed in July when I finally got a job working for the State of Utah. I was the program manager for the moderate income housing database program, and that meant I worked from home a lot but also went in to Salt Lake when needed, mostly on the train. It was a good experience, for the most part, and I'm grateful for the things I learned even in the short time I was there. In October I started working for Weber County in t...
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They were wrong last Thursday when they announced that the federal government can offer Obamacare subsidies even though the law expressly gives that power to the states. They were wrong two years ago when they decided that the federal government has the right to force American citizens to buy a product from an insurance company. They were wrong 40 years ago when they said mothers have a constitutional right to murder their children. And they were wrong last Friday when they took out their magical magnifying glass and found, perhaps transcribed in microscopic code on the fibers of the Constitution, a mysterious entitlement to homosexual marriage.
They were wrong, but you don’t care because liberals long ago stopped asking leaders to be right.And the court certainly doesn’t care about the law, which is why liberals have been able to make the Constitution into an indecipherable mystic scroll that morphs to accommodate the fashionable ideologies of the day. As such, it is dead. It might as well not exist.
So, despite the fact that neither marriage nor homosexuals are explicitly or implicitly or actually or metaphorically or literally mentioned in the Constitution, our nation will now celebrate as a few con artists in black robes pretend all that stuff is in there anyway. Then again, they hardly even pretended this time. The majority opinion legalizing gay marriage across the country and undoing the will of the people and their elected representatives in 14 states reads like a lengthy Facebook post written by a 17-year-old. It says a lot of happy, bubbly, hollow things about how gay people love each other and so on, but it barely attempts to offer anything resembling a constitutional defense or a coherent thought. And the fact that you can celebrate this shows that you are ruled by emotion and not logic.
1. How long have you believed that gay marriage is something to be celebrated?
2. How would you make a positive case from the scriptures that sexual activity between two people of the same sex is a blessing to be celebrated?
3. What verses would you use to show that a marriage between two persons of the same sex can adequately depict Christ and the church?
4. Do you think Jesus is okay with homosexual behavior between consenting adults in a committed relationship? If so, why did he reassert the Genesis definition of marriage as being one man and one woman?
5. If homosexual behavior is acceptable, how do you understand the sinful “exchange” Paul highlights in Romans 1?
6. Do you believe that passages like 2 Nephi 13:9, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven? What sexual sins do you think they were referring to, if not homosexuality?
7. As you think about the long history of the church and the near universal disapproval of same-sex sexual activity, what do you think you understand about the Bible that Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, and Thomas S. Monson failed to grasp?
8. What arguments would you use to explain to Christians in Africa, Asia, and South America that their understanding of homosexuality is Biblically incorrect and that your new understanding of homosexuality is not culturally conditioned?
9. Do you think children do best with a mother and a father?
If not, what research would you point to in support of that conclusion?
If yes, does the church or the state have any role to play in promoting or privileging the arrangement that puts children with a mom and a dad?
10. Does the end and purpose of marriage point to something more than an adult’s emotional and sexual fulfillment?
11. Should gay couples in open relationships be subject to church discipline?
12. Is it a sin for LGBT persons to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage?
13. If “love wins,” how would you define love? What scripture verses would you use to establish that definition? How should obedience to God’s commands shape our understanding of love?
14. At the end of Romans 1, Paul not only rebukes those who "changed the truth of God into a lie" and "did change the natural use into that which was against nature," but he also rebukes those who not only do the same, but have pleasure in (Greek translation says approve of them or sympathize with them) those who do them." How can you rationalize in your mind approving of gay marriage, after reading these verses?
I think it could be said without question that one of the greatest prophets of all time was Abraham. God covenanted with him that he would be the “father of many nations,” despite the fact that he was 100 years old and his wife was 90, and they were without any children. After a lifetime of waiting for a child, they finally had one, cherished, miracle son. But then, God asked of Abraham the unthinkable. He asked him to offer this only, long-awaited, most precious child as a sacrifice. It was not until the very last minute, after he “had stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son” that the angel stops him and he is provided with a ram in his son’s stead. What incredible faith Abraham must have had. This son, who without question was the source of Abraham’s greatest joy, the source of all of his hope for the future, and whom God had specifically covenanted with Abraham would be the source of his promised nations, was demanded as a sacrifice. Abraham did not ask God how this would be made right. He just had the faith that a loving, all-knowing Father in Heaven would somehow keep His promises. Abraham would not have been Abraham without his willingness to give all that God asked of him.
I have seen many of our faith, including you, rushing to support gay marriage, I have heard some of them say that their compassion demands it. I imagine that if we had all lived in Abraham’s time, you would be coming to me saying, “Abraham has been asked to do something that is just too much. It is unbearable. I feel strongly that God will provide a way out of this for him, so let’s just go to him now and offer him a ram in Isaac’s place. Let’s be compassionate and ease his burden, because no one should be asked this. It is too much.”
And it breaks my heart, because I do understand that what is being asked is overwhelming and demanding. I understand that the sacrifice God has asked of the Abrahams around me is largely unimaginable to me. It is not that I don’t have compassion which is stopping me from running to my beloved Abrahams with a gay marriage “ram.” It is the knowledge that is it not me asking of this sacrifice from them, but God. It is not my place or your place to offer them an escape, it is God’s.
In the meantime, I will follow the prophets, and I will allow God His timing, whatever that may be. I will embrace the Abrahams around me and do my best to shoulder their burden. But, I will never support tempting them with a premature, alternate ram. I will never say to them, “God has asked too much of you – here, this path is easier and I am certain God wouldn’t mind.” Because my faith demands that I recognize that an easier way out is not mine to give.
The law of God is also clear, but not all are under the same law, because the laws of God are to be followed by the dictates of one's own conscience. People may choose to worship how, where, or what they may - or not. I hold this to be one of my most basic articles of faith. I choose to follow the prophets and apostles, but I must also allow others the choice not to. I also believe that those who follow the laws of God have no need to disobey the laws of the land, and that the Constitution represents the law of the land. D&C 98 says:
5 And that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me.
6 Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land;
7 And as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil.
8 I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore ye are free indeed; and the law also maketh you free.
The decision of the SCOTUS clarifies the freedoms and rights, particularly the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment, which has been broadly and consistently interpreted as a limit on government power against certain individuals or groups. This applies to questions of gender as well as race, religion, etc. And the SCOTUS found that denying someone the right to enjoy the freedom to marry another because of the gender of the person wishing to marry is unconstitutional. The end.
The religion argument is a straw man, and is irrelevant. And the legal question has been settled. You may say they're wrong, but you don't get a say.
That's all.
You're very fond of citing the Zion-esque climate of 4th Nephi--you know, all about how there's no rich or poor, no racial divisions, no class separations, and they had all things in common...why do you think they were that way? "Because all men were converted unto the Lord." America as a whole is NOT converted unto the Lord. In fact, America is a whole lot closer to being like Sodom and Gomorrah than 4th Nephi. You can't straddle the fence and applaud the law of the land when it flies in the face of the Lord's commandments, and then use scriptures at other times to justify your socialist views. You're either on the Lord's side, or you're on Satan's.
I think you're just bitter. I am not sure why any of this has anything to do with you or your faith - I don't think it has anything to do with my faith...
And I'm also not sure where my philosophy has anything to do with the scripture. I didn't offer interpretation of the scripture, just cited what the Lord said...
How does Bill's opinion of the law undermine those who are trying to avoid temptation? That makes no sense. Also, we don't really go in for sharia law here, as it isn't constitutional, so basing laws on your personal beliefs about God, gays, women's reproductive rights, etc, also makes no sense. Just because you choose to live your life by the precepts of your religion doesn't mean others must. We are not a theocracy. Bill is very firmly on the Lord's side, I know this very well. You seem to be a very angry person and might to well to examine how well you live the second great commandment. The God I believe in cares more about how you treat the marginalized than He does about whether or not you approve of marriage rights.
-President Russel M Nelson
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/08/disciples-and-the-defense-of-marriage?lang=eng