January 17, 2012

The LDS Church has again joined with dozens of other faiths in its “defense of marriage” as exclusively between a man and a woman, arguing that the move to legalize gay marriage may infringe on religious rights. There are “grave consequences of altering this definition,” a group of 39 religious leaders, including LDS Presiding Bishop H. David Burton, wrote last week in an open letter ... to all Americans which states that “the promotion and protection of marriage — the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife — is a matter of the common good and serves the wellbeing of the couple, of children, of civil society and all people.” All people? Other signers included Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, Catholic archbishop of New York; and Nathan J. Diament, executive director for public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. These leaders worry about a "broad range" of church-state legal conflicts that would arise by altering the civil definition of marriage. Every law “where rights depend on marital status — such as employment discrimination, employment benefits, adoption, education, health care, elder care, housing, property, and taxation — ” the letter said, “will change so that same-sex sexual relationships must be treated as if they were marriage.” According to their “reasoning”, any refusal by religious organizations “to treat a same-sex sexual relationship as if it were a marriage,” the leaders warned, would mark them and their members “as bigots, subjecting them to the full arsenal of government punishments and pressures reserved for racists” which, based on the content of the letter and the LDS church’s systematic actions against the gays and lesbians, is an accurate description of what they are. Also check this out.