Being on the wrong side of history

[scottie]

Originally Posted by MudphudCoug

President Monson himself said that it's OK to disagree with the Church on the gay marriage issue.

...

Was this in a GC talk? Is so, can someone point me to it? (I've done a few searches on LDS.org with no luck).

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by scottie

Was this in a GC talk? Is so, can someone point me to it? (I've done a few searches on LDS.org with no luck).

Press conference--response to Peggy Fletcher Stack question. He said it's OK to disagree on the marriage issue as long as it's not an apostasy situation.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MudphudCoug

Press conference--response to Peggy Fletcher Stack question. He said it's OK to disagree on the marriage issue as long as it's not an apostasy situation.

The fact of disagreement doesn't matter, but the style of one's disagreement.

one aspect of the gay marriage debates that puzzles is the binary, rather shallow approach almost all debaters take to it.

On one hand, you have the liberals, who espouse the belief, that the expansion of rights, any rights for any group, is a good thing.

On the other, you have the religionists who believe it's sinful and potentially harmful to straight marriage.

I've rarely heard any middle ground. People with gay relatives have softened my perhaps once ignorant stance on homosexuality to the point I just don't care. The Church having lost valuable political capital fighting the federal issue showed me, it's not worth expending capital. Nobody should bother gays about being gay and unless you're in the Church, just leave people alone with what they do in the bedroom.

However, I disagree that the expansion of rights to all new groups is a good thing. Expansion of rights to women was horribly important, but the ERA would have led to unnecessary regulations, as the Civil Rights Act already does a good job. Expansion of rights to the races was essential. Why? Well, it seems to me race and ethnic origin are more important and more beneficial, than an aberrant form of sexuality [you can draw whatever connotation from "aberrant" that you wish, I'm simply using it in a statistical manner]. We shouldn't persecute gays but we shouldn't benefit them either. Whether this form of activity harms society is for others to debate, but nobody has shown me society is benefited by it either. One might be able to argue, if gay sexuality is not harmful, which many may argue, they have trouble arguing it is beneficial. In my mind, rights should protect those aspects which are essential and beneficial to society.

We don't need any more rights today, we just need to enforce sensibly the ones already on the books.