Mormons split over same-sex marriage

[DonViejo]

Heterosexual marriage is "hard-wired" into the faith, but there are signs that it is evolving

JOANNA BROOKS, RELIGION DISPATCHES

This article originally appeared on Religion Dispatches.

On November 4, a critical mass of Mormons in the United States Senate—including Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah and Dean Heller of Nevada (whose vote broke a filibuster by his own party)—played a critical role in passing the historic Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) protecting gay and lesbian Americans in the workplace.

Just days later, grassroots LDS Church members in the heavily Mormon communities of Oahu’s North Shore received instructions during their Sunday church meetings on how to help defeat—by letter writing or organized bus caravan to the state capitol—historic legislation to secure civil marriage rights for gay and lesbian Hawaiians.

The contrast has commentators from the New York Times to Mother Jones writing about what appear to be divergent impulses on LGBT issues in a faith that built its twentieth-century branding on tight bureaucratic management of theology and public image.

So what do Mormons really believe about homosexuality? Make no mistake about it: more than any other branch of organized Christianity, Mormonism is theologically hardwired around the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. The Mormon concept of God is that of a married heterosexual couple: a Heavenly Mother and a Heavenly Father. Heterosexual marriage solemnized in LDS temples is viewed as a religious rite necessary to full salvation, and the heterosexual family is understood as a reflection of the essential nature of godliness and God’s creation and an eternal unit.

Where LDS people have mobilized against LGBT civil marriage rights, it’s often because they have been taught that their own religious freedom, theology and marriage practices will come under threat—a threat that while disclaimed by most legal experts can feel especially real given LDS historical memory of popular and US governmental anti-polygamy crusades in the late nineteenth century.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/30/what_do_mormons_really_believe_about_same_sex_marriage_partner/

[cbayer]

1. If the Mormons do come around, it will be in large part because of people like Joanna Brooks.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. LDS anti gay people face a large conundrum, LDS is very family centric and also makes lots of gay

kids. The choice they face is to rip their families to bits or accept their own damn children. This is a challenge for them, because their dogma is harshly sexist, homophobic and about control of the community using marriages.

[cbayer]

3. Agree, BNW.

There are small groups within the church that are making more noise, but they are up against some mighty forces.

Joanna Brooks, who I've never seen specifically define herself in terms of sexuality, has been a very positive voice.

[msongs]

4. the mormons mentioned are not on "Oahu's North Shore" - another marketing deceit by LDS lol nt

[AtheistCrusader]

5. However, one leader council receives a celestial fax and they can re-write entire portions of their

faith.

See; 1978, and their sudden realization that black people are in fact, not the losers and 'less valiant' cursed souls from a space-war.