Isn’t it strongly held “religious opinion” about what marriage is or isn’t, and what a family is or isn’t, that is causing the national uproar leading to serious infringement of basic human rights and civil liberties of millions of Gay Americans?
We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others….” D&C 134:2, 4
Since the conscience of millions of Gay Americans tells them that their marriage should be based on love instead of tradition, doesn’t the gospel require us to allow them the freedom to live according to their conscience?
We believe that … governments have a right, and are bound to enact laws for the protection of all citizens in the free exercise of their religious belief ; but we do not believe that they have a right in justice to deprive citizens of this privilege, or proscribe them in their opinions…
We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied….” see D&C 134:5, 7, 9.
proscribe “1: to condemn or forbid as harmful or unlawful : PROHIBIT” Webster’s 9th New Collegiate Dictionary
Why are so many Latter-day Saints today encouraging our Government to do the exact same things to Gays as the US government did to our polygamist ancestors? Was no empathy learned or passed on from all the persecution our ancestors endured in their efforts to live according to the truth they were given?
The US Government passed laws which proscribed the LDS Church in its spiritual privilege to perform polygamist marriages. Our polygamist ancestors were denied their individual right to marry and have non-traditional families according to their belief and desire.
Isn’t religious marriage a fundamental spiritual privilege granted to religions in America?
Is it right for Church members to destroy the religious freedoms of other churches which do value Gays and Lesbians and their monogamous relationships and want to offer them the blessings of marriage? Do you support freedom of religion or not?