Saving ourselves from ourselves: Mormonism, me, and homosexual marriage

Much ink has been spilled about this topic. It has ranged from the polemical to the sentimental to the sensational. Yet as a supporter of my Church's policy on homosexual marriage, I find myself in a remarkably awkward position. More than one friend has hinted or openly accused me of being part of a Mormon hack, another sheep in the Church's army of the hoi polloi. Worse to these friends, I am simply propagating the same arguments that were used to justify prohibiting the priesthood from being held by all men. Others suggest that I am co-conspirator of sorts...that I'm providing cover for those who simply want to fall lock-step into the Church's position. Furthermore, I seem to barely be a faithful supporter of democracy...after all, do I not want to create a privileged class of people--heterosexual couples--who have access to rights exclusive to them? How utterly un-American...and conservatives think that Obama is the elitist...never mind that I'm also a hateful bigot who subscribes to fear tactics and sensationalism...ah, the lonely life I lead...

To these, my friends, I am simply a mob leader in the "When the prophet has spoken, the thinking is done" faction of the Church. Perhaps I protesteth too much, but alas, my friends, it becomes necessary for me to articulate how a thinking member of the faith can find homosexual marriage not only theologically unsound but also politically unwise.

"Russ," my liberal friends ask, "how can you support a policy that is so oppressive to those who simply seek to have fulfilling relationships just as you do?" And in some ways, I sympathize with my friends' accusations...I cringe at most arguments that both fellow members and even church leaders make in support of our policy. Many, like cotton candy, dissolve on contact. Others simply make an appeal to priesthood authority...a noble gesture, but ironically, utterly incongruent with the many teachings of the brethren on the topic (though one is certainly not in want of quotes representing the other school of thought). In spite of these arguments, I want to submit that one need not accept them in order to still place faith in the gospel, in Jesus Christ, indeed, in the Church's policy on this matter that does indeed address the nature of creation itself. Let's discuss theology then...

Did not my Church use the fallacious reasoning about the "naturalness" of racial separation to support the priesthood ban? At some levels, yes (with Hugh B. Brown being a notable proponent of civil rights). Can I call it fallacious while still calling myself a believer? Absolutely (Jeffrey R. Holland and Dallin H. Oaks have done likewise). The Lord has not been terribly prone to giving reasons for his policies...thus causing certain ideological rifts within the Church about the reasons for the priesthood ban. Yet the policy was firmly in place...whatever J. Reuben Clark meant in 1949 when he said it was "inspired," a belief in prophetic revelation requires that we give some credence to what they say. Can we discuss the racism of Brigham Young? Certainly. Can we cite tactless quotes from the leadership? Of course, we can...with impunity (for I have done so). Can our well-thought out discussions actually have an impact on church leadership's positions? Yes (see Lester Bush's 1973 article as an example). One can question the judgment, the rationale, the evidence of any given leader...it's just when you take upon yourself the mantle of the Church.

So to my fellow believers...Bottom line: we can toss around leaders' reasoning all we like and learn some interesting things about their modes of analysis...but if we believe that the Church is something more than a smokeless, teetotalling, abstinent club of 19th-century loving storytellers, we simply must accept the Church's bottom line on these issues.

So with that...let's discuss the philosophical ramifications of homosexual marriage outside of theology...

Typically, the first line of attack for homosexual marriage is an appeal to freedom and liberty...as it should be as well. Yet I would agree with Chesterton that terming this policy "liberal" or "free" is simply an "accident of words." Freedom, alas, is not a sovereign virtue...when isolated from other virtues, as Chesterton notes, it spins out of control. Freedom, when it serves individual ends, ultimately cooks itself in its own juice. Individual freedom does not societal freedom make.

Yet how would homosexual marriage REALLY impact society? Come now, my friends suggest, no scare tactics. No talk of men marrying beasts. Agreed. But to suggest that simply allowing homosexual marriage would broaden the scope of American liberty amounts to some sleight-of-hand...activists on both sides know that we are talking about, for better or for worse, the state's redefinition of marriage, indeed, even gender. Homosexual marriage essentially binds the state to granting tax benefits, adoption rights to a union that does not serve the human populace's interest in sustaining itself. This is a classic case of individual liberty being valued above collective interest.

Furthermore, we would indeed be laying the most blatant attack on feminism in the recent past...one that ought to make Betty Friedan and Adrienne Rich recoil. Homosexual marriage bases its case on a primary assumption that gender is constructed and that, therefore, it can be tossed aside at will. The rightness or wrongness of this assumption is beyond the scope of my bit, but I will suggest that such a position is dangerous for feminism indeed. We essentially maintain that women (or men, for that matter) are simply a convenience, an accident of nature...that they have no unique contribution to make to society that men cannot duplicate.

Homosexual marriage legitimizes the legal blending of the sexes. Man is no longer a man...nor woman a woman. We talk rightly of the women's objectification...yet supporters of homosexual marriage have little to say about women's delegitimization in the home. Liberal thought indeed...feminists have fooled themselves into thinking that separating the sexes will lead to their liberation; au contraire...can we all say "gender ghettoization"?

Thus we see (hat tip to Mormon rhetoric)...freedom does not always support its own cause. Therefore, if the state wants to make any pretension to valuing the distinctive contributions of the genders, it would be well to maintain marriage's privileged, even elite status. It might be tyranny...but only in the same sense that every other distinction is tyranny...and it prevents from the far greater tyranny that is our own appetite for individualistic urges.