Gay Marriage and Personal Revelation

I tend to vascillate between serious and not-so-serious in my posts on this blog. This one is more on the serious (and religious) side, so consider yourself forewarned. You see, over the past month and a half I've found myself taking a pretty nuanced position on issues relating to homosexuality. I've written two letters that seemingly lend support to opposite positions, though I don't personally find them contradictory.

The First Letter

The first letter I was asked to write by my Church. Almost two months ago, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter to its congregations throughout the United States urging its members to "express themselves" to their Senators about an upcoming vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

This letter kept me thinking for days. I believed (and still do believe) that the proposed amendment was a political smokescreen, brought as part of an effort to rally the Republican base before the mid-term elections (other legislation brought with the same intent includes a nonbinding resolution rejecting a timetable for pullout in Iraq, a constitutional amendment giving Congress the authority to ban flag-burning, and an outright repeal of the estate tax). There was no real doubt that all of these measures would fail, but they were brought, in my view, so that candidates could point to them during the upcoming election.

I should note that I don't see the Church's motivation in distributing this letter as "political" beyond the immediate issue (to the contrary, a revised statement on political neutrality the Church issued in March may well have been intended to blunt the "political" impact of this letter). But that didn't make it easier for me to write my Senators in favor of what I saw as a political ruse. I just don't think that a constitutional amendment is a good idea from a policy point of view (In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that I generally don't oppose the idea of civil unions). Several reasons I am opposed to a constitutional amendment are:

1) Marriage has always been regulated by the states and should continue to be. State regulation in no way contributes to the "inevitability" of gay marriage. A series of recent court decisions bolsters my position here. On July 7th, the Supreme Courts of Georgia and New York held that same-sex couples are not entitled to marry because laws defining marriage as between man and a woman are not unconstitutional under their respective state laws. On July 10th, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the validity of a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit future gay marriages in the state. And on July 14th, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a gay marriage ban in Nebraska, while the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to a proposed ban on the Tennessee ballot this fall. Furthermore, states are protected from the enactments or judgments of other states that might recognize gay marriage as a result of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. This is significant since we have no indication that the U.S. Supreme Court stands ready to strike down this law as unconstitutional.

2) The wording of the amendment is troubling to me, as it could bar things like civil unions (which, as I said, I tend to support) and marginalize a large segment of our society.

3) The push to ratify this measure among the states would prove terribly divisive and would essentially turn all upcoming elections into one issue campaigns. The myriad of other issues that affect our country day to day and have a much greater impact on our lives would not receive a thorough political vetting, and the end result would be bad policies that leave everyone worse off.

4) The measure simply does not have the support to pass. It only garnered 48 votes in the Senate… three short of a majority and miles from the 67 votes a constitutional amendment requires. This outcome was not in any way a suprise, and the road to ratification by three-fourths of the country's state legislatures doesn't look any easier.

The Church, while making clear where it stood on this issue, only asked in open terms for its members to express themselves to their elected representatives. In my mind, this was an honest call for members to reflect deeply and honestly on their feelings and communicate them to members of Congress.

I very much believe that God does not expect blind obedience from his children. We are entitled to receive spiritual confirmation of anything that is asked of us, especially if we are troubled or doubtful about it. President Wilford Woodruff once admonished the Saints (Ch. 11 Manual):

"Whenever you are in doubt about any duty or work which you have to perform, never proceed to do anything until you go and labor in prayer and get the Holy Spirit. Wherever the Spirit dictates you to go or to do, that will be right; and, by following its dictates, you will come out right."

In spite of a lot of thought and prayer on my part, I still didn't feel good about supporting the amendment. So I instead choose to simply relay my concerns about gay marriage while also emphasizing my reservations about a Constitutional amendment:

Senator Warner,

I am opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds. While I am open to the idea of civil unions through which committed gay partners can bestow legal benefits on one another, I don’t think this should be allowed under the rubric of marriage because the institution is inseparably intertwined with religious ideas of sanctification and morality. Marriage has a very specific historical meaning and using the term as a universal legal descriptor for formalized gay relations would essentially be forcing cultural and moral "acceptance" of the practice on millions of Americans who, like me, might hold religious beliefs finding homosexuality wrong.

That said, I am VERY wary of amending the Constitution and think that on this issue pushing a constitutional amendment would be bad policy. Traditionally, regulation of the marriage relationship has been left to the states. Currently, the Defense of Marriage Act protects that states from the acts of another state's courts or legislatures. The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment is not needed and would deeply divide the country for years. I oppose the amendment and ask you to think about states' rights and the consequences of a drawn out fight to ratify this amendment as you vote on this issue.

Thank you,

The Second Letter

The second letter I wrote in response to a touching testimony borne during the Sacrament Meeting of a local LDS congregation. On June 4th, a law student who just graduated from Georgetown spoke of his struggle with homosexuality from the pulpit along with several other gay students. Empowered by the reaction he received, the law student emailed a copy of his testimony around, and a friend of mine at Georgetown sent it along to me. Although I had reservations about a couple of points he made, the testimony moved me and I wrote the law student to thank him for his heartfelt sentiments. His response to that email differed greatly from the initial testimony he had emailed out. It was scattered and more of a call to arms on the issue of gay marriage. He sought to enlist me in a movement to pressure BYU and the Church to change their policies toward gays. This was my response to him:

[Law Student],

I hope this doesn't upset you, but might I humbly suggest that your most recent email to me seems to depart from the Spirit of the testimony you first shared. I don't claim to understand the issue of homosexuality, or how it should be handled by the Church, or how God will handle it in the life to come. I would paraphrase Nephi in saying that I do not know the meaning of all things, but, nevertheless, I know that God loves his children. I am sensitive to the plight of gay members in the Church and wish to do all I can to embrace them, love them and fellowship them. What I won't do, what I can't do, is crusade against the First Presidency of the Church. While I'm not one who believes I must accept whatever I hear without a confirmation of the Spirit, I do think I have a responsibility to sustain my leaders in their callings.

When Brigham Young was President of the Church, he had differences of opinion with then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Orson Pratt on several occasions. Brigham once came to Pratt and told him that certain materials that Pratt was circulating were not doctrinally sound. Pratt responded that he realized it was not his prerogative "to teach publicly that which the President considers to be unsound." But he asked that Brigham would "grant me as an individual the privilege of believing my present views" and that he would "not require me to teach others... that which I cannot without more light and knowledge believe in." Brigham granted him that. Once saying "I do not have it in my heart to disfellowship people who believe differently... I seek merely to correct men in their [improper] views." With respect to Pratt, he said "I am determined to whip Brother Pratt into it and make him work in the harness.... If Elder Pratt was chopped up in inch pieces, each piece would cry out Mormonism is true."

While we are certainly not at the level of Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, I think the principle remains the same. As members, we are not required to believe that which has not been confirmed to us, but if we hold beliefs or views that contradict a stated position of the Church, it should likewise not be our prerogative "to teach publicly that which the President considers to be unsound."

While the line between doctrine and policy or personal opinion is often more than a little blurry, on the specific issue of acting out on homosexual tendancies, I think the Church has been unambiguous. Perhaps that might change one day, but it will only change by revelation from the Lord, not by public pressure.

I love you as a brother in the Gospel [student's name]. Though I don't know you well, I deeply long for you to stay in fellowship with the Church. I know you have struggles that many of us don't understand; struggles that you are grateful for; struggles that have made you who you are. But I pray that you don't let those struggles deprive you of full fellowship within the restored Gospel and all the blessings it brings with it. You are in a position to touch the lives of others within the Church. Much as Paul told the Corinthians, you can "comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith [you yourself] are comforted by God." I don't think contending with the Church's position on homosexual relationships is the way in which to do that though.

I have no doubt that you are earnest in your feelings and sincere in your desire to follow Christ, even in this matter. I know from personal experience that determining the Lord's will can sometimes be difficult undertaking though. I often struggle to ascertain whether I am truly following the Spirit or rather just what I want the Spirit to be telling me. I struggle with the "nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." In seeking to follow the Spirit as you so visibly want to, just make sure you are not imposing your own will on the Lord.

Remember, as Henry B. Eyring's father once counseled, that you don't have to believe anything that isn't true. I would urge you, however, not to lose faith in the Prophet through this all. Don't lose this bedrock of your testimony. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and all the prophets that followed them were certainly not perfect, but we've never believed in the infallibility of prophets. We support them, however, because they were called by the Lord. I've recently been reading the Joseph Smith biography Rough Stone Rolling and it is apparent that Joseph made a lot of mistakes as Prophet. He admitted as much himself. But the Church survived (and only survived) because stalwart members followed him nonetheless. Support the Prophet. If you feel strongly on this issue, then you can support him with the assurance that one day the Lord will make everything right, in his own time.

You are in my thoughts and prayers. I wish you the best of luck on the bar and pray that the Lord will watch over you.

Your brother in the Gospel,

While nuanced, I don't find my positions in these letters at odds with one another. Although I declined to support an amendment the Church had endorsed at the same time I was encouraging someone to sustain his Priesthood leaders, I don't see any contradiction in both supporting the leaders of the Church and following my conscience. I think as a member of the Church I am called to do both. We are all entitled to receive direction in determining the course of our lives and the decisions we will make. I don't think God expects any of us to simply embrace an issue or a position if we have earnestly sought divine guidance but have yet to receive a spiritual confirmation of the thing for ourselves.