Skip to content
Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

What the Mormons (and others) don’t understand about freedom

Joel McDonald, July 16, 2008July 16, 2008

It’s not religious. It’s not moral. It’s not even about family values. Gay marriage is a constitutional issue, but not in the same way that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormon Church) views it. It wants an amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman based on their beliefs. Not only is this an encroachment of religion into state matters, the entire idea of creating any law or amendment to deny a right or privilege to a group of people is unconstitutional!

Marriage is the acknowledgement of the state of the permanent relationship between two people. As I see it, this acknowledgement is base on contract law. Marriage is not seen as “sacred” in the eyes of the law. It’s a legal partnership, and is accompanied by the paperwork one would expect of any kind of contractual agreement. How can people readily understand that denying a driver’s license to a woman based on the fact that she is a woman is a violation of her rights, and yet not see that in the eyes of justice, which is blind to a persons ethnicity, gender, etc., that the denial of a marriage license to a couple based of their gender is not the very same violation of rights!

The fight to adopt an amendment in any state or for the United States as a whole is a losing battle. The matter has already been dealt with in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which informs us that “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” There will come a day when this amendment is applied by the US Supreme Court, opening the way for gay marriage in much the same manner as they did for school desegregation.

There is not much room for argument against the unconstitutionality of any law or amendment that would deprive homosexuals for gaining marriage licenses.

The weakness of the religious position is that marriage is not a matter of religion, but of the state. A church may perform marriage ceremonies for thousand if they wish, but if those people fail to apply for and be granted a license from the state, their marriage means little outside of their faith. For taxation, insurance, probate matters, and others, their marriage means nothing. The beliefs and practices of any religion are totally independent from state matters.

Mormons, other conservative Christian sects, and the politicians fueled by them all clamor to define marriage according to their beliefs. But what’s next? Should they then propose amendments to define what a church is and what it is not? How about baptism? How about salvation itself!

Living in a society where one is free to practice their faith to the fullest, with the only restriction being that the practice of that religion does not encroach upon the freedom of another, requires the sacrifice of any attempt to constrain the practices of others based on one’s beliefs. Allowing homosexuals to marry in no way reduces the value of any heterosexual marriage, just as a Catholic baptism does not reduce the value of a Mormon baptism. This is how a free society functions and we must work to protect those freedoms, and not try to restrict the freedoms of others.

Family Freedom Marriage Politics Values

Post navigation

Previous post
Next post

Related Posts

Where Is the Official Moral Outrage?

July 1, 2018

by Jerry Argetsinger I was born 9 months to the day after the bombing of Hiroshima. That puts me on the cutting edge of the Baby Boomer Generation. Of the many questions generated regarding immoral actions in the wake of WW2, some the most often asked relate to the rounding-up…

Read More

Mormon Erotica, Mormon Romance

January 17, 2018September 14, 2024

Mormon Erotica, the new novel from Donna Banta, is a joyous page-turner that, despite the title, is far more concerned with love and romance than sex. While the book contains plenty of reflection on Mormon attitudes toward sex and marriage, the action depicted is strictly PG. As with so many…

Read More

Sunday in Outer Blogness: We shall overcomb edition!

January 22, 2017

The voting for the Brodie Awards has begun!! Please go here to cast your votes. I know that there are quite a lot of nominations, but you have two weeks to vote — so I really hope you’ll take the opportunity to review these awesome nominations a few at a…

Read More

Comments (13)

  1. Kullervo says:
    July 16, 2008 at 12:38 pm

    While I agree with you in substance, I don’t think you’re dmeonstrating a very clear understanding of what “unconstitutional” means. A constitutional amendment would not be unconstitutional, even if it encroached on or conflicted with another constitutinal principle. The act of amending the Constitution essentially re-defines “constitutionality.”

  2. Kullervo says:
    July 16, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    Also, marriage isn’t necessarily based on contract law.

  3. Radioactive Wrath says:
    July 16, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    So I live in California, I will be voting against the amendment (prop 8 I believe) because of this reasoning: I don’t care what it is, restricting only certain people’s actions while letting other’s do the same thing and amending the constitution to do it is wrong.

  4. profxm says:
    July 17, 2008 at 6:17 am

    I agree with Kullervo. Technically, discriminating against people IS constitutional. The US Constitution is where the 3/5ths rule on slaves was formalized. If you want to discriminate against a group of people, a constitution is the place to do it. It doesn’t make it right or moral, but it is certainly possible. In fact, this is precisely why religious groups want to pass a constitutional amendment, both in California and nationally: then the courts would have to rule based on that amendment. There are dozens of states that have already amended their constitutions to disallow same-sex marriages:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Samesex_marriage_in_USA.svg

    Like Kullervo, I agree with you in principle, but the details of your argument don’t make sense.

  5. Joel McDonald says:
    July 17, 2008 at 7:28 am

    An amendment to a state constitution defining marriage is unconstitutional based on the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. Such an amendment to the US Constitution would be a conflict between it and the 14th.

    Constitutional contradictions do happen, generally as the offspring of a compromise between embattled parties…thus the 3/5ths rule.

    The only hope the theocrats have of protecting marriage according to their definition is a national amendment. State amendments will be trumped by a future Supreme Court ruling. A national amendment doesn’t seem very likely.

  6. Guy Noir Private Eye says:
    July 17, 2008 at 6:43 pm

    rant ON: Mormons views on just about everything are skewed. To make it worse, they tweak the ‘facts’ to make it seem as though their distorted views make sense.
    Mormonism SUCKS, it poisons just about Everything it touches.
    /rant.

  7. Seth R. says:
    July 17, 2008 at 7:21 pm

    Guy, when are you ever NOT on a “rant?”

  8. Kullervo says:
    July 18, 2008 at 8:44 am

    An amendment to a state constitution defining marriage is unconstitutional based on the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. Such an amendment to the US Constitution would be a conflict between it and the 14th.

    Well, it would be a conflict between the state constitution and your interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

  9. Joel McDonald says:
    July 18, 2008 at 10:38 am

    Based on previous SCOTUS interpretations of the 14th, I have full confidence in my own.

  10. Kullervo says:
    July 18, 2008 at 11:03 am

    Elaborate.

  11. Guy Noir Private Eye says:
    July 19, 2008 at 9:03 am

    Seth R. Says:
    “Guy, when are you ever NOT on a “rant?””

    why Seth… what about all those ‘special times’ we’ve been together?
    Was I ‘on a rant’ while we were in Rosario?
    Was there a bit of bitterness when we bicycled in Berlin?
    Was there disputation in Duluth?
    I’m disappointed, lover.

  12. Seth R. says:
    July 19, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    Well, I guess we’ll always have Paris…

  13. Guy Noir Private Eye says:
    July 19, 2008 at 3:16 pm

    whatever you say Sweetie….

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Mormon Alumni Association Books

Latest Comments:

  1. termal kamerayla su kaçak tespiti on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesJune 21, 2025

    termal kamerayla su kaçak tespiti Ekip çok organize, kaça?? an?nda bulup çözdüler. https://bence.net/read-blog/25188

  2. Cara B. Klein on My conspiracy theory #2April 26, 2025

    Wow, I had never thought about it in that way before You have really opened my eyes to a new…

  3. chanson on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 16, 2025

    The haiku at the end is lovely. Sounds like a great book!

  4. Donna Banta on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    I imagine anyone who has tried to change the church from within will identify with Kitchen's story. I especially like…

  5. Johnny Townsend on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    This was a painful review to read. For many years, I held the same hope, that the LDS church would…

8: The Mormon Proposition Acceptance of Gays Add new tag Affirmation angry exmormon awards Book Reviews BYU comments Conformity Dallin H. Oaks DAMU disaffected mormon underground Dustin Lance Black Ex-Mormon Exclusion policy Excommunicated exmormon faith Family feminism Gay Gay Love Gay Marriage Gay Relationships General Conference Happiness Homosexual Homosexuality LDS LGBT LGBTQ Link Bomb missionaries Modesty Mormon Mormon Alumni Association Mormonism motherhood peace politics Polygamy priesthood ban Sunstone temple

Awards

William Law X-Mormon of the Year:

  • 2023: Adam Steed
  • 2022: David Archuleta
  • 2021: Jeff T. Green
  • 2020: Jacinda Ardern
  • 2019: David Nielsen
  • 2018: Sam Young
  • 2017: Savannah
  • 2016: Jeremy Runnells
  • 2015: John Dehlin
  • 2014: Kate Kelly
  • 2013: J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson
  • 2012: David Tweede
  • 2011: Joanna Brooks
  • 2010: Monica Bielanko
  • 2009: Walter Kirn

Other Cool Sites!

WasMormon.org
©2025 Main Street Plaza | WordPress Theme by SuperbThemes