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LDS backs amendment against gay marriages
With a single-sentence statement, the LDS Church on Wednesday endorsed amending the U.S. and state constitutions to reserve marriage for unions between a man and a woman.
The faith’s First Presidency described its statement as a declaration of principle in “anticipation of the expected debate over same-gender marriage,” rather than an endorsement of any specific language that might be contained in an amendment.
The LDS Church broke its silence on the subject days before Congress renews discussion on how and whether to amend the U.S. Constitution. The Senate is expected to vote on a marriage amendment next week.
And voters in as many as 12 states — including Utah — will decide in November whether to add a traditional definition of marriage to their constitutions. Hawaii, Alaska, Nebraska and Nevada have already done so.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the nation’s fifth largest denomination, devoted $1.1 million to help ensure passage of marriage measures in Hawaii and Alaska in 1998.
But Michael Otterson, an LDS Church spokesman, said there was no commitment at this point to do anything beyond making a public statement.
In Utah, where 70 percent of the population has at least nominal ties to the faith, that may be more than enough.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” said state Sen. D. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, a co-sponsor of Utah’s proposed amendment. “I didn’t know if they would come out, but I think it helps to get people to vote ‘yes’ on the amendment.”
For some Utah Mormons with gay friends or family members, the move by the LDS Church, which has 5.5 million members in the United States, was not surprising but still “painful and hurtful.”
“The church has been a big believer in the Constitution, but this is a big failure to honor separation of church and state,” said Gary Watts, who with his wife, Millie, heads Family Fellowship, which represents 1,700 families in Utah and southern Idaho.
“And to deny gay people the same opportunity straight people have is the total antithesis of everything the LDS Church stands for. It was expected because the church has never yet taken a courageous step for civil rights.”
The LDS Church’s First Presidency, which consists of President Gordon B. Hinckley and counselors Thomas S. Monson and James E. Faust, took a public stance to protect marriage as traditionally defined 10 years ago.
Since then, it has come to the defense of marriage in Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada, California, Montana and elsewhere — most often by urging members to contribute dollars, time and their votes to the cause.
In 1999, Hinckley defended such activism because it deals with a moral issue — a political line that includes opposing gambling and alcohol use.
“There is no justification to redefine what marriage is,” Hinckley said in an article published in the Ensign, an LDS Church magazine. “Such is our right, and those who try will find themselves answerable to God.”
Hinckley went on to say that legalization of same-sex marriage was not a civil rights issue, adding that “our hearts reach out to those who refer to themselves as gays and lesbians.”
They are welcome in the church, he said, as long as they “follow the same God-given rules of conduct that apply to everyone else, whether single or married.”
The LDS Church joins such religious groups as the Southern Baptists, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Islamic Society of North America in supporting a constitutional amendment and so-called defense of marriage laws, adopted by 38 states to date.
Teresa Collette, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, said the LDS Church endorsed a bare definition of marriage.
“It is interesting that it doesn’t address other forms of domestic relationships that we are seeing emerge in other states as people begin to look at these relationships,” said Collette, who urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to adopt a similarly worded measure that allows states to “craft compassionate alternative legal arrangements for unmarried people.”
That, she said, would include reciprocal beneficiaries and domestic partnerships that give some legal status short of marriage to gay couples as well as, for example, two elderly sisters caring for one another.
Which is the problem with Utah’s proposed constitutional amendment, said Scott McCoy, campaign director for the Don’t Amend Alliance. The second sentence of the proposal — “that no other domestic union . . . be recognized as a marriage or given the substantially equivalent effect” — would disrupt current and potentially future rights of nontraditional families, he said.
“This statement from the church doesn’t discount that argument,” McCoy said. “That is what our campaign is going to continue to focus on. We don’t think it is inconsistent to believe in a traditional definition of marriage and not want to go as far as part two does and hurt innocent Utahns.”
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How would the U.S. Constitution and Utah’s constitution be amended?
- Utah (on the November ballot): “Marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman. No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the substantially equivalent effect.”
- U.S. (now being debated in Congress): HJ Res. 56/SJ Res. 26: Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
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