Proposition 8, a hot-button issue on the upcoming California ballot, is one the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is actively engaged in.  Letters have been sent out to Mormon congregations, encouraging members to actively do all they can to urge the passing of this piece of legislation, which, as I understand, amends the California constitution to recognize only marriage between a man and woman.

Personally, I would like the government out of marriage.  I know this for some is fairyland, as government, for at least tax reasons, is inextricably entwined with marriage partners (and has been for decades) in what I consider to be invasive ways.

From this perspective, supporting Proposition 8 is surely an act of faith.  But there are rational reasons for me to support this expansion of government which I find consistent with my principles.  The problem with inaction?  Positive Rights.

Traditionally, Lockean government existed to protect individual negative property rights: my neighbor has no right to assault me, for instance, or steal my stuff, to use technical terms.  My rights are protected by government.

Positive rights are a different matter entirely.  Instead of the right to be protected from something, positive rights are the right to receive something, like health care, a “living wage”, home ownership, and the like.  This necessitates something being confiscated from someone else and given to you.  It is this mindset of entitlement which concerns me most about this proposition.

Implications of positive rights as applied to proposition 8 to me include messy litigation cases.  All it takes is one or two high profile lawsuits and the consequences could become very difficult.  These could tie up precious tithing money as the Church defends itself from accusations of discrimination.  They could result in LDS Bishops being unable to perform marriages to heterosexual couples only.  I see even parts of temple worship, like the sealing ordinance, could be at risk, perhaps not in the immediate future, but down the road.  I could see where, in the not-too-distant future, excluding practicing homosexuals from ordinances could be considered discriminatory.  These scenarios seem uncomfortably plausible and it would pain me to see the Church fight these type of unnecessary and destructive battles.

And so I urge anyone residing in California to support a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman, not to enlarge the powers of the state, but to prevent unwanted encroachments on private religious organizations.

By the way, for those interested, the Church posted an official commentary called “The Divine Institution of Marriage” on its website, which is quite interesting.

Chris Reeve is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He currently resides with his wife and two children in northern Ohio. Visit Chris' website Mormon Paleo Thought.

Comments (3)

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ed42 said:

Rats! Chris, I usually looked forward to and agreed with your postings. I think you blew it big time on this. Let's apply your same logic to slavery, to inter-racial marriage, to just about anything that prevented the full expression of rights in the past - does your logic hold? The question in my mind is: "Am I ever justified in doing an evil today (to X) that MIGHT prevent (Y from doing) an evil tomorrow?". Should I deny rights to X because Y MIGHT attempt to use government to force me to do something? I can only answer no, I am not justified. What "positive rights" will 'marriage' allow over that 'civil unions' allow? (so far as I can tell the LDS church is not against civil unions of gays). Are we just arguing semantics?

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October 15, 2008
Votes: +3

Crusty said:

I disagree with your assumption that, if people are not restricted from their negative right to marry who they want to marry, then eventually, they'll acquire the positive right to gain priveleges in a religion (or in other words, limit the negative rights of a religion). I think the opposite would be true. If you give the government the power to control who should get married (limit negative rights), then I believe you're actually opening the door for government to eventually control religious rights (e.g. temple ceremonies, temple admittance...other negative rights). By the way, I don't believe there are such a thing as positive rights. Those aren't rights; that's tyranny. How can you say that government should have the right to decide who should get married and how people should get married, then later on, try to argue that government doesn't have the right to interfere with your religious practices? What happens when the majority decides they don't like people practicing the Mormon religion? Wouldn't it be nice to have a precedent of government being unable to infringe on rights, regardless of what the majority wants? What does state marriage have to do with temple marriage anyway? Isn't temple marriage the only one that really matters? It sounds like you too have fallen prey being fearful to disagree with the church, and you're trying to find logical reasons to justify it. You ARE your own prophet. They are the prophets of the church, not of you. Be in the church, not of the church.

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October 16, 2008 | url
Votes: +1

Crusty said:

Upon further consideration, I believe that the right to be RECOGNIZED by the state as a married couple is in fact a "positive right." I still don't believe anybody should be given ANY positive rights (which is an oxymoron); therefore, I still don't believe government should have ANY involvement in recognizing who (or what) is married. They should not be involved at all in marriage. I much less believe that the government should be able to discriminate as to who will receive positive rights. If the government can't give something to everyone, they should give it to nobody (which automatically invalidates all positive rights). Prop 8 may decrease positive rights, but more importantly, Prop 8 gives the government increased power to discriminate...it is an increase in power & scope, and a decrease in justice & equality, to which I am fundamentally opposed. Additionally, I still believe, if government is given increased power to discriminate, then it could eventually lead to an increase in their ability to control religious rights. Power breeds power. If people can vote on who should get certain positive rights, then what's to stop them from voting on who should get certain negative rights? It's possible that, if we can keep government from defining marriage now, then eventually, the government will be unable to discriminate against ANY type of marriage, and government-recognized marriages will become illegitimized by the freak-show variety of marriages, which the state is forced to recognize. The end result could be the removal of state involvement in marriage. Isn't that what we all eventually want...the state to remove itself from being involved in or recognizing any type of marriage (the elimination of all positive rights, related to marriage)? What would be your stance on Prop 8 if the church had never taken a stand on it?

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October 17, 2008 | url
Votes: +1

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