SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it supports proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages. It's the church's latest show of support in the lead-up to an expected congressional vote Wednesday.
The 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships against God's commandments, yet would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn't infringe upon religious groups' right to believe as they choose.
“We believe this approach is the way forward. As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of religious freedom together with the rights of LGBTQ individuals much can be accomplished to heal relationships and foster greater understanding,” an unnamed spokesperson for the church said.
Support for the Respect for Marriage Act under consideration in Congress is the church's latest step to stake out a more welcoming stance toward the LGBTQ community while holding firm to its belief that same-sex relationships are sinful.
Patrick Mason, a professor of religious studies at Utah State University, said the church's position was both a departure from and continuation of its past stances — respecting laws yet working to safeguard religious liberty and ensuring they won't be forced to perform same-sex marriages or grant them official church sanction.
“This is part of the church’s overall theology essentially sustaining the law of the land, recognizing that what they dictate and enforce for their members in terms of their behavior is different than what it means to be part of a pluralistic society,” he said.
The faith opposes same-sex marriage and sexual intimacy, but it has taken a more welcoming stance to LGBTQ people in recent years. In 2016, it declared that same-sex attraction is not a sin, while maintaining that acting on it was.
gonna stop funding troubled teen camps and gay conversion therapy or nah?
Those misery machines will only ever be removed by force. They're too deeply entangled in American politics to defeat in a pacifist run.
Well, no, of course not. Those're cash cows.
But Mormons will start cutting ads with mixed-race gay couples and saccharine music playing over the top, then broadcasting them into liberal media markets to convince people they're cool.
Yo our church leader just got a vision from god telling them to do whatever seems popular right now
An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.
- Prophet Muhammad PBUH in his famous Last Sermon. 632 AD, 1400 years ago.
Reference: See Al-Bukhari, Hadith 1623, 1626, 6361
Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said "I heard the scuffle of Bilal's sandals before me in Paradise.”
Bilal was one of the prominent Black companions of the Prophet PBUH
Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1149, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2458
God says we have marriage equality at home
The marriage equality at home: some 'love the sinner hate the sin' sanctimonious horseshit
That is, quite literally, the entire thing with Mormonism.
They get “visions from God” a lot that trlk them it’s too supporting the unpopular opinions. Like how they just one day stopped saying black peoples were inferior
Having trouble getting the young'uns to wear special Mormon longjohns, huh?
“We believe this approach is the way forward."
They're like Romney. He's pretending to be a "reasonable" republican. They're pretending to be a "reasonable" church. It can't be a coincidence they did this right after the elections. If the GOP had slaughtered the dems - would they have kept silent?
While not as shocking as AOL, Yahoo claims they still have 225 million active users still somehow too
they probably absolutely do if you count every goddamn person who navigates to the yahoo.com home-page to access their email. Same with AOL.
Source: Me having to tell a client "stop using yahoo/AOL's email service and chances are you'll get the emails we've sent" at least once a week. :whywhywhywhywhy:
active
That word is doing so much lifting it could move the earth.
Posturing, pro gay cultists are still cultists. Re-education for the whole lot of them.
because they are a legit cult, and even though other religions can be qualified as such (if ya want), Mormons are another breed. As an ex-mormon myself, I know it. The Mormon cult is just white and American exceptionalism nonsense. With the leader being a pedophile with a known habit of being a con artist. He was sent to jail for conning people into paying him to 'confer with spirits' to lead to 'buried treasure in the hills' he would take their money and leave said people behind.
we forgot about them cuz we weren’t as good at keeping records back then.
That is completely untrue. We still have tons of records from then, and we know there were more that were destroyed by fire, flooding, recycling, or just age. Muhammad was the leader of a military, so any such records being destroyed would make more sense. If there was anything like this about Jesus we would know, he was discussed at length by enemies and investigators from the very start of Christianity.
Anyway, mormornism would've gotten rocked if it started earlier, it's attuned to a different cultural era than other forms of Christianity.
IDK about Muhammad, not much of a Muslim scholar. I would guess that was considered appropriate at the time or they wouldn't have included it.
As for Jesus, if we forgotabout guys from the sixties doing crap then it isn't a question of the quality of record keeping, or the difference between then and now. Every scrap of evidence had been analyzed since like 50 ad to today.
Because it’s a modern religion and we know everything about it’s origins, that is to say, it’s a complete scam. I imagine every other religion was founded the same way as Mormonism but it evolved to the point where there are based splinters and chapters and denominations whereas every denomination of Mormonism is just “what if I had sex with 30 women and their daughters because god wanted me to?”
Mormons, jehovah’s witnesses, and Scientologists are all in the same boat. Personally I include evangelicals too but they have mainstream respectability. Ex-Mormons are probably the largest and most vocal about hating Mormonism more than ex-followers of every other religious group I can think of
Most of christian America was subsumed into market relations in the 20th century. There are still churches, people still attend and believe. But they no longer form the social fabric of communities. And they no longer carry out the role of social reproduction -- at least not at the scale needed to stay relevant.
Mormons have held together a coherent sense of community for one human lifetime (aprox. 80 years) longer than the rest. They were still in the vital 'social reproduction' game at the close of the 20th century. But nothing is safe from the market, nothing is sacred. Mormonism is being subsumed all the same, but it's happening in the 21st century. It's happening online. People are coming to terms with an ancient, evolutionary universe on forums and blogs and ding-dang Facebook. "American Exceptionalism"? Exceptionally awful, more like. They're seeing the stories they grew up with fail to match the world they are living in, and they are pissed.
Sorry, but doesn't the law say "Your marriage will be recognized only if the state you live in recognizes it"?
ie this is a trap?
Yes, yes it is. Also sets up the possible horror of the supreme court taking down marriage equality (if they are stupid/hateful enough).
They might have done this in part to help Romney. So many republican groups (and I consider the Mormon church such a group) can't help stop themselves for hoping that finally their guy has a chance at the presidency.
Honestly, this is less duplicitous than Pope Francis, who is the Picasso of saying things that make him sound like he's progressive and deviating from Church teaching, even though he actually isn't.
I assume Mormon doctrine isn't different from Evangelical doctrine on homosexuality: you can be attracted to the same sex and that itself isn't sin. It's just a sin if you act on it i.e. have gay sex, even in the confines of a monogamous, loving relationship.
Evangelicals don't want gay marriage just because they want society to bend the knee to them and acknowledge they're in charge here. Mormons, being a minority that constantly get shit on by "real" Christians, probably don't feel that same desire outside of Utah. So they're likely pretty comfortable saying "yeah whatever man's law not god's law" but theologically they are not softening their stance on homosexuality one bit.
Yeah because it's a shitty law that leaves it up to the states whether they'll allow same-sex marriage.
Honestly the smartest move. You can get away with anything provided you don't piss your pants in anger about it.
