Singular Saints

While we’re considering the dust kicked up over the LDS Church’s involvement in the GBLT rights issue, here’s another thing to be aware of; It’s already a law that the Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.  This is contained in Public Law 104-199 which you can view here. The Wikipedia article is available here. The bill was passed by Congress by a vote of 85-14 (85%) in the Senate and a vote of 342-67 (83%) in the House of Representatives and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.

So, why aren’t the protesters encircling the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument or White House? Maybe I shouldn’t give them any new ideas…

I was cleaning up some old e-mails and found a link to the commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford back in 2005.  It’s a good read. Click here to view it in a new window.

The news outlets are carrying a story that the California’s Fair Political Practices Commission says it will investigate allegations that the Mormon church failed to report non-monetary contributions to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign.   In an effort to get the facts straight, here are a few relevant points:

The California Fair Political Practices Commission administers the Political Reform Act.

The Political Reform Act requires government officials to file “Statements of Economic Interest” in order to disclose possible financial conflicts of interest.  The main point of the act is that a public official may not take any part in a governmental decision in which the official has a disqualifying conflict of interest.

The act requires officials to report investments and ownership interests in business entities, real property, sources of income and gifts. The Political Reform Act applies only to financial conflicts of interest of public officials, It does NOT apply to other types of conflicts or biases. It was written to give voters in California some sense of comfort that their elected officials were not influencing legislation that would personally benefit them. 

How Californians Against Hate is going to torque this law around to pertain to volunteer efforts by members of the LDS Church, or even active involvement by church officials, is a hard for me to understand, but I suppose where there’s a willing attorney, there a way. On their web site the Knights of Columbus, New Haven, CT is listed as the top donor at $1,425,000. (The LDS Church doesn’t even make the expanded list.)

If you’d like to know what the California State Attorney General has to say about the purpose, application and scope of The Political Reform Act click here.

I recently started an e-mail conversation with an acquaintance who is actively involved in both the LDS church and the GLBT rights movement.  His comments and observations were heartfelt and I wanted to give them some air here, along with my thoughts on the matter.  There were two specific ideas he presented that I feel are key to his position.  The first was that since God doesn’t make mistakes and God made him gay, all he wants is to honor that.  The second was that nowhere in the scriptures did Jesus speak against homosexuality.  I’ll address the second point today and the first later.

In Matthew 19; 3-12, the Pharisees asked Jesus if it was lawful for a a man to “put away his wife for every cause“.  His answer began with: “Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female…” (ref. Gen 1:27) Jesus then continued; “for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife”and they twain shall be one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together shall no man put asunder.” These statements are clearly about divorce and marriage.

Moses allowed divorce in cases of fornication.  But that was “for the hardness of their hearts”.  Jesus elaborated about marital fidelity in Matthew 5:27-28 saying: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

The subject was also addressed in Matthew 22:23 - 33, where the Sadducees posed a question about the duty of man a to marry and father offspring by the childless widow of his dead brother. (Deuteronomy 25:5) They posed a case where seven brothers marry the same woman, and all die childless.  Jesus replied: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, not the power of God.”  He finished by saying that in the resurrection these brothers and the woman will all be unmarried.  The multitude hear this and are “astonished” at Jesus’ doctrine.

By way of background; The first thing God did after making man and woman in his own image, male and female, was to bless them and tell them to “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it…” (JPS Genesis 1:28)

From these verses, it seems to me that the Biblical position is that God made men and women to marry, have children and be faithful to each other.  Jesus said it in Matthew, Elohim said it in Genesis.  Like Proposition 8, these scriptures have to do with the nature of the marriage relationship, not homosexuality. (Proposition 8 was about the definition of marriage, not homosexuality, per se.)

In a way my friend is correct, Jesus didn’t specifically say that homosexuality is a sin.  However he clearly addressed the purpose and nature of marriage and anyone who wants to use the scriptures as a basis of argument, should probably consider that.

In “A Review of General Semantics“, David E.  Wright observes that words, by themselves, do not have meanings.  The ‘meanings’ of words we read in a dictionary were assigned by lexicographers.  Lexicographers depend on the meanings given to these words by other humans. ‘Meaning’ involves the intentions of speakers and writers. The words they use represent their intentions; our interpretation of those words; and our responses (conscious and non-conscious, verbal and non-verbal) is based on our interpretation of those words.

“Words do not mean … Humans give meanings. We are usually unaware that we do–but if we are very attentive, we can catch ourselves in the process.”

This is the foundation of my objection to redefining marriage as being something other than between a man and a woman; it involves changing the meaning of the word to something other than it has historically meant.

I’m wondering if there isn’t some middle ground that can be reached which addresses the needs and concerns of both sides of the “gay marriage” issue. Having said that, I should probably frame what I see as the issue:

Both same-sex and heterosexual couples occasionally find themselves in a situation where they want to make a long term commitment to being together and sharing the benefits and responsibilities of that. For a heterosexual couple who are still of child bearing age, that probably includes sex and possibly children. For older heterosexual couples and same sex couples the possibility of pregnancy and child raising is not an issue, unless they choose to adopt. In any case the *traditional* definition of marriage and family was built around that core idea; Man + Woman = Marriage => Children = Family. Most religions also bring God into the picture.

As medical science and the law has expanded the definitions of man, woman, child and family to things like transgendered men and women with an artificially inseminated or surrogate womb, (I chose the most extreme form for the example) what used to be fairly broadly understood relationships and consequences (marriage and family) has become blurred. As a result, we find ourselves arguing over semantics without realizing that is what we are doing. For example; Take the words “gay” and “marriage”. Gay use to simply mean “happy”. Now it means homosexual. Marriage used to mean a man and a woman in a mutually committed relationship that included sharing everything including sex and dealing with the consequences of sex. Now it is coming to mean two people of any sexual preference in some sort of committed relationship sharing various forms of sexual expression.

So, the problem, as I see it, is; With a large portion of the world being heterosexual and having a widely held definition of marriage, for the non-heterosexual community to use the word marriage to describe the form of relationship they want to have, automatically creates conflict for the majority. It’s much more than “I say potatoe you say potato… it’s potentially changing the definition of the words “marriage” and “family” for billions of people.  In that case it is a matter of a minority attempting to enforce their will upon the majority.  That is not democracy, or any other form of equitable government.

Maybe what is needed here is another word. Could we call it Garriage or something?

I don’t want to violate anyone’s human rights, just be clear about our meanings.

I came across a YouTube video this morning which I thought was very balanced in it’s position on Proposition 8.   Being of a curious nature, I decided to check on the reference to California Family Code Section 297.5. I had heard that the rights of same sex couples were already protected and was interested to see if this was true. I’m not an attorney, so I can’t offer an informed opinion as to the interpretation of the statute. Both the video and the text of the California Family Code were worth a look, IMHO.

This issue reminds me of an interaction that’s described in Matthew 22 when the Saducees asked Jesus which of seven brothers who’d “had” a woman would be married to her in the resurrection - which they did not believe in.  Jesus replied:  “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” The reference is Deuteronomy 25; 5 & 6:

“If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.”

The Saducees missed it on a number of points, the first being in the details of the law, the second being the reality of the resurrection and the last being the sealing power of God.

Last night the Barbara Walters Special featured Thomas Tracy, who achieved notariety for supposedly being the first man to have a baby.  Thruout the interview, Ms. Walters referred to Thomas as a man, although Tracy obviously has a uterus.  During the program it was also divulged that the Beaties are execting again and there are a few dozen other transgendered individuals who have successfully delivered in the last 30 years.

Without resorting to any scriptural authority, I’d simply like to point out that everything Thomas Tracy Beatie did to achieve this was literally “man made”. (S)he was born female. (S)he competed in the Miss Teen Hawaii USA beauty contest 20 years ago.  (S)he began a lesbian relationship when (s)he was 24, and in 2002 had “sex reassignment surgery” including breast removal. When (s)he became pregnant, the donor sperm was bought on eBay.

I don’t question Thomas Tracy’s right to do these things.  If a man wants to have himself castrated or a woman wants to get a hysterectomy that’s also their choice.  If a woman wants to dress like a man or a man wants to dress like a woman and they can find clothes that fit they can certainly do so.  HOWEVER I strongly object to lying about who or what they are. If we looked at Thomas Tracy’s genes I’m fairly sure she’d lack the typical male markers.  In fact, the Y chromosome is a very reliable predictor of gender, so much so it is regularly used in forensics.

Like Proposition 8, the problem here is honesty.  Tracy may have had a miserable home life and very unhappy parents. (Her mother committed suicide.)  Tracy may have hated what was expected of her as a girl. She’s gone to a lot of effort to appear to be a man BUT genetically she is a woman.  What she and others like her are doing is fraud. There is no amount of polite pandering by the press or Barbara Walters that can change that fact.

The news tonight featured a story about the protests that are scheduled for downtown Salt Lake tomorrow, for and against “equality in marriage”.  Maybe I’m just getting a bit dense in my old age, but it seems to me that these folks are missing some very basic stuff about interpersonal relationships.  As a rule we put them into three broad categories: friendships which are freely chosen associations, family which is based on a biological connection and commitment, and romantic which are based on physical and emotional intimacy.  Over the years we’ve given names to variations on these themes;  Roommates share our rooms but not our beds.  Fornicators share sex with other singles outside of marriage. Adulterers share sex with someone they aren’t married to.  In addition to that, the gender of each participant has an effect. We have brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. Marriage has been defined as being between adults of different sexes.  Man + woman + sex = marriage. (or fornication or adultery depending on the circumstances)  Similarly, man + woman + sex => children. Children need parents to love and protect them and teach them what they need to know about life.  Parents + children = family.  Parents without children = couple.  Is this really all that hard to understand?

ScienceDaily (2008-11-14) — Researchers have shown a new mechanism for how human consumption of red meat and milk products could contribute to the increased risk of cancerous tumors. Their findings suggest that inflammation resulting from a molecule introduced through consumption of these foods could promote tumor growth.

My formal training is in invention and creativity, so I’ve been taught how to think outside the box and draw outside the lines.  Occasionally this can cause some confusion and stress, particularly when I find myself in a position that runs counter to a prevailing trend.  In fields that have a strong basis in objective fact, this usually just presents an opportunity to teach or learn something which I didn’t know, but there are areas where demonstrable facts are difficult to determine.  This is when faith and trust often seem to play a major role in getting to a consensus. Folks seem to communicate better when they have reasons to trust each other.

As people of faith we can find ourselves in a position where our beliefs - those things which we think are true but which have not been objectively proven - put us at odds with some or all of the rest of the group. If that group also values unity and co-operation, having a belief that seems to run counter to the trend can be a huge test of faith.  I think California Proposition 8 is a good example of this, but it also happens at work and at home.  At times it can be difficult to get a consensus without forcing others to conform to the prevailing opinion - and exercising unrighteous dominion.  

I think the admonisments of Paul are particularly appropriate; “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” “See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men.”

We believe and teach that agency is an inviolate principle, yet there are times when we seem to be willing to force our views on others, because we think - or even know - that we are right, in spite of having been specifically taught not to do so. (D&C 121:41-46) This can be very challenging for everyone as the unaddressed fears and concerns of even one individual can hold up the progress of others.

If we know the truth, our task is to teach it with persuasion and patience, gently, meekly and in a spirit of love. (D&C 121:41)  We should tread lightly, particularly when our views contrast sharply with other’s.

Of all people, we should be the best prepared to know and teach the real truth.  The breadth and scope of our experience and knowledge is vast.  Knowing the truth, we should not fear, but act with firmness and consistency.  We should also champion the cause of truth whatever its source. We should also be strict in our adherence to true principles and facts.  ”And truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were and as they are to come and whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning.”