My comment is in response to comments #6 and #10, referring to the belief that we, as faithful saints would do well to follow the “brethren.” In fact, must follow!

To quote what #6 shared…
“Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had ‘never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional or political life.’

While such a belief and principle is very important to the essential need for followership in any community such as ours, it is also problematic if applied exactly as stated. We are taught to believe that the source of the “counsel of the Authorities of the Church” is a living God. However, especially in the areas of civil rights, their counsel has continually changed (and adapted) as the culture around us (at least in the U.S.) changed.

This is clearly seen even if one’s only source is from reading the current series of priesthood/relief society manuals drawn from (edited) writings and speeches of our past prophets. In short, I will just declare my point (rather than go on for pages supporting it): All the progress we, as Mormons, have made in how we teach and act with regard to the equality and rights of blacks and women, and gays, has come from the wider culture’s affect on us, not from the GAs or prophets! They have followed, not led! Why was it OK for past prophets of God (Brigham Young and John Taylor, to name just two) to be racists, but not for Kimball and Hinckley? Did God stop being a racist? Did He change, or did our prophets and other leaders just reflect the beliefs and attitudes/ (truths?) they were learning from the wider culture?

We now–finally–have/teach (especially relative to our pre-1940 leaders) respect and equality for blacks and women. We are also no longer referring to homosexuals as mentally ill deviants that are an “abomination” in God’s eyes–so we are making progress in that area also.

The point is: conscience trumps sustaining! Sure, poor Brigham was a racist–as was his culture–but he taught many truths also; such as: (paraphrasing) Study it out in your mind, come to your own testimony, don’t follow blindly.

The logical conclusion in my view would be that both sets of rights have to coexist but the gay lobby will not allow what it considers to be hate speech to be protected speech just as the Church will not allow same sex marriage. I personally think that the Church would not fight the marriage issue so hard if the threat of additional action were not there. For example, if speech and the prerogatives of the church to handle the gay issue as it sees fit were guaranteed (for example, LDS Social Services would be permitted to exclude same sex couples from consideration in adoption proceedings).

Compared to Temple marriage, isn’t civil marriage pretty much the same as shacking up?

Demanding child care is the answer? How well does that work now with the many fatherless children? Of course there are already many kids born out of wedlock. Making marriage solely a church thing, something only very religious couples would do rather than something that most people in the common culture plan to do when they grow up, would certainly decrease marriage rates and increase illegitimacy. Fatherless kids cause all sorts of social problems. Privatizing marriage would expand those problems out of the inner cities and into the general population.

Equality Utah executive director Mike Thompson asked the LDS Church to continue “its willingness to engage in political issues” by stepping in to help.
“Is the LDS Church willing to assign a member of its Presidency of the Seventy to lead church efforts to secure these rights, just as it did with Proposition 8?” he asked. And, he continued, “will the First Presidency draft a letter to Utah Latter-day Saints in support of rights and protections for gay couples … [and] ask for this letter to be read to all Utah congregations on a specified date,” as it did in California?

You bring up fathers but it seems to me that demanding childcare is the solution. Merely suggesting that there are men who are irresponsible and stay in their parents basement is beside the point. That happens now. Getting the State out of the marriage business probably wouldn’t affect that. And no one is saying there wouldn’t be legal unions. Just that the unions wouldn’t be marriage.