In church yesterday, we had a lesson about strengthening the family. It was all going fine until it was derailed by a comment about gay marriage and an upcoming “assault on the family” waged by legislation and the courts. Being a good little Mormon, afraid of outing myself as a liberal to this room full of men, I kept my mouth shut until I could come up with a diplomatic way of expressing my utter shock at the suggestion of two folks that our families were somehow impacted by gay couples having the same rights we do as straight couples.

I ended up saying something like (paraphrasing, because I’m not sure exactly what I said – my face was red), “I’m going to try to say this very carefully. I would think that as members of a Church that has been legislated against in the past to the point that it was once legal and encouraged to kill Mormons, we would be suspect of government intervention in the name of ‘morality’. We are Christians. And as Christians, we’re not about judging people. I would think that if we want to bring more people into the Church, and to Christ, we would want to embrace them as people, and not try to further marginalize our brothers and sisters who happen to be gay. I think we should be very careful about supporting these proposed laws, because they are often viewed as a license to hate, and that’s not what being a Christian is about.”

What I didn’t say during the lesson, but wanted to, was that I don’t see how allowing a gay couple to have the same legal rights as a straight couples when it comes to survivor benefits, power of attorney and the rest of the legal rights that come with a marriage (to the state, really a “civil union” anyway), threatens our families. Homosexuals are easy targets because they’re “different” and “not like us”. If we really wanted to strengthen the “family”, we should look at the problems that already afflict families. We should look at ways to decrease the divorce rate, which is currently well over fifty percent (meaning your marriage is more likely to fail than to succeed), provide more help for single parents, and look at ways to promote marriage over co-habitation (since a couple is 33% more likely to divorce if they live together before marriage than not). We need to look at ways to strengthen family bonds, and create healthy and stable home lives for children. We need to break the chain of poverty, which causes so much stress on family life. I don’t see any of that happening through legislation. I don’t see what allowing homosexuals couples equal protection under the law has to do with my family. I’m not going to be forced to marry a man, and my wife doesn’t have to go marry a woman. It will most likely not have anything to do with my family or marriage.

We already have enough hate in our country. We have enough Fred Phelps to go around. Being Christian means hating the sin, not the sinner. By marginalizing those who choose different lifestyles than our own, we show them, and ourselves, that we lack charity. Since Christ himself said that we should love our neighbors has ourselves, and said it was the second of all commandments (Mark 12 30-32). Shouldn’t that pretty much trump anything you find in the Old Testament. Mark 12 is pretty much a refutation of the Ten Commandments, yet, those who proclaim their hatred for homosexuals constantly use the Old Testament in their attacks. Charity is the pure love of Christ. If we constantly attack those who are different from us, threaten to make illegal the love they can’t help but feel, and judge them ceaselessly, where is our charity?

This is way too much time to spend on a piece of legislation that is nothing more than a sop to the President’s religious conservative base. If he was truly interested in saving the institution of marriage, he would make it harder to get divorced, outlaw co-habitation and force everyone to be nice, happy, well-balanced people. But, of course, we know that no law will ever do that. By legislating something, it doesn’t make it go away. Homosexuals won’t just “see the light” and become straight because they can’t have the same rights we do as straight people. If we allow this law to pass, or the amendment to be added to the Constitution, they will know that we do not have charity, that we do not love our neighbors, that we are not Christians.

No, not that doctor, Doc. A great post on why Bush has to go. And coming later today, a big long post on this whole gay marriage/constitutional amendment stuff and how silly it all is. You can get ready for it by reading this excellent analysis of the debate from the BBC.

I love it that the President wants some ribs. I’m not one to deny a man his ribs, but could the President answer one question? What’s the point of posting it to the White House website when he says absolutely nothing of substance? Was it that Karl wasn’t there to give him the answers? One of the most disconcerting things about the President is his inability to answer a question off the top of his head without sounding like a chronic stutterer. Some of his biggest gaffes have come when he’s not reading froma script. If I were to vote for anyone in his Administration, it would be his speechwriter, who apparently is quite eloquent. The President? Not so much.

“Don’t feel bad about hootin’ and hollerin’. If I’d spent the amount of money you did in Iowa and only got 18%, I’d still be hootin’ and hollerin’ too. Don’t feel bad, Howard” — Al Sharpton to Howard Dean in tonight’s debate.

Sharpton, Kucinich and Lieberman should drop out of the race after this week, but Sharpton sure is entertaining to have in a debate. And yes, that statement had absolutely nothing to do with the question he was asked (and when he did get to the answer, it didn’t really relate to the question asked either).

Remember that little story about some secret DNC memos being leaked to the press because a Republican Senate Judiciary staffer go access to a Democratic staffer’s account? Well, apparently, it didn’t happen just once.

Yeah, I watched the State of the Union speech last night. It was… ummm… unimpressive. Nothing stuck out as revolutionary, cool, important or significant about it. It was actually really boring. Bush, again, smirks WAY too much for a President delivering a very important speech. He said so little, that the <a href=”fact check is pretty boring as well. Unfortunately, the Democrats looked like plastic dolls delivering the rebuttle. Holy crap. Someone tell Nancy Pelosi to blink! Tom Daschle was OK, but man, show some fire, people! They should have let Ted Kennedy offer the rebuttle. The rebuttle shored up my problem with the Democratic party – no freakin’ charisma. You don’t show up Mr. Cowboy with Ken and Barbie’s boring plastic parents. You beat him with fire, with determination – not wussified scolding. Grow some stones, you Jackasses.