Where do laws come from? Why do we have laws at all?
A law defines something you should NOT do. Let's be clear. You have the freedom to obey or disobey a law, but you are not free to choose the consequence. And there is always a consequence to disobeying a worldly law, if you are caught. If something is not spelled out as a law, by default, it is something you CAN do, and which may have no consequence.
Make sense?
So, who defines a law? Who is to say what is right or wrong in any given society? Does anyone really have the right to say what we can or cannot do? Where is the moral compass of humanity which dictates what we should and should not do?
This is why we have the form of government we do. Why we elect representatives. We elect people who we feel share our beliefs. By “beliefs” I am talking about morality. Everyone has a slightly differing sense of what is right and wrong. I have my own beliefs as to where that sense or conscience comes from. I believe they come directly from God and that almost every single person is born with that ability to distinguish right from wrong. Some people, I feel, are without guilt. Meaning, they cannot see right from wrong and cannot be held responsible for their decisions (intellectually disabled, very young children, etc.).
I have lived my life with a sense of what is right and wrong that has been learned and defined by reading Christian scriptures. I have chosen to make the Ten Commandments a part of my life. Beyond the Ten Commandments, I believe in a Living Prophet. One who has been ordained by God to communicate his will to mankind. Through this prophet, God can further define and clarify his will regarding the minutia of those original Ten Commandments. An easy example of this is where we are commanded “Thou shalt not kill.” Does this mean ‘don’t kill under any circumstances’? Ever? Even in self-defense? No. Because of modern revelation and examples in the scriptures, we learn that it is OK to kill in self-defense. You are completely justified, and it is not considered a sin against you, in God’s eyes.
There are many things which God has defined as sinful. Things we should not do. Activities that carry serious spiritual consequences, should we choose to engage in them. If we murder, then we have committed a sin so serious that it may result in us losing our own lives as the consequence. We shouldn’t steal. We shouldn’t cheat or lie. Going even further into this principle, we learn that simply looking upon someone lustfully, in a sexual manner, is a sinful thing. Acting on homosexual desires is defined as a sinful thing. Doing drugs and partaking of substances which alter our agency is considered sinful behavior; things we should avoid and repent of. The list of ways in which we can participate in sinful behavior is long and will not be covered here.
In 2014, Amendment 3 to the Utah constitution, which was passed by a 66% majority vote, was overturned by a federal judge as unconstitutional. This immediately made it legal for same-sex couples to get married in Utah.
In 1995, eleven years prior to Amendment 3, the LDS Church sent out a message to the world entitled “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” In it they announced and re-affirmed their belief that marriage between a man and woman was ordained of God. They declared that the commandment given to Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth was still in force and that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between a man and woman who are lawfully wedded. Furthermore, they stated that the “means by which mortal life is created” to be divinely appointed. This means that sexual relations between a man and woman, the manner in which life is created, is by God’s divine design. Any other way or use of those procreative power is not of God. To clarify even more, they state that “marriage between man and woman is essential to His [God’s] eternal plan. Children are entitled…to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.”
Let’s take a step back, after reading that, and analyze a thing or two. By all accounts and by my own genetic makeup, I have the potential of becoming a raging alcoholic. At the age of 14, I drank, in one setting, 8 beers and about 16 ounces of whiskey. That’s a LOT of alcohol for a 14-year-old. I didn’t pass out. I didn’t vomit. My body handled it QUITE well. Luckily, I realized that the path I was heading down would not lead me to the places I wanted to be in life, so I never touched alcohol again. Although genetically predisposed to alcoholism (parent, grandparents), I CHOSE another path. To this day, while I enjoy the smell of tobacco, I do not touch it. I walk past a smoker and can distinguish high-quality tobacco from the garbage they sell at the store. I am drawn to these things, but I CHOOSE not to indulge in them. Why, you ask? Because of my religion, my morals and the principles that were taught to me by a prophet of God. I have been taught and believe that partaking of those things is not something God wants me to do, so I choose to obey his will, knowing that I will be blessed in this life and the next if I abstain from those temptations. I even made covenants with God to avoid those things.
And now we bring homosexuality into the mix. Is the fact that I am attracted to alcohol and tobacco a sin in itself? No. The sin would come into play once I drank or smoked those things, having made covenants to avoid them previously. So, in the same vein, is it a sin to be attracted to someone of the same sex? No. The sin would come into play once you chose to participate in that temptation.
Do I hate homosexual people? Foolishness. God loves them and they have as much divine potential as I do. Does God hate sin? Of course. He makes that clear in his Word, the Holy Scriptures. God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. (D&C 1:31, Alma 45:16). We cannot commit sinful behavior and expect to live in God’s presence. If I indulge in alcohol or tobacco, it is as much a sin as someone who chooses to participate in homosexual behavior. We all have our weaknesses. They are given to us by God himself. (Ether 12:27) He does this because he wants us to learn to control these physical bodies. If we can obey his commandments and exercise self-control over this mortal shell, he has promised to reward us with great blessings. More than we can comprehend.
So when I object to a federal authority that undermines an entire population of people, without precedent, it is not a slight to people who choose to participate in homosexual behavior. It is not that I feel I am any better than every other sinner on the earth. I am one of you. My imperfections are mine and mine alone to deal with in life. And through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I feel that I can gain the mental and spiritual power to overcome those sins…put them behind me, and look forward to a life with God if I persevere to the end. (1 Ne. 31:20)
I feel that marriage itself was defined and created by God. It is not mine or yours to change. HE defined it as a relationship between a man and a woman when he put Adam and Eve onto this earth. Simply legislating marriage as something else, or making laws that make sin “ok” does not make it acceptable in God’s eyes. Sin is still sin. Righteousness is still righteousness.
The scriptures warn us and prophets have foretold that in the Last Days, mankind would “call evil good, and good evil.” (Isaiah 5:20) That we would “put darkness for light, and light for darkness; …put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” To me, that means that eventually mankind will reach (or HAS reached) a point where the things which God has defined as sinful will be legislated into legality and will be generally accepted as “ok” in the world. This, as we see starting recently, has initiated the trend of calling people like me, who see certain behaviors as morally wrong, as behind the times or bigoted (intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself). It reminds me of a poem by Alexander Pope, part of which says this:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
(Epistle II, v. 10)
Modern Translation:
Vice is a monster with an ugly face,
To hate vice is a forgone conclusion;
But when we are subjected to vice at every turn,
We first endure sin, then we pity sin, then embrace...SIN.
Forever, sin has been a part of our society. We live with it and witness its effects every day on the nightly news. What Pope is saying here is that when we spend too much time around sin, we become numb to it and its effects. In time, if left unchecked, we will eventually embrace sin as acceptable behavior, even embrace it ourselves and participate and, because of guilt, end up reversing those once-held beliefs, calling what was once good, evil.
If being against sin, in all its forms makes me a bigot, then sign me up, Jack. I'll ride that bus to the end of time.
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