-President Gordon B. Hinckley "Why We Do Some of the Things We Do." Ensign, Nov. 1999
I was reading a book by Elder Bruce C. Hafen, of the Quorum of the Seventy titled Covenant Hearts: Marriage and the Joy of Human Love. One of his final chapters is about how same-sex marriage weakens what marriage means. What Elder Hafen says in this chapter makes sense to me. I wish I could just copy the entire chapter here for you to read.
Some quotes:
"Because gay marriage is fundamentally a moral issue, laws on this subject can alter both personal and public moral attitudes."
"Same-sex marriage blurs the distinction between what society tolerates and what it endorses."
"The obligations of parenthood, marriage, and biological kinship are fundamental to preserving a civilized order. Such weighty societal obligations are worthy of being highly protected, not merely being tolerated or permitted. One consequence of the law's protecting marriage is that the state is a party to the marriage; and the state must legally approve both starting and ending it. These formalities are not required to create or dissolve other legal contracts. Society actually has a greater stake in the creation and survival of each marriage than it does in the survival of each business agreement."
"To marry is to accept a public responsibility to the community and its basic social values, especially its values about what is best for children."
"Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in 1986 that he would protect homosexual behavior not because it promotes any social value but precisely because it dissents from the established social order: 'We protect these rights not because they contribute. . . to the general public welfare, but because they form so central a part of an individual's life, including one's right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.'" Marriage, Elder Hafen explains, is fundamental to the survival of society, and the autonomy argument for gay marriage undermines that social obligation.
"The power of the law to communicate society's endorsement tells us that our system does not and should not protect everything it tolerates. If we merge tolerance with protection, our system will end up removing marriage and childrearing from the most protected legal sphere, because the lowest common denomiator effect of 'individual autonomy' denies the possibility that some relationships are more significant to society than others. So, the closer our society comes to approving gay marriage, the more we will actually reduce our expectation that married people owe anything at all to society, including their utmost effort to succeed in their marriages. That is how gay marriage undermines the sense of personal and social obligation that is fundamental to our thinking about what marriage is and what it means."
"From the perspective of prophetic teachings, state endorsement means the government would be promoting serious immorality."
-Bruce C. Hafen. Covenant Hearts. pp 249-255
Please vote YES! on Proposition 8! And please vote tomorrow even if you aren't in California. It is our right to choose the government we believe will make the best choices for our country!
