The Honolulu Star Bulletin recently reported
that Gordon Hinckley, the president
of the Mormon Church, visited the Mormon temple in Hawaii and
told a meeting of 20,000 people that they were enough to stop
unwanted social change in Hawaii (an indirect but clear reference
to same-gender marriage).
In addition, the Advertiser also reported that the Mormon
president would meet privately with the Roman Catholic bishop of
Hawaii, to coordinate opposition to same-gender marriage.
Rick Fernandez, the interim PR director for Affirmation,
pointed out several paradoxes associated with these events. First,
it is ironic that the LDS president, who represents a church that
continues to teach that polygamy
is the highest form of marriage, would position himself as leading
the effort to "save the
family." Virtually no one in the American Christian mainstream
believes that a polygamous family is what family values is about.
Second, the Catholic church officially refuses to recognize the
power of the state to perform valid marriages or even to grant divorce,
yet it purports to tell Hawaiian citizens what marriage and family
in the civil sphere ought to be about. Finally, the Catholic and
LDS churches are the oddest sort of bedfellows,
considering that the latter has described the former as "the great
and abominable church," while the former will not recognize the
validity of the latter's baptisms and does not even consider them
Christians. Apparently, some abominations are more acceptable than
others. Meanwhile, Affirmation hopes that people of goodwill
and reason in Hawaii will not be swayed by the anti-gay propaganda
masquerading as religious truth that these two leaders have conspired
to spread in their fair island home.
On kovin ironista se, että mormonit nyt pyrkivät saattamaan
muut lain avulla omien avioliittonäkemystensä alaisiksi,
kun he vastustivat tällaista kohtelua ja menettelyä varsin
ponnekkaasti silloin, kun he itse olivat sen kohteina vähän
yli sata vuotta sitten.
Moniavioisuus
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