Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Fair Enough. Or, A Step in the Right Direction. And Yet...

Seems Salt Lake City, with the blessing of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has passed an ordinance making it illegal to discriminate against gays and lesbians when it comes to housing and employment. Fair enough. And thank you.

But what irked me in the Washington Post's coverage* of this is this statement by Church spokesperson, Michael Otterson:
"The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage," Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.
The emphasis is mine and begs this question: how do marriage rights for same-sex couples incite violence against the "traditional" institution of marriage?

First of all, the use of the word violence is inflammatory and incites fear and hatred. Secondly, and I've said this before, the institution of marriage as managed by hetrosexual couples doesn't exactly have a stellar record of non-violence or wholly-owned and utter sanctity. And thirdly, discrimination is discrimination, regardless of the demographic. Laws like this shouldn't require the blessing or sanction of any church.

That is all.

* The same quote can be found in the Salt Lake Tribune's coverage, too.

6 comments:

Gilahi said...

That's the $64,000 question that hardly anyone's asking and, so far as I've heard, no one has been able to answer. When it's stated that gay marriage would somehow destroy the sanctity of marriage, one should simply ask, "How?". I've asked that question a half-dozen times and I simply receive blank stares in response.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't it already illegal to discriminate? Seems like this is like passing a law that says it's illegal to starve your children. More like passing a law that says that despite what violent little reprobates your children are, it's illegal to starve them. Because that's fair.

-Phoebe

Maya said...

ditto.

Mary Ellen said...

Yeah, Otterson should have put a period after "fair and reasonable" and left it at that. It's not like anyone is unclear where the LDS church stands on gay marriage. Mentioning it just dredges up all their nastiness again.

Remind me, who was doing violence to marriage norms during the 1800s?

Rebecca said...

Blech. I'd really like to not dislike the LDS organization, but they make it so damn difficult.

J.M. Tewkesbury said...

Gilahi: Yeah, I'm still waiting for a cogent answer on that one, too. Completely unrelated, but it's like when you ask anti-abortionists if, were abortion to be made illegal, women who have abortions should go to jail. That one stumps 'em, too.


Phoebe: It's illegal to starve your kids?! Well, dang.


Maya: Exactly.


ME: Precisely! That said, though, I'm sure they'll tell you you're wrong to equate polygamy with gay marriage or to think of polygamy as doing violence to traditional marriage. After all, polygamy is part of the "new and everlasting covernant", so it's unassailable. :-P


Rebecca: Hear, hear!