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Gay marriage criticized at Education Week address

It's hard for me to believe that 4 UNELECTED judges in San Francisco could overturn the vote of the majority of "WE THE PEOPLE" in CA on this issue.
Please look deeper into this situation at the ramifications to medical personnel, social agencies, parochial/religious schools, public schools etc. not being allowed to follow their conscience. Look at Catholic Charities having to shut down their adoption services in Boston MA because of being forced to process same-sex adoptions! In CA same-sex couples can be added to each other's health insurance etc. but unmarried heterosexuals cannot! Equal rights is one thing, superior rights is another and it's WRONG but that's what comes with "protected class" individuals. Please look deeper into the possible outcome of this initiative. I believe we haven't scratched the surface of what this will lead to in areas we haven't even thought about. If you live in CA .. VOTE YES ON PROP 8.

Thank you for publishing this outstanding list of reasons that we in California will be walking our neighborhoods - in defense of traditional Marriage in California.

It is a privilege to follow the counsel of Living Prophets and Stand for what is not only right, but what is imperative to ensure for a healthy future for our children and grandchildren etc...

As we go forward, to teach and educate our neighbors and friends in regard to this most important issue of same-sex marriage -- this precise list of powerful reasons and evidence can be a great tool for sharing truth.

I firmly believe that education is the key, in making sure that prop. 8 is passed in California. As members, although much of what we believe is faith-based... the facts are - that this is not only faith-based, but factual knowledge of what and why we must stand in defense of traditional marriage at this time.

Again, thank you for the summary of this instruction from Ed Week.

tDMg
LdsNana-AskMormon

Opponents of gay marriage are rightly derided for being bigoted and homophobic. There is no rational basis to deprive a minority of Americans the equal protection of the law that is a right in the Constitution. In Massachusetts and Canada gay marriage has been legal for five years and none of the "scary" problems the BYU lawyer predicted actually happened.

My brother lives in California and his life will be affected if this hateful amendment passes. Family is very important to me. I feel deeply that the Church will in future regret its high-profile activism on this issue and offer my prayers.

This is a good story. Do not think that you can substitute a godly relationship with an imposter relationship. No matter how convinced you are about nature/nurture origins of homosexuality, the gay relationship will NEVER rise to the level of a healthy, godly relationship between a woman and man. And now let the gay apologists start the name calling.

So if HIV/AIDS transmission among gay men is a major reason to deny them marriage, lesbian marriages should be okay, right? Or how about a blood test before marriage: anyone with HIV (gay or straight) is not allowed a marriage license?

And regarding the social costs of caring for children of divorced parents: we are already paying those costs for existing unmarried gay parents. Allowing those gay parents to wed will decrease, not increase, the number of out-of-wedlock children. (Besides, where's the sense in saying that letting more people marry will increase the number of unmarried parents?)

Wardle is right. Gay marriage is already hurting our society - and will for years to come unless we stand up against it! I am tired of same-sex preference people trying to push their agenda on everyone else. Their lifestyle choices will always be unacceptable no matter how hard they try to make it acceptable.

Yet another rant from a so-called "professor" filled with misinformation and outright lies. It seems the anti-marriage crowd can only support its bigotry by fooling others. The "professor" fails to mention that more than 75% of all HIV in the world has been transmitted through heterosexual intercourse, he fails to show how same sex marriage will in anyway increase the rates of HIV transmission and he fails to note that lesbian have the lowest incidence of HIV.
The only "civil rights" he seems to be worrying about is the "right" to hate and discriminate against the group of your choice which I don't believe IS a "civil right".
Finally, the old "slippery slope" argument is used as an attempt to put fear in people saying that they don't know what impact this will have. One of the oldest tricks to control people is to instill fear of the unknown in them. In the end, the "professor" is a professor of ignorance and fear and I hope that educated people see through the nonsense and also see what kind of faculty BYU has on staff.

What a fair and balanced article! I love the balance between "gay marriage is awful" and "gay marriage is terrible." I really feel like I have both sides of the story now!

I could not agree more. With every aspect of this article.

The attempts to silence dissent in this arena are very similar, though probably even more destructive, to the tactics used to quash any dissenting voices in the "global warming" "debate".

Thankfully, we live in a society that still includes the right to free expression and thought. I have no problem with people who express thier opposition to the opposition of gay marriage and/or the opposing opinions regardings "global warming". So long as all parties remain free to express themselves, I'm fine. However, any attempts to restrict that freedom will bring out my opposing voice.

a U.S. Constitutional Amendment will not do a thing. The proponents of gay marriage will simply go to the state courts and demand that all marriage licenses be stopped from being issued and that the states only issue civil contracts between people.

The issue here is you have state constitutions, almost all of them, with equal protection clauses. A court will rule that as the federal constitution says that marriage must be between a man and a woman and as that condition violates the state's equal protection clause the state can no longer issue marriage licenses as doing so violates the state constitution's equal protection clauses.

Nothing in the federal amendement fouces states to issue licences and we will end up with some states with and some states without marriage which will weaken marriage even more than same sex unions would have.

The professor is telling it like he was told to tell it. His assumptions are merely that. He citing the cost of divorce in our society is silly and not rational. How, pray tell, can how another celebrates life ruin my relationship with my wife and with my children. As I would not want someone else to tell me how to live and how to function, why should a BYU professor or any church tell others not in their faith how to live. Should not people be able to think and live as they want without having to be oppressed by myopic thought. As a society we thought women were incapable of voting, we thought blacks were inferior as citizens, allowing women to vote did not hurt our society, allowing people of color to be fully integrated into society has not hurt our society.
I don't care if gays marry, what they do may seem weird to me, but what I do may seem weird to them. California is allowing what is a natural function of society. The professor needs to leave his tower and venture into the society he reads about, to see how it is in real life.

People have their agency. I should not be forced to accept the fact that someone else is living in a way I do not agree with. I can accept a person but I don't have to accept the way they live. They have their choice to live how they want, but not cram it down the throat of everyone else. If someone believes something is wrong, they should not be forced to do it by the government. Where's our freedom then? If an adoptive agency won't let a same-sex couple adopt, go somewhere else. Same thing with the case for the doctor who didn't want to help the Lesbian get pregnant. Just go somewhere else.

So if gay marriage is allowed it will end my civil right to oppose it? That makes no sense. The 1st amendment lets us speak out on anything. Ask the KKK or the American Nazis. That somebody is called homophobic is a name in the mind of the name caller. I guess if you have thin skin, be offended. Gay marriage will come whether we like it or not. Eventually the Supreme court will make the determination. the US Constitution was written to protect the least of us, not the will of the majority. Otherwise, civil rights would not be in the American language.

The state constitution should never be amended to limit Californians' right to their own personal and religious beliefs. It should scrupulously uphold equal rights under the law. That is what it now does, based on a state Supreme Court ruling this year affirming a right to same-sex marriage. Voters should not take the extraordinary step of amending the constitution to take a right away. They should reject Proposition 8.

Those who would impose their own intensely personal or religious feelings about marriage ignore the word's equally important secular and legal definitions. Marriage confers a whole range of rights and responsibilities around inheritance, parenthood, medical decision-making, tax benefits and liabilities, and on and on. In American law, all of these are affected by
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marriage.

There is no such thing as this so-called "gay marriage."

The comments give credence to the term QUEER

You have to wonder at people who think they have some God given right to tell others how they should live their lives. I especially like this comment: "I should not be forced to accept the fact that someone else is living in a way I do not agree with." In other words this person believes they are better than everyone else and have the right to tell people that they don't like what they are doing in their personal lives so they can't do it? Why am I being forces to put up with people who think like this?

I think Brother Wardle hit the nail on the head on this issue. In doing research on him, I realized I have heard him speak before. For part of the time I was at BYU he was in my stake's stake presidency, and I have probably heard him speak twice, although maybe only once.
I applaud him for being willing to face the hate of those who are trying to destroy the rights of those who conscientiously object to same gender relationships. To give them the legal support of the law will be detrimental to many people's freedom. In Massachusetts justicies of the peace have been fired for refusing to perform same gender marriages and in California a doctor is being sued for refusing to perform an artificial insemination on a lady in a lesbian couple, even though he was willing to reccomend the lady to a client who would perform the operation.
I will continue to speak out against giving same-gender marriage the proactive endorsement of public policy.

To Don Shakers,
No one said that AIDS transmission is a major reason for not legalizing same gender marriage. It was put near the end of the article because it is not the compelling reason.
You have set up a straw man argument. You have failed to engage the major issues of redefinition and weakening of the family.
In Massachusetts Catholic Family Searvices has stopped processing adoptions. In Norway the out of wedlock birth rate has gone from 35% to 52%. There are a whole slew of negative results of legalizing same gender marriage.

The 'professor' fails to provide facts to support her 'opinion'.

FACT: The State (Massachusetts) that legalized SAME-SEX MARRIAGE... has the LOWEST Divorce Rate in the United States.

Things that make to go Hhhmmm.

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