On the day after voters in California, Arizona and Florida approved state constitutional amendments to define marriage as between a man and a woman, the Church called for increased understanding and respect — understanding of the Church's stance and efforts as well as respect to be shared by all.
Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy said the Church's involvement — including participation with the Protect Marriage Coalition in California, where the arguments concerning same-sex marriage took the highest profile — was not on a political issue but a moral issue based on two fundamental perspectives.
"The first is that marriage between a man and a woman is good for the fabric of our society," he said, meeting the day after the election with Salt Lake City news media. "And, second, we have strong doctrinal reasons for doing what we've done, and we hope that those doctrines will also help people to understand why the Church participated and that they'll find comfort, frankly, from understanding why we've participated."
In addition to Elder Clayton's media involvement, the Church released a commentary on its newsroom.lds.org Web site in response to the Proposition 8 campaign and results.
Saying, "We respect the rights of people who have different points of view; we hope they'll respect ours," Elder Clayton added: "We hope now as time and people move on that everyone will treat each other with love and civility and respect. That's a genuine concern for us. We want everyone to make a genuine effort to do that."
The Church's online statement called allegations of bigotry or persecution made against the Church as "simply wrong."
"The Church's opposition to same-sex marriage neither constitutes nor condones any kind of hostility toward gays and lesbians," it continued. "Even more, the Church does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family orf the constitutional rights of churches."
While it was just one part of the multifaceted coalition that not only received endorsements and assistance from Catholic and Evangelical Protestant leaders and organizations but nonreligious groups and individuals, the Church was often a primary target in print, advertising and protests by Proposition 8 opponents.
"We've tried to maintain our participation in the campaign with the coalition on a very positive note. We're not anti-gay, we're pro-marriage between a man and a woman," Elder Clayton said.
When asked why a few supporters of same-sex marriage distributed advertising portraying the Church or missionaries in an unflattering manner, he said: "We regret that occasionally there have been some things which have not seemed to be entirely in keeping with that perspective of keeping a high tone to the discourse. Why they did it, we're not sure. We wish them well, nevertheless, and we hope that in the future, all of our discourse with each other will be positive and uplifting and helpful to everybody. We don't think that there's anything to be gained by being negative."
E-mail to: taylor@desnews.com
