Proposition 8

Hey everyone,

A lot of people don't seem to understand the significance of the Proposition 8 vote on November 4th in California, so what is the big deal? Why has the church asked us to donate time and means to support proposition 8? Why has the church broken its usual stance of political neutrality? Here's why:

This is not a matter with consequences confined solely to a few liberal hot spots in California. Actually, the outcome of this vote could affect the entire church. What could happen could be similar to what happened in Massachusetts with the Catholic charities. Because the Catholic church refused to offer children for adoption to gay couples, the state forced them to either conform or close down. The Catholic refused to bend; and consequently, they shut down their entire "Catholic Charities" organization in Massachusetts. A Methodist church had to give up its tax-exempt religious entity status because it refused to perform a same-sex marriage. It was sued and it lost the lawsuit. Physicians are being sued for refusing to do fertility treatments for same sex couples. They are losing the lawsuits and being forced, against their will, to treat everyone as equals or lose their right to practice medicine.

The same thing could happen to the LDS church. The church would also have to either help gay people adopt children inside the "LDS Family Services" or shut down. However, that is only one aspect of the ripple effect of this proposition. If marriage is defined as two homosexual partners, then by law, LDS members who are gay and want to get married could sue to be married in the temple. Do you think the church would allow gay couples to get married in the temple? The answer, of course, would be absolutely not. The choice that the church would be given is to either bend, lose its status as a religious entity, or shut down temple worship in California.

And while it is true that members could still drive to a different state to get married, this would obviously a huge loss for church members and the church leaders believe that if marriage is redefined in California, many other states will follow. This is why there is such a sense of urgency in the leadership of the church to pass proposition 8. There has already been raised nearly $30 million dollars, of which 70% was contributed by LDS members to lobby for proposition 8. I, too, have donated and volunteered to spread the word, which is why I'm sending this to you now. Go to the church's official website www.preservingmarriage.org to become more informed of the proposition. You can donate money at www.protectmarriage.com should you desire to. Elder Bednar said this is only the beginning; and if it is not stopped in California, it will allow others to push further against our beliefs and practises. If we don't take a stand for what we believe in, we may very well lose the freedoms and opportunities to practise our religion that we have enjoyed for so long. I hope you are able to help out in some way.


Sincerely,

Brantley Oakey