Camilla emailed me the link below... It's a speech Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave at BYU-I yesterday, and well worth the read. I was just going to reply to her email, but thought this would be a great discussion to have on the blog.
click here to read or click here to listen (to listen, try the mp3 link if you don't want to worry about downloading software)
or click here for a summary of the article
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
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"As Richard John Neuhaus said many years ago, 'In a democracy that is free and robust, an opinion is no more disqualified for being ‘religious’ than for being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain dumb.' "
ReplyDeleteI really like this quote. Elder Oaks talks about people ridiculing you and your views because you are religious... it would be great if being religious didn't disqualify you from being an intelligent person who can reason and think for himself.
"The real issue in the Proposition 8 debate ... is whether the opponents of Proposition 8 should be allowed to change the vital institution of marriage itself... The supporters of Proposition 8 were exercising their constitutional right to defend the institution of marriage..."
I don't know if I had quite thought of it the way Elder Oaks explains it here: namely that marriage has been defined one way for many centuries, and that people haven't tried to change it until recently. That is a whole separate issue from an infringement on someone's civil rights.
Those are just a couple of ideas that stood out to me from Elder Oaks's speech. Apostles can explain things so much better than I can sometimes :)
That does make a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteI think the world has a hard time understanding why we make such a big deal about "marriage between a man and a woman." That's because the world, in general, has devalued marriage to the point where they see it as a formality, a piece of paper, or a chance to "stand up and declare your love."
We view it as a saving ordinance.
It seems to me there has been a lot of cultural movement recently. In just a few years some things have shifted in common thought from good to evil and from evil to good (as in Isaiah 5:20).
ReplyDeleteElder Oaks speaks to us from a position of clarity in these times, laying out fundamentals, and connecting them to issues. How quickly did the point of view in popular discourse shift in the Proposition 8 discussion--from "defending marriage" to "denying rights."
"The contest is of eternal importance, and it is your generation that must understand the issues and make the efforts to prevail." He expects us to know the constitutional foundations of these things and not drift with the culture.