Mormons Don't Support Redefining Marriage...

...except when they do it. About 5 times in 150 years.



It was leaked out today that this weekend, California Mormons will be asked by their church to work to oppose same-sex marriage in their state. The LDS Church is up in arms because the California Supreme Court has endorse marriage equality, and in the church's opinion (and that of many religious cult leaders) strived to redefine a "5,000 year-old institution ordained by God."

I welcome the involvement of the Mormons because it might bring some due attention on the absurdity of this "5,000 year institution" argument. You might think marriage is ordained by God. You might think gays are icky. But you have no intellectual right to believe that marriage as it exist in American law is a 5,000 year-old institution. And Mormon polygamy, hot in the news these days, is a prime example.

At the founding of the church polygamy was expressly forbidden. Within a few years, it was mainstream practice with even church founder Joseph Smith having multiple wives. By the turn of the twentieth century, the church banned plural marriage again and began excommunicating its practioners, despite that fact that a church president who survived well in to the 40s was an avowed polygamist. Today, the church is adamantly opposed to polygamy. Mormons have redefined marriage nearly half a dozen times in 150 years.

Of course, I'm afraid of the gay-marriage/polygamy/beastiality comparisons that will surely spew from the mouths of evangelicals, but I welcome the death of the 5,000 year institution argument.