Proposition 8: The Mormons' Hypocrisy

The Mormon church, for some bizarre reason, is vehemently against governments giving the same rights and privileges offered to gay couples as are offered to straight couples. I'm, of course, referring to Proposition 8 ("Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.") here in California. (I have another post which details a number of difficulties with that seemingly simple sentence.)

However, the Mormons must have to do a number of strangely contorted mental gymnastics to get around what their own scripture says. Specifically, Doctrine and Covenants 134:9, which reads:

We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.

How is the Mormon's use of their buildings, satellite networks (also this page from the Mormon Times) in any way not mingling their "religious influence with civil government"?? And before you say that there are no churches that support gay marriage you might want to check what the Metropolitan Community Church or the Universal Unitarian churches say on the issue. Surely, there are other "religious societies" which support same-sex marriage, or Marriage Equality.

On the positive side of things, there are a (probably small) number of Mormons who oppose Proposition 8. People in this and similar groups (such as these reasonable folks) risk being excommunicated from, disfellowshipped from, or otherwise punished by the church for publicly going against their church leaders.

The Doctrine and Covenants may call it "mingling religious influence"; I call it a downright totalitarian abuse of power.

I welcome your comments.