Church, Government and Marriage

My boss thinks that the LDS Church should encourage the government to get out of the marriage business. I slightly disagree. I think the government should mostly get out of the marriage business, but I don't know that the Church should take what is essentially a libertarian position.

While the Church reserves the right to speak out on moral issues, unless it's going to speak out on everything political, it doesn't really have a reason to take a libertarian stance. Marriage, however, is a moral issue as it's an integral part Mormon conception of life after death. Thus, the Mormon church has an important interest in how that institution is treated in law. Speaking out on this moral issue and supporting prop. 8 was entirely appropriate.

You could say, what does it matter to the church what the law says?--it can simply do its own thing. After all, Mormons only believe Mormon marriages are eternally valid, yet they doesn't object to all non-Mormon marriages. But Prop. 8 was a funny law. It gave essentially equal substantive rights to gay couples. The difference between same sex and normal couples was in what that relationship was called. In essence the Prop. 8 fight was over the word "marriage" and its meaning. That seems like an appropriate moral fight for a church that believes marriage between man an woman is sacred and that homosexual relationships are inappropriate.

Despite sitcom jokes, apparently "marriage" is still viewed positively, because Prop. 8 was essentially a big fight over how the government uses that word. A homosexual couple can go and get "married" in their own ceremony, and then get a certificate of "civil union" from the state and essentially have all the same rights as a heterosexual couple. But that's not good enough. Gays need the state to tell them that their arrangement is actually "marriage." I find it a little strange that gays so want the approval of their hetro peers. It's like they're saying "please, please accept me!"  That's because government approval is essentially majority approval. But the majority doesn't approve and doesn't think these relationships are okay. So the majority is saying, we don't want to harm you gays in any way, but, while we appreciate your affinity for musical theater and your fashion advice, we don't actually approve of your sexual practices or proclivities.

I generally support getting the government out the marriage business. I don't trust government to regulate "moral" behavior, which doesn't actually impose negative externalities on others. We can disagree about where to draw that line, but I think it's pretty clear that same-sex married couples do not create many more negative externalities than unmarried same-sex couples. Getting government out of the marriage business would also alleviate the need for the Church to fight these fights. But as long as, the government is in the "marriage business," it makes perfect sense for the church to fight these battles.