Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Mormon Says Church threatens excommunication for supporting gay marriage
09.24.2008 2:50pm EDT
(Hastings, Nebraska) For more than 20 years, Andrew Callahan has been a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints. But now the Hastings, Nebraska man is being hauled up before a disciplinary hearing that could result in his excommunication from the Mormon faith.
His crime: opposing a call by Mormon leaders to support a proposed constitutional amendment in California to ban same-sex marriage.A letter from Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was read from the pulpit in church congregations in June, calling on church members in California to support Proposition 8. Church members in other areas of the country were urged to send money to the effort.
The position rankled Callahan, who set up a Web site to voice opposition.
“Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been taught, ‘We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government …’” the Web site says.
It urges other Mormons to sign a petition opposing the church’s stand on gay marriage.
This week, Callahan said he has received a letter from his bishop saying “I have participated in conduct unbecoming of a member of the church” and ordering him to a hearing on Friday.
“I believe in standing up for what I believe in and I guess, unfortunately I am not supposed to stand up for what I believe in if I disagree with them and I do,” Callahan told KHAS-television.
The case is being closely watched by other Mormons who oppose the church view on same-sex marriage.
The LDS church has fought same-sex marriage legislation throughout the country since the 1990s.
In 2000, a letter from the pulpit asked members to give time and money in support of Proposition 22, a ballot measure prohibiting California from legally recognizing gay marriages performed outside the state. It passed but was later struck down by the courts.
In May, the California Supreme court ruled it was unconstitutional to bar same-sex couples from marrying. In 2006, church leaders sent a letter to Congress seeking an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
For gay Mormons, the church position is particularly troubling.
Affirmation, an organization for gay Mormons, has been seeking a meeting with church leaders for several years.
LDS President Thomas S. Monson agreed to the meeting in April and asked Fred Riley, commissioner of Family Services for the LDS, and Harold C. Brown, the agency’s past commissioner to arrange it.
It was to have taken place August 11, but at the last minute Riley postponed it, saying he was preparing to leave his position and that the meeting would best be handled by his successor who has not yet been named.
It is estimated that as much as 40 percent of the money raised to support the California amendment has come from Mormons.
Let us look at some numbers. I expect most Mormon women have a 50/50 split in having both male and female children, just lke the rest of the world.
And 1 in 2000 children are intersexed, I saw that on a documentary today on the LOGO channel.
Even if each Mormon man has two “church sanctioned” wives, then there will not be enough wives to go around to all the men. And what do they do about those wives that are barren or infertile?
Assuming most of the men are heteros, the unmarried men must recruit more women from the outside. I supose that is why they send the late-teen males on a “missionary” jaunt to the outside. I guess that it does produce a lot of the “lost boys” who are banished from the cult communities.
If they do not bring in a fresh supply of “impressionable” women to be wives, then just exactly who will the men have any type of relationship with?
Other men? Hmm! I think our study in math has now shown why they threaten gay mormons. Polygamy will have to die out unless they “kidnap” and “brainwash” some less intelligent women.
I have an aunt who was approached by a Mormon in Columbus, OH a couple of years ago to be one of his “multiple wives”. She did decline rather bluntly she said.
Yes, some Mormons are monogamists, but some are not, even if they are cultists, Look at the Warren Jeffs division, and there are others.
Not a good situation. And no one can prove to litigate what is not a “legally sanctioned” (but only “church-sanctioned”) relationship if they have a “menage a trois”.
That “Mormonism” crap sure is a screwed up situation and moral position. They surely do not have room to talk or point fingers and judges others.
u got that right chris a lot of these religions have gone so far that i believe they have reached cult statis and no one knows what they do that may be “ungodly” simply because they keep it quiet and handle it within the church if we only knew what goes on behind the scenes i bet we wouldnt have to worry that they dont agree with gay marriage or anything else for that matter, year after year they complain about losing congregation and say it’s because the rest of us are evil i say no we just dont agree with your cult ways
You said it Chris. Weird bunch of creepy people. It’s nothing but a cult.
What ever happened to free agency? What do you think about that church leaders? Isn’t that worth being excommunicated also? People have their own right to choose. I was once a member; but there is to much undisciplined agendas about the churches government. This is only one of the instances. Is it really the true church when they take this type of freedom of choice? How unpatriotic.
He is lucky. He should say good riddance to this group.
The Mormons have a sad history in this nation of suffering discrimination, all the way up to microwars by their Christian neighbors. Their concentration in Utah, etc. is testimony to how they had to move to largely uninhabited areas to build a life for themselves.
One would think that they would have developed a love for, and tolerance of, other minority groups.
But isn’t their attitude on gay folks another perfect example of the dangers of religion. How it blinds the eye and hardens the heart to the suffering of others, and even turns them into the same types of monsters that they themselves suffered under for so terribly long.
Someday the history of religion will be written. It will be a history of one of the greatest failings of mankind, filled with total hypocrisy and hatred.
And the people will then be free of the superstitions, false hopes, etc offered by this invention of mankind.
The only thing that can change this outcome is if the world ends in some nuclear or other carnage, a world wide religious war.
A war enabled in part by George Bush and his republican party, who invaded a Muslim nation to steal their oil, while meanwhile they let the criminals of 9/11 escape in Afghanistan.
And if you wonder why Iran has such hatred for us, it is an almost identical story. Iran, under President Mossadegh, in 1953 nationalized the western oil companies who were paying Iran a pittance compared to the world price for oil. The CIA then overthrew Mossadegh and put the Shah back in power. He was a tyrant, the people turned to their religious leaders, and he was driven out of the country. We then got the religious maniac Khomeni for 20 years, and now have the new extremist Ahmadinejad.
All this is for the profits of the big oil companies, and their pals. Which include the Bush family, (oil biz), Cheney’s Halliburton (oil services and military contract company), and the $410 million dollar pension granted to Exxon Mobil’s CEO last year.
Just so we know where the corruption is located. And why almost 5000 of our soldiers have died in Iraq and on the evactuation flights and military hospitals elsewhere. And the 15000+ maimed for life.
No offense intended to anyone but these mormons are even more messed up than the Catholic Church. Well at least they are not like Jehovah witnesses, those people are scary and annoying.
http://signingforsomething.org
What is the URL for Mr. Callahan’s website, and why was it omitted from the article?