It's Church's Role to Tackle Moral Issues

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has come under attack for opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage. It has been reported that gay San Francisco Supervisor Mark Leno is challenging the church's tax exemption status because a letter from California LDS leaders was read in California churches encouraging members to support an initiative that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman and denies legal recognition of same-sex unions.

Clearly, gay activists are trying to punish the Mormon Church for opposing same-sex marriage. Frequently those who openly resist homosexuals' political proposals are attacked. That punishes the resister and sends a clear message to others who might consider opposing gays' political goals. Leno's claim that the letter from California's LDS area presidency to California Mormons is the meddling of "an out-of-state religious organization" implies that the 740,000 California Mormons don't exist. It smacks of statements one used to hear that U.S. Catholics were disloyal because their church headquarters is in a foreign country. The singling out of Mormons for political beating also ignores the fact that many other churches support the marriage-protection initiative in California.

The retaliation raises serious questions about whether some gays will respect the 1st Amendment free speech rights of those who disagree with them. The specter of gay censorship of speech in churches is disturbing and should be repudiated. The letter that has angered Leno was a letter from the leaders of a church to the members of that church read to congregations of that church. Until gay activists publicized it, the letter was a purely intrachurch communication.

The effort to use government agencies to punish political enemies is a serious abuse of governmental power. Leno's attempt to get the San Francisco city attorney and California's attorney general to investigate the Mormon Church is reminiscent of the "enemies list" prepared by the Nixon White House during the Watergate years, and efforts to use the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Nixon's political enemies. Some of the pejoratives leveled against the church are similar to the vitriolic rhetoric spoken by white supremacists against black churches.