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By Robert Kirby, Salt Lake Tribune Columnist © Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune I distinctly remember when I first realized that being a Mormon might be a serious liability. I was 13 and hanging out with Gary down the street. One afternoon during "Batman," Gary's mom asked if I was a Mormon. When I said yes, she went off on a list of Mormon horribleness that lasted half an hour. Mrs. H. bounced from polygamy to baptism for the dead to blood atonement, conducting her harangue with a chain of Virginia Slims held perilously close to my eye. Talk about your modern-day revelation. Until then, I believed that just being me was reason enough to set people off. I never considered that the church I attended was yet another avenue of attack. I stressed about it for a while. Finally, lacking the emotional wherewithal to do anything else, I concluded that Mrs. H. looked way too much like the Joker to be taken seriously. At 13 all I knew about Mormonism is that we didn't smoke or drink and that church lasted forever. It would take years to encounter more significant religious hurdles to my goal of becoming a pirate. Since then I have encountered other people for whom my being a Mormon was all they needed to know to dismiss me. Bigots mostly, but also people who otherwise acted smart enough to know better. There was even a time when that's all the federal government needed to know about Mormons in order to systematically strip us of the right to vote and own property. The point of controversy back then was marriage. Specifically, what kind of marriage was moral enough to be sanctioned by a government? Turns out that it was one guy and one woman, and not one guy and a bunch of women like we thought. Polygamy was declared barbarous by no less than the U.S. Supreme Court, which ironically once also declared slavery to be legal. Oh, we're a fine bunch when driven by moral outrage. Marriage is once again on the moral block. Utah now has to decide whether to let homosexuals get married. We already let them own property, vote and have kids, so marriage does seem the next logical choice. But if all that matters to you about people is that they are homosexual, then it may be easy to say no. However, if you also see them as good and decent people, then yes might be a more logical vote. What would happen if we legalized marriage for gays? Well, probably nothing more than a bunch of gays getting married. Then again, maybe civilization would collapse. What's next after gay marriage, you ask, pedophiles getting married? OK, Veronica, let's go there. Yes, pedophiles can get married. Ditto convicted rapists, drug czars, and murderers currently in prison. Hell, even newspaper editors can marry. A pedophile with multiple convictions not only can marry, but also have as many children as he (or she) wants, and the government, who professes to care so very much about the sanctity of all of that, won't even blink. If the government wants to prohibit a certain group of people from getting married, let them pick on one that deserves the scrutiny. That ought to give us all something to worry about. |
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