Why Is the Gospel Sometimes So Hard to Find?

A friend of mine who has struggled mightily to figure out what the Gospel means to him asked the title question a few years ago, and I have thought about it occasionally since then. I have tried to come up with as concise an answer as possible, and the following is my current response:

Because we, as humans, tend to build hedges about it - often in our deep need for safety and security.

Walking the pure Gospel line can be dangerous, in real ways, so we tend to gravitate away from that danger and substitute the pure Gospel for a safer model - a good rather than a best, if you will. In practical terms, we become modern versions of the ancient Israelites - but we don't recognize that similarity, given all of our differences with them.

Also, as another friend once said, maybe it's because we each have to find it for ourselves.

Same-Sex Marraige and the Recent US Supreme Court Ruling

I debated whether or not to write this post and initiate this conversation, but enough people have asked that I have decided to do so.

I am approaching this in a question and answer format, and my only request is that it be a civil conversation and not be approached as a debate. I have no desire whatsoever to argue with anyone about this, and I will not engage in that sort of dialogue. What I would like is an open discussion in which I can explain how I feel about the Supreme Court’s decision regarding same-sex marriage and the reasons I feel that way. Rather than try to list all of those reasons, I have decided to share one (perhaps the most counter-intuitive one) initially. I will respond to any other reasons, for or against, as they are given.

The primary reason I support the Supreme Court’s decision is that I believe in religious freedom, particularly when it comes to issues as sacred as marriage. 

Just as I believe my own denomination should be able to marry whomever it chooses to marry, I believe other religions and denominations should have the same right. I believe in restrictions based on consent, including the legal ability to consent, but I do not believe in legal restrictions based strictly on religious ideology. There now are multiple religions, including Christian denominations, in this country who want to be able to perform marriages for same-sex couples; thus, if I truly believe in religious freedom in the realm of marriage, and if I insist on that right for myself and my religion, I personally must support other denominations’ right to perform marriages mine does not.

I would love it if the government got out of the marriage business altogether and focused solely on civil benefits for civil unions, leaving marriage strictly as a religious practice. Lacking that ideal, which the religious majority in the United States fought for a long time, the only way for the government to provide equal civil benefits was to issue marriage licenses.

The central issue to me is not that the government is issuing marriage licenses, although I would like to see that change; the central issue to me is that religions are performing marriages that provide civil benefits. Up until now, equal civil benefits were not possible for same-sex couples under that structure. It is the tying of civil benefits (with equality under the law as the core foundation) to religious ceremonies (with their inherent and important right to be selective based on doctrine) that is the central issue for me – and if religions were unwilling to allow the government to perform civil unions for same-sex couples (which, again, was the case in the United States), the only alternative to provide civil benefits equally and fairly was to legalize same-sex marriage within the public marriage structure while maintaining the right of religions and denominations to perform and refuse to perform marriages according to their own doctrine and beliefs.

The Supreme Court ruling has done that. Religions and denominations still can refuse to marry inter-racial couples, for example, with no legal ramifications, even though inter-racial marriage has been legal for a long time; same-sex marriage is no different, in that particular respect, with this recent ruling.

Thus, the primary reason I support the Supreme Court ruling is that I believe so passionately in religious freedom.

Modesty: Extremism Is Not a Good Thing

I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with modesty as a standard.

 None. Zilch. Nada. Zero.

 I really like the general definition of modesty as, "Moderation in all things" - although there are times when extreme measures are warranted on either side of the continuum. It's when modesty becomes an obsessive focus on one aspect (in this case, how people dress), as well as a hedge about the law (moving the lines to avoid coming anywhere near the edge of the law), and the hedge obscures the path itself (so people lose sight of what modesty in dress really means), and the ideal disappears from sight (when extremity in dress is seen as modesty) that I am concerned - and we have too many members who have lost sight of the ideal, in my opinion.

For example, more clothing that covers more of one's body is not modesty when it moves past moderation; rather, it becomes extremism (like a full-scale burkha), which is the opposite of modesty.  Complete, shapeless coverage when in public is simply the opposite extreme of full nudity in public - and both are equally "immodest". 

The BYU-Idaho example that occurred a few years ago is a classic one.

The Church and BYU-Idaho didn't ban anything the young woman was wearing, but an administrator and an employee stretched the definition of modesty so badly that it made both organizations look stupid - and necessitated a general statement reaffirming that, in deed, nothing she was wearing was forbidden. Furthermore, the young woman in question was the RELIEF SOCIETY PRESIDENT in her ward and had gone straight from a meeting with her Bishop to the testing center. She was covered from neck to toe in clothes that weren't even tight (not skinny jeans, but standard boot-cut jeans), but one guy apparently was distracted by her curves and exercised "a little authority, as (he) suppose(d)," to define modesty in a ridiculous way.  *sigh*

Sometimes, we really are our own worst enemies - and sometimes it's because we restrict meaning and build such high hedges about the law.

Why I Don't Support "Hate Crimes" Legislation: Individual Worth

We live in a system that has said we can't be punished for what we think and believe, only for what we do. Hate crime legislation punishes people differently based on what they think and believe - for WHY they do what they do. It is that simple to me, so I don't support hate crime legislation.

If my wife or daughter is raped or killed, I don't want a white perpetrator to get a lighter sentence than a black man who was shouting racial slurs because my wife or daughter is a white woman. I also don't want a Baptist perpetrator shouting religious bigotry to be punished more harshly just because my wife or daughter is Mormon.

There is a MUCH deeper reason, however, that I am appalled by hate crimes legislation - and I choose the word "appalled" carefully and consciously.  

I want a lesbian, drug-addicted prostitute of any race or ethnicity to be viewed under the law exactly in the same manner as my wife or daughter - and I want someone who murders that prostitute in order to steal her money punished exactly the same as someone who murders her because she is lesbian or a different race or drug-addicted. None of those things makes her life less valuable or important, and the absence of those things doesn't makes my wife's or daughter's life more valuable or important, either. 
   

I believe they are equal in the eyes of God and should be treated as equal under the law, as well - no matter WHY the perpetrator of a crime did what he did.

(I also should note explicitly that I chose the above characterizations strictly because of the way they are viewed by many people in society.  I am NOT equating being lesbian with being a drug addict or with being a prostitute.)