Mormon Elder Oaks Connects Gay Rights Advancements To An Attack Against The First Amendment Rights To Freedom Of Religion

The Los Angeles Times Saturday reports on a speech delivered by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Elder Dallin H. Oaks, one of the 12 leaders, classified as apostles, who charged with governing the Mormon Church. His message Friday at Chapman University in Orange, Country – that the First Amendment right to freedom of religious is under siege, threatened by a growing secularization of society and constrained by the inroads made a vigorous gay rights movement. “For some time,” he said, “we have been experiencing laws and official action that impinge on religious freedom. It was apparent 25 years ago, and it is undeniable today.” While complaints of constraint made seem odd, given the Mormon Church’s victory in California overturning the state’s same sex marriage law via a voter amendment, and a growth in membership, but Oaks’ concern is not limited to Mormonism, and applies equally to other faiths. “It is easy to believe that there is an informal conspiracy of correctness to scrub out reference to God and the influence of religion in the founding and preservation of our nation,” he said. Although in his speech and an interview, Oaks said that he did not want to focus on same sex marriage, but the examples he referenced of intrusion on religious liberty were almost all related to that issue. He cited, for instance, a New Mexico case in which the state Human Rights Commission held that a private photographer had discriminated against a couple by declining to photograph their same-sex commitment ceremony, and a case in New Jersey in which the United Methodist Church was penalized for denying a same-sex couple access to a church-owned pavilion frequently used for weddings. When asked if the photographer or the church had refused the couples because they were, for example, Mormon, Oaks answered “It’s a good question. And it gets into a philosophical point ... There is always a legitimate question about whether the power of government should be used to interfere with individual choices.” Kate Kendal, the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who is also an attorney and former Mormon who grew up in Utah, said of Oaks’s contention that "The church has a view about men and women and how they come together and how they form families that does not include same-sex relationships. And that's fine. I have no quarrel with that. But the church also has "a view that civic life should be a reflection of Mormon Church doctrine," she added. "And I doubt that that is a vision that is shared by most of America." Annie Laurie Gaylor, the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, offered a slightly difference understanding of Oaks’ statements, questioning whether he was simply “wounded” by criticism of the Mormon Church for its unprecedented participation in the Proposition 8 campaign. “There’s a real irony,” she said, “because he doesn’t understand the meaning of religious freedom ... What they want to do it to curtail freedom for gays. They’re not for freedom. They’re for theocracy in matters of marriage ... They’re not do different from the Islamists, the mullahs.”