Why Legislate Morality?

More on the proposed amendment to California’s Constitution this November.

In our society, the theology of “live-and-let-live” or claiming that others’ choices are none of our business is the very attitude that brings about the decline of our people.  In an article written by Maurine Proctor of Meridian Magazine, she goes further into the impact of allowing gay marriage on our country:

From The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:

In a new letter that will be read over the pulpit to California congregations, the First Presidency is advising members that, “Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.”

“We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage is legally defined as being between a man and a woman.”

“The Church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal,” the letter reads.

“Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the creator’s plan for his children.

“Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage.”…

How this affects the whole country:

What is disturbing is that unlike Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is confined only to those who are residents of the state, California has no such law. Thus residents of other states, whose marriage laws do not allow genderless marriage can come to California, get their nuptials, and then head home claiming their marriage is legal….

Family fragmentation is a public issue with public consequences. For example, in April of 2008 the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, along with others, issued a study showing that family fragmentation in the United States is costing taxpayers $112 billion annually…

Why defining marriage is important to families:

Of course, life isn’t perfect and sometimes people become single parents — a spouse dies or parents experience a painful divorce. Although we can’t always protect bad things from happening, there is one thing we can do. Never intentionally create motherless or fatherless children… Study after study shows that children fare best in a home with their own mother and father. They have less delinquency, less drug usage, less tendency for suicide, less abuse, less tendency to live in poverty. They have higher grades, more security, more self-confidence…
Any law that dilutes the definition and purpose of marriage leads to fewer marriages and more children being born out of wedlock. Sadly, we have already witnessed these alarming trends in Scandinavian countries that legalized same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships more than 10 years ago, and now the out of wedlock birthrate is between 50 to 60 percent (depending on the country).

“Acts done in the name of freedom have shut down the freedom of the religious.”

When Massachusetts adopted homosexual marriage, the state left a Boston Catholic adoption service no choice but to shut down or agree to place adopted children with homosexual couples. This is not because the state funded the charity, but only because the charity had to depend on a state license to operate…

After New Jersey passed civil union legislation, the state removed part of the tax-exempt status from a church in Ocean Grove after the church refused, on religious grounds, to offer its gazebo for a civil union service. In Massachusetts, parents lost the right to be notified when their child’s public school was going to teach on the topic of homosexuality.

Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon wrote in 2004, during the same-sex marriage debate in Massachusetts, ”The experience in other countries reveals that once these arrangements become law, there will be no live-and-let-live policy for those who differ. Gay-marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance, and diversity, yet one foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination … The ax will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don’t go along.”…