Fight For Liberty

This is a great article in the "Federalist Press" by Mike Jensen, who is friend of another faith.  Mr. Jensen writes a wonderful article talking about the LDS concept of the pre-existence and the War in Heaven which was fought over liberty and free agency.

http://federalistpress.com/the-mormon-effect.php

The other thing I would point out is that the LDS faith is one of the only religions that I am aware that believes that the US Constitution is inspired by God and akin to scripture.

The Media loves to convey the false idea that if a Mormon were to come to power in America that the LDS Church does not respect the separation of Church and State and that LDS secretly would prefer to rule the world as a Theocracy.

However, if you will read your Book of Mormon you will notice that 1. Representative government was much preferable to monarchy 2. Book of Mormon prophets like Nephi ordained his brother Jacob as High Priest while he remained king and Alma stepped down from his position as Chief Judge to devote full time to being High Priest. These are just 2 examples how the Book of Mormon teaches a separation of Church and State.

Other examples:
1. After Nephi was made king, Jacob became the high priest (2Ne6?).
2. Alma appointed Nephihah as Chief Judge
3. In the Millennium, there are 2 capitals: Jerusalem and Zion
4. Kingdom of God (Church), Kingdom of Heaven (Civil Government)
5. Abraham is told Oliblish stands next to Kolob in power.
6. Joseph Smith taught that the US Constitution was inspired of God. The US Constitution maintains a separation of the State from Church.
7. Moses and Levitical priests vs. Jethro's captains of 1000,100,10.
9. Both tribes of Joseph and Ephraim given birthright blessings
10. King David vs. Nathan the prophet.

Traditional Marriage

A recent forum poll was taken involving people's opinion on Tradition Marriage. The many responses "Government shouldn't get involved" seemed to indicate that many do not understand the definition of marriage. Unless we understand the definition of marriage we cannot defend it.

Marriage is and must be different than a civil union. If there was no difference then it would make no sense to have different rules. There is only 1 difference between Marriage and Civil Union and that is the right to biologically create children (adoption is debatable).

I believe that Civil Unions should enjoy every right amd privilege that Traditional Marriage does except 1. And Civil Unions already do have all the inheritance, tax, medical decision making rights already. Civil Unions can also already adopt and have sperm donors, surrogates etc etc. So, if Civil Unions already have all the the rights of marriage, why the continued fight and debate? This fight is not about same-sex rights, but all about defining civil union and marriage as the same and then attacking religion using non-discrimination laws.

Traditional Marriage is the greatest civil rights issue of our day. But the civil right at issue is not Same-Sex couple tax status, but the right of children to be born and raised by families with both a mother and a father.

Government has always been involved with marriage because they would say [b]"Does anyone here have any reason why these 2 should not be married? Speak now of forever hold your peace?"[/b] Why would government seek community involvement in the approval of a marriage? The Community approval is involved because married couples have children and children who are raised improperly can become a liability on the community. Maybe because government welfare just happens automatically, communities aren't as concerned with who is making babies today as communities were before.

The rights of children to be born into a family with both a mother and father and the potential liability of a neglected child is why traditional marriage is a government/community issue and why marriage is different than civil union.issue and why marriage is different than civil union. I think many have totally lost perspective in why we have marriage at all. Marriage is a license to create and raise child with the legal obligation to provide for both spouse and children.