Harry Reid, Prop 8, and Being A Good Mormon

Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader and active Mormon, recently told a gay rights group that he did not support the Church's Prop 8 campaign. He said he believes that it was a waste of resources and a detriment to the Church's missionary program.

Reid's statement once again gave Mormon conservative activists the opportunity to question how one can be both a Mormon and a liberal. From a Salt Lake Tribune article comes this quote from Holly Richardson, who has a blog called Holly on the Hill, who said: "I just don't get how his politics translate to somebody who has LDS beliefs. He's an embarrassment to me as a Mormon." This quote is merely representative of the types of comments out there. It is truly astonishing that this type of thought still exists.

First, how can people not understand that holding a personal belief and not supporting that belief's codification into civil law are completely compatible? I believe in God. I do not believe that we should enact laws requiring everyone to believe in God. That is an individual choice and other people's beliefs do not effect me and my beliefs. Some Mormon conservatives do not seem capable of making this distinction.

Second, a Mormon Democrat does not have to personally espouse every majority Democratic issue. I have said it so many times it is getting boring and cliche. I do not have to be pro-choice to be a liberal Democrat. The next person does not have to be pro-torture to be a conservative Republican. There is room for debate and disagreement in any group, particularly political groups. Do not just blindly accept a political party's stances and likewise do not just blindly believe that members of the other party are monolithic. That is naive and foolish. All liberals do not want to abort babies and all conservatives do not want to torture and kill all criminals.

Third, we have also pointed out before that Pres. Faust was a Democrat and worked in the Kennedy administration. Elder Marlin Jensen of the Seventy, Church Historian and Recorder, is a Democrat. Pres. Hinckley explicitly stated that a good member of the Church can be a good Democrat. The Church as explicitly encouraged political plurality. And so on. There is nothing inherent about Mormonism and conservatism that make them a match. There was a time when Mormons consistently voted for more liberals political candidates. It ebbs and flows.

So Sen. Reid is the Democratic Majority Leader and Mormon? So Harry Reid thinks that Prop 8 was a mistake? So what? We live in a complicated world, people, and there is plenty of room in the Church to have debates like this. It doesn't mean that we can start deciding who is a good member of the Church based on party affiliation.*

*I fully realize that I recently questioned Glenn Beck's Mormonism, but that was not for his politics, it was for the hateful and vindictive things he has said about political opponents and minorities, and inciting hatred in others. Different things.