I’m sorry.
I am sorry to my gay and lesbian friends in California that we Mormons got involved in an issue designed specifically to deprive you of the social and legal comforts that marriage can bring.
I am sorry that we Mormons live in a world of contradiction. On the one-hand we condemn the homosexual community for its supposed instability, promiscuity, and immorality, while on the other we seek to deny you the very institution which, according to our own heterosexual world-view, would provide the stability, commitment, and moral fortitude we claim you lack.
I am sorry because we claim that that children have the “right” to be raised in a home with a father and a mother. We are so committed to this idea in fact, that we would rather see those children already born into difficult and non-ideal circumstances languish in foster-care and other flawed systems, rather than be given the love and stability that your homes are so ready and willing to provide. Oddly, we claim that children have this “right” to both mother and father yet our own divorce rates would indicate that many Mormon children do not enjoy this “right.” Also, I’m sorry that all of our attention has been focused on you and not on preventing single persons the ability to adopt, or stripping children way from single mothers or widows and who are depriving their children of this “right” to both mother and father.
I’m sorry that our Proclamation on the Family reads more like a threatening letter from a divorce attorney, than a Jesus-like plea for compassion, love, patience, and understanding.
I’m sorry that we have spent so much time and so many resources in this “moral” battle while ignoring other battles of equal, if not more certain moral concern. For a church that has, for at least one given reason, engaged in the Proposition 8 fight to protect the will of the voters, we have been oddly silent about troubling provisions of the Patriot Act, which clearly violate the rights of voters and citizens.
What more can be said? I’m sorry.
