Argentina is the latest country in the process of legalizing gay marriage. The lesser branch of congress in Argentina, known as the Chamber of Deputies (comparable to the U.S. House of Representatives), approved a bill on May 5th that would legalize gay marriage, as well as make adoption legal for gay couples. The Senate was due to vote on the bill today.

The LDS Church took notice of this momentum and issued a statement to be read to its members in the country this past Sunday, July 11th. There were some stark differences between what was read to members of the LDS Church in Argentina and what was read to Mormons in California in 2008. The letter read to Mormons in Argentina on Sunday was not nearly as explicit and determined as was the California letter. The California letter was a call to action while the Argentinean letter was more of a statement of belief with a reference to the church’s “Proclamation on the Family,” a document highlighting the LDS belief that the family is a fundamental and important part of society.

There was, for example, no mention of “donating your means and time” to defeat the proposed law. No mention of a broad coalition of churches uniting to prevent gay marriage. There is no mention of contacting lawmakers to express opposition to the law either. That is significant given that this is not a ballot measure, but rather a bill working its way through the legislature.

After the letter was read and made its way around the Internet, the church was contacted for further comment and as part of their response stated that “the church has taken no official position on the legislation being considered” in Argentina. While their position was made clear with regards to marriage, it is true that there has been no political push. That is a big difference from what happened just two years ago in California.

This raises the simple question of why the LDS Church merely reiterated its stance on marriage rather than making such a concerted effort as they did in California. Is it because there is such a low percentage of Mormons in Argentina compared to California, meaning they are not in the position to take the lead on the issue? About two percent of the California population is Mormon as opposed to 0.85 percent in Argentina.

Not only that, but Argentina is considered to be a more secular country, especially compared to its Latin American neighbors, making it that much more difficult to create a coalition of religions to oppose the measure. Is it because the law is viewed so favorably by Argentinians, with about a 66 percent approval rating? Is it because the LDS Church’s public relations took a serious hit in the wake of Prop 8? Or is it because the church’s position on gay marriage is evolving ever so slightly?

Whatever the reason for the change, it is becoming abundantly clear that the world is in the middle of a long conversation about gay marriage.

It was an articulate and thoughtful piece, but the initial premise — “I’m a liberal because I’m a Christian” — troubled me. It seems to imply that Republicans aren’t genuine Christians. It’s nearly as arrogant as the flaming online retorts to Dr. Samuelson’s article that the devil is behind the entire liberal agenda. The devil! What boldness!

Such grandiose claims about the motives of a political opponent, liberal or conservative, seem to me to be a major roadblock, if not the major roadblock, to many Mormon political discussions. What I mean is that a debate that starts with “I’m the true Christian!” and is refuted by “No, I’m the true Christian!” is sure to go nowhere quickly. Such claims hack at genuine political debate, since they’re saying (in essence), “God’s with me, kid.”

That’s not to say that we should pack up our wit, play in the sunshine, and “just get along.” Such Teletubby tenderness fouls up democracy, a form of government that thrives only if citizens argue intelligently against each other.

But since it can take years to comprehend our own motives, let alone the motives of a stranger, genuine political debate always requires that we give opponents the benefit of the doubt. That is, genuine political debate requires us to assume that our opponents — including even presidents and TV pundits — have noble motives. It also requires us to assume that our own motives — as much as we want them to be pure — may be off-kilter. In other words, political argument can only gain traction once we assume that our opponents may have something to teach us, that they too might be genuinely good, even if they vote to tax the rich or privatize health care.

At the very least, granting opponents the benefit of the doubt can help us avoid the embarrassment of flaming. I’ll leave you with a shining yet sadly typical response from a reader about Dr. Samuelson’s argument on health care:

“We can afford to fix health care”?  Are you stupid?  We are IN DEBT!  Why does no one ever acknowledge this?  How can you go from suggesting this, to later acknowledging that “large deficits and a huge national debt are obviously unsustainable”?  STUPID!

To Dr. Samuelson’s credit, even though his self-righteous premise about true Christians has the flavor of a flamer, he steers clear of this futile, angry tone — and he’s all the smarter for avoiding it.

This is Jon Ogden’s first contribution to Rhombus.

Randal Serr

Last week, the same church that propelled a campaign prohibiting gay marriage in California came out in support of a statute in Salt Lake City that would protect the GLBT community from discrimination in housing and employment. Before the Salt Lake City Council unanimously approved the measure to a standing ovation, the LDS Church sent a spokesman to officially represent them and show support for the proposal. The representative recognized the complexity of the issue and the strong feelings involved, and went on to say the ordinance would grant “common-sense rights that should be available to everyone.” He finished his statement by emphasizing the importance of human dignity and respectfulness.

While gay-rights supporters were surprised and articulated their gratefulness to the church, others have not been so respectful. Gayle Ruzicka, president of a conservative interest group in Utah and host of a talk radio show, has since called the anti-discrimination ordinance “very discriminatory,” because it “discriminate[s] against people who have personal religious beliefs.” I’m sure Ruzicka’s opinion of Mormons being persecuted and eventually expelled from the state of Missouri in 1833 simply because of their faith is similar: the residents of Missouri were the real ones being discriminated against. And, of course, if Mormons were kicked out of their apartment or fired simply for being Mormon today, Ruzicka would not find that to be discriminatory either. In fact, according to her logic regarding discrimination, she would probably side with the persecutors. They are the victims after all.

There are talks among state legislators of attempting to overturning the ordinance, but it’s iffy so far and probably lacks the support needed to pass. Even Chris Buttars, a legislator who has compared gays to radical Muslims, has said he has no problem with the Salt Lake ordinance. Even he agrees that “a person ought to be able to have a roof over their head and have a job.” It seems to me that if this ordinance is good enough for Salt Lake City, it should also be good enough for the entire state, given that roughly 80 percent of gay Utahns live outside of the capital city.

Nonetheless, the passage of the statute is momentous, especially in the state of Utah. There have been talks between gay rights advocates and LDS leaders for months now, which ultimately resulted in a small but meaningful change. The Church showed the ability to compromise and willingness to engage with the gay community (albeit on a small scale), and that is commendable. That is more than we can say for many fundamentalist or orthodox religions.

No, the LDS Church did not come out in support of gay marriage. They have not expressed support for civil unions, nor have they fully committed to supporting the Common Ground Initiative, which would extend the same protections that are now law in Salt Lake (as well as other rights) across the state of Utah. But they did send an official representative to back a non-discrimination proposal in their own backyard, and an Apostle of the church has since said these rights could be modeled anywhere with a process of goodwill. Call it expediency or call it compassion, but the narrative has certainly changed.

Randal Serr is a liberal political columnist for Rhombus. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree in public policy at the University of Utah.

Jess Jones

In the time following the recent General Conference of the LDS Church, I’ve had a brief moment to reflect on the question of faith and public reason. Although there has been great debate concerning the relationship between these two tools of society, there remains a great divide over which many dispute the issue from either side of the schism. It is clear to me, as I sit in reflection, that man is innately required to balance the powers of both faith and reason, and wield them both in the public sphere with equal fervor and dexterity.

In society today, there is a growing number of questions that conflict with the religious beliefs of many. Some such questions beg for a decisive opinion that perhaps would place the decider in conflict with the doctrine of his church. Many of you may already be thinking about one such question (as am I), and that is the matter of accepting homosexual marriages as legal and mainstream. Though I will not address this topic (as several of my colleagues have already done so), I merely wish to address the popular fashion of removing religious opinions from the public sector in all its forms.

There are those that would argue that the long lasting creed of separating church and state stands in direct opposition to promoting any sort of moral ethic tied to a religion. But are we not subject to religion? Is not our relationship and concept of man based on principles derived from religious origins founded in Christianity and other religions like unto it? I would argue that it is. We hold that men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; rights which men, by sheer virtue of existence, are entitled to exercise. Our reality of the natural comes as an attempt to incorporate the supernatural and incomprehensible. Regardless of sect, creed or denomination, the fact that we as a human race value human life and our planet resides in the foundations of religion.

Specific religions, though not publicly codified or universally accepted, provide the mooring line to which we can anchor our nation state. Political scholar David Walsh observed that if reason is used as though it were a mere instrument, it would proceed without direction or course. Reason becomes the means by which all laws are subject to discretion and change. Though we might argue that such a quality of change is necessary for laws born under democracy, is there not a line which we must draw in the sand? Is there not a moral compass by which we guide our decisions in this nation? The question regrettably remains unanswered.

Therefore if man, be he religious or no, abstains from promoting his values according to the dictates of his religious upbringing out of fear of persecution, then we as a people only march closer towards a privatization of religion. That is, a removal of deity from our daily lives. Politics, we know, grow more tacit and divisive as time marches on. Greed and selfishness, though ever present in our history books, have continued to corrode the institutions and laws that have held firm our nation until now. Slowly, the virtues of right and wrong fade into a haze of rationality and personal indulgence. Would it be so wrong to more assertively champion the virtues taught by the religions we hold as sacred?

I hope that none will confuse my affirmation of religious fervor as an attempt to merely place myself amongst those LDS leaders that spoke during General Conference. Yet I have found that I cannot be content with halfheartedly promoting that which I know to be true. I hope this article will be nothing more than an additional voice sounding in favor of the incorporation of moral and religious virtues into our secular society. May you be blessed in your efforts to better society and promote the values you feel we must profess in order to secure further liberty and peace.

Jess Jones is a conservative political columnist for Rhombus. He hasn’t written an article in so long that many feared him dead.

Randal Serr

There’s a little too much love for Glenn Beck in Utah. I mean, I get it: He has an endearing story. He has overcome an addiction to alcohol and gone from a small radio program in Kentucky to CNN Headline News to the news source you can always count on, Fox News. He’s also very politically conservative, which may or may not have had something to do with him landing at Fox.

And let’s not forget he’s Mormon, which makes him especially popular here, the same way people supported David Archuleta on American Idol and all the other Mormon candidates on all the other reality shows. Not because they were necessarily the best participants, but because they were part of the Mormon culture which is undeniably very cliquish.

Add all those things together and this guy is getting more recognition and love in Utah (and particularly Utah County) all the time. Take, for example, the number of people “fanning” him on Facebook, the same way they “fan” the President of the LDS Church, families or the “Yes on Prop 8″ campaign. He has also emceed “Stadium of Fire,” Provo’s Fourth of July celebration, two years in a row, beating out Sean Hannity and others of his ilk. I’m not usually one to talk about the Mormon culture in the public arena because I feel like it is already so engulfing in this area, but I have to draw the line with this guy. I guess I’ve not been as impressed with him as others generally have been.

The first time I got turned off by Glenn Beck was back when he was still on Headline News. His guest that day was Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Congress. After warning Ellison that he was going to be politically incorrect and explaining that he knows and likes Muslims, Beck asked Congressman Ellison to prove his patriotism and demanded to know if he was “working with our enemies.” You can make all the arguments you want about it being a joke or about how political correctness is destroying America but, at the end of the day, it was tactless.

The antics don’t stop there. On June 30th, Beck agreed with a guest that insisted that it would take another attack from Osama Bin Laden for Americans to stop trying to earn praise from Europeans and demand that their government protect them with “as much violence as necessary.” That’s a little much isn’t it? Just a little excessive? Yet Beck’s popularity remains alive and well.

On July 28th, Beck called President Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, a racist on the “Fox & Friends” morning show. This comment has garnered quite a bit of attention lately, with at least 20 of Beck’s sponsors justifiably pulling advertisements from his show as a direct result of his statement. He went further though, saying that Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people” and “white culture.” (He tried to backtrack literally within two minutes: “I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people.”) Nevermind that Obama’s mother and half of his family is white. Nevermind the speeches he has given trying to improve race relations. Nevermind the fact that Beck has absolutely no factual backing for this outrageous claim. If the great Glenn Beck, Mormon superstar, says it, then it has to be true, right?

Beck employs a very common tactic that a lot of people use: They give a qualifier before saying something offensive. It’s like the person we have all run across at some point that says, “I’m not a racist but…” then goes on to use various pejoratives. Giving a qualifying statement does not mean you can say anything you want afterward.

Beck excels in this arena. On March 9th, he began using a recurring theme on his show about Obama lifting the ban on stem-cell research and its supposed link to eugenics, a tactic used by Hitler and the Nazis in an attempt to improve a population through breeding. He went on to blame “progressive doctors” and the “progressive movement and its science” for eugenics. Recently he did an entire segment on eugenics. After months of this nonsense, Beck tried to qualify his obsession with stem-cell research leading to eugenics on August 11th, explaining that “no one is saying eugenics is coming.” Actually, Glenn Beck has been saying (very loudly) that eugenics is coming for the past six months. If he doesn’t think eugenics is coming, then why is he even talking about it? But that’s how Beck does business: He qualifies, then makes outrageous claims.

Mormons can’t pretend like they don’t get offended when people make offensive or even politically incorrect comments about them or their faith. (That would be quite the double standard.) There have been many instances when Mormons have called each other to arms over comments made about the faith, myself included at times. For example, when ESPN analyst Ric Bucher played on Mormon stereotypes when discussing Utah Jazz fans, saying they are supposed to be “happy all the time,” thus causing them to “get vicious” at Jazz games because that is the only opportunity they have to do so. (He was later forced to apologize and replaced that weekend when he was scheduled to broadcast NBA playoff games, because of the Mormon backlash.) Or when Maureen Dowd of The New York Times made outrageous statements about Joseph Smith, causing Mormons to create a far-reaching chain letter to facilitate the sending of letters of protest to the newspaper. Or when Rev. Al Sharpton alienated himself and Christians in general from Mormons by referring to himself and other Christians as “those of us who believe in God,” implying that Mormons do not believe in such a deity. (He was forced to explain himself and apologize as well.)

The problem is that when Glenn Beck makes outlandish remarks, sometimes about other faiths and cultures, he is vehemently defended by the same group of Mormons that forcefully defend themselves when others say similarly insensitive things about them and their beliefs. The double standard abounds.

The love for good ol’ Glenn continues around here and that probably won’t change any time soon. Yet I am encouraged: There is a new group on Facebook called “Mormons Embarrassed by Glenn Beck.” Maybe a few fair-minded individuals will join that group and fight the lunacy.

Randal Serr is a liberal political columnist for Rhombus. No, you can’t excommunicate him for disliking Glenn Beck.

Too often in the LDS Church do we vilify and condemn those who deal with homosexual tendencies. I cringe every time I hear one of my peers call another a “fag” or “queer” with such obvious disdain. I am bewildered by the frequent, vitriolic tirades against the many evils of “those gays.” We have become, in a word, homophobic. Now, before I get millions of angry e-mails, let me say this: the policies of the Church itself do not support such hatred and intolerance in the least. Unfortunately, however, it seems that our culture has not followed that lead and the aforementioned expressions have become far too common. This is not what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about

The following article, penned by Austin Smith, first ran in the Daily Universe on July 2nd. Austin beautifully outlines the need for compassion and understanding toward our brothers and sisters using the words of ancient and modern prophets, as well as powerful examples from his own encounters. I can only hope that, by republishing this wonderful piece, our readers will heed the author’s admonition for compassion — not just for the sake of our friends and loved ones, but also for the salvation of our own imperfect souls. — Steve Pierce, Editor

My freshman year home-teaching companion, a mission buddy, my cousin — these are a few of the wonderful people in my life who, through no choice of their own, are attracted to members of the same gender.  I fear that in Utah Valley, talking about homosexuality has for too long been taboo.  Same-gender attraction (SGA) is not something we can just ignore, wishing it would go away, because it won’t.  It deserves and demands a mature, respectful, faithful and open discussion.  We cannot allow our silence, ignorance, or intolerance to push precious people out of the Church.  The recent publication for Mormons who have homosexual attractions, “God Loveth His Children,” says, “Some people with same-gender attraction have felt rejected because members of the Church did not always show love. No member of the Church should ever be intolerant.”  Tolerance does not require one to embrace homosexual behavior, but my prayer is that we, as a community, can be more understanding, loving and accepting of our friends and loved ones who find themselves in this position.

One misconception many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have about those who experience SGA is that they simply don’t have enough faith to change.  In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth.  These are people who spend countless hours in earnest prayer, serve selflessly in the temple, magnify their callings as full-time missionary, visiting teacher, or Elder’s Quorum President, and meet consistently with both priesthood leaders and professional counselors.  These are people who show me what it is like to go forward with faith despite not having answers to all their questions.  Though most experience no change in their orientation, some eventually feel comfortable entering into heterosexual marriages, but all demonstrate great faith and trust in God.

The men and women in our lives with SGA have their own challenges to bear which we cannot afford to exacerbate with our scorn or disdain.  However, no one wants or needs pity.  Our friends and loved ones who experience SGA need to be befriended, loved, and accepted.  They need, just as we all do, support in trying to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We need to be able to say, as President Hinckley did, that “Our hearts reach out to those who struggle with feelings of affinity for the same gender. We remember you before the Lord, we sympathize with you, we regard you as our brothers and sisters.”  Put a face on the issue: if a close friend of yours were to tell you that he is gay, would you turn him away, or embrace him?

To those of you reading this who struggle with same-gender attraction, let me express my unconditional love and support for you.  Know that you are not alone; there are many active Latter-day Saints who experience SGA or who have unanswered questions about this issue. One of my friends at BYU who struggles with SGA told me that for a long time, he thought he was literally the only one in the whole university who had these kinds of feelings.  That is a very depressing and unhealthy way to live, and it definitely is not true.  It would be an easy thing to let depression and despair overwhelm you, especially if you have been unsuccessful in trying to change your orientation, but I plead with you to hang on.  Remember the words of Nephi, who acknowledged that he did not know the meaning of all things, but nevertheless testified “I know that [God] loveth his children.”  You do not need to bear this burden alone, there are many resources where you can find help and support.  Seek out close friends and family members with whom you can confide and discuss your trials, missteps, successes, and goals.  Speak with your bishop, chances are he has counseled with others in your situation.  If you attend BYU, you have access to free counseling where you can confidentially work through your feelings with an empathetic professional.  The website NorthStarLDS.org is a wonderful resource and community for Mormons who experience SGA, with the aim of helping them stay active in the church.  Above all, search out the best in life and enjoy the abundant blessings of the church and the fellowship of the saints.

As a community, it is my fervent hope that our attitudes on the issue of same-gender attraction can be open and tolerant.  That does not mean we need to compromise our beliefs or condone sexual activity outside of marriage, but we should always strive to love (and stick up for) our brothers and sisters as God loves each and every one of us: unconditionally, no matter our struggles.

Austin Smith is a senior majoring in Computer Science at BYU who finds himself spending more time reading about his hobby of politics than he probably should.