Subject: Larsen Opposes Marriage Amendment
Issue: Marriage Amendment
Date: June 24, 2004
Author: Ken Larsen

LARSEN OPPOSES MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

Ken Larsen, Personal Choice Candidate for Governor, Stands for Marriage Choice.

Dr. Ken Larsen, gubernatorial candidate of the Personal Choice Party, issued a statement today asking Utahns to support personal choice in marriage. In his short essay submitted to the Don't Amend Alliance, Dr. Larsen speculated on what Brigham Young might say about the proposed amendment. According to Ken, the amendment would violate several important principles in which Young believed. Larsen claims it would repudiate Utah's Founder as well as Ken's Mormon ancestors, including two great-grandfathers who served time in the Utah Territorial Prison for practicing polygamy. Ken also accepts full responsibility for his little fantasy on what he thinks Brigham Young should say. The text of Larsen's essay follows:

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House Joint Resolution 25, the Joint Resolution on Marriage, would add two sentences to Utah's Constitution: "(1) Marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman. (2) No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect."

If Brigham Young were able to speak on this issue, I believe he would object. First, he might mention the fact that America was settled in 1612 by Pilgrim Forefathers seeking refuge from cultural intolerance in Europe. Then, he might remind us that the State of Utah was likewise settled by Mormon Pioneers fleeing American intolerance. He might point out the outrageous irony in a proposed amendment that would enforce the same kind of cultural intolerance on today's minorities as our founders suffered when they were the minority. Has the abused child become the abusing parent?

I suspect Brother Brigham would cite the common belief of his day that all men should be allowed the privilege of worshipping how, where or what they may, even if their worship involves unpopular domestic relations such as polygamy, condoned and practiced by Muslims, Native Americans and Mormon Fundamentalists, or same sex unions, practiced by people who may call themselves members of the Same Sex Church. I suspect he would allow the law to intervene only when unwilling victims or minors are being harmed.

Perhaps Governor Young would tell about Christ preaching against adultery, but then refusing to use the force of law against the convicted adulteress. Brigham might say, we preach our morals. We do not legislate them. He might paraphrase Christ, "Do unto thy minorities as thou would have them do unto thee if they were the majority." He might quote Christ advising us to keep the things of Caesar separate from the things of God. He might say, the definition of marriage belongs in the scriptures not in the law. It should be preached from the pulpit, not enforced from the bar of justice.

Brother Brigham might refer to the War in Heaven, where he believed we all fought for free agency. Then maybe he would explain that the tree of knowledge was about both Good AND Evil, and that a man cannot earn a reward for choosing good if he is not free to choose otherwise. Maybe he would go so far as to suggest that the Utah Joint Resolution on Marriage sounds like an example of the kind of enforcement of morality proposed by Lucifer.

Perhaps Brigham would suggest that the proposed amendment would violate the Mormon scripture that says "We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others;... for the civil magistrate should ... never suppress the freedom of the soul."

I think Brother Brigham would demand that the law limit itself to the punishment of those who harm others, not the elimination of personal lifestyles that some find offensive.

Of course, the proposed amendment violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, the supreme law of the land, and should be declared unconstitutional on its face.

Of course, the proposed amendment is a disingenuous attempt to make an exception to the Full Faith and Credit clause in Article IV of the US Constitution. Such exceptions cannot be made by amending a State Constitution. Those members of the State Legislature who have supported this effort may have violated their oaths to obey the US Constitution.

I believe Brigham Young would vote NO to this amendment and I hope those who respect his legacy will join me in defeating this horrid example of cultural intolerance.

Respectfully,

Ken Larsen, Candidate for Governor,
Personal Choice Party