Joel Engardio wrote at the ACLU blog regarding the gay-rights march that went past Manhattan’s Mormon Temple:

But some of the protest signs were especially ugly and demeaning to the Mormon faith. One sign made fun of the protective, spiritual undergarments worn by Mormon men: “Keep your holy undies out of our business!”

I chuckled. But it bothered me to consider doing to the Mormons what they did to me — and they did pay for some disgusting and deceitful TV ads in their campaign to eliminate my rights…

I’m not protesting the right of Mormons to believe or say that gay unions are wrong and sinful. The First Amendment guarantees them the right to decide who they deem worthy of membership and marriage in their church. It also lets them preach what they want, even at our front doors.

I thought about divorce. Mormons detest it. Yet the state allows it and some 50 percent of straight couples do it. And still, Mormon families seemingly flourish in spite of it. Why the need to ban gay unions if there isn’t a need to eliminate the right of divorced people to marry? Why can’t gay couples get a marriage license at city hall and just not be allowed to marry in a Mormon temple? There’s precedent for it. Catholics, Muslims and Jews aren’t allowed to marry in Mormon temples, but they still all sign the same state-issued marriage certificate before going off to have their own ceremonies in a place of worship that welcomes them.

Of course, there is no reason.

Unfortunately, if we continue on the politically charted path we are on, we may end up without a choice. As long as religious people—and Christians in particular—continue to believe that government can solve problems that God can’t, they will continue to ask government to push a religious agenda against those they consider heathen. And the heathen will lash back with their own laundry list of government action, to protect “civil rights” like the right not to be hated by religious people. And so the government will make more and more of our religious choices for us, telling us not to believe this or not to preach that. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves, because we were the ones who asked the government to get into it, instead of asking the government to get out of it.

-TimK