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On Thursday, November 12th, an editorial appearing in the Deseret News emphasizes the balancing of “competing interests” in the City Council’s ordinance advocating equal housing and employment for gay members of the Salt Lake City community. Commending the action of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and the city, the editorial reads:
Mayor Ralph Becker and his colleagues on the City Council were rightly concerned about the problem of discrimination. Recognizing that discrimination against gays was bound up in a host of contentious issues, the city carefully drafted an ordinance that addressed the problem but balanced competing interests. In short, the parties involved didn’t have to choose between virtue and victory. They got both.
Further, the editorial alluded to the church’s earlier statement titled, “The Divine Institution of Marriage,” in which it was noted that the church “does not object to rights regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference.” This ordinance is said to be consistent with the foregoing affirmation.
Paramount to the discussion is the fact that the church is immovable on one point: as the editiorial noted, it “remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.”
Our hope is that the world and the GLTB community will know of our respect for them, and our desire to count them equal as individuals, while yet maintaining our stance regarding marriage and the institution thereof.
