My thoughts on same-sex marriage from an eternal perspective

Many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have mixed feelings about the Church's stand on the legalization and redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. They feel that we are not being Christ-like when we deny these individuals the same access to marriage as heterosexual couples. It feels like we are not loving them equally and breaking the 2nd great commandment - to love our neighbors as ourselves.

What we fail to consider, I believe, is that we are really -not- loving them enough, because we are not thinking of their happiness in this life and in eternity.  To achieve the greatest happiness in the world to come, we need to be in a position to become like God and live the same life He lives.  This requires the ability to be eternally with a companion and have eternal increase.

To validate same-sex marriage is to deny those couples the possibility of that relationship ever being an eternal one. To validate as a family, same-sex couples and any children that are brought into that unit is to forever deny those children the possiblity of being an eternal family with those who raise them.

We are not loving our neighbor enough when we support a relationship that can never result in an eternal bond. We are selfishly saying "We love you a whole lot right now - but we don't love you enough to want the joy that God has in the eternity to come."

The purpose of the Church is to assist the Lord in bringing to pass the "immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39) Christ has guaranteed to all humanity immortality. Eternal life is God's life and can only be achieved through obedience to God's laws, including marriage as established by God.


Some words from a song that are applicable:

Neither the man without the woman,
Neither the woman without the man.

This is the life of our Father and Mother,
Meant for their children too.
Our lives and our loves extending forever
A covenant made everlastingly new.