One justification for supporting Same-Sex Marriage for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the argument from fallibility, Leaders of the church have declared that sex outside of a marriage between a man and a woman is sinful behavior. They have also encouraged members to support traditional marriage laws. Those members who support same-sex marriage will often use what might be called an argument from fallibility to justify their disagreement. The argument might look something like this:
P1: The Prophets and Apostles are mortal men
P2: Mortal men make mistakes
C1: Prophets and Apostles sometimes make mistakes
C2: Members of the church can support same-sex marriage and may be following God’s will in doing so (even from a ‘Mormon’ perspective), in spite of church leaders teachings to the contrary.
The response is that of course church leaders are fallible and can make mistakes. This fallibility can be seen as an ‘upper limit’ to where prophets and apostles might not be considered mortal any longer. Yet, if we believe these men are called of God there must be a ‘lower limit’ at which we might not consider them representatives of God at all.
There is a difference between some isolated statements by a few church leaders addressing a topic that is not a core belief, doctrine, or practice, and a consistent, unanimous message that is central to the restored gospel. And marriage between a man and a woman qualifies as the latter (see The Family: A Proclamation to the World). And topics like explanations for the priesthood ban, or something like Adam-God theories would be examples of the former.
There should be no mistake about where church leaders are on this issue. And faithful church members should not take their counsel lightly. On this, or other topics.
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