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The history of the Mormon Church’s “startlingly unconventional forms of wedded bliss” (which reduced women to childbearing possessions of dominant males) might more accurately show why Mormons fought so hard for Proposition 8. The fear of marriage between two people of the same sex is the fear of revealing that the traditional roles of men and women in marriage are not somehow natural or “God-given.” Once we admit that marriage between “one man and one woman” is a cultural construct intended to benefit men, the entire patriarchal structure loses its base. The Mormon Church continues to cling to the belief that its definition of marriage, and the more or less subordinate place of women within it, is divine.
-- Robin Blaetz, letter to the editor, The New Yorker, December 15, 2008
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