Andrew Sullivan commends the LDS church’s decision to support legislation in Salt Lake City banning housing and employment discrimination against homosexuals:
What the LDS church has done in Utah is an immensely important and positive step and places the Mormon church in a far more positive and pro-gay position than any other religious group broadly allied with the Christianist right. They have made a distinction—and it is an admirable, intellectually honest distinction—between respecting the equal rights of other citizens in core civil respects, while insisting—with total justification—on the integrity of one’s own religious doctrines, and on a religious institution’s right to discriminate in any way with respect to its own rites and traditions.
I believe that there are forces of discrimination and bigotry within the Mormon church—and they have recently been ascendant. But that is true of most churches and most institutions. And what I have long observed among Mormons—unlike some other denominations – is also an American decency that tends to win out in the end. I’ve never met a nasty Mormon. They put many Christians to shame in their practice of their faith and the civility and sincerity with which they live their lives. And this decision in Salt Lake City—not an easy or inevitable one—to make a clear distinction between civil marriage and other civil protections is one worthy of respect.
Read his entire post at The Daily Dish.