These last few days have been ones for reflection on the work of MormonPress and Mormon Progressives. What is that work?

Over the weekend, I — like many of you, undoubtedly — witnessed a lot of reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality. I’m sure many of your Facebook feeds looked similar to mine: lots of rainbow-tinted profile pictures, neutral posts by people who are happy for those who achieved marriage equality, and scorn.

Today’s Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage will undoubtedly cause all kinds of emotions from people of all walks of life. Some will celebrate, and some will not.

I was in my English class when I heard the announcement. The Supreme Court had overturned the stay that was issued to stop gay marriages in Idaho after they had deemed that banning them was unconstitutional.

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles “solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” 

First posted at McAffee's Machinations.

It has been almost two years since I reviewed a book by tea party constitutional guru, Cleon Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap:  28 Great Ideas That Changed the World (Ann. Ed. 2009).  See Cleon Skousen, the Tea Party, and Equal Rights Before the Law, April 12, 2012, in McAffee Machinations.  In that book Professor Skousen referred approvingly to the founding era’s harsh penalties for “the crime of ‘homosexuality,’” considering that it was—appropriately—viewed as a crime “against ‘the whole people,” virtually the equivalent of treason, cowardice, and desertion.

The Mozilla CEO just stepped down. Here's the Economist on what happened:

MOZILLA, the outfit behind the Firefox web browser and other software, has just lost its chief executive, Brendan Eich (pictured), who resigned on April 3rd after spending little more than a week in the job. His departure raises thorny questions about where lines should be drawn between leaders’ personal beliefs and their corporate roles. Mr Eich quit after a controversy blew up about his views on gay marriage.

Many Mormons reading this might be thinking the Mormon Church believes marriage is between a man and a woman (well it does now anyway. If you remember, it used to be a man and women). Certainly that appears to be the case if you look at canon and statements made by Church leadership in terms of what we as Mormons should practice.

That said, I don’t recall canon or Church leaders anywhere or anytime telling politicians how they should make law.

A week or so ago I took the blog A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman to task for accusing President Obama of "moral rape" (she since changed that phrase to "a rape of morals") and for accusing liberals of advancing Satan's agenda. I reached out to her on Twitter with the MormonLiberals account, hoping to spur some kind of dialogue about the issue. You can go back through the account's archive to see my attempts to begin a discussion.

Instead of joining in on a discussion, she blocked me entirely. Maybe I went too far, or maybe I was rude. I certainly didn't mean to be, if I was.

I don't know why she blocked the account. But I do know I'm still dedicated to fruitful discussion and dialogue. Her most recent post gave me a lot to think about, and I hope you'll head on over to give it a read.

While Mormon liberals hold many different viewpoints on the issue of homosexuality and marriage, previously on this blog various bloggers have made a pretty good case in favor of marriage equality. But the book highlighted on WBMW serves as a very thoughtful and thorough representation of the opposing viewpoint. I might not agree with all their assertions but I believe it is imperative that we have these discussions, that we engage with the folks we might not agree with. As I've said before, if we are not willing to discuss the issues with each other we shouldn't be at all surprised when our political system doesn't function very well (or when our kids are not prepared for serving missions because they are completely unable/unwilling to talk with people they disagree with).

So please head on over to her blog and read the excerpts she's collected.