Whose fight is it?

I read today that Mormon Church leader Dallin H Oaks spoke to the student body of Brigham Young University Idaho on the gay rights movement. In his talk, he compared what was going on to the Civil Rights Movement.
As if that wouldn't be a controversial enough statement, the way in which he compared it was laughable at best. He claimed that the Mormon Church, due to the (sometimes violent) backlash of those against Proposition 8 in California, was synonymous to the African-Americans who fought for their rights. This is hilarious on several levels. 1) The gay community at large are the ones seeking civil rights, not the Mormon Church. 2) The Mormon Church are the ones responsible for holding down the homosexual movement, thus more the aggressors here than the victims. 3) The Mormon Church was also not on the side of African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement because they denied Black men the priesthood until 1978, a full decade after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.
It's hard to not view the whole picture of this without laughing, or at least chuckling. 119 years ago the Mormon Church had to officially stop allowing their men to have multiple wives (some as many as twenty) in order to gain statehood. Now, one would imagine that because of their past non-conventional style of marriage, they would be more merciful to those seeking to have their marriages recognized as legitimate. On the contrary, though, the Mormon Church either seeks to act out in pure spite against those seeking legalization of their marriages or wishes to be more conformed with other conservative evangelical faiths.
Perhaps to understand the emphasis the Mormon Church places on heterosexual marriage we need to understand a critical document called The Family: A Proclamation to the World. In it the Mormon leaders set out that the "traditional family" is the only one that is worth upholding. This document presents very few beneficial patterns for family life and many backwards minded constrictive and regressive models. Among the positives are the emphasis of father interaction with children. However, among the negatives are a call for women to stay in the home, for the man to have sole financial burden and for the prototypical model to consist of a man born with an X and Y chromosome, and a woman born with two Xes who are lawfully married.
Which brings me to a final point. Marriage, in the way that we speak of it, has three different definitions. First is the legal definition. This is the fight going down in the ballots, in the courts and in the marches. Legal definition gives rights for insurance, inheritance, financial co-ownership, children custody and last rights and medical decisions. In the event of divorce, the fight is generally over property and children rights.
The second definition is the social definition. This has no clear boundaries and is only displayed insofar as both parties demonstrate consent. A couple that lives together and shares all things is for all intents and purposes socially married. A child can be raised by a man who is not biologically or legally his father if he is in a social marriage with the child's mother. This definition often coincides with the legal definition, but over and against it, if parents are "separated" they are legally still married, but socially divorced. This form of marriage is not generally recognized by most conventional organizations, but is the most practical and has the most far reaching consequences for familial structure and development.
The third and final definition is the religious definition. This is a marriage officially recognized by a specific faith group. For Catholics, this is the sacrament of marriage. For Mormons, this is marriage in a temple. For other faiths, these are the traditional marriage ceremonies unique to each one. Often times these are coincidentally legal marriages as well, but from time to time, religious marriages have not been recognized by the state. Similarly, in divorce, for religious marriages, a special "divorce" is often required, as in the case of annulments. Religious marriages have consequences in spirituality. They impact the nature of the religious family and the value of the marriage in an eternal perspective.
The important distinction here is that the Mormon Church is a religious organization. They meddle in the religious sphere. Their authority is over religious marriages. They can deny or allow marriages in their temples for whomever they wish. But the homosexual community is not currently vying for religious marriages in Mormon temples. No, they only seek legal marriages. Yes, the Mormon Church views it as their specific duty to ensure that the "traditional family is upheld in every sphere." However, I think it is important to note where they're jurisdiction ends and begins. So it is, whether or not we agree with the idea of homosexual religious marriage, the desire for legal marriage is merely seeking a civil right--one that we as a people have given to every race and religion and owe to the homosexual community