After writing an article for a Salt Lake City newspaper criticizing the LDS Church's stance on same-sex marriage, BYU philosophy instructor Jeffrey Nielsen has been informed that he will not be rehired for next year.

No surprise here.

Nielsen said he was fired for exercising his freedom of conscience.

No surprise here, either. Nielsen seems to have only just discovered what members of most churches have known for centuries: There are limits to what you can say with impunity. Churches are like clubs, and they have rules. Break the rules and you may be subject to discipline; you might even be thrown out.

Nielsen's column came after church leaders asked the members to lobby the U.S. Senate to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The church sees an amendment as a last-ditch legal means of preserving traditional marriage in the face of efforts in various corners of the nation to legalize same-sex unions.

Nielsen called the church's position "immoral" and said its leaders are fearful and superstitious. Not only that, they had deliberately whitewashed the church's "true" history, which can only be found by surfing the Internet.

Yet he says his critique amounted to "benevolent criticism." We'd like to see what he'd write when he's feeling hostile.

Of course BYU had the right to let him go. He's a bad philosopher anyway if he can't see that official recognition of gay marriage under the law will lead to a host of consequences that many reasonable people might find objectionable.

For example, it would likely lead to what radical gay activists call "novel family configurations." Polyamorous relationships of all kinds -- with children in the mix -- would be recognized as valid under the law, because if limits cannot be imposed by the state, then the sexual possibilities are limitless by definition. It will mean that such ideas will find their way, by force of law, into the public school curriculum. Discrimination is a bad word, and all views must be recognized as equally valid.

The only question is whether such outcomes are good or bad for society, and the answer is strictly a matter of opinion. There's not a lot of science available to comfort conservatives who are reluctant to throw thousands of years of human experience out the window, so reluctance to embrace an idea with the potential for a great many unintended consequences is not unreasonable.

And yet Nielsen preaches gay marriage with religious enthusiasm as though he's got the only possible answer and has the ability to read the mind of God. There's nothing wrong with what he wrote, per se. Like anyone else, he is entitled to his opinion about what is moral and immoral. This is America, after all. But now he has to live with the consequences, and that is America, too.

Would any employer tolerate an employee's making public statements that call into question sensitive business decisions or judgments and in the process calling the board of directors superstitious, immoral whitewashers of the true deeds of the company? Not likely.

Nielsen said he was acting on his conscience. We agree: It certainly could not have been intelligence -- at least if he expected no consequences.

Sometimes following one's conscience means making sacrifices. Martin Luther did not bemoan the fact that the Catholic Church excommunicated him after he publicly denounced the church's practice of selling indulgences to absolve people of sins.

Likewise, Benjamin Franklin took it as a badge of honor that he was canned as colonial postmaster after he criticized British polices.

If Nielsen wasn't prepared to sacrifice his job, he should have thought better of writing his article criticizing his church, at least as long as he was on the church's payroll.

We defend his right to speak. But we also defend BYU's right to dump him.