Church response to HRC petition

I watched this and thought it was pretty good. My one thought was that if only Packer could have shown the same amount (or ANY amount) of compassion in his GC talk as was expressed in this thoughtful response, then maybe he wouldn’t have angered so many in the first place.

Have any of you seen all the craziness going on on Facebook with the “We love you Pres. Boyd k Packer” fan page that was set up? Wow… the comments got very heated on both sides. I stayed out of it, but it was interesting to see.

This however really bothers me for some reason!… http://scriptures4kids.com/children/lds-primary-activities/category/9-p-p.html

…then maybe he wouldn’t have angered so many in the first place.

On the other hand, I don’t want Packer to hold back his true thoughts b/c some people might react with anger.

It seems to me that angry people get what they want too often, and for no good reason.

I can’t imagine why President Packer’s talk was given the prime conference time slot on Sunday morning, when non-members are looking for a TV church service. I have stayed away from StayLDS for nearly two weeks now. The firestorm which fell upon the church has both sadden and depressed me. I decided this morning to see what others here were saying. Strange thing, I read a few entries on this thread and decided to drop it. I am tired of it all. I enjoyed the rescue of the miners ever so much more. I enjoy the signs of Fall which are finally appearing in my coastal California neighborhood. I saw the embarrassment in my grown kids faces, concerning the Packer address. I was having breakfast at one of their houses when he stated gays don’t exist. I stood near the big screen TV watching it all. When I turned back to seven members of my family sitting around the living room, no one said a thing. It was so telling. There was no spirit in the room, only familial love toward each other and I hope, toward my gay son and my two gay brothers, who do exist. I said good by and went to my Native American church meeting. It lifted up Christ Jesus and the two great commandments. The spirit was amazing, love was there.

IWhat does a church do when one of their top leaders says something in a world conference that doesn’t really agree with the official position of the church? In that instance, HE is the church. Does the position then change? Well, we see that it does not. The position gets re-asserted. What else can the church do in this case? Apologize for the statments of an apostle–a guy who is a heartbeat away from being the president of the church?

I think this is a good question. What they do is alter what was said, change the talk in the Ensign, and sometimes, re-record the video. In other situations they stop publishing the objectionable material like they did with Mormon Doctrine, or they stop putting it in lesson manuals in hopes it will fade into obscurity like some of the things Brigham Young said.

On another note if you read this line from the news article where Otterson made a statement:

“None of us is limited by our feelings or inclinations. Ultimately, we are free to act for ourselves.”

Seems a bit harsh potentially….it does acknowledge the presence of such feelings, so the statement “there is no such thing as a gay person” doesn’t really apply, but it also implies they can be happy by simply ignoring themselves….not sure what to think of that — I had to live in a sexually unfulfilling marriage for a long time and it made me miserable. I can only guess how a gay person feels. This is one topic that is certainly not clear to me.

One person described homosexuality just as any other biological problem that people have to live with…the problem I have is that the highest level of the CK is predicated on eternal marriage, while other disabilities don’t carry the same limitations. For example, someone with cerebral palsy could get married in the temple and have a fulfilling marriage, while this option isn’t available to someone with gay tendencies.

The problem with this argument too is that it may be offensive to someone with same sex feelings to be labelled has having some kind of biological aberration when they are fully functional in all other respects — mentally, physically, etcetera…

I’m nervous that they’ll turn it over to the Strengthening the Members committee to scan for church members to be referred to their local leaders for disciplinary action.

I’m certain that won’t happen, fwiw. It didn’t happen with other petitions, so I can’t imagine it will happen with this one.

… the Strengthening the Members committee

I really, really, really hope you made that up.