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Now that’s a good letter. I’d be tempted to stand up during PH and read that as my “rebuttal.” 🙂 Old-Timer wrote:What else can be expected right now?
There is nothing new in this letter
I didn’t really expect much else, but I was hoping for the Church’s PR statement the day after SCOTUS would be all we heard about it until conference. The letter itself, which is the only portion signed by the Q15, is somewhat less difficult to swallow than the background information provided as a guide to answer questions. I think some of the background quotes are tone deaf.
To me intellectual honesty and being true to myself is very important. One of my biggest fears is being put in a situation where I will have to be completely open and blunt in public, which I feel could be disastrous for my family relationships.
Also I know several members of my ward who struggle with this tremendously. I have gay family members who married a member of the opposite sex and had children hoping the power of the atonement would be enough to heal them. The marriage was a disaster and left a trail of devastation those kids will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. There are gay teenagers in my ward who feel hopeless, knowing they will have to choose between physical / sexual needs and family / church support. I’m crying as I type this because I simply feel bad for them.
I view SCOTUS as a victory for gay people but this letter as a squandered opportunity for the church to reach out more.
I know this is a serious tangent… One of the ideas that I seriously disagree with in Mormondom is that if your spouse does not make the celestial cut then you can simply be matched with someone else. I dislike it so because it implies that physical anatomy and dedication to the Mormon cause are what matters. A lifetime of growing together and raising kids together? Not so much. So with that as a backdrop, I cherry picked the following statement: Quote:Mothers and fathers matter, and they are not interchangeable.
:clap: Quote:I’ve got two kids here at home who’ll be questioning their futures in the church after this heavy-handed event. These kids have way too many gay friends to successfully digest this kind of rhetoric, because it’s not just sticking to the marriage issue.
My kids are in the same boat. My oldest has already bailed. My kids have consistently stood up against bullying and joined the GSA groups in their schools. In the school in Singapore, there was an anti-bullying day and kids were supposed to wear purple to support. My son wore purple, but one of the other Mormon boys refused to wear it because he said it was a political statement that was “pro-gay” and therefore against the church. I’m sure that kid was getting that from home, and I’m sure his parents would have said the same about my son wearing purple. There’s so much privilege tied up in our worship sometimes. We really can’t seem to see past the Wasatch front middle class white people attitudes that have been the bread and butter of the church. I often wonder whether we just attract those who aspire to a white middle class lifestyle, not those who truly want to understand and live the gospel of Jesus. We seem incapable of thinking globally.
I don’t know whether church leaders don’t see what this kind of stance does to our youth, who empathize with and support gay people, or simply don’t care. It’s the war of the older generation on the younger, and thus it ever was. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
Quote:Mothers and fathers matter, and they are not interchangeable.
Try again, Roy. They are not “interchangeable” with each other, but all women are interchangeable with all other women, and all men are interchangeable with all other men. That’s the real meaning of that. It’s bonkers, but so it is.
Quote:I view SCOTUS as a victory for gay people but this letter as a squandered opportunity for the church to reach out more.
Yep.
This truly is a generational thing, and that is what saddens me most. We can’t afford to lose the very people who would help us progress and move toward what I believe is a more Christ-like organization that is more truly Zion.
I’m doing my best to help my own kids be there when they can make the most difference, and I am doing my best to do the same for others in the generations below me.
Just as a fair warning the original post popped up on my FB feed. It was suggested the OP should resign if they don’t feel comfortable reading it. Thought you should know. What the letter seems to clarify is that despite the legal (civil) recognition of marriage equality, the Church still considers homosexual sex to be a sin. Thus, your legal same-sex marriage does not now justify intimate physical relations in the Church’s eyes. The letter simply reiterates current policy for LGBTQ people: you can believe what you must, just don’t act on it—even within a legally sanctioned relationship—because the definition of chastity is reserved for opposite sex couples and any other sexual relationship is still considered morally unacceptable and is subject to normal Church discipline.
Quote:His law of chastity is clear: sexual relations are proper only between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife.
Religious liberty is the legal justification (and ongoing defense) for how the Church can recognize the (civil) legality of marriage equality while still (religiously) condemning homosexual sex as a violation of the law of chastity (the same reasoning that permits the prohibition of alcohol despite its legality). It has nothing to do with the principles of faithfulness, fidelity, or monogamy; it’s a clarification that the Church considers homosexual sex itself to be a sin in any context.
In other words, absolutely nothing changes. Move along; there’s nothing to see here despite what you may have heard.
TataniaAvalon wrote:Just as a fair warning the original post popped up on my FB feed. It was suggested the OP should resign if they don’t feel comfortable reading it. Thought you should know.
A couple of questions.
1- Do posts automatically appear on facebook pages that are much more public than this forum? I didn’t know that.
2- Are they suggesting I resign from the church or from my calling? Either way, it’s that sort of black and white attitude that is difficult for me to digest.
Old-Timer wrote:My brother-in-law wrote the following that I thought people here might like to read.
“
Missing Church in July” ( https://medium.com/@ungewissen/missing-church-in-july-928e90931ee1 My favorite part is the ending:
Quote:You have consistently shown kindness and patience with me and my family, and I appreciate that. I hope you will discern my respect for you, even when we see things differently.
VERY good email. Does he have references to some of the quotes?TataniaAvalon wrote:It was suggested the OP should resign if they don’t feel comfortable reading it. Thought you should know.
This is EXACTLY the kind of disposable attitude that I don’t like in the church. The “volunteer as employee” model where people are written off in a moment when they don’t agree with the party line. What about the years of service Roadrunner may have given? What about his family? What would be the impact on Roadrunners’ family if he resigned over this reservation he feels at this point? Where is love? Where is charity? What about an Apostle’s statement that there is room for all in the church, and that each person has the right to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience? And what if God has something in store to effect a dramatic change in Roadrunners’ thinking, like Paul on the Road to Damascus? Or Alma the Younger?
I shared a link to this thread to the A Thoughtful Faith FB group, which is a private group that I think has some connection to this site. It occurs to me now that I should have asked first before doing that, as presumably someone there could have shared it further, and Roadrunner’s connection to it perpetuated. I sincerely apologize and hope it doesn’t cause any problems. I could have and should have shared the specific content without a connection to where it came from. Or not shared it all. But as we find relevance here to have a heads up about that letter, I felt everyone at ATF would want that, too. Edit: I guess I probably over-reacted here. This is a public site, so presumably anyone could have found this thread.
Quote:Where is love? Where is charity?
Evidently you’ve confused the culture of the Mormon church with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sorry, Charlie. Never the twain shall meet.
Roadrunner wrote:I didn’t really expect much else,
but I was hoping for the Church’s PR statement the day after SCOTUS would beallwe heard about it until conference. The letter itself, which is the only portion signed by the Q15, is somewhat less difficult to swallow than the background information provided as a guide to answer questions. I think some of the background quotes are tone deaf. This. Good grief. Can’t we have even a week to be with each other at church and try to see the good in each other, understand each other, love and serve each other? “Bro. X is such a rigid hard-liner, but when he comes home teaching, I feel his love and concern for us. He’d give us the shirt off his back, and I do love him.” Or, “Sis. Y is a flaming liberal, but she’s a fantastic teacher and really loves those kids.” Give us a minute, for pete’s sake, to
bewith each other and try to work out a way through this.
Quote:Also I know several members of my ward who struggle with this tremendously.
I have gay family members who married a member of the opposite sex and had children hoping the power of the atonement would be enough to heal them. The marriage was a disaster and left a trail of devastation those kids will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.Me, too. And boy, do I have regrets now about things I said and did back then. I think some
timefor reflection for we older people would be good.
Quote:There are gay teenagers in my ward who feel hopeless, knowing
they will have to choosebetween physical / sexual needs and family / church support. I’m crying as I type this because I simply feel bad for them. My college-age daughter just read a FB post aloud to me last night from a school friend. It was beautiful, heart-wrenching and hopeful. He talked about the choices in front of him as a gay, unmarried, faithful LDS man. He doesn’t know what he’ll do. He’s banking on the love and support of others as he makes his way through life, and it’s clear that he is willing to give the same in return. Please give him time and emotional space to operate. And don’t crowd my kids into a corner where the only way out is to criticize the friends they love. These friends are foreshadowers of their own potentially gay children, and the institution pushing them right now to reject their gay friends’ choices may be solidifying a willingness to consider leaving the church down the road. And maybe not very far down the road.
roadrunner, Thanks for posting, it was a brave thing to do. I agree that it is a huge missed opportunity and much of the younger generation is not going to go along with this. I wish the church could get out of their own way. Doing nothing, saying nothing would be more productive than this.
I also think that the SCOTUS ruling is going to create more division than we have seen in the past. I personally feel more inclined now to stand up and say “I support the SCOTUS ruling and I’m glad it passed” without caring as much what other people think. I think the law passing has emboldened people who previously sat quietly in fear, and it will take a delicate balance of charity and tolerance for all sides to work in unity together.
As for my advice for what you should do, pawn it off on a counselor. I have already decided that if asked to give a talk about this subject going forward I will politely decline, and state why, and offer an alternative speaking topic. I personally am not interested in being associated with these views.
-SBRed
Perhaps you feel a cold coming on. *cough* *cough*
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