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A quick post script. I had told my lovely wife a few days beforehand that I was anxious about reading that letter and that I disagreed with parts of it and didn’t want to read it. She responded in a way that was both troublesome and helpful. She said something along the lines of “well, we know how you are and what you believe and we love you for it. Besides 99% of the ward will agree with the letter.” Glad it went well, RR. I’d be interested to hear how it went in other wards, or if other wards are like mine and apparently holding off until next week (when I won’t be there). I’m not sure I agree with your wife about 99%, but I do agree that the vast majority will agree if for no other reason than “the prophet has spoken.”
The letter was read in my ward today. Every member of the bishopric was out of town so the HPGL was conducting. There were a total of 75 people in attendance today. (Yes, I counted.) The letter was read in a combined opening exercises of RS and PH where the youth were invited to sit in. The opening song, prayer and announcements were given. The letter was read by the HPGL. At the conclusion of the letter he stated that should anyone have questions they should contact the ES to make an appointment to speak with the Bishop when we returned from vacation. Everyone is dismissed to their classes. That’s it. My son’s ward in the same Stake had the letter read and then a question and answer session. I guess one of the members asked what the ramifications were for them to agree with the Courts. They were told that they could basically agree with the Courts but really shouldn’t talk about it with others. My daughter’s ward in TX hasn’t addressed it yet. Next week it’s on their schedule. This will definitely be leadership roulette. I am not even sure why they need to read the letter that simply restates what they have said for years. One of the more offensive parts to me is that no reception or celebration for a same sex marriage can be held on church premises. These members pay their tithing and devote their hours of service to the Lord but don’t ask to have a party here. We reserve that for the family reunions, wedding receptions and birthday celebrations of our members in good standing.
Nice job, RR! In my ward, youth and adult members were held after Sac mtg while the primary went to classes. The bishop gave some background, read the letter, then also read some Q&A regarding the policy, which I think came from the lds.org website. It all took about a half hour and seemed a bit overkill. Then it was a topic of discussion in HPG, which got a little interesting or ridiculous or asinine, depending on your perspective.
It seemed like several members took this as a “sign of the times” and evidence that the world was going to hell in a hand basket. I heard no one even slightly indicate they agreed with the SCOTUS decision, so either they were too afraid, or just not wanting a Sunday argument… like me.
I’m glad it went well for you Roadrunner. I didn’t think that I would get the opportunity to attend but I did. It was a non-event. The letter was read during PH opening exercises and people with questions were invited to set an appointment with the executive secretary. No commentary, no questions, no interaction.
Cnsl1 wrote:I heard no one even slightly indicate they agreed with the SCOTUS decision, so either they were too afraid, or just not wanting a Sunday argument… like me.
I think most people have imagined what the response would be so why bother piping up. I certainly fell into this category. I know their position, I know mine. What’s going to change by saying anything.
This thread really got me thinking. If a BP can have reservations about reading the letter but read it anyway, then I can listen to the reading and maintain my reservations… silently out of respect.
Eternity4me wrote:One of the more offensive parts to me is that no reception or celebration for a same sex marriage can be held on church premises. These members pay their tithing and devote their hours of service to the Lord but don’t ask to have a party here. We reserve that for the family reunions, wedding receptions and birthday celebrations of our members in good standing.
Same here. I had trouble reconciling
Quote:The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to love and treat all people with kindness and civility—even when we disagree. We affirm that those who avail themselves of laws or court rulings authorizing same‐sex marriage should not be treated disrespectfully.
with the policy to not allow people to use the building. Dare I say it comes across as disrespectful and unkind. It feels like the church is in the same boat as the wedding cake bakers, providing a service might be misinterpreted as approval of someone’s choices and they certainly don’t want to be doing that. If it’s a matter of perceived righteousness why not draw the line at only allowing couples that were sealed in a temple to have their receptions in church buildings?
Our ward split this over two weeks—the youth the first week, then the adults (RS and PH done separately) in the second week. The stated concern was that the youth were particularly “at risk” of being beguiled into accepting marriage equality as okay both inside and outside the church. The discussion in priesthood began with anger about “those people” redefining marriage, progressed to the horrible oppression Church members would now experience (it’s already started on Facebook—I was unfriended when I told someone their rainbow flag-overlaid profile image was immoral), to a discussion of Elder Christofferson’s statement that no one would be excommunicated for supporting the SCOTUS ruling. The bishop sat quietly (he had deferred to a counselor to read the letter), and let the counselor lead the discussion.
I expected most of the reaction; I live in an extraordinarily conservative ward. But I was surprised when one brother suggested that Elder Christofferson’s statement that no one would be *excommunicated* should be very narrowly interpreted as meaning that while actual membership in the Church was not at risk, that any person accepting the SCOTUS ruling should be rightly shunned, watched more closely, and potentially removed from positions of responsibility or authority. His stated view was that agreeing with that clarification of civil law amounted to “going against the prophet” and thus made one apostate in principle. Again, the bishop remained silent and the counselor agreed that such peoples’ righteousness was suspect.
When I chatted with the counselor afterward (mentioning that I believe the SCOTUS ruling was correct from a civil standpoint—equal protection is precisely what permits the Church free exercise of its own doctrines and practices, after all) I asked him outright if someone like me would be treated by the leadership with full fellowship. He said so long as I didn’t carry a sign in a parade or actively support such things in a public way, that he saw no problem. I asked if he agreed with Bishop Paredes that Harry Reid could not be a good Mormon while concurrently being a leader in the Democratic Party and he laughed. The conversation ended abruptly when he was called into the bishop’s office.
I understand the momentary overreaction (even if I disagree with its basis); I just hope this response is more bluster than policy.
I console myself in knowing that the LDS church is not alone in this. I regularly participate at a really great Assembly of God church. They had an ongoing seminar called “Marriage Matters.” They spent three full weeks on why it is wrong to “re-define” marriage. The arguments used against SSM seemed to work fine for those that might agree with you. Appeal to authority, strawman arguments, and other logical fallacies.
The stated purpose of the three week detour was to enable the congregation to defend their position in an intelligent way. Instead they got talking points that I believe only work when preaching to the chior.
This just happens to be the issue in style right now for both sides.
I’ve got mixed feelings about this whole thing. I keep thinking of the quote from Joseph Smith: “It feels so good not to be trammelled.” That letter made me feel trammelled, yet again, as if it’s required (at least in some people’s minds) for me to be cannon fodder in a culture war that feels wholly unnecessary and ill-conceived to me. I felt both anxious and angry about it. Right before the letter was read, a friend of mine turned around and said something like “Oh boy.” I said, “It’s just that gay marriage letter.” She said she knew, and she wasn’t happy about it because she doesn’t agree with the letter. She’s married to one of the counselors in the bishopric. If it wasn’t inspired for her to tell me that, I don’t know what is. It was as they say a “tender mercy.” Our bishop read the letter per the instruction. He also encouraged people to go to the website mormonsandgays.org. But he then said if we found the stance “confusing” that we should rely on scriptures, what the current prophet has said and pray to basically get in line. I’m clear what the stance is (although it is certainly in flux and relies on a celestial lobotomy for gay people to suddenly become straight when they die).
I just don’t see how that advice is really going to do it. It didn’t work for the temple either. I can’t pray to accept sexism that the spirit has told me (while in the temple) is not from God. I can’t pray to become homophobic. I can’t pray to change my political views. This idea that if we pray we will agree with people who disagree with us is just such a privileged perspective. If you hold a majority opinion (a majority which they only hold inside the church at this point), then it’s acceptable to spiritually bully others by implying that they lack spiritual enlightenment and haven’t prayed or else they would agree with you. And yet we know that the Q12 often have disagreements and don’t always vote exactly the same. Why can’t we allow for disagreement and diversity of thought?
So, I wish I could say like Joseph Smith that it feels so good not to be trammelled. But I do feel trammelled right now.
I wonder how much longer Joseph can roll over in his grave. We’ve got peculiar down to an art.
mom3 wrote:I wonder how much longer Joseph can roll over in his grave.
We’ve got peculiar down to an art.
The word is “eternally perfecting peculiar people”I worry in this rhetoric that the message from Elder Christofferson that it’s OK to support gay marriage even publicly gets lost. I was in a different ward Sunday. The letter had been read the week before but it still came up in discussion. There was no doubt that some in the ward, including at least one leader, thought supporting gay marriage would at least keep one from a temple recommend. I am glad Christofferson made this statement, but I also think the general membership is almost wholly unaware of it. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the FP included a similar statement in the Q&A information they supplied with this letter? DarkJedi wrote:I worry in this rhetoric that the message from Elder Christofferson that it’s OK to support gay marriage even publicly gets lost… I am glad Christofferson made this statement, but I also think the general membership is almost wholly unaware of it. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the FP included a similar statement in the Q&A information they supplied with this letter?
DJ, I agree. In fact, when I sat in the meeting where the letter/QA was read, I planned to shoot up my hand and ask if the Bishop had any direction from SLC regarding those who advocate for SSM in the public domain. Later, I thought that would be a bit of a challenge, so I changed my mind to ask that given what we’ve just heard, how we can make our ward more inviting to people who are homosexual. But after reading the letter the bishop announced that he would not take comments or questions in that forum since there were people in the group for whom the issue was a sensitive one. He would meet with us individually, if anyone had anything they wanted to talk about.I was a bit annoyed that he didn’t open the floor, but I also know it could have been ugly, and that was something he was trying to avoid. The Bishop read the letter and supporting material verbatim with no commentary. He seemed to find it uncomfortable. I did sort of appreciate his not taking comments because I think he had a legitimate concern. It also ensured that there was neither dissent nor endorsement from anyone. I didn’t love it, but I understood it.
After it was over, I went up to the bishop, was sympathetic about the difficult situation, told him he did a good job under the circumstances (which was maybe not my true feeling, but something close to it) and then told him I was a “dissenting voter”. It was the first time that he and I ever talked about it, though he knows I’ve marched with Mormons Building Bridges. He seemed to understand and offered to meet with me. I told him, “Nah, I’ve already got my answer.”
But after thinking about it, maybe I will meet with him (and the SP). I wouldn’t mind responding, even if in private, and expressing that I used to feel the same way, but have changed my mind and feel much better about it now.
I found it all very uncomfortable! I got it two weeks in a row from my new home ward and from a ward when on vacation. UGH! The vacation ward had someone say “those people put their sins in our faces”. I almost died! I decided church was a skip day that day. Then our home ward was better. He started out with a joke about how we needed to read this letter even though it’s been legal in Canada for 10 years already. He then asked for questions after and no one made any comments about it at all. He said, thanks guys for making my life easier, and you can come see me privately if you have anything to say that you don’t want to say here. I thought he did a great job. But I also got a lot of flack for putting up a rainbow flag over my profile pic, which I did before the letter from the church came out. I was nervous about the part where it said that you could be up for church discipline if you push your views on others. Not sure what that means…but my DH said the flag wouldn’t cause me to be excommunicated. He actually told me to put it up because I have family members who are gay and he said that they should feel our love. It was a huge win for them.
But I couldn’t believe that first ward. “Those people”???? Yikes!!! I wanted to respond, but my angry tears came out and I knew I would look foolish. Especially since I was a visitor. I just can’t make myself believe there is anything wrong with it.
DH was talking about the D&C and how there is a scripture that talks about how if a sin is too difficult to follow, the lord takes that commandment away from them. I do not know where it is, but he has brought it up a few times. I love that idea and I hope if I can ever really believe in this church again, I will take on that belief. This is the God I believe in. A loving, understanding, and most forgiving father who doesn’t want to damn us.
Hopefully any of this makes sense. For some reason typing on the phone makes it harder to focus. Haha
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I think the piety divide is going to be a worse battle the SSM. It makes me sad. I suppose we have always been privately this divided I just never saw it or wanted to see it. I believe Elder Christofferson’s comment has moved out. When I read the churches response to the BSA I realized the church only see’s one thing and it isn’t a bigger tent.
mom3 wrote:When I read the churches response to the BSA I realized the church only see’s one thing and it isn’t a bigger tent.
Interesting. I expected the exact response they gave because there’s nothing new here really. Scouting has had coed programs since the 70s and does allow females to serve in all positions including Scoutmaster. Church sponsored troops/teams/crews have always been male only both in membership and leadership. BSA’s policy has been and continues to be that sponsoring organizations can set their own rules about such things. I see this as no different than women serving, the church simply won’t call gay Scoutmasters just like they don’t call women.
On Christofferson, I suppose in fairness we must recognize that he said this in an interview situation (as opposed to a church conference), and that he said similar things only a couple times (although Oaks seemed to agree with him in the joint interview). Were this a statement I disagree with I would use exactly that argument. That’s why I think it should have been stated in the Q&A part or even in the letter itself. I can hope one of them says something in GC in a few months, but I am not holding my breath.
FWIW, as I reread the letter today I heard it in the voice of Oaks. It is certainly written in his style. I think there’s a very good chance that he will be president for a few years, probably after a short Nelson presidency. I do like that Oaks has talked about living with our differences and being kind to those who disagree, but I don’ think he is really going to back down from the issue.
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