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Carol Lynn Pearson, Bill Bradshaw, and John Dehlin will be speaking. Would love to be there. Bridget Quote:LGBTQ
Everytime I see that abbreviation, there’s another letter added to it.
😆 Yeah, that is kind of funny.. Who knows what will be next? bridget_night wrote:Yeah, that is kind of funny.. Who knows what will be next?
“D” for democrat
Used to be LG, than LGB, then LGBT, then LGBTQ… We had such a society at university (I wasn’t a member!), used to have trouble with their acronyms.
If they have a BLT @ the BBQ for the LGBTQ LDS at the COJCLDS, I’ll just take the alphabet soup.
You are hilarious Sambee! Did you get to speak to that church on this subject btw? (Would be interesting to hear their POV on JWs and 7D Adventists – a few points of relevance there. We’re not the only ones with end time prophecies.)
Here are some reviews of the conference held this last week-end: I am getting some feedback about the LGTB Conference in Salt Lake. People are saying it was so spiritual and uplifting (unlike it is in their churches). Here is an article about it in the local paper there:
This just posted on the Salt Lake Tribune. It happened today. A Mormon Bishop from Illinois admitted that the Church causes suffering for its gay members. I hope they do not have him removed from his calling and perhaps even worse. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen because more Bishops like him need to stand up and say what they know to be right. One of my dear Danish gay friends who served as a Mormon missionary in Salt Lake city when he was 21 almost committed suicide because his father, a big wig in the lds church in Denmark rejected him so much. He loved the Mormon church and still does as he loved serving as a missionary, but he told me the church isn’t a place gays fit in. Only through getting some personal counseling and living his own life was he able to find peace and be happy.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52858596-78/church-bishop-kloosterman-gay.html.csp?page=1 More great links about this conference:
http://mormonstories.org/?p=2179 http://invictuspilgrim.blogspot.com/2011/11/circling-wagons-grace-and-courage-to-be.html Bridget
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Here is something I posted on one of my lds ex-gay forums to try and help them be more tolerant of gays and those who do not agree with them: Many of us have children, friends, and church members who disagree with the church and/or us on the issue of homosexuality. Even on a forum like this, we ocassionally have disagreements. Diagreements are not necessarily a bad thing. They can help us clarify our own beliefs or even help us modify our beliefs. Sometimes they can help us change our beliefs entirely. Take for example the photo of the Young Woman/Old Woman picture (see attachment). Some of us may only see the ‘Old Woman” and others may only see the “Young Woman.” We may get admant or angry that the other person doesn’t see what we see. But, if we respect another person enough to listen to them, we may come to see what they see. When we can see both pictures, then we get a more complete understanding.
There are various ways to deal with disagreements. Often times, we want to jump in and correct others or set them straight (pun intended). I would like to ask you all: ” What have you found to be most effective in inspiring and motivating others who disagree with you?”
I am getting some feedback about the LGBT Conference in Salt Lake this past weekend. Many of the people at this conference are lds or ex-lds and are saying it was so spiritual and uplifting. Here is an article about it in the local paper there:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700195088/Conference-explores-unique-challenges-of-gay-Mormons.html When I was serving my mission in Austria, I sometimes had difficult companions. Some companions were very critical of me and saw everything in black in white. If the missionary handbook said to get up at 6 am and go to bed at 10 pm, you had to do exactly that even if you were sick or did not feel good. If the handbook said to tell your companion every day that you loved them, that is what one of my companions would do even though we hardly knew each other or even dis-liked each other. Some companions were fun to be with but not very motivated to do missionary work. How do you motivate them?
One of the ways I have learned to deal with this question was by an article Stephen Covey wrote on LOVE for lds missionary companions. I will cut and paste it below as I think it has alot of good stuff that we could use in our relationships with others.
Bridget
LOVE
By Stephen Covey
What then is love? What is the abstract, intangible, illusionary idea? Why is it the all important and all embracing principle that gives purity and life and meaning to every act.
Love is patience. And yet our modern way of life fosters exactly the opposite; quickness. Love is the frank recognition of the value of another human soul and his right to live his own life at his own pace and to choose what he will be and to feel his own feelings, and think his own thoughts. Love is not found in the control or domination of another but rather in the basic and intrinsic worth of another person maturely. To be able to love the other person maturely requires then that you have faith in the innate potential for good, for growth, and development within the other person. True love or patience then is based on faith. But this is still very abstract and what does it mean to me. It means simply to be patient with your partner, child, or friend as they go through the inevitable mistake making process of growth. Love is being patient with them when they are critical towards you and things.
Love is patient and kind with their struggles which you might think are most simple. Love is genuine interest, care, and concern. Love is affirmation of the other person. Each person is a child of our Heavenly Father and therefore has intrinsic value and is never to be compared against another person or against ones own stand but rather to be compared against the intrinsic standard of what one does with what one has. Because one lacks this kind of intrinsic knowledge of another then he refuses to judge for he simply cannot.
In human relationship there often seem two dimensions on which life goes on. The most common dimension is the evaluation one. This is the tendency to judge, to praise or to blame, to agree or to disagree. The other and more uncommon dimension is the understanding one, the affirming one. This is the tendency to accept people as they are without any attempt to place judgment, good or bad but rather the conscious attempt to affirm the essential worth and basic goodness and Christ-like potential of the other. Notice in all of your relationships and all of your conversations and all of your thinking and feelings, even as you’re reading this short statement on love, the almost overwhelming tendency to judge, to evaluate. Try to adopt the understanding approach towards life, and towards others, rather than the judgmental one. This is not to say that we do not judge and evaluate for we must do this, but first it is to say we try to understand the thing or the person being judged. In fact until there is understanding there is no wise judgment. Until you can say, “I understand you’ and the other ACKNOWLEDGES that you do, you simply have no right to judge at all. To do so is a denial of the worth of others.
As you strive to live on an understanding plane of life you will come to a startling discovery. You will discover the key to influence others. Others will sense that you believe in them. That you care sufficiently for them to try to understand them and that you really listen and that you really care. This kind of an experience is uncommon and conveys a great respect and affirmation of the other and quietly commands respect and trust in return. Is this then the key to win influence? The gospel of Jesus Christ is the religion of love. A man’s greatness and influence is measured by the number that he serves and the quality and unselfishness of that service. If a man really wants to get ahead then he must strive to push others ahead and this very work will exalt and glorify him.
Why is love such an influence? Because it appeals to the basic nature of man. People behave how they feel about themselves and about the things they value. If one genuinely communicates love not only by what he says but by more importantly, the manner in which he treats and affirms and respects another, then he will have responded to man’s deepest need and divine nature, and this will release the internal power and courage to act upon the truth given. This must be done daily or outside influences and the evil one will creep in.
Love is the principle of motivation. Many have convictions but lack the motivations to act upon that conviction. Seeing this, the unwise person spends time and energy to give more conviction, to use more logic, and more proof to prove his point. But by doing so he often fails. For in his very attempt to further prove and teach the truth he often behaves in such a way as to deny the worth of the other. He has not yet learned that ignorance is a knot of the heart. Love will untie the knot.
Be sincerely respectful as you talk. Be very patient, listen, serve, them. Do things for them. Become interested in their lives, Love them. You will discover you are planting seeds, and developing strengths and roots within themselves, and as they grow, a conviction will arise. Joseph Smith once said, ‘Every silent truth which comes as forcible to the heart and mind of man is out of an awakening of the memories of the spirit. Truth is within every person, sometimes covered by fear, tradition, and sin. Then have faith regardless of the way in which he treats you. If you look to yourself and your powers to influence and bring people to the gospel of Christ then you really lack faith in God.
I wonder if ever you change human beings with arguments alone: either by peppering them with little sharp facts or by blowing them up with great guns of truth. You scare ’em, but do you change ’em?
— David Grayson
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Hopefully this will help us beyond the “gays are evil” (dirty perverts) vs “LDS is evil” (Nazi homophobes) dichotomy. Things have always been more complex than that. Thanks BN, This is a conversation that does need to happen. I think any softening at the local level would take many years. Perhaps the old guard must pass away before changes can take place. But I am comforted that these things do happen. That change does move forward. That I am always saying it won’t happen, until suddenly – it does.
Thanks for keeping us informed,
Roy
Michael Crook sounds like a jerk. Good grief. Is MIchael Crook serious or is that just some hateful satire? We listened to the speech tonight for FHE. Wow, just wow. The good bishop is not going anywhere. Even I have enough faith in the church leaders to believe they will feel the spirit of love when they listen to it. Well done bishop. This type of speech, coming from a bishop, makes me want to go back to church and re-engage in the discussion again.
I deleted the post that included the link, simply because I know enough about the person who wrote the linked post to not want his bile available to be read from this site. I won’t elaborate, but it’s bile – pure and simple. The Bishop’s speech was excellent – but I’m not going to permit a link to such a terrible distortion of it.
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