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I just reviewed through all the posts and wonder, what about the suicides, broken marriages, resignations, and according to a Mormon Stories podcast, excommunications for “apostasy” that occurred just a few weeks prior to the announcements? I agree with the opinion that this was not revelation but opinion and then policy. The question I have is any of it revelation and for me the answer is no, not now, not about any of it. Old Guard thoughts What will happen is that the Old Guard will say it was a test of faithfulness for hte members and that’s why they are both revelations from God, and any who left the church in protest failed the test.
Nibbler, your Old Guard story reminds of when I was flat out told once that I had been deceived by Satan for marrying my husband who is not Mormon. I prayed about it, expecting the “right” answer, a no, and was stunned to get a yes. He continues to be the kindest, most understanding, forgiving patience, grounding, loyal person in my life. We have been married for over 18 years, together over 20. Not always easy, almost divorced, but dude, of the devil? Hell no.
Also, your story reminds me that I had gone and prayed about this new policy, totally open, totally being willing to accept it as truth, and these words blossomed in my mind, “NO, it is not of me. It is born of fear.” Now I can be like, see this my orthodox family of birth, yeah, I was right, and the Brethren were actually humble enough to get the revelation that it was not a good policy.
Here is what bothers me, it doesn’t undo the damage. There is no “We are sorry for the deaths this has caused” because suicides went up after the policy change. No “we are sorry for the family strife it has caused” because divorced couples went to court to get sole custody just so their kids could be baptized. No, “we are sorry for the existential crises your children experienced” because baptisms of eight year olds were cancelled after the new policy. There is no “We are sorry for the spiritual abuse you experienced by our uncompassionate policies.” And quite frankly they need that apology for EVERYTHING. For the Priesthood ban. For ex’ing Sam Young and not properly changing worthiness interviews of children and youth. For sexual molestation and rape being a “may” require disciplinary counsel. May? MAY? That should be automatic disciplinary counsel! For protecting Joseph L Bishop and not ex’ing that guy. For ex’ing Kate Kelly over the Priesthood session protests (it rankles that nonmember men can go to Priesthood session, but faithful women can’t go with their sons, wtf).
So, it all goes back to the way it was before, except now we have blood on our hands without any acknowledgement of that. And it frankly pisses me off. I’m happy the policy changed. But there is nothing about the real damage caused.
Silent Dawning, women in the mission field and baptisms not going up? I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that the women have to wait for the men to do the baptizing.
GBSmith, they’re not gonna do anything about it. They never have before, why would they now?
When I first read about it, I was overjoyed, tearful, hopeful, and then reality set in. I still can’t trust them as a woman with my body and soul. Until more changes, they’re not gonna get my daughter back either. She is openly in a gay relationship and her first question to me was, “is it still a sin to be in a gay marriage?” Yes. “Then I’m not going back.” And that’s when I remembered all the other BS the church still doesn’t wanna look at. Ugh.
I agree with many of the feelings shared here. They are valid. Yes, it appears that the church overreacted to the legalization of SSM with this policy. Yes, it did damage. Yes, it was called revelation. Yes, now that the POX is removed the damage hasn’t gone away in many cases AND LGBTQ individuals are now back to the gray area of leadership roulette where they resided before the POX. Yes, the church is not apologizing.
The CNN article called this change the Mormon “Don’t ask, Don’t tell”. If I recall correctly “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” was a precursor to full acceptance of gays in the military. I can only hope that the gray area that our gay membership now finds itself in will someday lead to even more progress. As members come to know and love upstanding individuals in their communities and congregations that are not straight… As the broader society continues to evolve and homophobia continues to be viewed as primitive and backwards, I believe we will see even more movement on this issue.
I also believe on that day that it will be revelation that makes that change possible.
I’m very glad this has happened. Even disregarding the position on being LGBT, it dragged in children who were not necessarily so. In my opinion, this recent announcement has little to do with humility or recognition and everything to do with legal protection. It would not be difficult for someone to accuse the church of singling out and discriminating against a recognized group of people. I’m not sure about US laws, but here in Canada no one felt comfortable with the original policy. I doubt it was ever implemented here, if it was I’d be joined with many others to condemn it. SSM is the norm here and has been for almost 15 years. I always felt it was a cultural policy and the Church is slowly realizing that local culture does not work internationally. Ebowalker wrote:
I always felt it was a cultural policy and the Church is slowly realizing that local culture does not work internationally.
I could see this going both ways. The church is international and social issues that may enjoy majority acceptance in the USA and/or Canada may not be tolerated at all in other countries that the church operates in. It almost sets up a scenario where the church has to make global policy than can apply to the lowest common denominator. Hey, it’s a theory.
nibbler wrote:
Ebowalker wrote:
I always felt it was a cultural policy and the Church is slowly realizing that local culture does not work internationally.
I could see this going both ways. The church is international and social issues that may enjoy majority acceptance in the USA and/or Canada may not be tolerated at all in other countries that the church operates in. It almost sets up a scenario where the church has to make global policy than can apply to the lowest common denominator. Hey, it’s a theory.
In this case I think the lowest common denominators are North America and Europe. The places where the church is growing most, Africa and South America, are mostly not in favor of LGBTQ+ rights, gay marriage, etc. I’m not sure this change is so much for legal protection as it is for cultural reasons here in the US. I’m sure there are some, but taking into account I do live in the liberal northeast US I don’t know a single YSA (or young married adult) who liked the policy. If the church’s real concern is the bleeding of millennials, and I think it is a major concern of the Q15, this was more an attempt at appeasement than anything. They’re trying to stop the hemorrhage. We also need take into account the church’s “allies” on the anti-gay marriage front – the Catholics and evangelicals – which make up a much larger part of the population than we do. They are both powerful enough to stave off any accusations of discrimination and assert separation of church and state. If the LDS church is discriminating, so are they.
Ebowalker wrote:
In my opinion, this recent announcement has little to do with humility or recognition and everything to do with legal protection. It would not be difficult for someone to accuse the church of singling out and discriminating against a recognized group of people. I’m not sure about US laws, but here in Canada no one felt comfortable with the original policy. I doubt it was ever implemented here, if it was I’d be joined with many others to condemn it. SSM is the norm here and has been for almost 15 years. I always felt it was a cultural policy and the Church is slowly realizing that local culture does not work internationally.
Interestingly enough, the US only recently made gay marriage legal, so the church had quite a long time of legal protection in the US considering.
Does the Church really need to take extra legal precautions, at least in the US? There are all sorts of legal safeguards against religious prosecution, at least in the US. It’s not like a wedding-cake business, who can be taken to court for refusing service to a gay couple. Heck, even the few laws that do apply to religions (usually involving their tax-exemption status), the Church has regularly broken. But no one can do anything about it, because “religion”. Trump even “upped” their freedom a couple years back, removing the prior restrictions on a religions’ political involvement. I’d be willing to bet, the change happened for “appeasement”. Or because God changed his mind.
I understand that the church is legally protected (at least in the US) from discriminating for doctrinal reasons. I could see the church getting out of the marriage business and only doing sealings, and a few years ago I though that was very likely because of the legalization of gay marriage. One of the arguments against legalization was the fear that churches might be forced to perform or at least recognize gay marriages. Gay marriage has been legal in my state for several years (we one of the early ones) and no such thing has ever even come close to happening here as far as I know. I credit that to separation of church and state. Besides, who would want to be married in (and/or be a member of) a church that doesn’t give you the same privileges other churches might. And brings me to another point – policy change or not, this affects very few people as far as actual baptisms go. The vast majority of married gay couple members (or ex-members) are not active and have no desire to be and don;t want their kids to be either. My own opposition to the policy was that it was unfair – it treated gays couples (and their children) differently than hetero couples (and their children) for the same sin. If your definition of justice is fairness (mine is), then the policy was not just and therefore not something I think God would support (keeping in mind of course that justice in that sense doesn’t really come into play in this life and is a major part of the atonement of Jesus Christ). I’ve never thought about this before, is there anything that prevents the church from performing civil wedding ceremonies for same sex partners? Has anyone on this forum, gone to a same sex, wedding ceremony performed by an LDS leader?
If the church can’t or won’t perform the (civil) wedding ceremony, would this same family even want baptisms, blessings for children, etc?
If I were an LGBT partner/parent, I probably wouldn’t.
Just curious.
Minyan Man wrote:
I’ve never thought about this before, is there anything that prevents the church from performing civil wedding ceremonies for same sex partners?Has anyone on this forum, gone to a same sex, wedding ceremony performed by an LDS leader?
Legally, a Bishop can perform a civil wedding for same sex couples. But I’m fairly confident the Church would ex him, since it’s still considered a grievous sin, and the Bishop would be facilitating it. I understand they have in the past.
Minyan Man wrote:
If the church can’t or won’t perform the (civil) wedding ceremony, would this same family even want baptisms, blessings for children, etc?If I were an LGBT partner/parent, I probably wouldn’t.
I think it’s one of the things advocates pushed for that most of those affected never wanted in the first place. Those pushing for the “baby blessings” (what I call psudo-infant baptism), is most likely coming from the parents or grandparents of a same-sex couple, not the couple themselves, in order to increase the likelyhood of that child’s activity in the Church by making them a “psudo-member”. Save the kid’s soul, etc, etc. Otherwise, they’d just give the kid a normal priesthood blessing in the home.
While the policy has changed, the issues surrounding the policy still remain; i.e. that kid is going to be taught some things at Church which absolutely
willcontradict their family structure. Handbook 1 answers that question: Handbook 1; Section 3.6.3.1 wrote:Church officers and Latter-day Saint chaplains are not to use their ecclesiastical authority to perform marriages between two people of the same sex.
If you want to get very technical, that sounds like a bishop could perform a same sex marriage but they would have to obtain authority to perform marriages apart from their authority as a BP and make it clear (somehow) that they are using the non-church given authority to perform the marriage.
Even then I’d imagine there would be an issue. Optically it would be the bishop using his authority to perform the marriage even if they were acting with authority provided elsewhere.
This week’s Mormonland podcast features Gregory Prince on the policy and its reversal. I learned some things from his perspective. https://www.sltrib.com/podcasts/mormonland/https://www.sltrib.com/podcasts/mormonland/” class=”bbcode_url”>
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