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DA: It sounds like you are saying the church is trying to draw a line in the sand to rein in the changes that are happening, moreso than actual motivation of lawsuits. Is that what you are saying? Perhaps that is where revelation and wisdom is coming from. Perhaps it isn’t the church being completely against LGBT relationships, but wants it so slow down from over compensating or swinging too far the wrong way? And by reining things in, it makes them look like they are against it…when what they are trying to say is “We don’t know about this all yet, so we need to protect our rights to figure it out while we wait for revelation on it.” Perhaps they just go slower than society, and want the freedom to go slow. Even if eventually, they will see there are little to no reasons to be afraid these changes will have any impact on the human family, children, or God’s plan.
Is that possible?
It seemed to happen with ban on the priesthood. Too slow…far too long…and denounced all speculative teachings that surrounded it.
Quote:Hawrkgrrrl wrote: The church isn’t afraid of weakness, but of alternate success. Gay families coming to church is something they find terrifying because they don’t know what to do with gay people in the narrative on the family. And yet gay people continue to be born into Mormon families. I’m with OON that those are the children who are absolutely not being protected by this policy. Those and the straight children who don’t believe in bullying or treating gay people with disdain. Millenials are leaving the church in droves, and this is the exact sort of thing that drives a wedge for them.
I agree. The whole plan of happiness and the very idea that anyone not doing exactly what the church teaches as doctrine cannot be happy has a lot to do with this policy. Those of us who live outside the Corridor need only look around us to see that there are plenty of happy (and, yes, joyful) people who are members of other churches or no church at all. We do not have a monopoly on happiness. I believe the church is afraid that the general membership may recognize that and that the sinful gays can still find happiness in their relationships, marriage, and families. The thing that makes Mormon gays unhappy is how they are treated by the church.
Quote:DevilsAdvocate wrote: I also find it interesting that same-sex marriage was already legal in other countries and states for years but it was only after it became legal in Utah that this new policy was implemented. Personally I think the main factor was simply that Church leaders didn’t like to see increasing acceptance of homosexuality by Church members and they thought that children raised in this environment as well other Church members that know homosexuals personally would be more likely to sympathize with them so they wanted to do even more to discourage them from associating with the Church than they already did to essentially try to protect the supposed purity of the traditional hard-line LDS doctrines and Church members’ belief in these doctrines.
I find this interesting as well, but it’s not the only issue they never became concerned about until it hit Utah. It bugs me, actually, because we are a world church, not a Utah church. I agree they are afraid of the acceptance of gays – and most of us know some, and most know of a gay person that grew up in our own ward. And it’s not just Millennials.
Roy wrote:I want to break our own rules when we might do so for the sake of compassion and mercy. I want policies that are flexible enough to take individual circumstances into account. I want people to matter more than policy.
Roy, I’ve been thinking about this a lot since you wrote it. I think this embodies exactly what I hope for. Thanks for stating it so clearly.Heber13 wrote:DA: It sounds like you are saying the church is trying to draw a line in the sand to rein in the changes that are happening, moreso than actual motivation of lawsuits. Is that what you are saying?…Perhaps that is where revelation and wisdom is coming from.
Perhaps it isn’t the church being completely against LGBT relationships, but wants it so slow down from over compensating or swinging too far the wrong way? And by reining things in, it makes them look like they are against it…when what they are trying to say is “We don’t know about this all yet, so we need to protect our rightsto figure it out while we wait for revelation on it.” Perhaps they just go slower than society, and want the freedom to go slow. Even if eventually, they will see there are little to no reasons to be afraid these changes will have any impact on the human family, children, or God’s plan….It seemed to happen with ban on the priesthood. Too slow…far too long…and denounced all speculative teachings that surrounded it. I guess I would call it trying to quarantine the “problem” more than reining it in almost as if Church leaders think tolerance or acceptance of “sin” is an epidemic disease that is spreading even among active Church members. The way I see it most Church leaders absolutely are completely against LGBT relationships in a black-and-white way at this point but beyond that having heterosexual Church members ignore or disregard what the Church officially teaches about this and show some level of acceptance of the homosexual lifestyles of others is threatening to Church leaders as well because it basically means they are losing control of the narrative, beliefs, behavior, etc. of typical members and this trend is out of sync with what they think Mormonism is supposed to be about (strict obedience, prophets dictating what is true or right, keeping score on people’s supposed level of righteousness or wickedness, etc.).
DarkJedi wrote:Quote:Hawrkgrrrl wrote:
The church isn’t afraid of weakness, but of alternate success. Gay families coming to church is something they find terrifying because they don’t know what to do with gay people in the narrative on the family.And yet gay people continue to be born into Mormon families. I’m with OON that those are the children who are absolutely not being protected by this policy. Those and the straight children who don’t believe in bullying or treating gay people with disdain. Millenials are leaving the church in droves, and this is the exact sort of thing that drives a wedge for them. I agree. The whole plan of happiness and the very idea that anyone not doing exactly what the church teaches as doctrine cannot be happy has a lot to do with this policy.Those of us who live outside the Corridor need only look around us to see that there are plenty of happy (and, yes, joyful) people who are members of other churches or no church at all. We do not have a monopoly on happiness. I believe the church is afraid that the general membership may recognize that and that the sinful gays can still find happiness in their relationships, marriage, and families.The thing that makes Mormon gays unhappy is how they are treated by the church. DBMormon wrote:This policy encourages promiscuous homosexual sex over committed legal loving homosexual relationships.
The message the policy gives directly is that the worst possible legal consenting relationship dynamic you can be in is a homosexual marriage or long-term cohabitation. That this is the most highly punishable sin you can commit in these terms and is now labelled “apostasy,” triggering a required church disciplinary court. What message does this give to homosexual church members?Homosexual acts are, by contrast, labelled a “greivous sin.” Common sense says that even if homosexuality is against God’s law that we as a church would prefer to encourage legal loving committed relationships rather than an unsafe, promiscuous lifestyle, and yet this policy does the opposite by placing harsher penalties on commitment than on promiscuity. This is another interesting inconsistency about the policy that seems like it hasn’t gotten quite as much attention as some of the others so far. Basically it is treating committed long-term same-sex relationships as if they are worse and more of a serious problem than promiscuous gay sex. I think it shows that Church leaders feel especially threatened by the idea that homosexuals can actually have legitimate and respectable families just like everyone else and openly live this way instead of staying in the closet and feeling ashamed of who they are and afraid of what other people will think about it so Church leaders are basically making the explicit point that they don’t recognize these relationships as legitimate even if many people in the rest of the world are already starting to now more than ever.
Some have noticed this. It almost – no, it does – imply that the gay relationship is more of a problem than gay sex. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Plan of salvation key component is marriage between a man and a woman and have spirit children. That’s one of the cornerstones of Mormon doctrine. Gay marriage goes completely against that very cornerstone idea of the plan of salvation. You can’t have spirit child if same sex couples. (Maybe spirit baby adoption?) That’s why the church views same sex marriage as sin that’s worst than having sex before marriage and comparable to murder. I’m not saying agree with it, it’s just how the church views it.
Seeing the creation of spirits as completely non-sexual changes the dynamic radically. For me, it solves many issues and allows Mormon theology to be incredibly expansive. That is the core change I would like to see, but I’m not holding my breath – even though eternal sexual reproduction makes absolutely no sense, imo.
Old-Timer wrote:Seeing the creation of spirits as completely non-sexual changes the dynamic radically. For me, it solves many issues and allows Mormon theology to be incredibly expansive.
That is the core change I would like to see, but I’m not holding my breath – even though eternal sexual reproduction makes absolutely no sense, imo.
Totally agree. I believe in spirits, I don’t believe they’re created sexually because it makes no sense. Sex is purely temporal as far as I can tell.
Unless I’m wrong, I don’t think the gospel says otherwise. So I doubt the GA’s believe it to be non sexual in nature. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
mczee wrote:Plan of salvation key component is marriage between a man and a woman and have spirit children. That’s one of the cornerstones of Mormon doctrine. Gay marriage goes completely against that very cornerstone idea of the plan of salvation. You can’t have spirit child if same sex couples. (Maybe spirit baby adoption?) That’s why the church views same sex marriage as sin that’s worst than having sex before marriage and comparable to murder.
I’m not saying agree with it, it’s just how the church views it.
Do we really believe without question that a key component is marriage and children? Where is that among other doctrinal teachings as the key component in the plan?Here is my key components:
1) Christ’s Atonement (salvation, resurrection)
2) Agency and choosing to follow Christ
3) Faith to become like Him so we can return to live with God and be exalted.
I think…that some things become layers and layers of teachings and good ideas…until we sometimes lose sight of the truth.
I know people who don’t get married. I know people who can’t have children. I know people who are homosexual. These are not always situations that result from their own choosing. But the plan still works for them…and I don’t see marriage and having kids as part of their earthly existence.
I can see that marrige and children and the LDS family focus coming out of the drive to go to the Temple and be endowed. Then we teach and focus more on temples as everyone’s goal. Then we hammer it into the heads of youth as they grow up….
…and I can see how that focus, while good and well-intentioned…misses the mark of the real plan of salvation for everyone and everyone’s circumstances.
And because of that, we have tensions today. If it was all truth and clear…there wouldn’t be tension. But as we learn more, we may realize that past emphasis on something like “marriage and having children” is PART of the plan, but perhaps misunderstood if we think it is THE KEY component of the plan.
I’m not saying how the gospel truly is. I’m saying how GA act like it is. Their actions are very telling what they think key is. I’m with you but they sure are not. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Quote:Plan of salvation key component is marriage between a man and a woman and have spirit children. That’s one of the cornerstones of Mormon doctrine. Gay marriage goes completely against that very cornerstone idea of the plan of salvation. You can’t have spirit child if same sex couples. (Maybe spirit baby adoption?) That’s why the church views same sex marriage as sin that’s worst than having sex before marriage and comparable to murder.
That’s a false equivalency because if so, the church would oppose marriages among the infertile or among older people who can no longer procreate. Plain and simple, this is a cultural relic from an era in which homosexuality was viewed as deviant behavior that was purely motivated by lust and promiscuity. The church lost the battle not when gay marriage became legal but when gay adoption became so pervasive. And it is. If they had been ahead of that curve, they would have been strongly encouraging hetero couples to adopt the “least desirable” cases (older kids and those with disabilities or a background of abuse). That’s where the gay community really stepped up. And God bless them for it.
The promise to the infertile is often, you will be able to have children after the resurrection. I imagine that extends to the older couples as well, once you get your perfected body – get busy and start having babies! It’s the hope of infertile, one day… Meanwhile the homosexual couple doesn’t even have that hope. They get their perfected bodies, and then what? That’s the main thrust (had to) of the argument against SSM. Some people can’t conceptualize an afterlife that isn’t being a baby factory. If something doesn’t lead to that one outcome it must be against god’s plan.
I’m not defending that argument but I hear it time and time again.
Old-Timer wrote:Seeing the creation of spirits as completely non-sexual changes the dynamic radically. For me, it solves many issues and allows Mormon theology to be incredibly expansive.
That is the core change I would like to see, but I’m not holding my breath – even though eternal sexual reproduction makes absolutely no sense, imo.
If no sexual expression exists in the next life, it would explain some of the
doctrinesI’ve struggled with. Sexuality, if seen as a completely earthly phenomena, would not be considered important in the next life; hence, to prepare for the next life, moving toward spirituality and celibacy would be at least an undercurrent, and at best, preached outright. I personally have felt it as a pretty strong undercurrent. And, I think its very sad.
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