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SamBee wrote:
True, we can’t tolerate everything. Even few militant gays tolerate NAMBLA. This is the downside of so called liberalism – we can’t tolerate violence against women or female circumcision just because another culture practises it.
That does not make us completely intolerant. Tolerance, too, has its limits. However, I don’t jive with Boyd’s subtext, which is probably about sex, gays or his other tropes.
i had to look up what NAMBLA was… ok – NO-ONE is tolerant of NAMBLA, neither gay nor straight. THat’s just out there.Taken on face value, BKP’s talk is not the worst bigotry he’s promulgated — most of it was rather touching. But here is the deal: because so much is said in GC, so many claims are laid out, and the attitude of saints is such that whenever something is said in GC they can use to support their own bigotry, what BKP said can and will be (already has been) used as a justification.
I think the ordeal of general conference and all the hyped up commentary of what is meant by what tires me in the extreme. I don’t feel rejuvenated by the word at this point — only tired and weary…of being a member. I had more fun today discussing the trade-craft of Westmalle trappist monks in belgium, who serve the lord in humility by crafting some of the most amazing mild drinks made of barley.
Quote:I think the ordeal of general conference and all the hyped up commentary of what is meant by what tires me in the extreme. I don’t feel rejuvenated by the word at this point.
I feel rejuvenated by “the Word”, but I don’t feel rejuvenated by lots of “the words” – and especially not by many of “the words” about “the Word” and “the words”. In other words, most of the commentary that is focused on arguing about what was said does nothing for me – but much of what actually was said often does.
Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg gave a message of support to NAMBLA once, and even joined it and presumably they have some supporters. Mostly though, they act as a boogeyman for homophobes… and as one website says wrily, their membership probably mainly consists of policemen… NAMBLA has even featured on South Park. Like Mormonism.
I agree with you that BKP’s comments could be used to justify stupidity. That’s the tragedy of it. Pres Monson’s words will be ignored by these people.
President U. said I can believe any way that feels right and every one needs to get on board with that. So just do it. 😆 Shawn wrote:I don’t see a contradiction with what these two said. President Monson said be tolerant and kind. President Packer would agree, but adds that we can’t take tolerance to an extreme. I do not tolerate views of NAMBLA, for example.
I do not want this to get into a discussion of NAMBLA – but I would argue that even the groups that I disagree with the most should be afforded decency and civility. I believe that the U.S. tries to live by this balance of allowing groups that it finds objectionable as long as they do not promote hate speech, incite violence etc. If such a group wants to lobby to get the law changed – I do not believe it to be overly tolerant to allow them to do so.
From what I understand there is a movement to legalize gay marriage. If you don’t like it, vote against it. If you don’t like BKP’s comments, you can vote against those too but that doesn’t mean that he will be forced to stop making them. Guess we better learn to tolerate them. This tolerance stuff can be hard work and isn’t absolute but then again – hardly anything ever is!
I should have thought of a less despicable example. Sorry, everyone. I think it’s a good example, Shawn because just about everyone can agree on it. (Apparently they have had over 1000 members, who’d have thunk it) I think President Packer’s comments bring up a juxtaposition I haven’t fully reconciled in my own mind. On the one hand are my co-workers, former school classmates and friends who are homosexuals or lesbians — I happen to think that they deserve to be able to obtain the same tax, estate, welfare and other benefits as hetero commited couples. On the counter balance to that is my belief in the teaching of the Church that homosexual acts are sinful. While it may be quite easy for some to reconcile and draw lines in their mind between accepting and advocating for their gay friends on one hand and declining to accept and advocate for homsexual conduct on the other hand, it is not an easy path to navigate for me. I haven’t found a clear guide or rule for myself on how to love, accept, tolerate, work with, respect and value my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters while at the same time maintaining my belief that their sexual conduct is not in accordance with God’s law. I’m trying damn hard to give the benefit of the doubt to people over dogma, and I’m hoping that’s the right approach. In that context, I don’t take President Packer’s admonition as too extreme. And while he may not have meant it in the same context I just described, that’s how I’m applying it and so that’s what really matters to me.
At the most fundamental level, I would be fine with many members thinking homosexual sex is a sin but, regardless, following Presidents Monson and Uchtdorf in their admonition to love and accept gay and lesbian people. I disagree with all kinds of people about all kinds of things, but they still are my friends whom I love and respect.
I suspect Caiaphas would have said something similar about the rabble Jesus was “tolerating.” No? The borders we draw around our Christianity are to keep out those who are a threat to the organization. Jesus’ publicans and sinners were a threat to Judaism because they didn’t follow all the little rules. But Jesus didn’t turn them away. He did want people to repent but not because he was intolerant of their human mistakes. Matthew 23 provides the most explicit, complete indictment Jesus made of the Scribes and Pharisees, who distorted the Law in order to abuse those who were vulnerable. The Scribes were the self-appointed “Interpreters of scripture”, and the Pharisees were those of a rabbinical/talmudic tradition whose objective was to build a fence around the law — making it impossible for people to transgress: forced obedience, as it were. The question fundamentally comes into play as to whether certain acts are inherently “sin”. As LDS, we have constructed our own fence around the law; whereas the “Law of Chastity” has an explicit definition in the temple defined around sexual intercourse (until 1990, when the wording was changed to sexual relations), the prevailing interpretation of the LoC in daily church using often involves much more than the actual law. Justification for this fence often comes from Alma to Corianton in Alma 39: “Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?”
Corianton’s behavior was that of a libertine: he was pursuing pleasures with the harlot Isabel, and all this while he was under covenant for being a missionary. His actions were harmful to the church, but more to the point, he was objectifying the sexual relationship.
Scroll forward to Paul’s discussion of ‘reprobates’, who are pursuing objectified sexual relationships — one has to realize that the contempt God has for objectified sexuality is the abuse it involves of those objectified: prostitutes (pornai, in greek), both men and women, or more appropriately said, boys and girls, used as toys for reprobate adults, is indeed contemptable behavior. What’s most important about the concept embodied in the word “pornai” is the “Selling it” concept — the boy or girl prostitute is sold for a price to the adult male clientele. The abuse involved in such prostitution, whether male or female, is contemptable.
Likewise, ‘priestcraft’ — the sale of salvation, or more particularly, the selling of religion as a means to subjugate the masses, as Constantine did with the Nicene Council, and perhaps as we see today in controlling behavior by churches, including the LDS church — is contemptible behavior according to scripture.
When we look at the Great Commandments: to love god and to love neighbor, then the fundamental violation involved in both libertine sexuality as well as priestcraft is the objectification and sale of the sacred and vulnerable to satisfy the personal whims of the profane and powerful.
Where the issue become confused is where the issue of sexual morality is turned around by religious abusers into a type of abuse in and of itself: For religious leaders to turn natural sexuality into an unnatural act — forbidding masturbation, or even, in the case of some sects, total, life-long abstinence from sexuality — is religious abuse. It turns the concept of loving god and neighbor into self-hatred and loathing of others so as to not be ‘tempted’ by sexuality.
There is a world of difference between libertine sexuality and committed, loving relations. When LDS leaders talk of a universal standard of morality, they claim that only loving, committed relations are to be “one man and one woman” — yet we know, with surity, that such construct is relatively modern. In ancient israel, adultery was explicitly defined as a married woman having sex with someone not her husband. A man, married or not, having sex with an unmarried woman not his wife was not considered ‘Adultery’ under the Torah code. As well, when a man and a woman became ‘betrothed’ — that is, “engaged”, then having sex became the consummating act that converted the relationship from ‘betrothed’ to ‘married’ — they didn’t need a rabbi to declare that they were ‘legally and lawfully wedded’ — they were married by the act — and the consequences of the act were defined in law: deflowering a virgin and then abandoning her required payment to the father of the girl, etc.
The point in pointing out this history is that the so-called “Lords standard of morality” is not what our leaders are saying it is: the Lord’s standard is simply Love. Objectified sex is not love, and neither is the vilification of love — quite obviously.
My suggestion in this long post is that tolerance of loving relationships — whether traditional or otherwise — is in harmony with the Great Commandments — and specifically, gays and lesbians involved in “committed, loving relationships” are far more in harmony with the Great Commandments than our villification of gays and lesbians who desire such.
The church is on the wrong side on this issue, and it’s time for us to stand on the Lord’s side: When we understand Jesus’ message in Matthew 23, and his declaration of the Great Commandments, then we must stand for love and not villification and abuse. Sure, we should stand for never using sex, either within or outside of marriage, in a way that abuses others. But more importantly, we should never use the repression of sexual desire as a way to abuse children or adults who are vulnerable. And for those who comply with the Great Commandments desire to enter into a committed, loving relationship, then it is our moral obligation to not just tolerate them, but to embrace them in love and support them fully.
Unfortunately, the Pharisees took over Judaism and made it ever more pedantic and legalistic. If you think we have fences, Jews have worse, especially the ultraorthodox, who have laws the ancient Hebrews had never heard of. SamBee wrote:Unfortunately, the Pharisees took over Judaism and made it ever more pedantic and legalistic. If you think we have fences, Jews have worse, especially the ultraorthodox, who have laws the ancient Hebrews had never heard of.
yes, of course. When you listen to talks like that of Elder Bednar’s, where do you think the LDS Church is trending?We’ve got a long way to catch up to the Jews. Word of Wisdom has nothing on their overcomplex dietary laws. For example, it says in the OT that you should not cook a calf in its mother’s milk.
Now the Jews has fenced this as making cheese burgers unkosher. Fair enough…
They’ve ring fenced that so you can’t eat lamb with cow’s milk butter, even though they are different species.
But they have also fenced it around that as well, so you can’t have a milkshake with your roast chicken, even though chickens don’t produce milk.
You can’t eat dairy and meat at the same meal due to overinterpretation (milk before meat?), and have to have separate cooking surfaces, preparation areas and fridges for them.
(And the animals have to be slaughtered in the right way, and the food making premises inspected and approved by rabbis. Trust me, we’re nowhere near this stage yet. )
wayfarer wrote:The church is on the wrong side on this issue, and it’s time for us to stand on the Lord’s side: When we understand Jesus’ message in Matthew 23, and his declaration of the Great Commandments, then we must stand for love and not villification and abuse. Sure, we should stand for never using sex, either within or outside of marriage, in a way that abuses others. But more importantly, we should never use the repression of sexual desire as a way to abuse children or adults who are vulnerable. And for those who comply with the Great Commandments desire to enter into a committed, loving relationship, then it is our moral obligation to not just tolerate them, but to embrace them in love and support them fully.
I don’t believe we know where the Lord stands on this.EDIT: It’s true that the Lord stands for love, but I don’t see the grounds for stating definitively that the Lord’s side is opposite the church’s.
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