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I got home late last night and slept in today, so I missed the first session. My wife and kids saw some of the last talks (on the lds.org online broadcast), and they kept the computer on after the session for a while to hear the between-session stuff. Apparently, there were some messages that looked like classic Public Service Announcements, and one of them was focused on a simple message:
Quote:“Remember, we all are children of God – gay, lesbian or straight.”
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: Yes, we have been watching the sessions on the church Youtube channel via Chromecast on the TV and just left it on. The messages, and that one in particular, were nice. Good start! I just wish someone would say it that clearly from the pulpit. I also wish the phrase “people don’t choose to be gay” would find its way from the obscure church website to the pages of the conference report. I’ve a friend who still maintains that the brethren don’t really believe that and that the website is purely an outward facing PR exercise. Quote:“Remember, we all are children of God – gay, lesbian or straight.”
Talk is cheap. It would be very simple for the brethren to offer words of comfort from the podium, but they won’t do it. Conference after conference, I wait for some tidbit of solace, some crumb from the feast–but it doesn’t come.
mackay11 wrote:I just wish someone would say it that clearly from the pulpit. I also wish the phrase “people don’t choose to be gay” would find its way from the obscure church website to the pages of the conference report. I’ve a friend who still maintains that the brethren don’t really believe that and that the website is purely an outward facing PR exercise.
I think you’re right, and I have no reason to believe otherwise.
Sorry, guys. I realize that was kind of negative. I am just so disappointed with the retrenchment on gay issues in conference. I was hoping for the podium rhetoric to match the PR. It hasn’t, yet. turinturambar wrote:Sorry, guys. I realize that was kind of negative. I am just so disappointed with the retrenchment on gay issues in conference. I was hoping for the podium rhetoric to match the PR. It hasn’t, yet.
Me too, turinturambar. Good to hear from you again, and I hope you are doing well, BTW. The one thing we can hope is that there will be a spiraling… a little forward… a little back… a little more forward. I would like to see bigger strides, but it does appear that overall there is progress. Not consistent, not as much as I would like, but some, nonetheless.My belief is that the majority of the FP and Q12 understand now that it’s not a choice. Even in Elder Andersen’s talk, which I found very discouraging, he talked about the courage of gay/lesbian people in meeting this severe trial. I believe they now see it as not a choice, are perplexed by why God would do this, but then just accept is as a trial that God has engineered for some people. That’s a wholly unsatisfying position to take, but I do believe that is where they are today. The good news is that that is actually progress. Ten years ago, where would have been zero acknowledgement that is it anything other than a self-imposed lifestyle. My hope is that some of them are asking themselves the harder questions of whether it makes sense to have as doctrine something that is impossible for some of God’s children.
We now have multiple apostles who have first-hand experience with openly gay people they love deeply. That won’t change; that only will accelerate.
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