Yesterday, the LDS Church issued a lengthy press release clarifying its positions on marriage and its motivation for vigorously supporting Prop 8. I’m going to try to dissect this later. (via Kaimi of BCC)
John Dehlin of Mormon Stories has a new project called Understanding LDS Homosexuality, in which he uses “personal stories and video to build understanding about homosexuality within the LDS Church.”
In this segment, the father of Curtis Rognan (a gay LDS teen who committed suicide) talks about his response to his son’s suicide, and imagines how Christ would have treated his son:
[wp_youtube]sgzC_R9kkHI[/wp_youtube]
20 responses so far ↓
1 catBonny // Aug 14, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Why is it that we have such a problem loving people because we share in humanity together? I think one of my biggest issues with my experiences in organized religion was how I felt like it made me look like people like it was ‘us’ and ‘them’.
The idea of Christ that I hold onto (or tried to hold onto) is the Christ that unconditionally loves the least of these. That’s the only kind of Christ I’d be able to believe in or that I would choose to believe in anyway.
2 xJane // Aug 14, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I like the framing of being gay and in a restrictive religion as being captive. I think it’s incredibly insightful and may be expandable to other people in restrictive religions.
3 Kathy Quick // Aug 15, 2008 at 3:55 am
This tells me what I need to know. Okay, maybe I should give this more thought, but really, who can swallow this (from the LDS press release):
“The Church has a single, undeviating standard of sexual morality: intimate relations are proper only between a husband and a wife united in the bonds of matrimony. The Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage neither constitutes nor condones any kind of hostility towards homosexual men and women. Protecting marriage between a man and a woman does not affect Church members’ Christian obligations of love, kindness and humanity toward all people.”
WHAT??? How does this position neither “constitute” nor “condone” hostility towards gay, lesbian, and non-het folk? This is not fulfilling an “obligation of love, kindness, and humanity towards all people.” On the contrary, it is inhumane.
I don’t have a lot of ideas about how to combat this right now, but your blog has gotten my attention. I will be thinking a lot about this and pouring my energies into seeing it defeated. Thanks for the prompt.
4 JohnW // Aug 15, 2008 at 2:39 pm
That’s not even true. The LDS standard of sexual morality has deviated quite a bit.
5 wren // Aug 15, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Every lds person I know (who supports prop
would say the church does love gay people and they love gay people. They would say they still support the prop because they love the sinner and hate the sin. They would say that is what Jesus did, too.
The challenge to me is how to change people’s perception of being gay as being a sin.
Fundamentally, categorizing people in order to elevate some and negate others is the foundation of religion.
6 wren // Aug 15, 2008 at 4:15 pm
woops, didn’t mean to create an emoticon. That’s the number 8 and a closed parenthese.
7 Ken // Aug 15, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Wren Wrote:
“Every lds person I know (who supports prop would say the church does love gay people and they love gay people. They would say they still support the prop because they love the sinner and hate the sin.”
But Prop 8 says nothing and does nothing about the “sin.” That is, gay people can have as much homosexual sex — or more— even if Prop 8 were to pass. If they are REALLY concerned about the “sin,” why not be straightforward and address that legislatively?
8 Antonio // Aug 17, 2008 at 12:41 am
Have you seen Orson Scott Card’s latest bit of insanity on the issue? In a recent op-ed piece in the Mormon Times he calls for the overthrow of any government that would legalize gay marriage:
“How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.”
Here is a good op-ed on Card’s op-ed http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/11/orson-scott-card-wants-you-to-rise-up-against-the-government-but-in-the-worst-way-possible/
Wonders what to do with my autographed copy of Ender’s Game….
9 John // Aug 17, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Kathy, thank you for highlighting the statement’s internal inconsistency. I would love to brainstorm actions and ways of networking with you as well.
10 John // Aug 17, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Antonio, I have the deepest respect for Card’s early writing, but just when I thought he had already gone off the political deep end…wow.
I think he’s doing a fine job of marginalizing himself and pulling an unintentional Colbert-esque parody of the unhinged bigotry and fear behind the religious right’s attempts to suppress gay marriage rights.
11 JohnW // Aug 17, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Anyone taken a look at the references that the press release uses to support their positions? I loved #17 in particular.
12 Craig // Aug 17, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Yeah, the refrences were *amazing*. Scriptures, Church leaders, and studies that are totally ridiculed in the academic community.
I really am wondering whom this is supposed to be directed to. The people who will accept this drivel don’t need convincing anyways, and the rest of us are generally smart enough to see the absolute lack of sense or logic this document contains.
It’s as if they are trying to convince the world of the “evils” of gay marriage by chucking buckets full of red herrings all over us until we give up under the unending onslaught of nonsense, and surrender.
13 xJane // Aug 19, 2008 at 6:44 am
Card supports Mormon terrorists!
“Love the sinner, hate the sin” has always struck me as being remarkably hypocritical. It’s along the lines of “don’t ask, don’t tell”: sure they still “love” the sinner, but it manifests as telling the sinner at every occasion that they’re going to burn in hell for all eternity. Real loving. Having been on the sinner’s end of this, it really just makes me want to do violence. But then, you have to still love me after I do it! Drives me nuts.
14 wren // Aug 23, 2008 at 6:59 pm
The AP picks up on the buzz.
Mormon supporters of gay unions take to cyberspace
Check out this excerpt from the tail end:
“Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the 13 million-member Salt Lake City-based church, said church leaders are satisfied that a majority of members understand the teachings that surround the gay marriage issue and overwhelmingly support Proposition 8.
“The Church, of course, recognizes and accepts that some among its very large membership may view the issue differently,” Farah said in a statement.”Church leaders teach important principles and invite our members to govern their lives by those principles. We do not desire to compel them, nor can we do so.”
But members who engage in clear opposition to church doctrine may cause local leaders to consider church disciplinary action, Farah said. ”
Nice not so subtle threat there…
15 synnove // Aug 24, 2008 at 10:29 am
It is sad for those that have these different feelengs and must live alone if thye want to uphold their membership, however, I cannot see that the church could possibly do anything else. The marriage between man and woman is imbedded in all scripture as the foundation of a society and of course eespecially as through this
a continuation of man is secures as well. But also because man and woman are different and a union becomes more complete and covers a wider range of interesting differences. I think it must be hard and of course one loves the person for who they are. Still many are single throughout their lives in any case and life has still a lot to offer. You cannot blame a church for having clear views on an issue though.
16 Elaine // Aug 24, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Great. You can disagree unless you happen to actually express that disagreement.
You know, I reject all the crap that people keep coming up with that, sure, we have free speech in this country, but that if you speak your mind, you’d better be prepared to suffer the consequences. The whole point of the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment is that individuals be free to express their opinions without having to suffer any “consequences” such as losing jobs or being physically attacked or being kicked out of their church.
What good is the First Amendment if you can get in trouble for exercising the rights guaranteed there?
And, yes, I know that technically the First Amendment only applies to the government. Those who justify infringement of those rights by private institutions such as businesses and churches on that basis are not, in my opinion, upholding the spirit of the law.
17 Craig // Aug 25, 2008 at 8:07 am
While I dispute the the claim that marriage between a man and a woman is “imbedded in scripture as the foundation of society”, even if I were to assume that, that doesn’t mean that any church/religion has the right to force that view on the rest of society, and more than it would be ok for Jehovah’s Witnesses to force their prohibition on blood transfusion on anyone else.
But also because man and woman are different and a union becomes more complete and covers a wider range of interesting differences.
What that means, I won’t even pretend to understand. I’ll admit, all differences are “interesting”, but I don’t see (if indeed this is what you’re saying) how it makes sense to say that just because men and women have different “parts”, that automatically means they are better suited to be in relationships than two men or two women are.
18 xJane // Aug 25, 2008 at 10:03 am
Craig: this is an argument I’m surprised I don’t see more often. That one religion (or a few religions) finds that something is the case does not qualify it to be made law. We can find so many religions that hold for certain prohibitions that most people would never want imposed.
Why is it so compelling? Why do people not see through this more often? There is a Jewish prohibition on pork, a Muslim prohibition on credit cards, a Hindu prohibition on beef, and so on.
I think of this most often in relation to “conscience clauses” for medical professionals. One does not work at Subway and refuse to serve people a roast beef sandwich. Or if one does, one would expect to be sanctioned.
19 wren // Aug 25, 2008 at 11:03 am
xJane. ARG! Off topic one of my Facebook contacts linked to an article on Fertility clinics turning away lesbian couples who had a sperm donor. My friend did not feel it was discrimination. I said I hoped their concern for the children extended beyond a checkbox next to “married” on the forms. I know first-hand that animal rescues places and dog breeders often visit the prospecitive adoptive family’s homes . I also know first-hand as well that fertility clinics don’t go that far to check out the families and homes of prospective parents of humans.
It’s funny (sad funny) how selective people are about which morals they apply and to what extent.
20 xJane // Aug 25, 2008 at 8:19 pm
It is often sadly true that people will go further out of their way to save a poor/starving/homeless animal than a poor/starving/homeless person.
Leave a Comment