LDS Church's options for gays
 

I know prefixing any question with "honest" immediately leads to suspicion, but I do have an honest question for active members who are critical of the church vis-a-vis homosexuals.

How would you like/expect to see the church adapt its doctrine and practices to accommodate gays?

I'm not talking about just about attitudes (i.e., "be less judgmental," "make them feel welcome," etc). I'm talking about full embrace of homosexuality as a personal characteristic, much like the 1978 full embrace of all races.

Do you want or expect to see:

- Full acceptance of monogamous homosexual relationships as chaste? I.e., any practicing, not just celibate, homosexual be able to serve in any position, be fully temple worthy, etc. No church discipline of any kind.
- Solemnization of homosexual sealings, both spouse and children?
- Incorporation of homosexual families into regular church teachings, including periodicals, lesson curricula, general conference talks, etc?

Do you expect this will someday happen, and to what degree? How will the church comport it with earlier teachings and apparently contradictory scriptural passages?

I'm being totally serious here. I personally see this as a radical departure requiring abandonment of fundamental gospel principles far in excess of what happened in 1978. But I know some of you disagree.

So how do you see this taking place?

I'm not really in the group you directed this at but here are my two thoughts:

1. You are right. I see absolutely no way to reconcile current doctrine to homosexual relationships being chaste. And I have given this quite a bit of thought. There is no honest interpretation of current doctrine that allows this to be for a member of the church. With that said, I think we doctrinally and practically don't really know what to do with gays as a church. It is my hope that there is additional revelation coming on this point. I don't know what it would look like, but with God nothing is impossible.

2. With the above in mind, I think all we really can talk about is how as Christians we treat gay people. I don't think we can condone gay relationships and gay marriages, but I guess I hope that we can come to view them the way that we view our friends who drink or smoke. That is, we don't approve of their behavior, we teach that we think it is wrong but we also don't treat them as though they are the emmissaries of the adversary. I don't believe we can keep them from having what they want for much longer, so I hope that we will shift our efforts to gentle persuasion, all the while upholding our standards. It is a unique issue. I earnestly hope there is something more to come on this. It is hard to accept that so many are simply condemned to be celibate and childless in the eyes of the Lord. But as your question suggests, there is no current way out.

I'm probably more in the group that you're addressing, but I don't have to much to add to UD's response. No, I don't see them changing the doctrine, although I guess I can't say that for sure. I think it's an interesting question--one that I posed a while ago on here, but was sort of ignored. I know gay people in the Church who feel that the Church "will come around" on this one and if I were gay, I can't see myself staying in the Church unless I felt like this.

My criticisms of the Church:
1) I think disapproval of homosexual behavior is a very different thing from banning gay marriage. This is a secular issue that should be addressed through secular means, IMO. My wife disagrees, and I completely see that side of things; it's just my opinion.
2) Ignorant statements about homosexuality being a choice, gays being perverts. To their credit, the leadership of the church has taken huge strides in this, but I don't see the same level of tolerance among their members. There is a lot of homophobia among our members. Granted, this exists among non-members as well, but 1) our standard should be higher and 2) many (not all) members misinterpreted (wrongly) the Prop 8 fight as a tacit endorsement of homophobia.

I'm not leaving the Church over it, nor am I very public about these criticisms. I'm glad it's not my job to run the Church, they're accountable for how they do it, and it's not really my duty to judge. These are just my privately-held opinions.

Very good questions, Tex. This is an issue that cannot be resolved easily in the context of the Church's strict requirements for its members' personal conduct and beliefs. It is definitely much more problematic from a doctrinal standpoint than the African American priesthood issue. Other churches have it much simpler because they don't require any litmus tests as far as conduct or beliefs in order to participate.

I'm not sure what would be wrong with letting gay people attend Church and have callings if they choose. I guess the objection from orthodox LDS would be that they are having sex outside of marriage and that isn't allowed.

So it turns out that we need gay marriage to help the Church hold gays to the same standard it holds straights regarding sexual conduct. Since we all know the Church's position on that issue, I don't see significant change for gays in the Church coming anytime soon.

Anybody find it interesting that the Church basically says to gays: "We're treating you just like the straight people. No sex outside of marriage." But then the Church says, "No gay marriage allowed." That's pretty funny if you ask me.

So until the Lord inspires our leaders to accept gay marriage in the Church, they will have to wait......

I can't wait for the new proclamation........God ordains any kind of marriage. Welcome aboard. Two men. Two women. One man. Multiple women. One woman, multiple men.

I guess we'll also require God to retract the first commandment he gave Adam and Eve.

It will be an interesting time.

BTW.........I think most of the church considers the gay lifestyle a perversion and unnatural, not the individual. Not sure how you separate that though.

You do know that the Church previously endorsed "One man with multiple women" (polygamy) and "one woman with multiple men" (polyandry), right?

:confused:

I have many times asked myself the same honest question. Namely, if I am uncomfortable with the status quo, then what alternatives are there -- and would I be comfortable with any of them?

However, in understanding my answer, it's important to understand why I'm uncomforable with the status quo (you may object to any of the following bullet-points, but I'm answering an honest question by giving my honest feelings as background. thereforce, I'm not willing to debate these bullet-points and i expect the honest question-er (or any one else who jumps on, to use these as starting points to understand the ultimate answer):
-growing up in the church, i was taught that no one was born gay -- that any homosexual feelings were sinful perversions. generally, i took this to the church's official position or apparently official position.
-when I was faced with nature v. nurture, I felt like, as a member of the church, I was doctrinally constrained to oppose the "nature" point of view.
-until college, I didn't really think much about the issue
-in college -- first at byu -- i had LDS professors and fellow students who believed that homosexuality at least partly, maybe wholly, natural. that is, some people are simply born that way. faced with scientific evidence, I let go of my dogmatic anti "nature" POV feelings, and decided that either (a) there were a combination of factors (some "nature", some "nurture" but in the end, few or none the product of conscious sin that would produce "same sex attraction" - as the Church began to call it)
-later, at other universities and in the work force, I was exposed to much more scientific debtate and evidence on the origins of homosexuality, the weight of which have pushed be to generaly accepting (a) a view of sexuality as a more complicated than an internal switch set to either gay or straight (a continuum is one useful illustration, albeit simplistic) and (b) the view that for some people, same sex attraction is their natural and incontrovertible mode.
-over this time, the church's counseling approach (both for bishops and LDS sponsored / "approved" counselling groups, e.g. LDS Social Services, Evergreen, etc) has evolved. No, this is not in the standard works. But it is very significant that Church leaders have formally recognized (as reflected in recent conference talks and interviews) that it (a) individuals experience such urges naturally and through no fault of their own, that (b) many are unlikely to ever change and, accordingly, we should not encourage gay men or women to marry members of the opposite sex (as church leaders were formerly counseled to do) and even that (c) we do not know why people have this experience or how best to deal with it
-as to the last point, even apostles have recently giving interviews claiming they do not know why people are born this way and that (a) they should do the best they can to live good lives (by not indulging the feelings) and that (b) other members should be understanding and welcoming.

more bullets:
-In short, the explanation and rhetoric that I've heard at church as well as the church approach to 'helping' gay men and women, has, over my lifetime shifted from:
--there's no such thing as 'gay' / it's unnatural and sinful to have such thoughts/feelings to
--there is such a thing / for most it can't be changed / "my heart goes out" or "I can't imagine how hard that must be" / hate the sin love the person afflicted with the often natural disorder

last bullet:
--the obvious problem here is that we have a very neatly structured "God's plan for his children" -- and, even by admission of apostles -- we're not sure where homosexuality fits into it. We no longer say "get married" or "have kids" -- so gay people are already in a nether-space outside of the usual plan.

so . . . what do I want? my honest answer:

I'd like some official statement with the imprimatur of "thus saith the Lord" or "Revelation" that either says, in effect: (1) "GAY is BAD/UNNATURAL/EVIL and therefore it's okay that practicing homosexuals out of God's Plan and the Church and oppose their political emancipation/equality" OR (2) "[God created Gay people too, they are different and that's okay, and their role in his plan is: ______________], and [the following policies/practices must be amended in the following ways . . .]"

If the answer is (1), then I will have to humble myself, pray my little heart out and seek confirmation that my leaders are inspired of God -- as we are taught that we may do*. If the answer is (2), then I will do the same.

*and i will admit, i am probably not humble enough to want to accept this sort of revelation -- on the other hand, our leaders have backed completely away from calling gay people evil, so i guess thankfully, my feelings are consistent with theirs, in that way.

For now, though, I'm not looking to misinterpretations of Sodom and Gomorrah, or Paul, or the non-specific "God's plan" according to Sunday School teachers, etc. We have received revelations on many things -- including trivial things -- if all light, truth and knowledge of the world has persuaded our leaders that some people have SSA and can't help it to the point that we don't want them to pursue temple marriage, kids, etc. -- then i'm not going to merely lean on the same sort of "folk lore" explanations that supported blacks and the Priesthood despite all evidence & argument to the contrary.

go ahead and attack me now for wanting a revelation. or tell me that we have it in "the proclamation on the family" if you must. heck, call me inactive/apostate/unbelieving. but your honest question got an honest answer.

Thanks everyone for thoughtful responses. I wish some of the more vocal opponents of Prop 8 would've weighed in as well. It's very easy to criticize and predict change, but it's much harder to quantify exactly what that change will be or what it may look like.

One quick response to you Cardiac: I think you're highlighting the reason why the marriage definition fights have been happening. The church is not saying "No gay marriage allowed" -- they're saying there is no such thing.

I have thoughts on this, but my lack of response to you has more to do with finding you to be annoying and disingenuous.

If someone else had asked, I likely would have answered.

my guess is that other vocal No proponents felt the same way and chose to not entertain your nonsense.

And that is ironic because this is the one time you have actually shown to be real and seem to be asking a serious question.

oh, well.