Mormons morphing Boy Scouts into 'Girl Scouts'?
Stephen Stone, RenewAmerica President
As the gay agenda rolls forth unchecked in fulfillment of its published goals and tactics — dragging Western Civilization down more predictably than the Muslim Brotherhood is likely ever to do — rational Americans need to come to grips with one of the most damnable frauds in the world's history: the belief that there is such a thing as "being gay."
I vividly remember a college lecture I attended in the mid-sixties by the one-time head of the American Psychological Association, Hobart Mowrer, who plainly asserted there is a direct correlation between mental illness and sin. I was quite astonished at his boldness — as he advocated a minority view then still held among many of his peers: that God is real, that violation of His laws is the main source of guilt, and that failure to abandon inherently sinful behavior leads naturally to serious consequences, including mental illness.
Nearly fifty years later, the Western world has been deceived into accepting the false premise that one of the most ungodly sins in the Bible is no longer wrong, no longer sinful, and unattached to destructive consequences, not just for the individuals involved but for society as a whole.
Ironically, one of the chief sources of such self-delusion is Mowrer's organization, the American Psychological Association, with its now widely-accepted position that homosexuality is a normal, healthy lifestyle, and that gays have little choice but to yield to their same-sex attraction.
Where have all the sane behavioral scientists gone?
Mormon relativism
Now comes word that the influential Mormon church, with its progressively gay-friendly revisionism, is supporting the move to persuade the Boy Scouts of America to accept into its ranks young men (and hence the next generation of BSA leaders) who self-identify as homosexual, in open disregard for the BSA's century-old "Scout Oath," which is based in biblical morality. The largest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the U.S., the LDS church has reversed its long-held opposition to admitting gays in Scouting to reflect the church's own evolving posture in support of the gay agenda.
Recently, the church has called openly gay individuals to responsible positions in the church — persons also permitted to attend the church's temples, available only to the most "worthy" members. Church leaders say such callings are limited to non-practicing "chaste" gays — an oxymoron that reveals leaders' naïveté, since by any reasonable definition, a homosexual is someone engaged in the gay lifestyle, not someone who merely thinks about it, or long ago gave it up.*
The church also recently launched an internet outreach to Mormon gays titled "Love one another." The implicit message of the site is summed up by this headline from nbcnews.com: "New website from Mormon church: 'Sexuality is not a choice'"
A few years ago, the Mormon leadership prevailed upon the Salt Lake City Council to adopt an ordinance requiring employers to disregard sexual orientation in their hiring practices. The controversial ordinance passed with the church's blessing.
In a semi-annual "general conference" of the church three years ago, the president of its Quorum of the Twelve was forced, after intense lobbying by vocal gays, to edit the published version of his live remarks to accommodate the outcry from homosexuals. His sermon had declared that God would never make anyone gay. He was induced by the presiding leadership to omit his view from the "conference issue" of the church's Ensign magazine.
The reason for the church's turnabout? Increasing acceptance of the behavioral science community's general view that homosexuality is "inborn," and thus largely biological (even though there's no evidence of a "gay gene" — a fact conceded in 2009 by the APA).
At the heart of the church's evolving acceptance of gays is also the widespread increase of homosexual children and grandchildren among the church's membership. Whereas the Bible is clear in its condemnation of homosexuality as an insidious evil, the church has liberalized its posture toward the practice over the years "out of compassion" for families with gay adults and children — thinking such permissiveness is not only beneficial to serious transgressors of God's laws, but to society at large. Justifying this moral shift is the distinctive belief among Mormons that the LDS church is the only true church of God, and as such, is entitled to supersede the Bible with human wisdom in the guise of "modern revelation."
Put plainly, according to the evolving mores of Mormonism, God has changed His mind on homosexuality.
The script plays right into the hands of the clever, deliberate gay agenda for transforming Western society.
Blind leading the blind
The LDS church's migrating position on gays stems in large measure from the inordinate value Mormons place on formal education. Unusually authoritarian as a society, Mormonism is naturally inclined to rely on respected authorities in academia's behavioral sciences for guidance — despite the seeming contradiction between secular behaviorists and religious shepherds, a contradiction typically blurred in the Christian world in general, but all but invisible in Mormondom. Since the church's leaders are all lay officers appointed by other lay officers, it's not surprising that the church would rely on the prevailing winds in academia for "credible" assumptions and practices in nurturing their flock.
The lack of rigorous doctrinal preparation at all levels in the church — in disregard for the church's adopted canon (see here, here, and here) — yields a leadership only superficially adept at doctrine, and a culture prone to progressive schools of thought. Thus, just as the church is willing to spend large sums of sacred tithing money to teach atheistic evolution in its own universities, so the church has no problem accepting much of the orthodoxy of the behavioral sciences.
That includes the doctrinally-unsupported notion that homosexuals are "born that way."
The origin of gender
All this, ironically, is antithetical to LDS doctrine.
One of the most distinguishing features of Mormonism is the belief that all human beings were created spiritually before they were created physically. The LDS canon bases this teaching on two sections from the "Pearl of Great Price" of its voted-upon body of scriptures. The teaching is found in Moses 2:26-3:5 and Abraham 3:18-19, 22-28. A handful of biblical references are also cited to support this doctrine, such as Jeremiah 1:5: "[B]efore I formed thee in the belly I knew thee...."
No matter the merits of such doctrine to non-Mormons, this official teaching of the church disallows any notion that gays are "born" gay. The LDS doctrine of "pre-mortal" existence requires acceptance of the belief that all males and all females lived as such "before the world was," and that God placed male spirits in male bodies on earth when the time was right, and did the same for females, respectively.
Since there is no scriptural doctrine in the LDS canon that God is a prankster, or that He makes inadvertent mistakes, any suggestion that males occasionally end up in female bodies, and vice versa, is heretical — if not outright apostasy from the scriptural doctrines of the church.
Even worse, to deliberately redefine God's creation of man and woman to match the unscientific rationalizations of behavioral science is the height of profane insult, warranting God's condemnation if the scriptures are believable regarding human nature.
Smile, you're on candid camera
This doesn't mean God doesn't have a sense of humor. Throughout scripture, we see occasional ironies that suggest He is willing to let humans make fools of themselves in ways that are clearly humorous. In modern Mormonism, He is willing to let His "chosen leaders" (as Mormons consider them) do the same.
In an earlier piece in our series Mormonism under the Microscope, we noted the efforts of LDS leaders to hide the unflattering historical forgeries of Mark Hofmann through deliberate deception, believing the forgeries to be authentic and thus dangerous to impressionable minds.
More recently, the church's highest leaders officially published a "Proclamation on the Family" — a document revered by the membership as modern revelation — in which those professing to speak for God condemn homosexuals for exercising the "powers of procreation" outside God-given bounds.
At first glance, the Proclamation's premise that —
Persons of either sex can't "employ the sacred powers of procreation" with others of their own kind in any way, on any basis, by order of God-ordained reality. Members of the same sex can misuse their bodies and their sexuality — but they can't truly "exercise the powers of procreation." They're intrinsically impotent.
In LDS leaders' eagerness to sound profound before "the world," they overlooked this thoughtless error and published something irretrievably silly.
God doesn't say silly things, of course, but sometimes LDS leaders do — as in this case, where they proclaim it's wrong for gays to procreate. I caught the absurdity the first time I read the Proclamation when it was released in 1995.
No small error in a widely-heralded PR document written by lay leaders looked up to as virtual demigods by Mormon culture. Curiously, none of its signatories caught the irrational premise.
No doubt, when you arrogantly believe you can do no wrong — or worse, when you teach those you oversee that they are duty-bound to overlook your obvious errors (isn't there a children's tale about an emperor so predisposed?) — you feel no urgency to carefully edit what you boldly trumpet before the world.
Now that's ironic, and amusing.
Doctrinal error
But that's not the only blatant error in the Proclamation. The document contains a doctrinal statement that is nothing but Mormon folklore, with no basis in the LDS canon, yet professes to be orthodox truth. Since so much that goes on in the church is "extra-doctrinal," this categorical assertion of God's word was apparently not considered by the leadership to be problematic. Unfortunately, the entire document falls apart doctrinally when one of its main premises can easily be shown to have literally no support in the canon, implying that other elements of the document may similarly lack scriptural basis.
The statement at issue, near the top, says this:
The only place the term "divine nature" appears in the King James Bible (which Mormons prefer) is in 2 Pet. 1:2-4, which says,
It's simply contrary to the LDS canon (as well as the Bible) to assert that all human beings share a "divine nature." This alone makes the Proclamation unsound, especially since the false assertion is a basic premise at the beginning of the document.
Glaring contradiction
Further making the above foundational premises of the LDS "Proclamation on the Family" inadvertently problematic is the utter illogic of declaring that all "spirit sons and daughters of God" innately possess a "divine nature" when fully one-third of spirits in the pre-existence became devils who fell from heaven, according to the LDS canon, and are destined forever to abide with Satan in hell.
Beings with a divine nature can't reasonably be described as "devils." The terms are contradictory.
The basis for the LDS doctrine that one-third of God's spiritually-created beings in the "pre-mortal existence" became devils can be found in Revelation chapter 12, with its reference to the "great red dragon" and the "third part of the stars of heaven" that were "cast down by the "tail" of dragon, all of which represent Satan and his angels (see verses 3-4 and 7-9).
The basis further comes from D&C 29:36-38, which states,
That's the bad news, now the good news
We cite these man-made cultural traditions in Mormondom to underscore the authoritarian weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Mormonism. Were the scriptures — or in this case, the LDS canon — the basis for the church's beliefs and policies, rather than worldly opinions of church leaders, the church would not be in the business of capitulating to gay activists inside and outside the church.
So, in an important sense, the church's position on gays, or on the family, is at best unreliable. We can't depend on the church to show any real moral courage in the modern culture war. Repeatedly, the church has shown itself driven mainly by inordinate self-interest, pragmatically conceived and executed — above moral or eternal principle.
Nonetheless, it's worth noting that the above Proclamation on the Family would preclude the church from proceeding down the path it has been walking hand-in-hand with militant gay leaders and activists.
Despite its absurd assertions of doctrine, at odds with its canon, the church's Proclamation strongly condemns the notion that "gays are born gay" and have little or no hope of resisting same-sex attraction.
Right after the absurd notion that all persons have a "divine nature," cited above, we read,
God did not "mess up" and place a female spirit in a male body, or the reverse. Even the very thought that such self-evident truth might have loopholes, exceptions, or errors is patently evil and inconceivable, considering the divine source of all assigned gender.
The Proclamation ends (after admonishing all persons to fulfill their obligations to God and their families) by saying,
No doctrinally-informed, moral person could deny such obvious truth.
Slouching toward Gomorrah
So why the vacillation by the Mormon church in its "defense" of the family, as we see increasingly today, given such plainspoken (if somewhat skewed) wisdom from the church leadership? Why is the church becoming ever more actively an advocate for the gay movement in defiance of its own pronouncements and policies?
Simple: the church doesn't really believe its own pronouncements or policies, because these statements aren't anchored in the church's canon, including the Bible. There is thus little to keep the church from "slouching toward Gomorrah," as it follows the ungodly trends of the world — in consequence of its reliance on human authority above sole reliance on God and His word.
This destructive phenomenon pervades the church from top to bottom, and in all directions.
What we have here is self-defeating behavior by the world's most elaborate, arguably most controlling institution, and the results are predictable: the church has become a powerful influence for compromise, moderation, moral cowardice, and ultimately appeasement of all that is evil.
Alexander Pope, author of the insight below, where are you when we need you?
May 16, 2013
As the gay agenda rolls forth unchecked in fulfillment of its published goals and tactics — dragging Western Civilization down more predictably than the Muslim Brotherhood is likely ever to do — rational Americans need to come to grips with one of the most damnable frauds in the world's history: the belief that there is such a thing as "being gay."
I vividly remember a college lecture I attended in the mid-sixties by the one-time head of the American Psychological Association, Hobart Mowrer, who plainly asserted there is a direct correlation between mental illness and sin. I was quite astonished at his boldness — as he advocated a minority view then still held among many of his peers: that God is real, that violation of His laws is the main source of guilt, and that failure to abandon inherently sinful behavior leads naturally to serious consequences, including mental illness.Nearly fifty years later, the Western world has been deceived into accepting the false premise that one of the most ungodly sins in the Bible is no longer wrong, no longer sinful, and unattached to destructive consequences, not just for the individuals involved but for society as a whole.
Ironically, one of the chief sources of such self-delusion is Mowrer's organization, the American Psychological Association, with its now widely-accepted position that homosexuality is a normal, healthy lifestyle, and that gays have little choice but to yield to their same-sex attraction.
Where have all the sane behavioral scientists gone?
Mormon relativism
Now comes word that the influential Mormon church, with its progressively gay-friendly revisionism, is supporting the move to persuade the Boy Scouts of America to accept into its ranks young men (and hence the next generation of BSA leaders) who self-identify as homosexual, in open disregard for the BSA's century-old "Scout Oath," which is based in biblical morality. The largest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the U.S., the LDS church has reversed its long-held opposition to admitting gays in Scouting to reflect the church's own evolving posture in support of the gay agenda.
Recently, the church has called openly gay individuals to responsible positions in the church — persons also permitted to attend the church's temples, available only to the most "worthy" members. Church leaders say such callings are limited to non-practicing "chaste" gays — an oxymoron that reveals leaders' naïveté, since by any reasonable definition, a homosexual is someone engaged in the gay lifestyle, not someone who merely thinks about it, or long ago gave it up.*
The church also recently launched an internet outreach to Mormon gays titled "Love one another." The implicit message of the site is summed up by this headline from nbcnews.com: "New website from Mormon church: 'Sexuality is not a choice'"
A few years ago, the Mormon leadership prevailed upon the Salt Lake City Council to adopt an ordinance requiring employers to disregard sexual orientation in their hiring practices. The controversial ordinance passed with the church's blessing.
In a semi-annual "general conference" of the church three years ago, the president of its Quorum of the Twelve was forced, after intense lobbying by vocal gays, to edit the published version of his live remarks to accommodate the outcry from homosexuals. His sermon had declared that God would never make anyone gay. He was induced by the presiding leadership to omit his view from the "conference issue" of the church's Ensign magazine.
The reason for the church's turnabout? Increasing acceptance of the behavioral science community's general view that homosexuality is "inborn," and thus largely biological (even though there's no evidence of a "gay gene" — a fact conceded in 2009 by the APA).
At the heart of the church's evolving acceptance of gays is also the widespread increase of homosexual children and grandchildren among the church's membership. Whereas the Bible is clear in its condemnation of homosexuality as an insidious evil, the church has liberalized its posture toward the practice over the years "out of compassion" for families with gay adults and children — thinking such permissiveness is not only beneficial to serious transgressors of God's laws, but to society at large. Justifying this moral shift is the distinctive belief among Mormons that the LDS church is the only true church of God, and as such, is entitled to supersede the Bible with human wisdom in the guise of "modern revelation."Put plainly, according to the evolving mores of Mormonism, God has changed His mind on homosexuality.
The script plays right into the hands of the clever, deliberate gay agenda for transforming Western society.
Blind leading the blind
The LDS church's migrating position on gays stems in large measure from the inordinate value Mormons place on formal education. Unusually authoritarian as a society, Mormonism is naturally inclined to rely on respected authorities in academia's behavioral sciences for guidance — despite the seeming contradiction between secular behaviorists and religious shepherds, a contradiction typically blurred in the Christian world in general, but all but invisible in Mormondom. Since the church's leaders are all lay officers appointed by other lay officers, it's not surprising that the church would rely on the prevailing winds in academia for "credible" assumptions and practices in nurturing their flock.
The lack of rigorous doctrinal preparation at all levels in the church — in disregard for the church's adopted canon (see here, here, and here) — yields a leadership only superficially adept at doctrine, and a culture prone to progressive schools of thought. Thus, just as the church is willing to spend large sums of sacred tithing money to teach atheistic evolution in its own universities, so the church has no problem accepting much of the orthodoxy of the behavioral sciences.
That includes the doctrinally-unsupported notion that homosexuals are "born that way."
The origin of gender
All this, ironically, is antithetical to LDS doctrine.
One of the most distinguishing features of Mormonism is the belief that all human beings were created spiritually before they were created physically. The LDS canon bases this teaching on two sections from the "Pearl of Great Price" of its voted-upon body of scriptures. The teaching is found in Moses 2:26-3:5 and Abraham 3:18-19, 22-28. A handful of biblical references are also cited to support this doctrine, such as Jeremiah 1:5: "[B]efore I formed thee in the belly I knew thee...."
No matter the merits of such doctrine to non-Mormons, this official teaching of the church disallows any notion that gays are "born" gay. The LDS doctrine of "pre-mortal" existence requires acceptance of the belief that all males and all females lived as such "before the world was," and that God placed male spirits in male bodies on earth when the time was right, and did the same for females, respectively.Since there is no scriptural doctrine in the LDS canon that God is a prankster, or that He makes inadvertent mistakes, any suggestion that males occasionally end up in female bodies, and vice versa, is heretical — if not outright apostasy from the scriptural doctrines of the church.
Even worse, to deliberately redefine God's creation of man and woman to match the unscientific rationalizations of behavioral science is the height of profane insult, warranting God's condemnation if the scriptures are believable regarding human nature.
Smile, you're on candid camera
This doesn't mean God doesn't have a sense of humor. Throughout scripture, we see occasional ironies that suggest He is willing to let humans make fools of themselves in ways that are clearly humorous. In modern Mormonism, He is willing to let His "chosen leaders" (as Mormons consider them) do the same.
In an earlier piece in our series Mormonism under the Microscope, we noted the efforts of LDS leaders to hide the unflattering historical forgeries of Mark Hofmann through deliberate deception, believing the forgeries to be authentic and thus dangerous to impressionable minds.
More recently, the church's highest leaders officially published a "Proclamation on the Family" — a document revered by the membership as modern revelation — in which those professing to speak for God condemn homosexuals for exercising the "powers of procreation" outside God-given bounds.
At first glance, the Proclamation's premise that —
-
God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife
Persons of either sex can't "employ the sacred powers of procreation" with others of their own kind in any way, on any basis, by order of God-ordained reality. Members of the same sex can misuse their bodies and their sexuality — but they can't truly "exercise the powers of procreation." They're intrinsically impotent.
In LDS leaders' eagerness to sound profound before "the world," they overlooked this thoughtless error and published something irretrievably silly.
God doesn't say silly things, of course, but sometimes LDS leaders do — as in this case, where they proclaim it's wrong for gays to procreate. I caught the absurdity the first time I read the Proclamation when it was released in 1995.No small error in a widely-heralded PR document written by lay leaders looked up to as virtual demigods by Mormon culture. Curiously, none of its signatories caught the irrational premise.
No doubt, when you arrogantly believe you can do no wrong — or worse, when you teach those you oversee that they are duty-bound to overlook your obvious errors (isn't there a children's tale about an emperor so predisposed?) — you feel no urgency to carefully edit what you boldly trumpet before the world.
Now that's ironic, and amusing.
Doctrinal error
But that's not the only blatant error in the Proclamation. The document contains a doctrinal statement that is nothing but Mormon folklore, with no basis in the LDS canon, yet professes to be orthodox truth. Since so much that goes on in the church is "extra-doctrinal," this categorical assertion of God's word was apparently not considered by the leadership to be problematic. Unfortunately, the entire document falls apart doctrinally when one of its main premises can easily be shown to have literally no support in the canon, implying that other elements of the document may similarly lack scriptural basis.
The statement at issue, near the top, says this:
-
ALL HUMAN BEINGS — male and female — are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. (bold italics mine)
The only place the term "divine nature" appears in the King James Bible (which Mormons prefer) is in 2 Pet. 1:2-4, which says,
-
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (emphasis added)
-
[T]he Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent...has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. (Mosiah 5:2)
It's simply contrary to the LDS canon (as well as the Bible) to assert that all human beings share a "divine nature." This alone makes the Proclamation unsound, especially since the false assertion is a basic premise at the beginning of the document.
Glaring contradiction
Further making the above foundational premises of the LDS "Proclamation on the Family" inadvertently problematic is the utter illogic of declaring that all "spirit sons and daughters of God" innately possess a "divine nature" when fully one-third of spirits in the pre-existence became devils who fell from heaven, according to the LDS canon, and are destined forever to abide with Satan in hell.
Beings with a divine nature can't reasonably be described as "devils." The terms are contradictory.The basis for the LDS doctrine that one-third of God's spiritually-created beings in the "pre-mortal existence" became devils can be found in Revelation chapter 12, with its reference to the "great red dragon" and the "third part of the stars of heaven" that were "cast down by the "tail" of dragon, all of which represent Satan and his angels (see verses 3-4 and 7-9).
The basis further comes from D&C 29:36-38, which states,
-
And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil — for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency;
And they were thrust down, and thus came the devil and his angels;
And, behold, there is a place prepared for them from the beginning, which place is hell. (emphasis added; see also D&C 76:25-29).
That's the bad news, now the good news
We cite these man-made cultural traditions in Mormondom to underscore the authoritarian weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Mormonism. Were the scriptures — or in this case, the LDS canon — the basis for the church's beliefs and policies, rather than worldly opinions of church leaders, the church would not be in the business of capitulating to gay activists inside and outside the church.
So, in an important sense, the church's position on gays, or on the family, is at best unreliable. We can't depend on the church to show any real moral courage in the modern culture war. Repeatedly, the church has shown itself driven mainly by inordinate self-interest, pragmatically conceived and executed — above moral or eternal principle.
Nonetheless, it's worth noting that the above Proclamation on the Family would preclude the church from proceeding down the path it has been walking hand-in-hand with militant gay leaders and activists.
Despite its absurd assertions of doctrine, at odds with its canon, the church's Proclamation strongly condemns the notion that "gays are born gay" and have little or no hope of resisting same-sex attraction.
Right after the absurd notion that all persons have a "divine nature," cited above, we read,
-
Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose. (emphasis added)
God did not "mess up" and place a female spirit in a male body, or the reverse. Even the very thought that such self-evident truth might have loopholes, exceptions, or errors is patently evil and inconceivable, considering the divine source of all assigned gender.
The Proclamation ends (after admonishing all persons to fulfill their obligations to God and their families) by saying,
-
[W]e warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets [that is, Mormon leaders].
No doctrinally-informed, moral person could deny such obvious truth.
Slouching toward Gomorrah
So why the vacillation by the Mormon church in its "defense" of the family, as we see increasingly today, given such plainspoken (if somewhat skewed) wisdom from the church leadership? Why is the church becoming ever more actively an advocate for the gay movement in defiance of its own pronouncements and policies?
Simple: the church doesn't really believe its own pronouncements or policies, because these statements aren't anchored in the church's canon, including the Bible. There is thus little to keep the church from "slouching toward Gomorrah," as it follows the ungodly trends of the world — in consequence of its reliance on human authority above sole reliance on God and His word.This destructive phenomenon pervades the church from top to bottom, and in all directions.
What we have here is self-defeating behavior by the world's most elaborate, arguably most controlling institution, and the results are predictable: the church has become a powerful influence for compromise, moderation, moral cowardice, and ultimately appeasement of all that is evil.
Alexander Pope, author of the insight below, where are you when we need you?
-
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
____________________
* Let me clarify what may appear a self-contradiction.
As noted at the beginning, a central premise of our discussion is that there is no such thing as a "being gay," meaning "born gay" and thus having little choice but to live a gay lifestyle — a lifestyle that appears to be growing disproportionately in America primarily due to the influence of our governmental schools, which have become a training ground in gay values for captive innocents.
By the same token, we here define a "homosexual" as someone who engages in depraved homosexual behavior, behavior most Americans seem ignorant of, naively thinking the gay lifestyle — as portrayed by the media — is somehow cute, loving, and benign. In reality, the gay lifestyle involves shockingly unhealthy, unnatural, morally-destructive acts that would be abhorrent to any informed person who possesses common decency. We won't list these — but you can find them on the internet in explicit terms. Be prepared to be bowled over.
The seeming contradiction is one between "being" and "behaving."
Gays claim to behave immorally by sexual nature, having no choice, being "born that way," as though a capricious God assigned them the wrong gender (something Paul addresses in Rom. 1:18-32). Our premise, on the other hand, is that no one is inherently gay, even if they behave that way. If they adopt homosexual practices, they do so by choice, willfully yielding to inordinate self-centeredness and desire for easy gratification — not victims of innate "gender confusion."
Unfortunately, the LDS church is intent on "bridging" both definitions in a way that is illogical, undoctrinal, and ultimately detrimental to society, as well as to LDS subculture. Church leaders seem intent on entertaining the notion that at least some gays have little choice but to behave as gays — while allowing gays who claim to be celibate to hold positions of importance and esteem in the church "as long as thy don't act out their predispositions."
It is this kind of untenable thinking we find seriously contradictory.
As noted at the beginning, a central premise of our discussion is that there is no such thing as a "being gay," meaning "born gay" and thus having little choice but to live a gay lifestyle — a lifestyle that appears to be growing disproportionately in America primarily due to the influence of our governmental schools, which have become a training ground in gay values for captive innocents.
By the same token, we here define a "homosexual" as someone who engages in depraved homosexual behavior, behavior most Americans seem ignorant of, naively thinking the gay lifestyle — as portrayed by the media — is somehow cute, loving, and benign. In reality, the gay lifestyle involves shockingly unhealthy, unnatural, morally-destructive acts that would be abhorrent to any informed person who possesses common decency. We won't list these — but you can find them on the internet in explicit terms. Be prepared to be bowled over.
The seeming contradiction is one between "being" and "behaving."
Gays claim to behave immorally by sexual nature, having no choice, being "born that way," as though a capricious God assigned them the wrong gender (something Paul addresses in Rom. 1:18-32). Our premise, on the other hand, is that no one is inherently gay, even if they behave that way. If they adopt homosexual practices, they do so by choice, willfully yielding to inordinate self-centeredness and desire for easy gratification — not victims of innate "gender confusion."
Unfortunately, the LDS church is intent on "bridging" both definitions in a way that is illogical, undoctrinal, and ultimately detrimental to society, as well as to LDS subculture. Church leaders seem intent on entertaining the notion that at least some gays have little choice but to behave as gays — while allowing gays who claim to be celibate to hold positions of importance and esteem in the church "as long as thy don't act out their predispositions."
It is this kind of untenable thinking we find seriously contradictory.
That's what families are for
Spiritual murder: allegations of wrongdoing by the LDS church
In the world, but not of it: Why not just ‘pull up stakes’?
Authoritarianism run amok: The excesses of 'Mormonism'
A closer look at Mitt's Mormonism
The real problem with Mormonism
Our premises as we examine Mormonism
Alms for the poor...
Enlarging the tent
© Stephen StoneSpiritual murder: allegations of wrongdoing by the LDS church
In the world, but not of it: Why not just ‘pull up stakes’?
Authoritarianism run amok: The excesses of 'Mormonism'
A closer look at Mitt's Mormonism
The real problem with Mormonism
Our premises as we examine Mormonism
Alms for the poor...
Enlarging the tent