Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>"Living a gay lifestyle" is still a choice, as far as Mormons are concerned, so living a straight one is a choice too. So to this day there are men who know they are attracted to other men, but they go to BYU, they meet a nice girl, and they marry her hoping it'll fix it all.<< ugh. That usually works out great. (eye roll) I still think the thing behind this policy is that church management sees children from same sex households as a threat. (They probably believe that other kids will catch the gay from them, for starters) but beyond that, surely the LDS church knows that the likelihood of an 18 year old coming back to the church is awfully slim. This is an easy way to thin the herd and keep the gays away. Except, of course, the ones active in the church that "chose" to be straight and got married and had kids. The worst nightmare for the church is healthy, well adjusted kids living in a same sex household. Remember how all the anti gay marriage folks predicted doom and gloom? As more and more states allow gay marriage, the apocalypse didn't happen, their pronouncements and predictions were all as nonsensical as the rants against interracial marriage in an earlier generation.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/enough-enough-hundreds-mormons-leaving-church-over-same-sex-marriage-n461796">http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us...-n461796</a> "Hundreds of people are formally renouncing their membership in the Mormon church in protest over a new policy that punishes same-sex couples and their children, an attorney assisting them said. Utah lawyer Mark Naugle, 30, whose family split with the church 15 years ago, is offering his services pro bono to those who want help with the paperwork involved in getting off the rolls — which have 15 million members. In the week since the policy was announced, 1,700 people have contacted him, he said." (Note that's just one lawyer!) "People are fed up and just don't want their name associated with the church any more," Naugle said. Salt Lake City realtor Joey Furtado, 42, became a Mormon as a teenager in Brazil and spent two years as a missionary before moving to Utah. But by 2001, he was disillusioned with his adopted faith and stopped attending services. But he said he never bothered to make it official, in part because he worried it would be a hassle. "I have a friend who sent a resignation letter and months later had members of the church knocking at his door trying to reactivate him," Furtado said. But after the church's declaration last week, Furtado decided to cut ties for good. "I am not a gay man. I have a girlfriend and two sons, so the policy does not affect me directly, but I have seen families in a situation like this," he said. "I don't want to have anything to do with them anymore ... enough is enough." (snip) "Naugle said that in addition to the 1,700 people who contacted him directly, other Utah residents are attending a mass-resignation march and rally in Salt Lake City on Saturday. " Expect to see more of this. Both inactive (but still on the rolls) people insisting they come off the rolls, and active members deciding they can't continue with the church after this. More people than the church would like can think for themselves, and they know this is wrong.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<"I have a friend who sent a resignation letter and months later had members of the church knocking at his door trying to reactivate him," Furtado said.>> Funny thing. When I told my Episcopalian minister that I was leaving the church (along with any formal ties to Christianity overall), neither he nor any church officials came knocking on my door. He understood my reasons for wanting to leave, and let me go. How many other legitimate religious organizations harass their members for leaving? As far as I can tell, it's only the cults (Moonies, Jamestown, Scientology) that pull this crap. Another reason why LDS membership rolls consist of bogus overbloated numbers. Far fewer active members comprise the total membership compared to what SLC wants us to accept. Again, this is how cults behave.
Originally Posted By ecdc https://bycommonconsent.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/wpid-wp-1447436036120.jpg Well that didn't take long. The church just issued a clarification that this policy only applies to children living with and being raised by a same-sex couple. In fairness, I do think it's possible this was their intention all along and they just *very* sloppily worded the original policy to make it sound like any child of any gay parent can't be a part of the church. But it's certainly also possible that the widespread backlash (both within and without) caused the "clarification." Mormonism: 20% less offensive than you think it is
Originally Posted By ecdc Also, in case you were wondering, your response to this policy change is totally your fault and you should know better than to assume badly of the Mormon church. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/commentary-understanding-the-handbook">http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/...handbook</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <The church just issued a clarification that this policy only applies to children living with and being raised by a same-sex couple.> Does it apply to kids whose parents (one straight, one gay) have joint custody, so the kid lives part time with each?
Originally Posted By hopemax And in other news, the Utah Judge has rescinded his order removing the child from the foster care of the same-sex couple.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "The couple was legally married more than a year ago and approved as foster parents after passing home inspections, background checks and interviews with the division of family services. They are already raising Peirce's two children. They say the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, the biological mother and others involved in the case are supportive of them." (And then what really mattered): "Utah's child services division subsequently filed a motion asking the judge to stay his order. If he did not, the agency had said that it would petition a court of appeals." And that judge probably knew he'd lose on appeal, and maybe even be disciplined for what was clearly a decision based on animus. He was hoping the couple (and Child Services) would just take it lying down. But they didn't. Once again, love wins. Don't know why some people have such a hard time with that.
Originally Posted By hopemax And also Utah's Republican Governor came out and said, he didn't understand what the Judge was thinking. "We don’t want to have activism on the bench in any way, shape or form."
Originally Posted By Tikiduck It would appear that public outrage is at least as influential as the word of any particular God, even the Mormon incarnation. Break out the seer stones, I feel more revelations are coming.
Originally Posted By PetesDraggin After years of wanting to but never really getting around to it, I finally sent in my resignation letter to the LDS church last week. I have been adamant to people that I am no longer Mormon when they ask, but now I'm trying to make it official. I haven't heard anything yet, but I have seen from other people's experiences that the church has actually made the process slightly less arduous and painful. I don't know why this new policy triggered my action when the church's actions of the previous 10 years weren't significant enough to spur me to do something. But I just felt it was time to do it. I don't want my name on official church records anymore, I don't want them to be able to use my name to bolster their membership stats, and I don't want anything, officially or unofficially, to do with this "religion" anymore. And maybe, with reports that so many other people are trying to resign from the church, this is the only way the old men at the head of the church will realize their actions actually have consequences.
Originally Posted By oc_dean >>And it's the most cruel and inhumane a church can do to its most innocent and trusting members.<< Well just maybe their church will take another hit to it's membership. Like it did over CA's Prop 8! Let it bleed some more! That's a good thing!
Originally Posted By ecdc >>And maybe, with reports that so many other people are trying to resign from the church, this is the only way the old men at the head of the church will realize their actions actually have consequences.<< Normally when there's some mass resignation event in the church, a few dozen people show up. A week or two ago, more than 1500 people showed up and resigned. Most of those people are inactive and already nonbelievers, sure. But I think it's a sign of how badly they screwed up this time.
Originally Posted By ecdc For the 0-1 of you interested in this, there's some background that's emerged that makes this different than any Mormon policy change in recent memory. It looks increasingly like two senior leaders spoke to the Mormon president, Thomas Monson, and convinced him that this policy change needed to be done. Monson almost certainly has dementia or other cognitive impairments due to age--there's several stories about this I could share--and so it's not clear how much he understood what he was doing. But you cannot understate the deference to leadership in the Mormon church, even among the leaders themselves. So when the president (who to this day is sustained as a "prophet, seer, and revelator") says "This is what we're doing," there's tremendous pressure on other leaders to salute and say yes sir. But this decision was so bungled and so bad, that for the first time in recent memory, word of dissent has leaked out. At least two of the senior leadership have told people that they do not like this and they are not happy about it. Others in the leadership who may have been indifferent or neutral, expressed shock at the reaction within the church, including the number of people who have left and how vocal even faithful Mormons have been against the policy. It's worth noting that these guys are basically bureaucrats and executives--they serve on a variety of committees and are incredibly insulated and focused on their own projects. Some probably sustained the decision without much thought, and now they're shocked at the reaction. One of the apostles who has apparently dissented has an openly gay brother. This brother has been interviewed in media and has become a somewhat prominent figure. The apostle, Todd Christofferson, was the one who offered the explanation for the policy in the video posted by the church. But he didn't want that job. He got it because he's on a committee that oversees public affairs and because he's still a fairly junior leader. He called his brother the night before, apologized for the policy, and told him he wasn't going to like it. You watch the video and the guy looks miserable. So over the weekend one of the senior apostles responsible for the decision (and next in line to lead the church), Russell Nelson, gave a talk which was basically a power play to squash any dissent. He publicly said the policy was a revelation from God to Monson. That puts tremendous pressure on other leaders to keep their mouths shut about the policy. Now, outsiders might not get the significance of all of this. Disagreement among leadership is common in every institution, as are tension and power struggles. But in Mormonism, at least publicly, it's not. This just doesn't happen. Most faithful members would be shocked to learn about stuff like this. They truly believe their church is led by God and, ergo, disagreement is rare or unheard of, especially when it comes to church policy. So when Mormons come on these boards or on your Facebook page or in news articles or wherever, and say "We have modern-day prophets who reveal this to us and this is God's will," kindly remember they have no idea what they are talking about. This is a messy, fractious policy that many leaders already regret and will absolutely be jettisoned the moment the right leaders (who are all in the mid-to-late 80s) die.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf Very interesting, ecdc, thanks for sharing. For those of us recovering Mormons, it's pretty shocking what's going on - but long over due. After just reading through all of these posts, I can't help but return to something I have proposed before: the Mormon Church is terrified of same-sex marriage because it is seen by polygamists as the gateway to their lifestyle being accepted by the Church. The polygamists have been very vocal about this. Whether they have a legal standing or not is debatable.... But the strange, seemingly out-of-character behavior the Church exhibits on same-sex issues, at least in my mind, is directly related to how they feel about polygamy. In fact, the stance they have taken against children of same-sex couple is the same as they take against polygamist couples. Polygamy, if it were somehow to become legal again, would, in my opinion, utterly destroy the Church. It was practiced and promoted by Joseph Smith and was described as an eternal principle. If legalized, I don't see how the Church could in any way deny fundamentalist Mormons from bringing it back into the Church. Denying the practice of polygamy would be implicitly denying that Joseph Smith was correct in establishing it to begin with, which goes to the very foundation of the Church itself. But by allowing polygamy back in, the vast majority of current Mormons would be shocked and would likely leave. After all, that is an eternal principle that most have no desire of practicing. Legalized polygamy puts the Church in an impossible position and I see their strong resistance to same-sex relationships as their Alamo. They must fight to keep those walls from being breached or all is lost.
Originally Posted By PetesDraggin That is very interesting insight, ecdc. I've never heard any of the "behind-the-curtain" tales of how policies are made, but it doesn't stray too far from what I have envisioned since realizing being a mormon wasn't right for me. The idea that the "revelations" the president of the church receives are divinely inspired is impossible to swallow. What I still don't understand is how relatively intelligent individuals (at least, I would imagine these old white dudes who maintain all the power in the church have decent intellects) can believe this stuff to be true, especially when they are the ones who preach this supposed direct link to god.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox It does boggle the mind, doesn't it. Seemingly intelligent human beings churning out this crap. It's one thing to be spiritual and embrace Christ's teachings of tolerance and "the least of my brothers" philosophy and justify your actions through faith. But it's wholly something else to turn your back on innocent children and treat them as pariahs and make the dumbarse claim that this is an edict from God. That obviously flies in the face of the former and has no place in the hearts and minds of true Christians. This should be a wake up call for LDS leadership regarding demented old farts calling the shots. Just like the Republican Party being taken over and controlled by the racist teabaggers, causing all the moderates to leave, this is going to bite LDS hard. Mormons who take Christ's teachings to heart are not going to tolerate this garbage for too long, and they will leave. Guaranteed. All because folks who still have their faculties are too afraid to do the right thing and take away the keys from those who are too blind and uncoordinated to safely drive the church bus.
Originally Posted By oneyepete #134 - Sources, documentation? Where did you get this "behind the scenes" info? Or is this a gut feeling from personal bias? Just curious.
I'm sure no one is here. But I thought in light of today's news that this thread deserved a bump, for old times sake. LDS Church dumps its controversial LGBTQ policy, cites ‘continuing revelation’ from God
