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Policy reversal


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17 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I have no way of knowing, and I don’t care to speculate. 

Oh ok.  So you believe this happened because of "ongoing and dynamic revelation suited to changing times and conditions", but have no idea what those changes are...

I was just curious if you'd heard something more specific.  Maybe more will be coming from the leaders on that.

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14 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I'm struggling to see who was "harmed' by the policy.  Let's say there were 10 or 100 who wanted to be baptized, but were told they had to wait until age 18.  So they waited.  Now, unexpectedly, the policy changes and they can be baptized.  What "harm" have they experienced?

When I was serving my mission we taught a young man of about 16 years old who wanted to join the Church.  His parents wouldn't give permission.  He had to wait until he hit his legal majority in his country (Germany). Was he harmed?  I say not.

I wanted to be baptized when I was 14.  My father would not give permission.  I attended church every week and was a "dry Mormon" for an entire year.  After that year he relented.  Was I "harmed" by the delay?  I tell you that I was not.

My brother joined the US Air Force at 17.  He had to get our father's permission, and he got it.  But would he have been harmed if Dad had decided he needed to wait?  I say he wouldn't have been.

So, what's the harm you claim the policy caused?  

Those who were excommunicated.

Those who left the church because they couldn't abide such a policy being implemented.

And, while I respect your opinion, I do think that the delay in baby blessings, baptisms, and ordinations is harmful.

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1 hour ago, ALarson said:

I certainly understand and respect your beliefs, kllindley.  I also respect your reasons behind the decision you made.  

However, I do not see how same sex marriage being allowed in the temple some day, means I do not support your decision.  I think both can be feelings or beliefs and one does not repudiate the other, but maybe I'm missing something?  

But you believe the reasons for my decision are false doctrine, unless I misunderstand you.  So, are you saying is that you support me in basing my life on an error?  

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26 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I'm struggling to see who was "harmed' by the policy.  Let's say there were 10 or 100 who wanted to be baptized, but were told they had to wait until age 18.  So they waited.  Now, unexpectedly, the policy changes and they can be baptized.  What "harm" have they experienced?

When I was serving my mission we taught a young man of about 16 years old who wanted to join the Church.  His parents wouldn't give permission.  He had to wait until he hit his legal majority in his country (Germany). Was he harmed?  I say not.

I wanted to be baptized when I was 14.  My father would not give permission.  I attended church every week and was a "dry Mormon" for an entire year.  After that year he relented.  Was I "harmed" by the delay?  I tell you that I was not.

My brother joined the US Air Force at 17.  He had to get our father's permission, and he got it.  But would he have been harmed if Dad had decided he needed to wait?  I say he wouldn't have been.

So, what's the harm you claim the policy caused?  

I'm not personally aware of children who have been harmed by the policy due to a delay in baptism. There have been several board members here who have mentioned knowing of someone's baptism who has been delayed, but I don't recall anyone saying it harmed that person. Of course, not having the gift of the Holy Ghost should be argued to be a negative.

However, I think focusing on delayed baptisms is losing sight of the bigger picture. The bigger picture is the overall well being of LGBT church members. Were LGBT members affected by the policy? While the controversy rages on whether it was a primary cause to the rise in gay teen LDS suicides, a less controversial and very straight forward claim would be that LGBT members felt a greater level of stress, anxiety, and depression due the existence of the policy. This link has already been given in this thread, but here it is one more time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_Mormon_suicides. Again, even if you or others don't find the evidence compelling that the policy correlated to an increase in suicides, I think the data cited here clearly demonstrates that LGBT members mental health suffered due to the policy. 

 

Edited by Benjamin Seeker
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12 minutes ago, kllindley said:

But you believe the reasons for my decision are false doctrine, unless I misunderstand you.  So, are you saying is that you support me in basing my life on an error?  

Not at all.  I believe the decision you made was right for you.  Don't you agree?

That does not mean that if one day in the future, the church leaders receive more light and knowledge....continuing revelation.....and that it's the time to allow those entering into a SSM to be sealed for eternity, that your life was based on an error.  At the time you made your decision, it wasn't possible for this (SSM sealings) to take place.

I'm just not sure why your decision can't be the right one for you even if in the future, sealings for SSM are allowed.

Maybe I don't know your full circumstances and if I'm being insensitive, I certainly don't mean to be.

Edited by ALarson
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1 hour ago, lostindc said:

Does Jesus have this many rules to be a follower/member/whatever?

Dump your riches to one.  Leave your father, mother, children, lands, etc.  to others.

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On 4/4/2019 at 10:25 PM, SouthernMo said:

Right here. You state that “the person will be excommunicated for apostasy.”

This blanket statement is just not true!  I know a number of LDS who actively “pursue sexually immoral practices” whose priesthood leaders know about it, and have counseled them to change. Yet they are not excommunicated.

I've been looking at this back-and-forth between you guys on this, and I have to come to your support, @SouthernMo.  I've been involved in bishoprics where I knew that there were members "living in sin" with other members and non-members, and virtually none of them were ever called into a DC about it.  Of course, almost all of them were inactive anyway.  I know of two situations where the member came to the bishop and confessed, and no DC was initiated, simply because the member in each case agreed to marry their partner, and the bishop was usually the one who performed the ceremony.  They had to wait a period of time before being called to any positions, to ensure that repentance was genuine, but that was it.

Pretty much the only time when a DC is initiated is when the case involves active members who need to be disciplined, know they need to be disciplined, and want to make things right.  Who also confess and allow their confession to be used as grounds for the DC.  Or when it involves prominent members, such as the branch president's wife in one case I know of.  

Of course, it can also occur when it is active members who everyone know has gone off the wagon in a big way and are unrepentant about whatever it is they have gone off the wagon on.  Publicity causes action, too.

 

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37 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Oh ok.  So you believe this happened because of "ongoing and dynamic revelation suited to changing times and conditions", but have no idea what those changes are...

I was just curious if you'd heard something more specific.  Maybe more will be coming from the leaders on that.

I mean that I’ve seen a lot of ignorant and misguided speculation these past two days, and I don’t care to contribute to it. In short, I don’t share your penchant for gossip, ALarson. 

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15 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I mean that I’ve seen a lot of ignorant and misguided speculation these past two days, and I don’t care to contribute to it. In short, I don’t share your penchant for gossip, ALarson. 

LOL

Gossip?  Actually I stay as far away from drama and gossip as I possibly can (especially in our ward and I hear plenty being in the Bishopric).  I most especially make a conscious effort to not pass on anything that is harmful or damaging or derogatory that I hear.  I honestly try to give people the benefit of the doubt and work hard not judge others.

I see you have no issue with passing judgement on me though.  But I forgive you, Scott :) 

(I honestly don't know what you're talking about either....most everyone speculates on here or expresses their hopes and beliefs.  That is not gossip.)

 

Edited by ALarson
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52 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

 

. . . So, what's the harm you claim the policy caused?  

David Bokovoy's Facebook statement  on the effects of the Policy:

 

I’ve been contacted by quite a few friends and family members, excited over today’s announcement that the LDS Church has rescinded the Exclusion Policy prohibiting the children of gay couples from being baptized and receiving blessings.  

I cannot join in your celebrations at this point.  This policy devastated my family.  I spent hours defending my convictions of opposition to CES administrators.  I labored diligently trying my best to have horrific statements about the policy and LGBTQ people removed from Church manuals.  I had parents of my students call and complain, trying to get me fired because I openly cried when discussing the policy and told students I didn’t understand it.  I ultimately quit my career for a $30,000 pay decrease and an unknown future because of the policy.  Students I knew and loved took their own lives.  And it was identified by President Nelson as a revelation from God for our day.

I’m pleased this immoral policy is no more, but until we are offered a sincere apology from those who put this into place, I will retain my anger.

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1 hour ago, SouthernMo said:

Every example you gave underlined examples of how the church leaders’ were compelled by outside forces to make a change from what was revealed. 

Yes, change happens in the church. But it tends to come far more often from outside forces than old men waiting for guidance on their knees.

Thats your view, its not mine.

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5 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

Thats your view, its not mine.

Perhaps.

But I don’t know of a single LDS historian who has written that the changes you mentioned were not instigated by outside forces.

Im guessing that we you believe that OD 1 had nothing to do with the US Federal Government’s seizure of temples and other church assets?  Just good ‘ole Wilford Woodruff plugging his ears to the world, independently hearing god’s will. 

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6 minutes ago, flameburns623 said:

David Bokovoy's Facebook statement  on the effects of the Policy:

 

 

"A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

The policy was intended to avoid requiring children to disavow their parents relationships, which they would do by virtue of baptism, because it is a fundamental teaching that only sexual relationships between opposite sex persons is marriage, in the Lord's eyes.  Now they have given in, and the children will be required to repudiate their parents.  This will be decried as well.  Even if the policy had never been introduced there would have been trouble, because the first time a gay couple sent their child to church to be baptized their child would be being taught that the practices of their parent was abhorrent to the Lord.  And that will cause an uproar, too.

So many people want the Lord to give in and declare homosexual acts to be perfectly acceptable -- after millennia of the opposite being the case.  Do you really think this is going to happen?  

It's clear that the world is wallowing in sin, and we are edging ever closer to the end.  

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All I can say is WOW!  So much anger in this thread.  To get angry at times is to be human.  The line is crossed when instead of being angry, the anger becomes you, controls you, lives with you all the time.  I know this from being abused as a child. When you feel no need for self justifying your anger you will know that the ice is thin indeed.  Peace to everyone.

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33 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Not at all.  I believe the decision you made was right for you.  Don't you agree?

I do agree that I believe my decision was right for me.  Based on the spiritual confirmations that I and my wife have experienced and the way that our family has been blessed, I have a testimony that the teaching that exaltation requires a man and woman sealed together is true.  

 

33 minutes ago, ALarson said:

That does not mean that if one day in the future, the church leaders receive more light and knowledge....continuing revelation.....and that it's the time to allow those entering into a SSM to be sealed for eternity, that your life was based on an error.  At the time you made your decision, it wasn't possible for this (SSM sealings) to take place.

I'm just not sure why your decision can't be the right one for you even if in the future, sealings for SSM are allowed.

Maybe I don't know your full circumstances and if I'm being insensitive, I certainly don't mean to be.

I don't perceive any insensitivity.  I admit that I am struggling to understand, but that seems to be mutual.  

1) Did you ever answer whether you believe that "exaltation requires a man and a woman sealed together" is true or false?  If that is true, then future SSM is off the table (unless we assume a second-class distinction for those sealings, which I suppose I am open to.)  If it is false, then I made my decision to pursue a marriage to a woman based on that falsehood. 

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1 minute ago, mnn727 said:

I have no clue who the poster of the above snippet is,  is but from the snippet of the post that was posted above, my first thought was "sounds like a Drama Queen"

Are you referring to the quote from David Bokovoy?

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Quote

I cannot join in your celebrations at this point.  This policy devastated my family.  I spent hours defending my convictions of opposition to CES administrators.  I labored diligently trying my best to have horrific statements about the policy and LGBTQ people removed from Church manuals.  I had parents of my students call and complain, trying to get me fired because I openly cried when discussing the policy and told students I didn’t understand it.  I ultimately quit my career for a $30,000 pay decrease and an unknown future because of the policy.  Students I knew and loved took their own lives.  And it was identified by President Nelson as a revelation from God for our day.

I’m pleased this immoral policy is no more, but until we are offered a sincere apology from those who put this into place, I will retain my anger.

An apology will not help anything.  The church is wrong from first principles.  Or so say its opponents.

I have always admired David Bokovoy and thought him to be a brilliant man and a great thinker.  But it appears that even the elect can be deceived -- for he says that he couldn't understand the policy.  Yet even a benighted pipsqueak of an intellect such as myself could understand exactly where it was coming from -- maybe that's it, I'm too stupid to understand that it was wrong?  No, I am not.  I also understand that society is demanding at 100-db levels of scream that homosexual behavior must be completely normalized and accepted by all members of society.  And that no word whatsoever be said against it.  It is already the law in some places that saying "Homosexual behavior is a sin" can get you fined or jailed.  The time is coming, I'm fairly certain, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be required to shut up about homosexuality, and probably also be required to perform weddings between people of the same sex.  

If you can't see that the days described in the Book of Revelation are getting ever closer, you are being willfully blind.  

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11 minutes ago, kllindley said:

I do agree that I believe my decision was right for me.  Based on the spiritual confirmations that I and my wife have experienced and the way that our family has been blessed,

I think that is wonderful.  I'm happy for you and your family.  It definitely sounds like you made the right decision.  

Quote

1) Did you ever answer whether you believe that "exaltation requires a man and a woman sealed together" is true or false?  If that is true, then future SSM is off the table (unless we assume a second-class distinction for those sealings, which I suppose I am open to.)  If it is false, then I made my decision to pursue a marriage to a woman based on that falsehood. 

Ok....I can see now what you are saying.  Do you mean to say that maybe you would have made a different decision if the correct answer to the question above is "false"?    But, does that change the fact that you made the right decision for you?

I do understand more though what you're feeling and how this affects you deeply.

Edited by ALarson
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56 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I've been looking at this back-and-forth between you guys on this, and I have to come to your support, @SouthernMo.  I've been involved in bishoprics where I knew that there were members "living in sin" with other members and non-members, and virtually none of them were ever called into a DC about it.  Of course, almost all of them were inactive anyway.  I know of two situations where the member came to the bishop and confessed, and no DC was initiated, simply because the member in each case agreed to marry their partner, and the bishop was usually the one who performed the ceremony.  They had to wait a period of time before being called to any positions, to ensure that repentance was genuine, but that was it.

Pretty much the only time when a DC is initiated is when the case involves active members who need to be disciplined, know they need to be disciplined, and want to make things right.  Who also confess and allow their confession to be used as grounds for the DC.  Or when it involves prominent members, such as the branch president's wife in one case I know of.  

Of course, it can also occur when it is active members who everyone know has gone off the wagon in a big way and are unrepentant about whatever it is they have gone off the wagon on.  Publicity causes action, too.

 

I wasn't saying anything different actually.  Maybe I misunderstood SoMo, but he was making it sound like the church's new position will allow for a gay married couple to actively participate in church without any disciplinary ramifications or chance of excommunication.  Of course, if they are inactive a DC is not likely to happen, but if they want to be active, fully participating members, this change does not allow an unrepentant member who is guilty of publicly known sexual immorality to pretend to be in good standing and fully active in the church.  Of course they will be in threat of DC and excommunication if they remain unrepentant and active.  

Edited by pogi
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5 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I think that is wonderful.  I'm happy for you and your family.  It definitely sounds like you made the right decision.  

Ok....I can see now what you are saying.  Do you mean to say that you would have made a different decision if the correct answer to the question above is "false"?    But, does that change the fact that you made the right decision for you?

I don't know how to conceive of me making the right decision if the reason for that decision is false.  Are you suggesting that God "tricked" me into making the right decision? (Sincere question)

 

5 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I do understand more though what you're feeling and how this affects you deeply.

That is gracious to say.  Thank you.  

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1 hour ago, Teancum said:

So much for the reliability of revelation. This should tell you something.

True revelations are 100% reliable.  Thinking every confirming feeling mean God agrees with your decision doesn't qualify.

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