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Those earlier teachings are not accepted as the truth today. Here are two more from John Taylor, third President of the LDS Church: "And after the flood we are told that the curse that had been pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham's wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? Because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God" (Journal of Discourses, volume 22, page 304). "When he destroyed the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, he suffered a descendant of Cain to come through the flood in order that he might be properly represented upon the earth" (Journal of Discourses, volume 23, page 336). You never did say if you believed the truth as stated by George Q. Cannon as the thread started. Care to try? These are two independent things. Is the Watchtower Jesus (Michael the Archangel) the same person as Jesus (God)? What Christs were Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22 referring to – the same Christ or different Christs? Worshipping a being (Jesus) who you believe became the first spirit child of heavenly parents and who then became a God is distinct from the scriptural Christ. The New Testament warns against false Christs. One such false Christ is the JW version, Michael the Archangel. They are walking with a false Christ. See my last reply. The LDS Church's doctrine that Jesus was ranked as a God when he reached some level of intelligence is not an opinion.

I think maybe that's activity rate as opposed to self-reported affiliation?

There are currently 50 states in the United States of America. Is this a characterization or something we can state with clarity and confidence? Is the teaching of Jesus being the first born child of heavenly parents just a characterization of something the LDS Church can state with clarity and confidence using the scriptures? I'm amazed that you don't see leading people astray as being synonymous with leading people away from the truth. These teachings led the Latter-day Saints away from the truth and into believing falsehoods. I know you don't consider this as the LDS being led astray by false teachings. Let me borrow one of your earlier statements and apply it to what you said: It [meaning "they are not doctrine"] was characterized in that way, yes. Whether it actually was, however, is something we cannot state with clarity and confidence. Rinse and repeat: It [the current posture of the LDS Church] was characterized in that way, yes. Whether it actually was, however, is something we cannot state with clarity and confidence. If you believe the Lord didn't institute the priesthood ban, then you believe the LDS Church followed the commandments of men. Maybe false teachings do not lead people away from the truth in your mind. The Governing Body of the Jehovah's Witnesses lead their people astray (away from the truth) when they teach Jesus is Michael the Archangel, that he returned invisibly in 1914 and made them (members of that body) the faithful and discreet slave to dispense spiritual food to the world, and that only 144,000 belong to the Bride of Christ. It seems like you're saying Official Declaration #2 is the actual revelation they received from God and not something they wrote of their own impressions after prayer. These sound pretty clear to me: • 2 Nephi 5:21 - "And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them". • Alma 3:6 - "And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men". • 3 Nephi 2:15 - "And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites". I know this. But I don't believe it. I'm from Iowa – show me a recorded revelation from God for the existence of a heavenly mother. If a revelation only comes from the First Presidency these days, then let's cast aside all the doctrines in the Religion 430-431 Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual since many therein are not canonized. Who is the God and Father of the LDS Heavenly Mother when she was living on another world with a man who would later become her husband and Heavenly Father of our Earth? Christ atoned for original guilt (original sin). Here are just two: "It is most natural and just that he who commits the wrong should pay the penalty—atone for his wrongdoing. Therefore, when Adam was the transgressor of the law, justice demanded that he, and none else, should answer for the sin and pay the penalty with his life. But Adam, in breaking the law, himself became subject to the curse, and being under the curse could not atone, or undo what he had done. Neither could his children, for they also were under the curse, and it required one who was not subject to the curse to atone for that original sin. Moreover, since we were all under the curse, we were also powerless to atone for our individual sins" (Teachings of Joseph Fielding Smith, chapter 3). "There are two general divisions of sin, viz., original and actual. Original sin is that which was committed by the parents of the race, the consequences of which pass upon all of their posterity. Actual sin is that committed by each individual and for which he is personally responsible. Adam and Eve broke the divine law given to them in the garden, the penalty for which was death, natural and spiritual ; the first being the separation of the spirit and the body, and the second, banishment from the presence of God. The taint descended to their offspring. He died not only to atone for original sin but for actual sin, and to become the mediator between God and man. His blood was shed for the sins of the whole world. For original sin unconditionally, for actual sin conditionally" (Mormon Doctrine Plain and Simple). Even a false religion like Hinduism can be a moral hinge for its adherents. It sounds like you're saying that people can teach falsely about the Father and the Son and still be saved. Testing the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price is the hinge for the LDS belief in a restored gospel. Despite the claim made by the Book of Mormon (Mormon 7:8–9), not everyone who believes the Bible also believes the Book of Mormon, or vice versa. The LDS Church's Guide to the Scriptures even states, "The Book of Mormon was written for the intent that we may believe the Bible". My faith in the Bible does not depend on Joseph Smith. They believe their Quran is the Word of God. Muslims don't view the Quran or the Hadiths as providing different perspectives or opinions. The Quran (which denies the deity of Christ and his crucifixion) is leading Muslims astray (away from the truth). Here's a better analogy. Person A says, "I believe Barack Obama was a great President". Person B says, "I believe Barack Obama was a terrible President". Person C comes along and says, "Barack Obama is Chinese, born in China, single, 40 years old. He can never be the US President. Persons A and B are not referring to the same person as C. It is not differing perspectives, but rather different facts about two separate Obamas. Now I turn to some biblical concepts: Matthew 24:24 - "For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect". Mark 13:22 - "For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect". 2 Corinthians 11:4 - "For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him". Paul is warning the Corinthians about teachers who were presenting a Jesus different from the one Paul and the apostles had preached. A closely related passage is Galatians 1:6–9, where Paul twice warns about "another gospel": "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed". You gave me an question spanning different time frames so I had to consider all options. Person A's statement was most accurate decades ago – LDS leaders previously taught the ban and the reason for it were of God. Person B's statement is more accurate nowadays – "the priesthood ban and the reason for it were not of God, but from man". Previously I said: Person A's statement was most accurate decades ago – LDS leaders previously taught the ban and the reason for it were of God. Person B's statement is more accurate nowadays – "the priesthood ban and the reason for it were not of God, but from man". How do you view either of these statements as being inaccurate?

As I previously noted: I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position. I don't think you can, either that or you are so immersed in your own worldview that you cannot accommodate the possibility that viewpoints divergent from yours might be reasonable. So you don't even try to engage in substantive discussion. Just emotionalisms and logical fallacies. I don’t deny that same-sex sexual behavior shows up in a lot of species. That is a fact about animals. It is not a fact about morality, about right and wrong. “It exists in nature” only gets you to “it happens.” Infanticide, forced copulation, and eating the injured also happen. Yet by your reasoning these behaviors are good and moral solely because they 'happen in nature.'" Nobody treats those as a charter for human conduct. If “animals do it” were a moral rule, it would license a long list of things every serious ethic rejects. That is the slide from is to ought. A male penguin mounting another male also does not tell us what sex is for in a human life (or other forms of life), or whether a covenant called marriage should include that pairing. The penguin has no concept of marriage, chastity, or obligation. At most it tells you a nervous system can aim sexual behavior at the same sex. That is interesting for ethology. It is not an argument. I would not rest the case on “anything that does not produce offspring is biologically impossible.” Evolution is messier than that. A behavior can persist as a byproduct, as cheap noise, or as social glue in a troop. Grant the biologists that much. It still does not decide a human moral question. Function in a macaque is not permission for a person. If the claim is, as you have put it, "moral and good," then I would like to hear what you have to say. What is it about same-sex behavior that makes it "moral and good?" Please identify and explain the standard: God and commandment, a natural-law account of what human sex is for, consent-plus-harm, something. “Nature did it” is not a standard. It is a field guide asked to do a theologian’s job. So yes, the behavior occurs in nature. No, that does not make it moral, immoral, or morally required. Those are different questions, and they need an arbiter the woods do not supply. Lots of logical fallacies going on here. Appeal to emotion. “But they love each other” is meant to make dissent look cruel. Love is not a premise that entails “therefore this sex is licit.” Category mistake. Companionship and love are goods of relationship. They do not specify the kind of relationship or the use of sex. Friendship already has those goods. Equivocation on “biological.” Pair-bonding and affection have biological roots. That does not make every sexual expression of affection a “biological imperative,” any more than grief makes revenge an imperative. Is/ought, again. “Humans long for this” does not yield “they may do this sexually.” Special pleading. If love-plus-companionship justified sex, it would justify a lot of pairings nobody in that conversation wants to bless. They will smuggle limits back in (adults, two people, not relatives). Those limits come from some other ethic. They should say which one. Companionship and love are real. People in same-sex relationships can have both. That is not in dispute. What does not follow is that those goods are a “biological imperative” that licenses a sexual pairing, or that they tell you what sex and marriage are for. A "biological imperative," in the strict sense, is something like eat, flee danger, reproduce. Same-sex behavior is not a "biological imperative." Companionship and love are human goods. They are not a reproductive function, and they are not unique to a sexual relationship. Siblings, friends, parents and children, and celibate religious communities all do companionship and love without treating that as a reason to have sex. If the argument is “this pair loves each other, therefore the sexual conduct is moral,” the standard has quietly become affection plus consent. That is a different ethic than “sex belongs to husband and wife.” If that is where you are going, please say that plainly. Do not dress it up as biology. Love does not rewrite the act. Two men can be loyal and kind. That does not make their sexual conduct the same thing as the union that can generate a child and bind a mother and father to that child. You can honor the friendship and still say the sex is Y, not X. We've already determined that even if we gave Same sex couples the ability to produce biological offspring, that wouldn't change your view on anything. Because the "fix" is technological, biological. No, it's a real one. I think you just will not or cannot address it substantively. That is simply not so. The "vast vast vast majority of sex" is between a man and a woman. Such behavior categorically has procreative capacity. Which has no bearing on whether opposite-sex sexual behavior, as a category, has procreative capacity. It does. It is fundamentally unserious to say otherwise. Likewise, same-sex sexual behavior, as a category, lacks procreative capacity. It is unserious to say otherwise, or to say "Well hey, maybe someday technology will help us overcome that biological incoherence." If that were to happen, that would be an expression of technology, not biology. I think you may be misunderstanding me. When I say "procreative capacity," I mean sexual behavior as a category. Sex between the two sexes has procreative capacity. This is so even if an individual instance is an exception. Similarly, same-sex sexual behavior as a category lacks procreative capacity. There is no way for two men to procreate together, nor two women. Well, that's an interesting perspective. I would like to understand it better. In my view, the primary purpose of sex is procreation. In a biological setting, that's beyond dispute. In a Latter-day Saint paradigm, the primary purposes of sex are A) procreation, and B) strengthening the union between a husband and wife. So we agree in part. That's something. You are running together things that are not the same. 1. “It exists throughout nature.” That is a description of animal behavior. It is not a moral argument. Infanticide exists throughout nature too. Is is not ought. Logical Fallacy Count: Naturalistic fallacy. 2. “Companionship and love are biological imperatives.” These are not "imperatives." They are human goods. They are not a warrant for a particular sexual use of the body. Friends and siblings have companionship and love without anyone calling that a reason for sex. Logical Fallacy Count: Appeal to emotion, plus a category mistake: a good of relationship is treated as if it specified the kind of sexual act. 3. The infertile-couple / birth-control point does not erase the procreative claim. Nobody serious said “every sexual act must produce a baby or it is worthless.” The claim is about the kind of union, not a fertility test administered to each night. A husband and wife are still a man and a woman joined in the kind of pair that can generate a child, even when this cycle, this age, or this surgery means they will not. Menopause, vasectomy, and contraception are facts about a given act or a given season. They do not turn that pair into a different kind of pair. In contrast, a same-sex pair is not an infertile marriage. It is, instead, a pair that, by the structure of the two bodies, is not the generative kind at all. It categorically lacks procreative capacity. You are treating “most particular acts do not conceive” as if it proved “generation is not what that kind of sex is for.” That is like saying, because most meals in a rich country are not eaten at the edge of starvation, nutrition is not what eating is for, and therefore the “primary purpose” of eating is companionship at the table. Frequency does not rewrite function. That is a fallacy of composition / accident: what is true of many instances is treated as if it canceled the point of the kind. Birth control is also a weak support for your conclusion. People block conception because they know what the act is ordered to do. You do not put a dam on a dry wash. Same-sex couples don't practice birth control because what they are doing sexually lacks any procreative capacity. 4. “If they could make biological offspring you still would not change your mind, therefore procreation was never your real objection.” That does not make the objection fake. It means the objection was never “count the babies.” On my view, X is sex between a husband and a wife for two purposes (procreation and strengthening the union). That is a man and a woman in a covenant ordered to union and to the possibility of children. A laboratory trick that lets two men produce a child would still not make them husband and wife. It would be a manufacturing workaround around the kind of pair they are. You asked a consequentialist question (“what if the outcomes looked the same?”) and then treated a non-consequentialist answer as a gotcha. That is moving the goalposts, and it is a straw man of the actual claim. I also do not take “connection and companionship” as the primary purpose of sex merely because many acts do not conceive. That is your redefinition. It is not a finding. You still have to explain why those goods require this use of genitals rather than friendship, and why the parts are irrelevant to an act whose whole design in mammals is reproductive dimorphism. 5. What I am actually saying, without the caricatures. Same-sex sexual behavior can involve affection. That does not settle whether it belongs in X. Animal behavior does not settle it. A thought experiment about artificial gametes does not settle it. If your standard is “they love each other and most sex isn’t baby-making anyway,” please say that. That is an ethic of fulfillment and consent. It is not a rebuttal of a view that says sex has a purpose, and that purpose is not whatever a pair finds companionable. Who cares? There are many things in the constitution that are good and right. Many that were wrong. Slavery for instance. You misunderstand my point. The legal mechanisms whereby unenumerated constitutional rights matter. A lot. A lot. "Who cares?" comes across as a "Who cares? The ends justify the means."-style rationalization. That is the sort of "bad" I had in mind. “Who cares?” only works if we were scoring moral vibes. We are not. I said the legal basis for turning same-sex marriage into a federal constitutional right was poor. That is a claim about Obergefell’s reasoning: unenumerated rights, “ordered liberty,” history and tradition, Glucksberg, and a Court writing a definition of marriage that the text does not contain. You can think the policy outcome is kind and still think the opinion is a bad piece of constitutional law. Plenty of people do. Pointing at slavery does not touch that. Slavery was a textually accommodated wrong that took an amendment to kill. It was not a Supreme Court invention of a new “right” out of due-process poetry. If anything, the lesson of slavery is that constitutional text and structure matter, and that we change them in the open—by Article V—not by a bare majority - five justices - deciding that "mystery" and "meaning" have now evolved. Logical Fallacy: Reductio plus false equivalence. “The Constitution has contained good things and bad things” is true, but also idle. It does not tell you whether this holding was a lawful reading or a policy preference in robes. If the answer to “was the reasoning sound?” is “who cares, slavery,” you have left the legal question. I care because once “I want this, therefore the Fourteenth Amendment contains it” is allowed, there is no principled stopping point (please note, again, how "limiting principles" appears to be something utterly beyond you and the things for which you advocate), and there is no reason for anyone else to respect the next invention they dislike. That is the issue. Not whether every clause in 1787 was morally clean. Also, we continue to catalog all sorts of logical fallacies: Whataboutism / tu quoque. “The Constitution once sheltered slavery” does not make Obergefell well reasoned. False equivalence. A written compromise later repealed by amendment ≠ a 2015 judicial creation of an unenumerated right. Red herring. “Who cares?” declines to meet the claim. Category error. Moral inventory of American history is not an account of due process doctrine. d Another bad faith argument. Another dodge. Another demonstration of my previous observation: that you are so immersed in your own worldview that you cannot accommodate even the possibility that viewpoints divergent from yours might be reasonable. So you summarily dismiss my arguments rather than address them with reasoning and evidence, and decline to advance your own argument. That is not a concession that swallows the point. It is a distinction you keep flattening. There are at least three questions here: Structure. A same-sex pair, by design, does not give a child both a mother and a father. That is a description of the household, not a mood. Two fathers are not a mother. Two mothers are not a father. No happiness survey erases that. Outcomes. How those children score on grades, income, or self-reported well-being. That is an empirical fight. It is not the same question as (1). What marriage is. Whether the institution is a husband–wife covenant ordered to that kind of union, or a companionate contract for any two adults. That is a moral and legal question. You asked a thought experiment about (2) and then treated my answer on (3) as proof that (1) was fake. That does not follow. I can believe all of this at once: a child in that home is missing a mother or a father; some of those children may do well on some metrics; I still would not call the pairing a marriage, and I still would not say the Church should bless the sexual conduct. “Better off in every category” would matter if my only standard were a spreadsheet of child outcomes. It is not. So refusing to let a hypo (an unsubstantiated and question-begging one) rewrite the definition is not bad faith. It is refusing to play a game where you change the scoreboard mid-play. If your ethic is “whatever arrangement produces the best average stats is the right arrangement,” say that. Then we can argue about the studies. Do not call a structural claim bad faith because it is not a utilitarian claim. A child can be fed, housed, and fond of her two dads and still have been designed out of a mother. Those sentences do not cancel each other. You only get “bad faith” by pretending I promised that outcomes were the whole argument. And more fallacies: Straw man. You recast “missing a mother or a father” as “I secretly think the kids always do worse, and I won’t admit it.” That was not the claim. Equivocation. “Better off” is treated as if it meant “nothing morally relevant is missing.” Stats are not the same as a mother. Category error. An answer about what marriage is is used to disqualify a claim about what the household lacks. Moving the goalposts. First: would better outcomes change your view of the morality of the union? Then: if no, you may not mention children at all. Poisoning the well. “Bad faith” attacks motive so you do not have to meet the sentence as written. False dilemma. Either you flip your entire view when handed a hypothetical dataset, or every child-related sentence was a pretext. It is not the same sentence. “God said so” is a command. “Sex has purposes, and this pairing does not have them” is a reason—an account of what the act is for. I can hold both. Revelation is how I think we know the purposes with authority. The purposes themselves are not a tautology. They are: binding a husband and a wife, and the possibility of children. A same-sex pairing is not that kind of union and does not have that kind of act. That is a description, not a shrug. You can, of course, reject the authority. That is a different debate (prophets, scripture, natural law). What you cannot do is pretend I offered no reason except a veto. I told you the telos, the ultimate end, purpose, goal. It is not solitary. There is much that comes before it. You answered by renaming the telos “God said so” so you would not have to discuss whether sex has a purpose at all. If your rule is “only reasons that would still move me if God were out of the picture count as reasons,” say that. Then we are doing secular philosophy, and the same structure remains: dimorphic bodies, a generative kind of pair, infertile opposite-sex couples still in that kind, same-sex couples not in it, and so on. You already tried to dissolve that with menopause and birth control. Frequency of non-conceiving acts does not erase the kind. So yes, I think God has spoken. No, that is not the entire content of the claim. The content is purpose. “There is no refutation” is just you declining to refute the purpose and unilaterally declaring victory. And more fallacies: Straw man. You reduced “divinely intended purposes” to a bare command with no inner structure. Equivocation. “Reason” is used to mean “reason I will accept without God.” Failure to convert you is treated as absence of a reason. Question-begging. You assume from the start that theological teleology cannot count, then announce there is nothing to refute. Collapse of knowing and content. How I claim to know the purpose (revelation) is not identical to what the purpose is said to be. This is kind of hilarious in a thread about surrogacy and how you think gay people shouldn't be allowed to have families. I don't think I have said that If I have, please point out where. What I have said is that same-sex couples and their sexual behavior lack procreative capacity. Hilarious is not an argument. Neither is “you don’t want gay people to have families.” I said a same-sex pairing is not a marriage in the older - and substantially more coherent - sense, and that a child in that home is, by design, without a mother or a father. That is not a ban on kindness, housing, or civil friendship. It is a claim about what the institution is. If you have to recast it as “no families,” you are not answering the claim. Sex frequency does not define the institution. A couple that has two children and then years of non-conceiving sex has not “severed” marriage from generation. They already did the thing the institution is built around, or they remain the kind of pair that does. You keep counting acts. I am talking about what marriage is for as a public form. Most conversations in a courtroom are not verdicts. That does not mean courts have been severed from judgment. No fertility quiz is not the confession you think it is. The state also does not quiz fiancés on whether they will be faithful. Nobody infers that fidelity has nothing to do with marriage. We do not administer a conception exam because the form is still a man and a woman, the kind of pair whose union is generative in kind. A same-sex pairing is not an infertile instance of that form. It is a different form. You are treating the absence of a bureaucratic filter as proof that the telos is gone. That is like saying, because we do not weigh every diner, nutrition is no longer what meals are. Surrogacy cuts against you, not for you. If marriage were still quietly assumed to be a generative union of the two spouses, you would not need a third party’s body to complete the picture because same-sex couples categorically lack procreative capacity. Surrogacy is what you reach for after you have already detached the child’s origin from the married pair. Pointing at that practice and saying “see, marriage isn’t about procreation” is pointing at the break and calling it the original design. The thought experiment still does not make the objection fake. “What if they could produce biological offspring?” asks whether I am a consequentialist about lab results. I am not. A manufactured child would still not make two men a husband and a wife, and it would still not give that child a mother in the home. Refusing to let a hypo rewrite the definition is not an admission that I never meant the definition. “Hashed and rehashed / none of this matters.” That is a fatigue argument. It is not a rebuttal. If you are done, be done. Do not declare the other side’s distinctions nonexistent because you are tired of hearing them. And more fallacies: Straw man / poisoning the well. “Shouldn’t be allowed to have families” is not what was said. Accident / frequency. 99.9% non-conceiving acts ≠ institution has no generative purpose. Equivocation. “Severed in practice by contraception and no quiz” is treated as “severed in concept.” False equivalence. Infertile or post-childbearing opposite-sex marriage = same-sex pairing. Boomerang. Surrogacy is evidence of the severance, not proof that the old concept was already empty. Goalpost / “fake objection.” Same move as before: if outcomes and gadgets would not flip the definition, you may not talk about generation at all. Here is a truncated recitation of the propositions I posted previously: What is your assessment of this proposition? Is it "reasonable" to believe that God exists, has a relationship with us, etc.? Or are all theists living entirely outside the bounds of reason? Thoughts? Is sex important or not? Is it a means to a biologically imperative end (procreation)? Or is it just an itch to scratch? Do you agree that sexual ethics are important? I assume you do, but you are not really articulating any coherent ethic, nor are you addressing the substance of mine. Is it "reasonable" to infer from Proposition 1 (that God exists and has a relationship with us) that God could have given us a set of sexual ethics whereby we govern our sexual impulses and behaviors? Do you agree or disagree that everyone has sexual ethics / boundaries / perimeters? Do you agree that you and I are the same insofar as we each claim to adhere to a sexual ethic, but that we differ as to the boundaries of that ethic (differentiating appropriate from inappropriate sexual behaviors)? Do you agree that the Latter-day Saints are, collectively and individually, as entitled as anyone else to publish their views on matters of sexuality, including differentiating between X and Y? Do you agree or disagree that the Law of Chastity is reasonable and defensible as the basis for a code of sexual ethics? That is is within the bounds of reasonableness? Have the Latter-day Saints made, in legal parlance, a prima facie case for how it differentiates X from Y? If so, do you maintain that this case is borne of "bigotry" and not reasoning? Is it possible that, regarding sexual ethics, there are viewpoints divergent from yours which are reasonable? Thanks, -Smac

Were Ra, Dagon, and Baal humans that were worshipped? Who is the only true God in these six verses? Deuteronomy 4:35 — "the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him." Deuteronomy 6:4 — "The LORD our God is one LORD." Isaiah 43:10 — "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." Isaiah 44:6 — "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." Isaiah 45:5 — "I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me." Isaiah 45:22 — "I am God, and there is none else." Is Baal an exalted man – a real heavenly deity? Previous LDS leaders taught an infinite regression of Gods as truth.

I can't tell if you are serious or not. Yes, if your goal is to reproduce, "same-sex behavior" isn't going to get you there. Nobody has claimed otherwise. Ever. But if your goal is to have a happy life with a social structure full of good people and friends that you can love, bond with, rely on, and be compatible with, then whether or not your relationship with them has procreative capacity isn't the only consideration, and might not be a consideration at all. For most people, sex is a tiny part of marriage. And procreation is a tiny part of sex. Your obsession with sex is weird.

For @Notatbm From the Keystone YouTube channel: "In April 2026, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filed a federal lawsuit against the Open Stories Foundation (Mormon Stories) and Dr. John Dehlin, causing a stir of mixed reactions among members of the Church. Today I have the lead attorney of that very lawsuit, David Jordan, on the show to answer some tough questions, and even respond to a few public claims made by Dr. Dehlin. "David Jordan is the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah. He's currently a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP, specializes in commercial and complex civil litigation, and is currently spear-heading the Church’s ongoing lawsuit against John Dehlin and the Open Stories Foundation."

They didn't go after him before because his "trade dress" did not formerly mimic the Church's. Then he changed it, and that got the ball rolling. Doesn't matter if the stories sound outlandish or not. The problem is people who are unaware thinking that the podcast is affiliated with the Church. Go have a look at other anti-LDS channels. Mormon News Roundup. Nemo the Mormon. Mormonish. Generally Unquotable (almost all their videos are titled "Mormon News Updates"). How about Alyssa Grenfell and her mocking of temple rituals? Maybe the Church doesn't care if ex-members want to talk about it, but have a problem with those who try to imply that they are official Church information outlets by using Church trade dress? I suppose it's useless to try to convince you otherwise, but you're wrong. I'm posting a YouTube video today in this thread called "Church's attorney DEBUNKS Mormon Stories lawsuit rumors". It's an interview with the lead attorney on the case. Have a listen.

Here is my point. You defend your interpretation of marriage and the law of chastity by appealing to children’s welfare in terms of growing up in an optimal home, their right to both biological parents, the need to perpetuate the species, and how all of this benefits society. This all comes across as ad hoc rationalizations that contradict much of what’s in your scriptures and what they imply God values. Start with concubinage. There were two institutions for owning women and having a license to have sex with them: marriage and concubinage. The Bible distinguishes them (2 Samuel 5:13; Genesis 25:5–6). The Hebrew bible defines adultery differently than you do. You think adultery is having sex outside of your own marriage. In contrast, in biblical Hebrew law, adultery means having sex with another man’s wife or betrothed partner. Sex with a woman who is neither married nor betrothed is not classified as adultery, even if the man himself is married. See Leviticus 20:10. Deuteronomy 22:23–24 explains why the punishment is so harsh; it isn't because you betrayed your own wife by having sex with somebody else, it is because "he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife." The decisive marital status is hers, not his. There was no expectation of sexual fidelity on the part of the husband, and having sex with others didn't harm his wives and concubines. In contrast, Exodus 22:16–17 treats having sex with an unbetrothed virgin differently than having sex with somebody else’s wife: the man must pay the bride-price and marry her, unless her father refuses the marriage, in which case the payment remains due because her economic value to her father was still damaged. These rules make it clear that first and foremost, the law of chastity was about harming property that belong to other men (either the woman’s husband or father), and not about being sexually faithful to your own partner. A married man having sex with a woman who didn’t belong to somebody else was a no-harm-no-foul situation. And D&C 132 closes off the explanation that God merely tolerated these arrangements because of the surrounding culture. Verses 34–35 say he commanded Abraham’s union with Hagar. Verses 37–39 endorse the patriarchs’ concubines and say God gave David his wives and concubines. According to the D&C, these arrangements received explicit divine approval. Look at what the revelation promises Joseph: a throne (verse 49), rulership (verse 53), and a hundredfold increase in “houses and lands, wives and children” (verse 55). Wives and children are rewards bestowed on the man, along with houses and land. Emma, meanwhile, is threatened with destruction if she refuses the prescribed arrangement (verses 52–54). The man’s authority and promised glory are spelled out. So are the consequences for a wife who objects. The effect that all this has on the welfare of the children is not a consideration. Verses 61–63 authorize ten virgins under the prescribed conditions, explaining that the man does not commit adultery because “they belong to him.” But, of course, adding wives and children does not multiply the father’s time or income. Why would God command such things when they can be expected to harm children? The costs could be severe. In Sherilyn Farnes’s study published by BYU, Apostle Amasa Lyman’s household suffered persistent problems with financial support. He had eight wives and nearly forty children. In 1853, Eliza Partridge Lyman wrote: “I have lived without bread when some of the family [i.e. other wives and other children] had bread to throw to the pigs.” This was during his apostleship, years before his departure from the Church. Farnes also notes that high church office could bring pressure to take plural wives even when a man was not a good provider. Polygamy under Brigham Young wasn’t about an optimal family relationship that benefits children and society. Calling these sacrifices necessary for exaltation would concede my point: other religious objectives took priority over those children’s welfare. Why would God command arrangements that expose children to those costs? How does the father’s promised glory answer the child’s need for food and attention? If a man desires wives and concubines he can have them because he desires them and having them will give him glory. Their welfare isn’t part of the calculus. Then there is Paul, whose preference produces no children at all. In 1 Corinthians 7, he merely permits marital sex and tells spouses not to deprive each other (verses 3–5). But he prefers celibacy and recommends marriage for those unable to exercise self-control (verses 7–9). His reasoning concerns the present distress, the shortness of time, and undivided devotion to God (verses 26–35). Perpetuating the species is conspicuously absent from that argument and not something he valued. You seem to suggest that this is all just descriptive and that earlier prophets and apostles may have mistakenly attributed their cultural assumptions about marriage and sex to God. That is certainly conceivable. But assuming that the true law of chastity doesn't change with the times, why do you believe God’s pattern of revelation has now dramatically changed? Why is only God now telling prophets and apostles the truth about the laws of chastity when he didn’t do so before?

I strongly recommend this whole series on Race and Priesthood because it covers everything, has access to primary sources (including from the church vault) that many historians didn't have before, and though faithful to the church is good at not whitewashing the history and keeping biases to a minimum. It covers the sources and the context, which is essential in any study of historical issues. But here is the specific episode that deals with this point in history. The podcast isn't very long if you do podcasts but there is also a transcript if you want to read it. https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/podcast-episode/1852-and-the-beginnings-of-the-priesthood-temple-ban-in-the-church/

This is just patently stupid. Same sex relationships exist throughout nature. They fulfill many biological imperatives, like companionship, and love. Which brings us to your next fake objection: We've already determined that even if we gave Same sex couples the ability to produce biological offspring, that wouldn't change your view on anything. So this too is a fake objection. The vast vast vast majority of sex lacks any procreative capacity. Birth rates alone show that the vast majority of couples engage in birth control. People continue to have sex after menopause, tubal ligation, and vasectomies. Sex's primary purpose for humans then is connection and companionship. It performs this primary role equally well regardless of what parts a couple brings to the picture. In a tiny tiny fraction of instances it also produces offspring. But again this can't be your objection because even if we gave same sex couples the ability to produce biological offspring, that wouldn't change your view on anything. Who cares? There are many things in the constitution that are good and right. Many that were wrong. Slavery for instance. Another bad faith argument. You've conceded that even if the children of same sex couples were better off in every category it wouldn't change your view of the matter. This is the same thing. God says it's bad. There is no refutation of this "reason" This is kind of hilarious in a thread about surrogacy and how you think gay people shouldn't be allowed to have families. Again the vast majority of sex (like 99.9% for a couple that has two kids and has sex once a week for 40 years) is not procreative. There is no question or quiz for people getting married about whether they can or are able or are willing to procreate. Marriage as an institution and concept is severed from its procreative aspect already. And again all of this is a fake objection because you've admitted that even if gay couples were able to produce biological offspring that wouldn't change anything for you. And none the above matters. It's been hashed and rehashed on this forum ad infinitum.

Where can I read more about this? So I agree there is no revelation on the records of the church for the priesthood ban. But Young sure seems to go beyond opinion and invoke his prophetic mantle when he says this: "if no other Prophet ever spake it Before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ. I know it is true & they know it."

Agreed. If all things “give us [valuable] experience, and work together for our good”, then we're never being screwed over. Imo this is an idea for which there are many, many witnesses, some within the canon of the LDS Church, but most from outside the LDS Church. Ime near-death experiencers offer depths of insight in this area which are not articulated in our few applicable verses of scripture. Hence my posting of links to relevant YouTube videos, in case it's a topic of interest to anyone. Agreed. When permitted to do so, the intellect is very adept at coming up with self-serving justifications for unloving attitudes and behaviors. Imo this is a mistake; imo the intellect should be the servant of the soul, and not the master. Instead of letting the ego and/or intellect steer the bus, what if we choose to show up as love incarnate to the best of our ability in the moment, regardless of how we showed up in the preceding moment?

How much of this post do you think actually addresses the fact that there has never been a declared revelation from God on gay marriage in the church?

Your posts are sounding more coherent to me than my own. Very unfocused right now. Health of both my own and my daughter dominate my thoughts right now. I find the topic interesting, but unable to invest the energy into that it deserves, so will just bow out for now unless the language I am looking for to be more clear suddenly comes to me. Both of these statements are so, so true. (or maybe an unhappy face is more appropriate when we don’t understand this and think we are dealing with the same eternal truths) I would love to comprehend for myself as if I lived in that time the difference their understanding of what Truth involved made to their culture vs how our understanding has affected ours. I am not sure that is possible without actual experience, somethings cannot be truly understood with merely an intellectual understanding…knowing the words used but not the feelings attached to them.

I thought people were saying it was closer to 30%. Am I misremembering or just out of date? Definitely not keeping up with the news and research as much as I used to.

I don’t know about Scott Adams as I am spacing on that name…are we talking about the Dilbert guy? The rest were either demonstrated to be involved in criminal behaviour or were alleged to have been. Charlie Bird doesn’t seem to fit with any of those you have pointed out as behaviour critiqued so far.

Joseph Bishop did not do that. Nor Rob Porter. Nor Scott Adams. Nor Paul Adams. Tom Kimball was an former member. Okay. You may have a point. Thanks, -Smac

More mindreading and imputed motives. I have told you I am willing to listed to what you have to say. I have not. I can be persuaded on some things, not so much on others. Regardless of whether you could persuade me, I'd still like to hear what you have to say. Thanks, -Smac

Those people all publicly criticized the church and publicly put forth their views as correct, seeking to convert others to their perspective. Charlie has shared his life publicly but never set himself up as a standard for truth on the subject. The comparison between discussing the morality of his personal choices and the morality of the arguments others have made against the gospel and the church falls apart real fast in my opinion.

In the notes for the 1852 meeting, he also says (in the back and forth between him and Orson Pratt, who adamantly disagreed with him), “I may vary in my views from others, and they may think that I’m foolish in the things that I have spoken and they might think that they know more than I do but I know more than they do.” He clearly believed he was right, but he never invokes the idea of any revelation from God as the source of his rightness. Pratt brought up many times in his arguments that they could not deprive blacks from the rights to the priesthood based on color because God had not directed them to do so, and BY never contradicts him on that. In true BY style he just says "I'm right". I agree that scripturally the arguments against SSM are not well supported.

You aren’t persuadable. You admitted as much. It’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Why would I try and persuade you when the answer is “No. This is like asking if fornication can "suddenly, and good." It is inherently incompatible with the commandments of God. ”

It is not. Biology is not window dressing. Distinctions in the law are not window dressing. Reasons that would be irrelevant to address. Because see above. Well, okay. How you think this comes across as persuasive eludes me. You're not the first advocate to dodge substantive reasoning, to fail to present any of your own, nor summarily dismiss - without evaluation or any substantive reasoning - perspectives which diverge from yours. Again: I think the "Bigot!" schtick is so frequently utilized because it's all you've got. I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position. I don't think you can, either that or you are so immersed in your own worldview that you cannot accommodate the possibility that viewpoints divergent from yours might be reasonable. So you retreat to name-calling. It's also "bad" because it is biologically incoherent. It's also "bad" because the legal basis for creating a constitutional "right" to same-sex marriage was quite poor. Same-sex marriage and behavior are also "bad" insofar as it categorically lacks procreative capacity. These are also "bad" not just because "God said so," but also because we know what the divinely-intended purposes of sexuality are, and those purposes are wholly absent in same-sex couplings. These are also "bad" because they sever the institution and concept of marriage from its procreative aspect. And so on. You have no obligation to defend your position. At all. I am persuaded that you are avoiding this because you do not have a coherent rebuttal to the points I raised previously. The "Bigot!" schtick is all you've got. Yes and no. As a sexual ethic, I value informed consent. I am upfront about this. I entirely agree with you that "informed consent" is a very important principle. I sure would like too see more than one sentence about it. For example, I addressed consent in my previous post: BCA is a crime-floor, not a sexual ethic. It answers “when may the state lock someone up?” It does not answer “what is sex for, and what does it do to the people who use it?” The Law of Chastity answers the second question. That is why BCA looks spacious and ends up thin. Consent does not address adultery, as there are injured parties who do not consent to the behavior (innocent spouse, children). The Law of Chastity does address adultery, and quite well. Adults differ in power, money, fame, sobriety, trauma, and desperation. BCA treats a yes extracted under those conditions as morally sufficient because it is legally sufficient. The Law of Chastity does not. It puts sex inside a public vow before the night, so the weaker party is not left to negotiate in private with someone who holds the job, the apartment, or the audience. Consent can be yes and still be a bad bargain. An ethic that cannot say “bad bargain” has nothing left but procedure. If the only question is consent, then sex is a preference-satisfaction device. That is why BCA is equally hospitable to casual hookups, paid sex, adult incest, open marriages, and whatever else two adults invent next year. It cannot rank them. It cannot say why one form builds a household and another burns one down. In contrast, the Law of Chastity is teleological: sex is for binding a man and a woman and for the possibility of children and for strengthening their marital union. Narrow on purpose. BCA is wide because it is empty. BCA treats pregnancy, infection, and attachment as optional or merely incidental side effects, to be managed with technology after the fact. They are not optional in the design of the act. Unwanted pregnancy and abortion are downstream of a rule that separates sex from the only relationship prepared to receive a child. STI risk rises when the number of partners rises; that is epidemiology, not Victorianism. Pair-bonding and jealousy are not programming errors. An ethic that calls the predictable wreckage “the hookup culture is pretty terrible” and then keeps the rule that produces it is not serious. The Law of Chastity does not have these flaws. In the end, nobody actually lives “anything consenting adults do.” People still condemn cheating on them, revenge porn of them, the partner who agreed to exclusivity and then didn’t. They use thicker rules for their own kids than they preach in public. BCA is the public slogan; covenant, loyalty, and “don’t make me raise this alone” are the private code. The Law of Chastity is at least candid: it states the thick rule in daylight. The Law of Chastity is harder for some people than for others. BCA is easier for everyone in the short run and then outsources the cost to spouses, children, clinics, and the next partner. Difficulty is not unique to chastity. It is unique to pretending that a harm-principle floor is a map of a good life. BCA is a usable test for what the state should criminalize. It is a poor test for what sex is for. It counts only the yes of the people in the room and ignores the spouse who was not asked, the child who may be created, and the household that has to absorb the aftermath. It cannot distinguish loyalty from appetite, or a covenant from a transaction. It therefore licenses adultery so long as the lovers agree, treats infection and unintended pregnancy as technical problems, and has no inner reason to prefer a faithful marriage to a sequence of consented nights. The Law of Chastity is narrower because it is answering a different question: sexual relations belong in a public, exclusive, man–woman marriage ordered to union and to children. That is not “discrimination against consent.” It is a claim about the purpose of the act. BCA refuses to make that claim and then wonders why the culture built on it is brittle. "This" being what? I agree. "Consent" is an end unto itself. "Additional reasoning" undercuts it. Meanwhile, the myriad shortcomings and harmful effects of this "sexual ethic" are huge. I do. And the scriptures. And my own reasoning. And my assessment of biology, sociology, the law, and so on. So on the one hand you try to limit my perspective to "Because God said so," but on the other you fault me for having substantive supplemental and additional grounds for disagreeing with same-sex marriage and behavior. Could you elaborate on this? You seem to be contradicting yourself. Since you have not even tried, I guess we'll never know. The "Invincible Ignorance" Fallacy: This occurs when a person refuses to provide evidence or engage in an argument because they claim the other person is completely closed-minded. By declaring that "you wouldn't change your mind anyway," the speaker creates a position that cannot be tested or disproven. It is a preemptive strike to avoid defending their own stance. It is not. It is. It's right there, in this thread. Along with your various posts not engaging any of it. I've had various women agree and disagree with my on various topics. I think I work hard to address arguments presented to me. Here, you have not presented any. I do listen, I just don't always agree, and I don't silence myself in the face of your "Bigot!" schtick. Why it's bad. I also think fornication is bad, both because "God says it's bad" and for other, observable and apparent reasons. I can even lay those out substantively. Individuals. Sex attaches. Outside a vow it attaches people who have not promised to stay. That produces a familiar list: used and discarded, comparison shopping, anxiety about the next person, infection, pregnancy with no household ready for a child, and a habit of treating the body as a short-term instrument. Even when no child and no disease appear, the habit is still the habit: intimacy without loyalty. Families. Marriage is the institution that turns sex into a public responsibility for whatever sex may create. Fornication keeps the pleasure and disregards the responsibility. Children who arrive anyway are more often born into instability—one parent, serial partners, split attention, split money. The next marriage, if it comes, starts with a body already trained to leave. Parents cannot preach “wait” with authority they did not practice. Society. A culture that treats sex as a private hobby still bills the public for the leftovers: fatherless homes, abortion as backup contraception, STI clinics, and a dating market that rewards intensity, punishes dependability, and skews toward the incredibly damaging "hookup culture." Marriage rates and trust fall together when the main path to sex no longer runs through a household. Consent between two adults does not pay those invoices. The Law of Chastity is the short form: sex belongs to husband and wife so that union, children, and loyalty stay in the same room. Fornication is the same act with the room removed. You could address arguments and reasoning. You don't. Thanks, -Smac

Except that unlike the prejudicial priesthood ban against blacks, there has never been ANY claim of a revelation from God prohibiting gay marriage. As long as we're exchanging hypotheticals in this thread: If the Church were to publish a clear and unequivocal revelation affirming the parameters of the Law of Chastity and the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, would you accept it? I find it interesting that you have never condemned the substantial majority of Black and Hispanic Californians who supported Prop 8. Were they just being prejudiced? Also, I have laid out a fairly substantial list of propositions and explanations as to my assessment of the Church's teachings about sexual behavior. You, like SU, have not addressed that at all, and instead just go with "prejudice." I can't get on board with comparisons to chattel slavery, as there are orders of magnitude of differences there. Chattel slavery was a hereditary legal status: people were property, sold, whipped, denied personhood, literacy, family integrity, and citizenship. Jim Crow added state violence, lynching, disfranchisement, and a color line that followed you whether you “acted” or not. Same-sex attracted people in the United States have been mocked, fired, beaten, and in some places criminalized for conduct. That is real. It is not two and a half centuries of a racial caste that treated human beings as livestock. Pastors who filed against the Michigan analogy put it bluntly: no other class, including people with same-sex attraction, was lawfully treated as property. Calling disagreement about what marriage is “the new slavery” reads, to them, as theft of a unique historical wound. See, e.g., here: Black pastors protest: Gay ‘marriage’ is nothing like the Civil Rights struggle Race, in the American system you are apparently talking about, was noted at birth, marked on the body, and enforced by the state regardless of behavior. The civil-rights demand was: this person is a citizen; stop using ancestry to deny the vote, the school, the lunch counter, the marriage that already existed (a man and a woman). Redefining marriage asks the law to treat a different pairing as the same institution. Traditional Black church teaching—shared with much of historic Christianity—already constrained everyone’s sex life (no adultery, no fornication). From that view, saying “two men may not marry” is a rule about the ordinance, not a racial caste. Equating the two collapses “who may enter an existing institution” with “what the institution is.” The civil-rights story, in Black churches, is preached as deliverance from a specific evil, with a specific canon (Exodus, the prophets, King). When a later movement borrows that canon to settle a debate about sex and kinship, some hear: our dead are being used as props. Fred Luter’s line was typical of that register: gays already had the rights of free citizens; enslaved people did not. Comparing the two is, in that view, insensitive to what Black Americans actually lived through. After Obergefell, the fight moved from “let the clerk issue a license” to “disagreement is hate,” corporate Pride, school curricula, and sometimes explicit “this is the new civil rights.” For people who already thought the slavery comparison was a stretch in 2014, watching it supposedly become moral "common sense" in media and HR training makes the insult feel current, not archival. Thanks, -Smac