Calm

I was just explaining why some environmentalists are against it.

And it troubles me when parents do this. I think social media should be highly restricted in terms of juvenile pictures and info, limited to private only viewing and anyone who takes it public should have to pay fines where possible (as in money pulled from their website if it is monetized) and where not, get accounts blocked. And that includes anyone reposting someone else’s material. It will never happen, but I wish it would. We need to protect our children better even when our intent is to celebrate them.

No, I did not. Someone can unintentionally harm others by being careless. That happens a lot with adults and it bothers me, especially if I know they have the information available to them to help them avoid harming others. My guess is Gaines believes her comments won’t make much difference when it comes to bullying. She might very well assume the bullies are all on the other side targeting her and her side are the reasonable ones. A lot of people don’t want to deal with cleaning up the mess those they see as their friends are making. They don’t want to believe people who think like they do can be dangerous. Thanks for explaining how you interpreted the information.

Okay, but why the youth are transgender has nothing to do with my questions, so perhaps you misunderstood? I am trying to understand where you think I slandered her or misrepresented what she did, so I am clarifying what you believe the evidence is and where you differ from me about the implications of what she did. Here they are again: Do you recognize that she posted in the cases above actual photos of transgender minors that includes the information of their school along with other info that would allow readers to identify these minors? The evidence she did this are screenshots of her account. Perhaps you believe these are fakes (I don’t believe she has denied they were posted by her.) Do you believe that posting such information likely draws negative attention to these youth? If not, why do you believe this does not result in some cyber bullying or other negative attention? If you do believe posting such likely draws negative attention, do you believe Riley Gaines has enough experience with harassment and cyber bullying herself that she would recognize that such information would increase the risk of such for these minors? If not, why do you think she would be unaware of such risks?

What does it mean to you to surrender your will? The way it’s often presented outside a basic aligning one’s will with God can be very negative, like giving up what makes one unique, not making any decisions for oneself anymore, agreeing to everything without considering consequences or morality, that kind of behaviour.

I agree with much of what you said above in your post in terms of standards. I have a problem with the second sentence though as if presenting same sex relationships is inherently superseding parents. I disagree with how you phrased this as an attempt to “normalize”behaviour that is in conflict with LDS chastity standards when it comes to public institutions. It is normal in our society to be a same sex couple. It is normal to have premarital sex. It wouldn’t be attempting to normalize these common behaviours if one wrote about them, but it would be attempting to abnormalize them by banning representations imo. That is giving one ideology preference over another. Adultery is still viewed as betrayal and therefore wrong and abuse is condemned even more than it used to be, so those views would be the appropriate public standard, imo, not just teaching LDS or similar ideological standards. I think public institutions should represent the public and not favor one ideology over another in the sense of even removing content that presents it in a realistic way. A very basic standard for public tax supported schools and libraries could be representation based on population percentage (not just a local area, but in general, nationwide percentages). That wouldn’t be a precise measure because most books likely aren’t solely about Black or Asian people or LGBT+ or families where the parents are absent, divorced, or unmarried where there are likely books, especially older ones that portray only white, heterosexual, no sex outside of marriage type of individuals. Plus does a minor subplot count the same as a major one, a side character as much as a main character….gets messy easily, so at best it’s a rough standard, but it’s a starting point. The really difficult part is when one ideology explicitly condemns another. I think at younger ages ideologies in books should focus on the positive, realistic behaviours they want rather than the behaviours they don’t want. Promote sharing for instance rather than condemning selfishness. Little kids are too prone to take criticism in ways that damage their self esteem. Anything that promotes disrespect of others should not be allowed, but that doesn’t require portraying fringe personal behaviours as normal. (And I mean true fringe behaviours, not just behaviours that are unpopular with certain groups, but are present enough to qualify as normal). Older materials get much more complex and therefore difficult (especially when getting in history, politics, and cultural subjects) and my post will be massive if I try to dissect what I see as the best approach there beyond being civil and respectful of each other, so I am going to skip adding more for now.

I agree. I assume you believe as I do this is wrong and shouldn’t have happened. Disagreement, even massive disagreement, doesn’t have to devolve into hate. No one should be a target of hate in my view. This also means she should be fully aware of the risks, correct? There is one big difference between Gaines and the ones she mentioned. She is an adult and they are minors. It appears her brain is mature enough to cope with the deluge though I suspect she has been wounded and it’s very difficult for her at times. Could you answer my questions, please? I am trying to understand how you view the whole situation, not just Gaines’ experiences of being targeted, etc., but the minors’ ones as well.

I see boredom as a great motivator and the limitations on the lower kingdoms imply to me they would be susceptible after eons to boredom and want to therefore try new things, which requires learning and change, thus opening them up to accepting Christ more as I believe any desire to learn good things creates a connection to Christ even if minute at times, so that eventually even though it might take forever, all do choose to follow him. But that ignores two things. First is the lower kingdoms themselves are said to be beyond our imagination in desirability, so maybe they aren’t limited in a way that could eventually produce boredom. Second is maybe boredom is a mortal weakness only due to our current limited awareness and it does not occur in our eternal manifestations.

Smac and Longview, I would like an answer to my question above as it would be helpful to know where the standard of acceptable LGBT+ representation falls for either of you (I am not assuming you have the same standard, so would be interested in both of you responding). Longview, I am not talking about promotion of any particular lifestyle, just what should and should be allowed to be portrayed in books for kids. Question: Are you okay with using the same standards of portraying heterosexual relationships (which I assume is nongraphic, non explicit, non pornographic) for portraying homosexual relationships in books used in public libraries (school and city)? For example, for kids’ books…if a kid in a story mentions he has to go home because his mom and dad are waiting for him, it’s okay for a character to say he has to go home because his moms are waiting for him or if there is a picture of a man and woman holding hands, it would be okay to have a picture of two men holding hands. In older kids’ books, if there is a storyline about teens dating, it’s okay if it’s either heterosexual or homosexual. If agreeing with that, a “yes” is sufficient to satisfy my curiosity and given me a baseline for understanding your objections. If not agreeing with that, a “no” and an explanation why not would help. My own POV is I am okay with the same standard for both and my standard is probably seen as prudish by most, lol….though I do prefer realistic to idealistic portrayals. I do think kids should see real life in the most of the stories they read so they can see ways to cope and process conflict between parents or deal with abuse rather than risk them assuming it’s only happening to their family and therefore it’s their fault, their family is broken, etc. That creates a difficult standard at times given conflict and abuse can be sexual or violent at times. I would take each such book on its own to ensure nothing was gratuitous and only as much info was shared as needed. Part of me wants to have such books only available when asked for, but I also highly doubt the kids who need to read such books wouldn’t ask for them in most cases. All this would need to be age appropriate, of course.

I have seen this myself. Including one horror where the dumpster was full of books rather than selling the rejected ones for a fundraiser or donating them to a charity. Grabbed many for myself that were within my reach. Several of them had “donated by” labels in them.

I agree the conversation has been refreshingly peaceful even though there are disagreements.

Never said she wasn’t. Do you recognize she posted in the cases above actual photos of transgender minors that includes the information of their school along with other info that would allow readers to identify these minors? Do you believe that posting such information can draw negative attention to these youth? If not, why do you believe this does not result in cyber bullying at the very least? If yes, do you believe Riley Gaines has enough experience with harassment and cyber bullying herself that she would recognize that such information would increase the risk of such for these minors? If not, why do you think she would be unaware of such risks? BTW, I have not commented on anything else Riley Gaines has done or positions she holds. This is the one and only thing I am interested in for this thread at this point. I believe part of protecting youth includes protecting them from harassment. You can skip the rest if not interested in why I think drawing negative attention to minors is important enough to comment on. I have problems with schools giving public access to their websites, though I recognize with the way kids post photos online that even if they kept their website secure as I have seen some do in the past, it wouldn’t keep school photos out of the public view. I would prefer there was no publicity given to juvenile competition outside of family. Everything seems to have become a major production. Something is valued by the attention it gets. My grandkids are involved in band and their school competes all over and the amount of money and time and intensity that is required seems too much to me. Kids have limited unsupervised time so often for one negative factor, fitting such in between adult planned activities, which makes being on phones and other tech the most likely unplanned leisure activity since other hobbies or going out to play with friends can’t fit the limited time. I am also against major optional juvenile surgery because I don’t believe many juvenile brains can judge accurately the risks nor are many that great at self care to minimize those risks. Having had one similar surgery and long term after effects with pain and irritation from scarring, I believe minors should wait (preferably to mid twenties, but I realize that is unrealistic) for anything significant that is optional. I also think drinking, voting, serving in the military, gambling, recreational drugs and probably marriage and major purchases and possibly living on their own outside of college shouldn’t be allowed until brain maturity as well, but that is just wishful thinking. I would also like to see studies done on the health of celebrity children to see if there is inherent long term damage that comes from being a public figure when young. Too much attention can be damaging as is too little, but I don’t know of positive recognition offsets the cons enough.

Gaines participating in drawing negative attention to specific transgender minors by publishing photos, etc. Not saying it was illegal taking public photos of school events and reposting them for a different purpose, but it does indeed trouble me. I feel very bad for the kids to have that kind of attention drawn to them. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-09/two-transgender-athletes-describe-teen-life-on-the-front-lines-of-a-raging-national-debate https://www.eonline.com/photos/37759/simone-biles-vs-riley-gaines-feud-timeline https://www.mediamatters.org/riley-gaines/riley-gaines-promotes-book-fox-news-calling-eighth-grade-trans-athlete-mediocre-man

I just need to be clear on what you see as acceptable behaviour in general when it comes to minors because you calling it justifiable protest was odd to me. So you do agree that giving info out that is enough to identify minors, whether transgender or not is something no one should do without appropriate consent?

They aren’t that green yet to put up there. There is the cost in resources and pollution for launching it, for example. That would likely take years before the balance shifts from negative to positive savings. Tech isn’t obviously at a point where space is significantly better in terms of the environment yet. They could use solar power to run it, including pumps to move the coolant around and out to the heat radiation panels or whatever they use. Apparently they would have to be quite large, even larger than the solar panels as a vacuum isn’t a great way to pull heat off of something massive.

I didn’t say she bullied them herself. But if she put enough info out there that others could identify the transgender minor, she drew a target on the kids’ back. And given she has likely been cyber harassed and more herself, it seems she would be aware of the outcome. Would you be okay if I posted your minor children’s info (how old they were, what school they went to, pictures) along with the fact they are LDS on a website where I knew rabid anti Mormons posted?

So you are okay with minors get bullied and threatened? That’s just protest? At what point does agessive treatment of children become abuse in your view then? Just in case you missed it, I am talking about releasing personal info of minors publicly without their or their parents’ consent.

I meant specifically in regards to libraries and curriculum.

Are you okay with showing same sex marriages in the same way you want opposite sex marriages portrayed?

Excellent analysis. I hate this type of game. Not sure your interpretation is valid, but I can see why you go there given historical context.

It’s from the Improvement Era: AI can be helpful at times https://archive.org/details/improvementera2208unse/page/658/mode/1up

This rates AI treatment most likely, so here’s what it said: The claim usually combines several extraordinary assertions: A modern Catholic man has a birthmark in the shape of a Christian symbol (often claimed to be a cross or Chi-Rho). Catholic saints allegedly predicted centuries ago that a king in the 21st century would bear this exact mark. The prediction is supposedly part of a Vatican-approved miracle or apparition. The same source is said to have correctly predicted World War I, World War II, and other historical events. There are several reasons to be skeptical: No recognized Vatican-approved prophecy matching this description. I could not find any Vatican-recognized apparition or miracle that includes a prophecy about a 21st-century king identified by a specific birthmark. “Vatican approved” is often used inaccurately. In Catholicism, approval of a devotion or pilgrimage does not necessarily mean the Church has declared every associated prophecy or message to be supernatural or historically accurate. The Vatican’s current process is quite cautious. Predictions of WWI and WWII require careful dating. Many alleged prophecies only appeared in writing after the events, were edited later, or are vague enough to fit multiple outcomes. Historians generally require that: the prophecy can be shown to have existed before the event, the wording is specific, and it wasn’t substantially revised afterward. This issue has been discussed even for famous Catholic prophecies such as those associated with Our Lady of Fatima. If someone claims to have “proof via pictures,” photographs only show that a birthmark exists—they do not establish that: the birthmark was predicted centuries earlier, the historical documents are authentic, or that the interpretation is correct.

Not the Catholics I know, I bet.

As someone who has lived almost 7 decades, an observation or three….don’t look for a spouse to make up for your own deficiencies, to help you do what you aren’t willing to do on your own. Good chance even if they try, it won’t work. You need to be the mover of your own efforts, not someone else. Leaving it for someone else is setting up for resentment and massive frustration. I truly hope you are not waiting to work on living a healthy positive lifestyle until you meet her. As someone who sees a healthy lifestyle as extraordinarily important***, I wouldn’t want to start from scratch or have to fix the error filled ideas and preferences about nutrition of my spouse. Been there, done that and our kids are suffering for it because I also wanted a happy, loving home (got this big time) as well as a healthy one. My parents always worked together for as long as I can remember teaching us kids and being examples when it came to health (and many other things). That is what I wanted for my kids, but I thought it would come quick enough because it seemed obvious to me it was the better way. But my kids followed my husband’s patterns rather than mine when it came to health and there is still the store bought crap food in our pantry even after almost 50 years of marriage. I wouldn’t mind if it was saved for treats, but it’s the dominant eating habits (skip the veggies, salads, fiber). And this is even with a daughter who is diabetic, my husband was willing to stuff the healthy meals I made in the refrigerator (which I got to eat as leftovers so it wasn’t a waste of money) while he made them Kraft, hot dogs, ran out for fast food, etc. My guess is given his own childhood of having to eat whatever his mom (who was from Down Under and depended heavily on canned food) put in front of him (eight kids and not a whole lot of money), he didn’t want his kids or himself to feel cheated. So my kids never learned to try and like new things, learn how to cook stuff they didn’t like in ways they did like, etc. My husband provided a lot of good things for our children, including what I married him for (the kids would know they were loved and accepted and interesting as they were as well as how to have fun as my parents were very focused on projects, improving us, which was both good and bad). So for anyone who is concerned about health I would advise choosing someone who is pretty close to your own patterns already rather than assuming you can convert them even if they seem willing to be converted (they may think they are, but can’t give up what comforts them). I suspect these days if such is important to someone, they will assume it needs to be important to their partner It is easy to see these days what happens when partners have conflicting approaches to major aspects of life. Which means if someone wants a partner who lives a healthy lifestyle and can create a healthy home, that someone needs to be showing they are striving to do the same right now. All the above also applies to mental health issues. If a potential spouse is not actively working on their own emotional health in the here and now, don’t assume they will be able to adapt working with you in the future. There will be a good chance that whatever blocks that exploration now on their own will continue to block them once married. Go to couples therapy before marriage, not think of using it only if needed sometime in the future. And if you are the one desiring someone to heal you, start trying to get there on your own as much as possible. First off, why wait when you can gain benefits now? Second, you need to have worked the ground so the seeds will grow when they get planted or your spouse’s efforts will be useless. ***because of chronic health issues, it’s much more important to me than it was as a young adult and I grew up on cottage cheese and made from scratch meals, never had Kraft fluorescent macaroni until I was in college and have eaten it less than a handful of times in my life, was taught and involved in nutrition, exercise, etc since at least ten years of age as my mother was grinding her own wheat, storing almonds bought from orchard stands and driving over an hour to get to a health food store in Oakland when there weren’t that good of ones on the Peninsula yet, while my dad hit the wharf for fresh fish and crab and produce warehouses for the freshest fruit in bulk so Mom could fix it for massive fruit salads and could freeze it for smoothies.

I am with you in how I categorize my sources for my personal use. In discussion with others about the Church’s teachings and doctrines, I abide by leadership’s*** definition: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/approaching-mormon-doctrine (so they apparently changed the title of the article, but wisely left the url the same to avoid breaking links) ***yes, this is the newsroom and the PR dept is only overseen, not staffed by Apostles, so I don’t take everything that comes from the newsroom as the ultimate word on a topic. But given this article’s purpose and discussions around it, my assumption is this got vetted by not only the legal department as well as the higherups in the Newsroom, but also by actual apostles and highly, highly probable that the First Presidency was very hands on with it, given the article’s importance in presenting to nonLDS as well as LDS what counts as doctrine (if written poorly, that could have negative impacts on lawsuits as well as how reporters describe our teachings, etc).