Elder Gilbert, new Q12 member

webbles · February 20

8 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

The rule is, no sex without marriage. That is the blanket rule that applies to absolutely every person, and there is no exception. Make the race fair.

That's not the rule. I think it was clearer in the pre-1990 endowment when it explicitly stated that the Law of Chastity was that women should only have sex with their husbands and that men should only have sex with their wives (I have a printed copy made by the Tanners that I inherited from my grandfather). The 1990 change made it sound more like "no sex without marriage", but the current law of chastity in the temple is closer to what it was in pre-1990 since it also refers to opposite-gendered marriages.

Edited February 20 by webbles

Calm · February 20

2 hours ago, webbles said:

That's not the rule. I think it was clearer in the pre-1990 endowment when it explicitly stated that the Law of Chastity was that women should only have sex with their husbands and that men should only have sex with their wives (I have a printed copy made by the Tanners that I inherited from my grandfather). The 1990 change made it sound more like "no sex without marriage", but the current law of chastity in the temple is closer to what it was in pre-1990 since it also refers to opposite-gendered marriages.

I was wondering why I was so certain it had been explicit about it being husband and wife only (endowed 1980). Plus marriage was always presented growing up in the Church in the context of boy meets girl/girl meets boy, they fall in love and get married. Of course, you teach or assume the context of what you see around you, somethings don’t need to be said because everyone in that culture just ‘knows’. It’s why the Bible is often guesswork on what was originally meant because the unwritten context the authors used, but did not include except at times through references we do not ‘get’ (think of someone who never heard of Star Wars or Tolkien, didn’t have the internet available to look up memes, etc trying to figure out conversations in our culture). Such references likely had massive additional information if only we knew them.

Edited February 20 by Calm

Calm · February 20

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

Those outside the Celestial Kingdom "cannot have an increase." That is not an indictment or condemnation. It is a statement of belief regrading the way things are pursuant to God's laws.

Do you believe God’s eternal increase is only limited to children or does it include knowledge, kingdoms, power, glory, and posterity and likely other things that don’t occur to me now?

Does God’s eternal increase include his exalted children’s children and their exalted children’s children, etc or only his own children in your view?

Edited February 20 by Calm

The Nehor · February 20

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

I have previously said this:

Marriage is about the union between a man and a woman, and their having children, and their familial relationship (ideally) being preserved in the eternities, and all of this has been extensively addressed by both ancient and modern prophets as being ordained of God.

Yeah, but it is not extensively addressed by ancient prophets. You won’t find the doctrine of eternal marriage in the Bible. You find Jesus saying there is no marriage in heaven and that the people there will be like the angels suggesting to the listeners a lack of reproduction. To a 1st CE Jewish listener this is also teaching that there is no sexual differentiation in heaven either. Angels use masculine pronouns in the Bible but they weren’t assumed to actually be male.

This is a modern reinterpretation along with the weird attempts to make Jesus deceptive and somehow hide the doctrine of eternal marriage while not technically being wrong.. Again, the weird need to backdate everything to previous dispensations when there is no evidence it was there does violence to both modern teachings and ancient scripture.

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

These are the fundamental attributes and purposes of marriage, and they are wholly absent from same-sex marriage.

Not really, no.

5 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think for the same reason you apparently dislike this acknowledgment: Procreation is the exclusive province of heterosexual sex. Marriage as an institution has always centered on the creating and rearing of children, so the heterosexual act is a means to that end. Same-sex behavior can never be the means to that end, and so is fundamentally distinguishable.

Sex, that is, heterosexual sex, is principally about "having children." Biologically, same-sex behavior does not make sense, as it does nothing to propagate the species, nor does it involve the biologically "intended" purposes of the participants' respective reproductive systems. This is so in both the macro and micro sense.

The “biologically intended purposes”? Then God REALLY screwed up with the placement of some erogenous zones.

Generally speaking a lot of people have sex for reasons other than having children. Including many married people. Even many sealed people. There are depraved perverts who even have sex after menopause.

Disgusting!!!!!!

I also had a good laugh at your worry about birth rates falling. As if the Earth is somehow facing an impending underpopulation crisis.

The Nehor · February 20

6 hours ago, gopher said:

I've found that rejecting the cynical, skeptical, sarcastic, disbelieving, unloving, etc interpretations of God's dealings with humanity has made it much easier to understand what God wants. But I realize that doesn't work for everyone.

I don’t find it cynical or sarcastic. I am trying to take the writers of scripture seriously at their word. I found scripture much more interesting when I stopped making excuses for the bad behaviors of God and man in them. People will wrap themselves into pretzels to justify horrific actions without even realizing it and all too often the flimsiest excuses will do.

I don’t think this is harmless either. I have seen many Christians (and some LDS) justify horrible things in the modern world based on passages of scripture. Many like the vengeful tempestuous tribal deity that will brutally murder their enemies.

smac97 · February 20

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yeah, but it is not extensively addressed by ancient prophets.

Well, yes, it was. That it is not explicitly and extensively taught in The Bible is not, or should not be, a problem for Latter-day Saints, who believe in continuing revelation. And it's not like The Bible is a compendium of everything that was taught and "addressed by ancient prophets."

We do have some indicators in The Bible, though.

Matthew 16:19: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

1 Corinthians 11:11: "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord."

Ecclesiastes 3:14: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him."

Moses 5:58-59:

Quote

58 And thus the Gospel began to be preached, from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the Holy Ghost.
59 And thus all things were confirmed unto Adam, by an holy ordinance, and the Gospel preached, and a decree sent forth, that it should be in the world, until the end thereof; and thus it was. Amen.

D&C 128 has some interesting things to say about how "the powers of the Holy Priesthood" (including, as I think we must suppose, the sealing power, mentioned a few verses later) is "the great and grand secret of the whole matter, and the summum bonum of the whole subject that is lying before us." This, and its antecedent passage in Malachi, is noted in the Church's "Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith":

Quote

Elijah restored the sealing keys—the power and authority to bind in heaven all ordinances performed on earth.

“‘And I will send Elijah the Prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord,’ etc., etc. [see Malachi 4:5]. Why send Elijah? Because he holds the keys of the authority to administer in all the ordinances of the Priesthood; and [unless] the authority is given, the ordinances could not be administered in righteousness.”⁶

The Prophet Joseph Smith said the following in a letter to the Saints, later recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 128:8–11: “The nature of this ordinance [baptism for the dead] consists in the power of the priesthood, by the revelation of Jesus Christ, wherein it is granted that whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. …

“It may seem to some to be a very bold doctrine that we talk of—a power which records or binds on earth and binds in heaven. Nevertheless, in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this power has always been given. Hence, whatsoever those men did in authority, in the name of the Lord, and did it truly and faithfully, and kept a proper and faithful record of the same, it became a law on earth and in heaven, and could not be annulled, according to the decrees of the great Jehovah. This is a faithful saying. Who can hear it?

“And again, for the precedent, Matthew 16:18, 19: And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

“Now the great and grand secret of the whole matter, and the summum bonum of the whole subject that is lying before us, consists in obtaining the powers of the Holy Priesthood. For him to whom these keys are given there is no difficulty in obtaining a knowledge of facts in relation to the salvation of the children of men, both as well for the dead as for the living.”⁷

Through the sealing power, families can be sealed for time and all eternity, and sacred ordinances can be performed for the dead.

“The spirit, power, and calling of Elijah is, that ye have power to hold the key of the revelation, ordinances, oracles, powers and endowments of the fullness of the Melchizedek Priesthood and of the kingdom of God on the earth; and to receive, obtain, and perform all the ordinances belonging to the kingdom of God, even unto the turning of the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the hearts of the children unto the fathers, even those who are in heaven.

“Malachi says, ‘I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.’ [Malachi 4:5–6.]

“Now, what I am after is the knowledge of God, and I take my own course to obtain it. What are we to understand by this in the last days?

“In the days of Noah, God destroyed the world by a flood, and He has promised to destroy it by fire in the last days: but before it should take place, Elijah should first come and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, etc.

“Now comes the point. What is this office and work of Elijah? It is one of the greatest and most important subjects that God has revealed. He should send Elijah to seal the children to the fathers, and the fathers to the children.

“Now was this merely confined to the living, to settle difficulties with families on earth? By no means. It was a far greater work. Elijah! what would you do if you were here? Would you confine your work to the living alone? No: I would refer you to the Scriptures, where the subject is manifest: that is, without us, they could not be made perfect, nor we without them; the fathers without the children, nor the children without the fathers [see Hebrews 11:40].

“I wish you to understand this subject, for it is important; and if you will receive it, this is the spirit of Elijah, that we redeem our dead, and connect ourselves with our fathers which are in heaven, and seal up our dead to come forth in the first resurrection; and here we want the power of Elijah to seal those who dwell on earth to those who dwell in heaven. This is the power of Elijah and the keys of the kingdom of Jehovah. …

“Again: The doctrine or sealing power of Elijah is as follows:—If you have power to seal on earth and in heaven, then we should be wise. The first thing you do, go and seal on earth your sons and daughters unto yourself, and yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory.”⁸

If the sealing power was restored by Elijah, it stands to reason it was revealed at some point in the past, only to have been lost, both as to authority (entirely) and knowledge of it (mostly).

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

You won’t find the doctrine of eternal marriage in the Bible.

We find some references to it, but mostly the doctrine was revealed/restored in the Doctrine & Covenants.

Again, Elijah restored some things, including the sealing power.

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

You find Jesus saying there is no marriage in heaven and that the people there will be like the angels suggesting to the listeners a lack of reproduction.

This is directly addressed and explained and contextualized in D&C 132:

Quote

12 I am the Lord thy God; and I give unto you this commandment—that no man shall come unto the Father but by me or by my word, which is my law, saith the Lord.
13 And everything that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be, that are not by me or by my word, saith the Lord, shall be thrown down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord your God.
14 For whatsoever things remain are by me; and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed.
15 Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word, and he covenant with her so long as he is in the world and she with him, their covenant and marriage are not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world; therefore, they are not bound by any law when they are out of the world.
16 Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.
17 For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.

Matthew 22:30 ("For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven"), is further explained here:

Quote

Jesus stopped not, however, to question the elements of the problem as presented to Him; whether the case was assumed or real mattered not, since the question “Whose wife shall she be?” was based on an utterly erroneous conception. “Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” The Lord’s meaning was clear, that in the resurrected state there can be no question among the seven brothers as to whose wife for eternity the woman shall be, since all except the first had married her for the duration of mortal life only, and primarily for the purpose of perpetuating in mortality the name and family of the brother who first died. Luke records the Lord’s words as follows in part: “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” In the resurrection there will be no marrying nor giving in marriage; for all questions of marital status must be settled before that time, under the authority of the Holy Priesthood, which holds the power to seal in marriage for both time and eternity.^k

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

To a 1st CE Jewish listener this is also teaching that there is no sexual differentiation in heaven either.

Ah, well. We are not constrained to just what "a 1st CE Jewish listener" might have understood.

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Angels use masculine pronouns in the Bible but they weren’t assumed to actually be male.

Angelic ministrants referenced in the scriptures appear to be exclusively male. Same goes for those for whom we have accounts as appearing to Joseph Smith (see here and here). Perhaps angelic appearances to people on the earth is a priesthood function. Or perhaps we have an incomplete record. In any event, women are amply attested to as being as capable of salvation as men (indeed, exaltation of a man requires a woman, and vice versa).

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

This is a modern reinterpretation along with the weird attempts to make Jesus deceptive and somehow hide the doctrine of eternal marriage while not technically being wrong. Again, the weird need to backdate everything to previous dispensations when there is no evidence it was there does violence to both modern teachings and ancient scripture.

Elijah is said to have restored the sealing power.

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Quote

These are the fundamental attributes and purposes of marriage, and they are wholly absent from same-sex marriage.

Not really, no.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Marriage is about the union between a man and a woman, and their having children, and their familial relationship (ideally) being preserved in the eternities, and all of this has been extensively addressed by both ancient and modern prophets as being ordained of God. And none of this has any application to same-sex relationships.

If a revelation in the future changes this understanding or circumstance, I will embrace it. I don't see that happening, though.

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The “biologically intended purposes”? Then God REALLY screwed up with the placement of some erogenous zones.

If the principal purpose of sex was physical pleasure, this might have more relevance. But I don't think that is the case. Our reproductive systems are principally about reproduction. This purpose of sexual behavior is both biological (procreation) and spiritual/social (procreation and strengthening of the husband-wife relationship).

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Generally speaking a lot of people have sex for reasons other than having children.

Agreed. But the principal purpose of our reproductive systems is reproduction. Even the Church's teaching that sex has a second fundamental purpose (strengthening the husband-wife relationship) shows that it's all about the family. Husband and wife. Parents and children.

Thanks,

-Smac

smac97 · February 20

12 hours ago, Calm said:

Quote

Those outside the Celestial Kingdom "cannot have an increase." That is not an indictment or condemnation. It is a statement of belief regrading the way things are pursuant to God's laws.

Do you believe God’s eternal increase is only limited to children

No.

12 hours ago, Calm said:

or does it include knowledge, kingdoms, power, glory, and posterity and likely other things that don’t occur to me now?

Yes.

"That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day." D&C 50:24

More from Kimball:

Quote

In 1954, President McKay is said to have appointed a special committee of the Twelve to study the issue. They concluded that the priesthood ban had no clear basis in scripture but that Church members were not prepared for change.25
...
25. Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 183, based on Arrington hearing a 1954 talk by Adam S. Bennion, a member of the committee. The Bennion Papers collected First Presidency minutes and letters relating to the priesthood policy, apparently as part of that review of the subject. The Kimball Papers include such a collection, not identified as to source. Compare Bush, “History of My Research,” 26; and Lester E. Bush, “Writing ‘Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview’ (1973): Context and Reflections, 1998,” Journal of Mormon History 25 (Spring 1999): 245. G. Homer Durham, son-in-law of Apostle John A. Widtsoe, had mentioned such an investigating committee to Nicholas Udall, although Udall’s memory is that the committee convened during the George Albert Smith administration. Nicholas Udall, interview by author, July 6, 2001.

"They concluded that the priesthood ban had no clear basis in scripture." Huh.

"Church members were not prepared for change."

8 ) So the context is this:

Several black men were ordained to the priesthood prior to 1852.
Brigham Young instituted the ban in 1852 during a legislative session at which the Utah Territorial Legislature in which making Utah a slave territory was being debated (Brigham Young argued for African slavery upon the idea that black Africans are the descendants of Cain and therefore are barred from the priesthood).
There is no known revelatory provenance for the ban in the records of the Church.
The ban received very little attention from the leaders of the Church for nearly a century, at which point the problematic 1949 FP statement was published claiming "beyond the evidence" (Kimball's characterization) that the ban was a “direct commandment” from the Lord and that it originated in "the days of [the Church’s] organization.”
Pres. McKay's tenure in the early 1950s involved the beginning of serious scrutiny of the ban, particularly his appointment of high-level committee (in the Q12) to study the issue, and which committee "concluded that the priesthood ban had no clear basis." Further changes happened as well.
Then comes the anecdote about Pres. McKay's "distressed" "outburst" to Richard Jackson in 1970:

Quote

He said, "I've had it! I'm not going to do it again!" Somebody said, "What?" He said, "Well, I'm badgered constantly about giving the priesthood to the Negro. I've inquired of the Lord repeatedly. The last time I did it was late last night. I was told, with no discussion, not to bring the subject up with the Lord again; that the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone."

Then came the 1978 OD-2, after much effort by Pres. Kimball and his predecessors. The revelation was canonized in scripture.
The Church now expressly and unequivocally and publicly disavows past racist theories as non-doctrinal folklore and celebrates the 1978 revelation as divine correction, extending all blessings to all worthy members regardless of race.

9) Is it possible, then, that the 1949 FP had either not sought divine guidance about the ban, or else they did seek guidance and were told something similar to what is noted here?

Is it possible that the FP then erred in going "beyond the evidence" in the 1949 letter by stating that the ban was a “direct commandment” from the Lord and that it originated in "the days of [the Church’s] organization"?

Is it possible that the ban was not instituted by God, but that its ending was (via OD-2), as was the seeming delay in its ending ("the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone")?

18 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Your quoted passage is merely an acknowledgment that we [i.e. the 1947 FP] don’t exactly know why the ban was in place. As for the modern statement, it’s always amazing how clear things are in retrospect. Apologists have perfected it. To paraphrase Dan McClellan - if you think God is anti-slavery you have all the tools you need to conclude God is fine with homosexual relationships.

I think Dan has, for quite a while now, been "over his skis" insofar as his personal and political ideologies predominate his published-to-the-world interpretation of Latter-day Saint doctrine. He is an unserious and untrustworthy guide.

That said, there may be some utility in examining how to reconcile our understanding of the character of God with the seeming uneven guidance we receive from him.

Abortion, illicit drugs, same-sex behavior and same-sex marriage are all big social issues, and yet there is little express scriptural guidance on them (plenty from modern prophets and apostles, though). Meanwhile, God gave exacting instructions on the dimensions and construction of Noah's Ark and the Tabernacle and the Temple, and on dietary restrictions. Why did He provide particularized scriptural guidance on the latter topics and relatively little scriptural guidance as to the former?

God chose Israel as his covenant people, and then let them languish in servitude in Egypt for centuries.

The Book of Mormon explicitly forbids slavery among God's people (Alma 27:8–9; Mosiah 2:13), and Doctrine and Covenants declares that "it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another" (D&C 101:79), and God is "no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34 and D&C 1:35). But then His prophet, Brigham Young, instituted the priesthood ban while in the very act of publicly endorsing slavery. And then He let the priesthood ban stand for 126 years.

Ancient biblical slavery often differed significantly from the brutal, race-based chattel slavery of later eras (like the transatlantic slave trade). In the ancient Near East, servitude commonly arose from war, debt, or poverty, and was often not inherently lifelong or hereditary. Biblical laws provided protections absent in surrounding cultures, such as Sabbath rest for servants (Exodus 20:10), refuge for escaped slaves (Deuteronomy 23:15–16), penalties for abuse (Exodus 21:20–21, 26–27), and periodic release (Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12–15; Leviticus 25:10 in the Jubilee year).

God respects human agency (D&C 58:26–28; Moses 4:3), allowing societies to grapple with their flaws even when they contradict His ultimate will. Just as He permitted polygamy or other practices in biblical times for specific purposes before later clarifying (e.g., Jacob 2:27–30 in the Book of Mormon). Latter-day Saint also doctrine emphasizes that revelation comes "line upon line, precept upon precept" (Isaiah 28:10; 2 Nephi 28:30; Doctrine and Covenants 98:12), which necessarily involves accommodating human readiness. The Bible is viewed as true "as far as it is translated correctly" (Article of Faith 8), but it represents God's dealings with ancient peoples at their level of understanding—often through imperfect prophets and cultural lenses (and the record of these dealings may likewise be deficient, incomplete, inaccurate, etc.).

Slavery's regulation in the Old Testament may be seen a step toward greater justice, while the New Testament advances this by treating slaves as equals in Christ (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 4:1) and condemning slave trading (1 Timothy 1:10). Slavery's tolerance in scripture is not approval but a temporary accommodation to prevent greater evils or to foster spiritual growth. This mirrors how Jesus focused on heart transformation over immediate social revolution (Luke 4:18–19, proclaiming liberty to captives spiritually and literally through Jubilee themes).

Biblical regulations regulations may be seen as humanitarian improvements, not divine endorsements. That is, God did not command the institution of slavery but worked within flawed human societies to mitigate its harms, similar to how Jesus addressed divorce as a concession to "hardness of heart" (Matthew 19:8) rather than ideal law. This reflects God's long-suffering patience, elevating people gradually without forcing immediate societal upheaval that could lead to chaos or rejection of His message.

Many modern issues like abortion, illicit drugs, same-sex behavior, and same-sex marriage receive less explicit ancient scriptural detail because scripture is predicated not only on core principles (from which guidance can be extrapolated), but also on continuing guidance from living prophets and apostles.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited February 20 by smac97

california boy · February 20

15 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yes.

And here:

You seem surprised. I am surprised that you are surprised.

The sexual act is not, or is not supposed to be, an end unto itself. It is, instead, intended to facilitate procreation and the strengthening of the marital union of a husband and wife.

I have repeatedly acknowledged that sex is also intended to strengthen of the marital union of a husband and wife.

Again, I am surprised that you are surprised. Why do you think the "reproductive system" is called that? Why do you think we have male and female body parts that are designed to introduce Mr. Sperm to Mrs. Egg?

If the principal purpose of sex is not reproduction, then what do you propose is the principal purpose?

Human beings procreate by by joining together of a sperm and an egg, one gamete from each of the two sexes who come into proximity to each other via heterosexual sex. A same-sex sexual act is wholly inconducive to the intended purpose and use of our reproductive parts. Is it problematic of me to note this?

No.  Again, Elder Renlund explained things rather well:

I've quoted this a few times now.

It's up to them.

It is an unfortunately common tactic these days to feign ignorance as a deliberate tactic of avoiding or pretending not to understand inconvenient facts, particularly regarding ideological, economic, or historical issues.

Here's we're discussing marriage and heterosexual sex, and the interplay between them, and the centrality of the procreation of the species resulting from that interplay, all of which has, for thousands of years, been the bedrock of society.

And here you are, saying it "makes no sense."

Well, I'm willing to listen to what you have to say.

If the use of our reproductive systems to have sex is not principally about reproduction, then what, in your view, is the principal purpose of such use?

Ah, so you the reproductive act is principally about strengthening the relationship between the participants, and not about reproduction?

My worldview, as I have noted repeatedly, contemplates both. But even then, wouldn't the "strengthening the relationship" part facilitate the procreatin' and rearin' part of the process? And vice versa? I've heard it said that raising children can injure a marital relationship. I acknowledge that. Broadly, though, these are mutually complementary. We have sex to have and raise kids, and we have sex to strengthen our relationship, which in turn strengthens our ability to have and raise kids.

I can understand why you would prefer to focus on just the one, since the other one is, by design, wholly absent from same-sex couplings. But we each have what we call a "Reproductive System." I've never heard anyone calling it the "Strengthening the Relationship System."

Consider, for example, the concept of "Pair Bonding," described here:

And here. Humans also generally exhibit "parental/maternal/paternal bonding" (parent and child). There is apparently neurobiological component to these things:

I think most of us like to think there is more to sex and interpersonal relationships than neurochemical processes. Some of us believe that that this "more" includes guidance from the Spirit of God.

In any event, I think the principal purpose of us using our reproductive system is to facilitate reproduction. This should not be a controversial thing.

Very few. But then, Brigham Young indicated this will be a big part of the work during the Millennium:

"{A}nd we will enter into the temples of God and officiate for them."

Yep.

No.  If I had someone in my sphere of influence and stewardship who did not want to have children, and if they sought out or were otherwise receptive to my input, I would try to persuade them to, if possible, get married and have children. There are all sorts of ways marriage is being undermined these days. I think that diluting the meaning and purpose of marriage by severing it from its procreative aspect, whether by advocating for same-sex couplings (which are biologically incapable of having children), or by subscribing to DINK ("Dual Income, No Kids") and other anti-natalist philosophies (where a couple consciously choose to not have children), or by the large scale elective abortion of babies, or by viewing having kids as an incidental and secondary, rather than intended and primary, purpose of the procreative act, and so on, we have materially weakened the institution of marriage.

Again, from the Proclamation:

Fertility is collapsing around the world. Anti-natalism, in all its repellant forms, is gaining momentum.  See, e.g., here:

France’s Plan To Lure Women Into Freezing Their Eggs Won’t Fix Its Flailing Fertility Rate

Yeah, good luck with that, Mr. Macron.

Such are the noxious fruits of the amoral and self-centered philosophies of the day. Children have been devalued in modern culture. This is a terrible thing. I cannot conceive of a purpose more worthwhile than in being a husband and father.

In Matthew 24:12, we were told that in the last days "iniquity shall abound," and therefore that "the love of many shall wax cold." The anti-natalism and anti-marriage sentiments arising from secularism, self-centeredness, abortion rhetoric and other mechanisms are, in my view, a fulfillment of this prediction. Moreover, I think it's a permanent thing. There's no getting out of it. The foregoing influences are only going to get stronger and stronger. I will probably not live to see the peak of human population growth, but I think my children will. And I also think they will thereafter see a drastic and rapid drop in world population, with all sorts of attendant problems and calamities.

There will be some silver linings to this, but also a lot of bad stuff. Matthew 24:12 was a warning against difficult times.

Some women have no choice but to go through IVF. I have a dear friend who went through this, and she now has a beautiful little girl.

Tragically, there are large numbers of women who are choosing, whether through specific intent or inattention, to set aside marriage and family, or to subordinate such things, or to delay such things until procreation becomes more difficult and risky.

The notion of sex as a "transactional" thing, or as something wholly severed from procreation and children, has done great damage to our society.

This is, in my view, entirely correct. Children were previously valued either as "an heritage of the Lord" (Psalm 127:3) (or something similar in outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition), and as assets (such as in an agrarian society, where children could contribute labor toward the benefit of the family). These days, children are devalued. They are aborted for any reason, or no reason at all. Or they are never conceived in the first place. And if they are conceived and born, it happens, in ever-increasing numbers, outside of the marital covenant. The act by which they are conceived has been severed from both their creation and the family in which they ought to be reared.

There are all sorts of influences which are deterring people from "settling down and raising a family."

It's a sad thing. I feel grateful that I listened to prophets and apostles more than to worldly philosophies, as did my wife. Together we had six children, which was difficult but utterly worthwhile.

See here: Birth Control

I do. I did not say otherwise.

But a gay couple cannot procreate, nor can they "be a father and a mother to children," nor can they be sealed for eternity, nor can they be sealed to their children, nor can their sexual behavior strengthen the marital relationship between husband and wife.

No.

I am saying that gay couples are biologically incapable of procreation.

Again: I readily acknowledge that a same-sex couple can approximate some of the things a heterosexual couple can do. They can acquire a child (though only by adopting or otherwise acquiring one from a heterosexual coupling).  They can raise the child with love (though in a home which by design omits either a father or a mother).

Nope. I believe that the Lord "put those boundaries there," and have elected to accept that.

Worldviews and presuppositions come into play here.

I don't know what you are referencing here.

Has there been a time when two men have been able to "biologically have children" together? I think not.

And I have said far more than just that. I have presented an affirmative case for what marriage is, or should be, about.

A "requirement"? No, I don't think I have said that.

But that is neither here nor there. Same-sex couples categorically have a 0% fertility rate. Heterosexual couples have a higher, though presently quite low, fertility rate.

I've said nothing about "just to reproduce." I was speaking of sex having the dual purposes of A) procreation and B) strengthening the union between husband and wife. Marriage is intended to provide the best possible environment in which the procreative act can take place.

Sure. Such are the vicissitudes of living in a fallen and telestial world. The Plan of Salvation, however, posits that sex should be limited to husband and wife for the purposes of A) procreation and B) strengthening the union between husband and wife.

Thanks,

-Smac

I think Calm answered your post in a very pointed way that is far more based in reality than your insistence that sex in marriage is for having more children as its principle reason. I think you should study what she says and ponder your position.

17 hours ago, Calm said:

Do you view life’s main purpose is evolution? The passing on of DNA?

If not, why is the principle purpose of heterosexual sex about reproduction? Because my guess is given the search for and use of many different forms of birth control over the ages as well as the evidence for the frequency of premarital sex (a woman would be crazy in most cultures to attempt to raise kids without a husband because of property issues, physical protection, rights of women or rather lack of them) as well as sexually active women who are no longer fertile, the majority of heterosexual acts in humanity’s existence have been most likely been for the purpose of pleasure, not to produce children and that often they were an unwanted side effect (and thus many were abandoned when abortion was not an option).

God and/or evolution may view heterosexual sex as principally about reproduction, but those doing it….much lower percentage.

In the 45+ years of my marriage, about 6 months of heterosexual sex was principally devoted to having children with the side purpose of having fun. The rest of the time it’s been about pleasure and companionship. So around 1%.

I highly doubt you only had sex when you wanted more children. At some point you and your wife made a conscious decision to not have more children. It does not mean your marriage no longer had any importance to both of you. Even if biologically you could not have children, (the same situation gay couples face), it doesn't mean you should never marry or they should never marry. There is an avalanche of reasons to marry. Having biological children isn't even the most important since other ways of having children brought into your life are available to all. (that would be adoption)

While every other reason for a gay couple to marry is the same as a heterosexual couple, disqualifying and demeaning their marriages and their reasons for marrying as being without purpose and meaningless simply because they can not biologically have children is putting blinders on the most important reasons for finding someone you love and sharing that loving relationship with them throughout their lives together.

california boy · February 20

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I acknowledge that the FP characterized the ban as being a "direct commandment from the Lord."

I also acknowledge that the FP acknowledged they did not know the "why" ("Why the Negro was denied the Priesthood from the days of Adam to our day is not known.").

I also acknowledge that the FP letter statement ("they are not entitled to the Priesthood at the present time") is inaccurate or incomplete in that it does not address Elijah Abel/Able/Ables, Moroni Abel/Able/Ables, Elijah R. Ables, James Brown, Jr., Henry G. Church, Robert R. Church, William F. Church, and Q. Walker Lewis, all of whom were "black" and who received the priesthood.

I also think that the "direct commandment from the Lord" part can be viewed in the light of these events pertaining to Pres. McKay:

Here is my working theory:

1) The priesthood ban was wholly without revelatory provenance. It was, instead, the terrible product of 19th racialist sentiments, including antebellum chattel slavery of black people, which were deeply entrenched in society at that time. And even then, we had indicia that racism was a bad idea. The Book of Mormon speaks against it. Joseph Smith's views on black people were, as this Wikipedia puts it, "multi-faceted." He and other early church leaders gave decidedly mixed messages, acknowledging the humanity and worth of our black brothers and sisters in some ways, and allowing/facilitating/perpetuating their mistreatment in others. Alternatively and additionally, the ban arose from a flawed conceptual framework formulated by Brigham Young. From Edward Kimball:

I think much of this thinking about "a man's ancestry" was still largely derivative of racialism, as the "Curse of Cain" concept was, at the time, a well-established apologetic for slavery:

2) The absence of a revelatory provenance is not only evident from the context in which it arose, but also from the absence of any revelation in the records of the Church. We are a record-keeping people.  On April 6, 1830, the day the Church was organized, the Lord commanded the Prophet Joseph Smith, “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you” (D&C 21:1). We have no record of a revelation instituting the ban. I find this particularly noteworthy since the ban was formally instituted in 1852, after a number of black Latter-day Saint men had received the priesthood.

3) The ban arose not only arose in the antebellum American West (when slavery and its attendant racialist justifications and sentiments were still strongly in place in many parts of the U.S.), it arose during a time in which the Church was in tremendous turmoil and under much hardship over the space of many years (persecutions in Nauvoo, the initial trek west, the ongoing flow of immigrants in the ensuing years, the settlement of the west, the creation of towns, the feeding and provisioning of thousands of newly-minted and -arrived church members, international missionary work, the Civil War, building the Salt Lake Temple, Johnston's Army, Mountain Meadows, polygamy troubles, financial setbacks, and on and on and on). Brigham Young and the leaders of the Church had a lot on their plates. And there was, at the time, not very many black Latter-day Saints, so the issue apparently received little attention for a long period of time.

4) The ban did not receive much attention or particularized consideration for a very long time. The Church was mostly cloistered in the American West for quite a while, during which time there was the Civil War (which eliminated, as a de jure matter, chattel slavery), Reconstruction (which saw the civil rights of black folks violently challenged by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the rise of "Black Codes" and "Jim Crow" laws), the Industrial Revolution, the settlement of the American West, and so on. Then came the 20th Century, with WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, the dawn of the Atomic Age and the restructuring of international powers, and so on.

5) It was not until the post-WWII era, and the growth of missionary work in places like Brazil (with lots of people having black African ancestry) that the bad started to get some real attention. I have previously addressed this here:

6) It was during this period (post-WWII, but pre-Civil Rights Era) that the 1949 letter went out from the First Presidency, characterizing the Church's position as

As I have noted here, there are a few challenges here. There is a reference a "direct commandment from the Lord," but nothing in the records of the Church. The ban is characterized as having originated "from the days of {the Church's} organization," which is difficult-to-impossible to reconcile with Joseph Smith's statements, and with the ordinations of several black men to the priesthood. From Edward Kimball (regarding the 1949 FP statement) :

I think this is a correct assessment.

7) Then along came Pres. McKay. Again from Kimball:

As noted above, Brigham Young apparently initiated the priesthood ban on an "ancestry" (rather than "skin color") basis, but the subsequent de facto application of the ban appears to have devolved to a "race" or "skin color"-based concept. This was then corrected, sort of, in the 1950s as noted above.

More from Kimball:

"They concluded that the priesthood ban had no clear basis in scripture." Huh.

"Church members were not prepared for change."

8 ) So the context is this:

Several black men were ordained to the priesthood prior to 1852.

Brigham Young instituted the ban in 1852 during a legislative session at which the Utah Territorial Legislature in which making Utah a slave territory was being debated (Brigham Young argued for African slavery upon the idea that black Africans are the descendants of Cain and therefore are barred from the priesthood).

There is no known revelatory provenance for the ban in the records of the Church.

The ban received very little attention from the leaders of the Church for nearly a century, at which point the problematic 1949 FP statement was published claiming "beyond the evidence" (Kimball's characterization) that the ban was a “direct commandment” from the Lord and that it originated in "the days of [the Church’s] organization.”

Pres. McKay's tenure in the early 1950s involved the beginning of serious scrutiny of the ban, particularly his appointment of high-level committee (in the Q12) to study the issue, and which committee "concluded that the priesthood ban had no clear basis." Further changes happened as well.

Then comes the anecdote about Pres. McKay's "distressed" "outburst" to Richard Jackson in 1970:

Then came the 1978 OD-2, after much effort by Pres. Kimball and his predecessors. The revelation was canonized in scripture.

The Church now disavows past racist theories as non-doctrinal folklore and celebrates the 1978 revelation as divine correction, extending all blessings to all worthy members regardless of race.

9) Is it possible, then, that the 1949 FP had either not sought divine guidance about the ban, or else they did seek guidance and were told something similar to what is noted here?

Is it possible that the FP then erred in going "beyond the evidence" in the 1949 letter by stating that the ban was a “direct commandment” from the Lord and that it originated in "the days of [the Church’s] organization"?

Is it possible that the ban was not instituted by God, but that its ending was (via OD-2), as was the seeming delay in its ending ("the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone")?

I think Dan has, for quite a while now, been "over his skis" insofar as his personal and political ideologies predominate his published-to-the-world interpretation of Latter-day Saint doctrine. He is an unserious and untrustworthy guide.

That said, there may be some utility in examining how to reconcile our understanding of the character of God with the seeming uneven guidance we receive from him.

Abortion, illicit drugs, same-sex behavior and same-sex marriage are all big social issues, and yet there is little express scriptural guidance on them (plenty from modern prophets and apostles, though). Meanwhile, God gave exacting instructions on the dimensions and construction of Noah's Ark and the Tabernacle and the Temple, and on dietary restrictions. Why did He provide particularized scriptural guidance on the latter topics and relatively little scriptural guidance as to the former?

God chose Israel as his covenant people, and then let them languish in servitude in Egypt for centuries.

The Book of Mormon explicitly forbids slavery among God's people (Alma 27:8–9; Mosiah 2:13), and Doctrine and Covenants declares that "it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another" (D&C 101:79), and God is "no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34 and D&C 1:35). But then His prophet, Brigham Young, instituted the priesthood ban while in the very act of publicly endorsing slavery. And then He let the priesthood ban stand for 126 years.

Ancient biblical slavery often differed significantly from the brutal, race-based chattel slavery of later eras (like the transatlantic slave trade). In the ancient Near East, servitude commonly arose from war, debt, or poverty, and was often not inherently lifelong or hereditary. Biblical laws provided protections absent in surrounding cultures, such as Sabbath rest for servants (Exodus 20:10), refuge for escaped slaves (Deuteronomy 23:15–16), penalties for abuse (Exodus 21:20–21, 26–27), and periodic release (Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12–15; Leviticus 25:10 in the Jubilee year).

God respects human agency (D&C 58:26–28; Moses 4:3), allowing societies to grapple with their flaws even when they contradict His ultimate will. Just as He permitted polygamy or other practices in biblical times for specific purposes before later clarifying (e.g., Jacob 2:27–30 in the Book of Mormon). Latter-day Saint also doctrine emphasizes that revelation comes "line upon line, precept upon precept" (Isaiah 28:10; 2 Nephi 28:30; Doctrine and Covenants 98:12), which necessarily involves accommodating human readiness. The Bible is viewed as true "as far as it is translated correctly" (Article of Faith 8), but it represents God's dealings with ancient peoples at their level of understanding—often through imperfect prophets and cultural lenses (and the record of these dealings may likewise be deficient, incomplete, inaccurate, etc.).

Slavery's regulation in the Old Testament may be seen a step toward greater justice, while the New Testament advances this by treating slaves as equals in Christ (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 4:1) and condemning slave trading (1 Timothy 1:10). Slavery's tolerance in scripture is not approval but a temporary accommodation to prevent greater evils or to foster spiritual growth. This mirrors how Jesus focused on heart transformation over immediate social revolution (Luke 4:18–19, proclaiming liberty to captives spiritually and literally through Jubilee themes).

Biblical regulations regulations may be seen as humanitarian improvements, not divine endorsements. That is, God did not command the institution of slavery but worked within flawed human societies to mitigate its harms, similar to how Jesus addressed divorce as a concession to "hardness of heart" (Matthew 19:8) rather than ideal law. This reflects God's long-suffering patience, elevating people gradually without forcing immediate societal upheaval that could lead to chaos or rejection of His message.

Many modern issues like abortion, illicit drugs, same-sex behavior, and same-sex marriage receive less explicit ancient scriptural detail because scripture is predicated not only on core principles (from which guidance can be extrapolated), but also on continuing guidance from living prophets and apostles.

Thanks,

-Smac

Doesn't this acknowledgment repudiate most of what you rationalized?

Quote

I acknowledge that the FP characterized the ban as being a "direct commandment from the Lord."

There has been no "direct commandment from the Lord" about prohibiting gay marriage. It too is a policy based on social prejudices of their time. And this issues clearly is in the same category of prophets being products of their time. Without even any "direct commandment from the Lord" preventing gay marriage, there is absolutely no foundation to deny God's children who are gay from temple ordinances simply because they value marriage and companionship in their lives.

Yes marriage is for men and women. No one is saying otherwise. But it doesn't justify banning marriage for gay couples without that direction coming from God. It is just an assumption to decide God has only that narrow definition of marriage. Kinda like the assumption that just because someone has a black skin, they are not worth of marriage in the temple.

Calm · February 20

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

15 hours ago, Calm said:

or does it include knowledge, kingdoms, power, glory, and posterity and likely other things that don’t occur to me now?

Yes.

Then if we are truly one in the Celestial Kingdom, then why would only the children we produce ourselves be seen as contributing to our own glory rather than all who are of God’s family? Why can’t we also have eternal increase through others having children when we are in total oneness with them as we are with God?

Calm · February 20

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Having biological children isn't even the most important since other ways of having children brought into your life are available to all.

Not if you don’t qualify or can’t afford adoption, but that would likely be a recent change as I am guessing taking unwanted kids in would be relatively easy in much of the past.

There is also the issue of health that might limit a couple, but the same would apply to having children in the first place.

But I do agree that generally speaking adoption is a possibility and it would seem this applies to the next life as well because scripture speaks of Christ adopting us for God and I assume we count as part of his eternal increase as well.

PS: again this does not mean I reject the doctrine it will be male and female couples only, I am undecided at this point if my life. Part of me hates the idea that there is yet another way to remove women from the eternal picture as unnecessary, but also looking at heaven as truly Godly, that logically wouldn’t happen even if creation didn’t require at some point female involvement. God doesn’t require each individual’s involvement for creation apparently, so none of us are inherently necessary to God….except that he appears to have made us so as his children and he invites each of us to participate, so why would women be excluded just because men possibly could create even spirit children on their own?

Edited February 20 by Calm

smac97 · February 20

1 hour ago, california boy said:

I think Calm answered your post in a very pointed way that is far more based in reality than your insistence that sex in marriage is for having more children as its principle reason. I think you should study what she says and ponder your position.

Again, I find it exceedingly strange that the postulation "The principal purpose and use of the reproductive system of human beings is reproduction." And to pair-bond, sure, but that's still catering the the overarching biological and family-centered concept.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

I highly doubt you only had sex when you wanted more children.

I have repeatedly said that sex has two purposes: procreation and the strengthening of the union between husband and wife.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

At some point you and your wife made a conscious decision to not have more children.

After we had six children, yes.

Meanwhile, same-sex couples have zero capacity to procreate.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

It does not mean your marriage no longer had any importance to both of you.

I never suggested otherwise.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Even if biologically you could not have children, (the same situation gay couples face), it doesn't mean you should never marry or they should never marry.

I never suggested otherwise.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

There is an avalanche of reasons to marry.

Sure. But the principal reason, in the Latter-day Saint paradigm, is to obey God. And God has told us to enter into male-female marriages, to procreate within that union, and to be absolutely faithful within it:

Doctrine and Covenants 42:22: Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.
Matthew 19:5: And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Moses 3:24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.
Abraham 5:18: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.
Genesis 2:24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Mark 10:7: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28, Moses 2:28).
The sacred powers of procreation are to be used only between a man and woman who are married (Genesis 39:9, Exodus 20:14).
Procreation allows mortals to act as partners with God in creating physical bodies for His spirit children, a necessary step for their progression (Moses 6:59).
Intimacy within marriage is ordained to bring children into the world and to express love, rather than just for self-gratification (Genesis 2:24, 1 Corinthians 7:3).
The Family Proclamation states that "the first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife" and that "God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife" The Family Proclamation.
Exodus 20:14: "Thou shalt not commit adultery."
Doctrine & Covenants 59:6: Reiterates the commandment to avoid adultery and anything "like unto it."
Doctrine & Covenants 42:22-23: Commands love for one's spouse and warns that looking with lust results in losing the Spirit and denying the faith.

All of this is predicated on the centrality of the family. Husband and wife. Parents and children.

Same-sex relationships are not a part of the Plan of Salvation. While I maintain, for the purposes of AoF 1:9, a de minimis reservation that there may be a future revelation departing from this principle, I don't anticipate it happening.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Having biological children isn't even the most important since other ways of having children brought into your life are available to all. (that would be adoption).

These "other ways" all being derived from heterosexual couplings.

Adoption is great. I have three adopted siblings, and I have never viewed them in any way distinguishable from my biological siblings.

All of them, though, were born because a man and a woman had sex. This never happens with same-sex behavior. It cannot happen.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

While every other reason for a gay couple to marry is the same as a heterosexual couple,

I respect this position. It is not, however, congruent with the doctrines of the Church. Marriage is defined in a way that precludes it. The purposes of marriage (procreation and strengthening the husband-wife relationship) preclude it.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

disqualifying and demeaning their marriages

Me: "Based on your comments over the years, I know these parameters are not fully congruent with the beliefs of the Latter-day Saints, but they sure seem to have a lot of overlap. You love your children. I respect that. You love your partner. I respect that."

Also me: "I respect same-sex marriage as the law of the land. I respect those who feel differently than I do about it."

I don't know what you mean by "disqualify." And I while I have disagreed with the concept of same-sex marriage, I have not "demeaned" it. If I say that a couple who marries in their 60s will never, for biological reasons, have children, that does not "demean" their relationship. It instead merely recognizes biological reality. Same goes for same-sex relationships, which are likewise 100% incapable of procreation.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

and their reasons for marrying as being without purpose and meaningless

I don't think I have said this, or anything like it.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

simply because they can not biologically have children is putting blinders on the most important reasons for finding someone you love and sharing that loving relationship with them throughout their lives together.

In your view, marriage and sexuality have "most important reasons" for happening, and those reasons do not include procreation?

Thanks,

-Smac

smac97 · February 20

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Doesn't this acknowledgment repudiate most of what you rationalized?

Quote

I acknowledge that the FP characterized the ban as being a "direct commandment from the Lord."

I don't think so.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

There has been no "direct commandment from the Lord" about prohibiting gay marriage.

You have, for many years now, drawn a one-to-one correlation between the Church's priesthood ban and, well, pretty much anything you don't like. For you, it is the smoking gun that the Brethren just make stuff up willy nilly. For me, however, it's the exception that proves the rule. And the OD-2 is the rule nullifying the exception.

You have long relied on an anything-I-don't-like-in-the-teachings-of-the-Church-I-summarily-declare-to-be-manmade line of reasoning, helped along with a few healthy doses of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Positivism. Fundamentalism. Hyper-literalism. Proof-texting. Legalism. These are your go-to resources whenever same-sex marriage and/or homosexual behavior comes up on this board. But they just don't work. Your insistent "Show me chapter and verse where God descended from heaven and prohibited homosexual behavior" (or, here, "Show me a 'direct commandment from the Lord'") legalisms just don't work, any more than, say, someone trying to argue that injecting heroin is okay since it's not itemized in the Doctrine & Covenants, or that pornography is acceptable because it is not specifically prohibited in the scriptures, and on and on and on.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

It too is a policy based on social prejudices of their time.

I do not think so. I find the definition of marriage and the Law of Chastity to be firmly rooted in scripture and inspired prophetic guidance.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

And this issues clearly is in the same category of prophets being products of their time. Without even any "direct commandment from the Lord" preventing gay marriage, there is absolutely no foundation to deny God's children who are gay from temple ordinances simply because they value marriage and companionship in their lives.

There is ample foundation to not re-define marriage, and to maintain the Lord's standards pertaining to the Law of Chastity.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Yes marriage is for men and women.

And only for men and women. Same-sex marriage is not part of the Latter-day Saint paradigm.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

No one is saying otherwise. But it doesn't justify banning marriage for gay couples without that direction coming from God.

Radically re-defining marriage to include same-sex relationships would constitute a seismic shift away from scriptural and prophetic guidance through the years. It would also be incongruent with the Plan of Salvation and the doctrines pertaining to marriage and sexuality.

Sex is intended to be limited to husband-wife behaviors, for the purposes of procreation and strengthening the relationship between them. No other forms of sexual expression are allowed. No fornication. No adultery. No same-sex behavior.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

It is just an assumption to decide God has only that narrow definition of marriage.

Given your presuppositions, I can see how you would reach this conclusion. Respectfully, I do not share either your conclusion or its attendant presuppositions. That's okay. Reasonable minds can disagree about such things. I am a Latter-day Saint, and you are not. I believe things you do not, and vice versa. Religious pluralism is a good thing to have.

Thanks,

-Smac

Peacefully · February 20

22 hours ago, california boy said:

Just why do you always add "their having children." Is that a mandatory part of every marriage? Do people promise to anyone including God that if they get married they will absolutely have children??

Or is it simply that your rationalization for not allowing gay marriage kinda falls apart if it isn't a requirement to have children.

It really falls apart if you think about the straight couple in the church who can’t conceive “naturally” and end up adopting. Should they not be allowed in the temple?

smac97 · February 20

25 minutes ago, Peacefully said:

It really falls apart if you think about the straight couple in the church who can’t conceive “naturally” and end up adopting. Should they not be allowed in the temple?

Nobody has suggested that having children is a prerequisite to entering the temple.

The strawman here is getting pretty tattered.

Thanks,

-Smac

The Nehor · February 20

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Well, yes, it was. That it is not explicitly and extensively taught in The Bible is not, or should not be, a problem for Latter-day Saints, who believe in continuing revelation. And it's not like The Bible is a compendium of everything that was taught and "addressed by ancient prophets."

Then you are just guessing that it was extensively taught by ancient prophets. It is not in the Bible or the Book of Mormon or the Pearl of Great Price. Are there other sources we have that prove it was taught anciently? No. So you are asserting it with the evidence being “trust me bro”.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

We do have some indicators in The Bible, though.

Oh boy, here we go.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Matthew 16:19: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

That’s not about marriage.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

1 Corinthians 11:11: "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord."

That is not about marriage either. It is part of a chain of logic that Paul constructed as to why women should always have their head covered while praying. Also the whole thing is about women submitting to their husband so importing the idea of some kind of equal eternal marriage being hinted at there is a stretch that would snap Stretch Armstrong himself.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Ecclesiastes 3:14: "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him."

Seriously? That is an even greater stretch.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Moses 5:58-59:

I can see why you didn’t include the quote there. That is even less relevant.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

D&C 128 has some interesting things to say about how "the powers of the Holy Priesthood" (including, as I think we must suppose, the sealing power, mentioned a few verses later) is "the great and grand secret of the whole matter, and the summum bonum of the whole subject that is lying before us." This, and its antecedent passage in Malachi, is noted in the Church's "Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith":

If the sealing power was restored by Elijah, it stands to reason it was revealed at some point in the past, only to have been lost, both as to authority (entirely) and knowledge of it (mostly).

So again, it falls under “trust me bro”. Also the sealing power Elijah used was about sealing the heavens so it wouldn’t rain. If Elijah was performing sealing marriages the writers of the Old Testament considered that to be comparatively unimportant to the point they didn’t mention it.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

We find some references to it, but mostly the doctrine was revealed/restored in the Doctrine & Covenants.

It was entirely revealed/restored that way. Not mostly.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Again, Elijah restored some things, including the sealing power.

This is directly addressed and explained and contextualized in D&C 132:

Matthew 22:30 ("For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven"), is further explained here:

Which makes Jesus into a ‘cross his fingers behind his back’ dissembler. Not exactly a good look.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Ah, well. We are not constrained to just what "a 1st CE Jewish listener" might have understood.

And this kind of reasoning is insane. It suggests that God was not teaching truths but was instead dropping weird divine hints that are not meant to be picked up for millenia. It is a weird way of teaching.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Angelic ministrants referenced in the scriptures appear to be exclusively male. Same goes for those for whom we have accounts as appearing to Joseph Smith (see here and here). Perhaps angelic appearances to people on the earth is a priesthood function. Or perhaps we have an incomplete record. In any event, women are amply attested to as being as capable of salvation as men (indeed, exaltation of a man requires a woman, and vice versa).

That is not what I said. They understood the angels to be sexless and genderless and used male pronouns as a convention since when they manifested in a humanoid form they appeared male. The idea of gendered angels is mostly an LDS thing. If Jesus was hinting at eternal marriage being a higher role in the heavens he used a terrible method of hinting at that.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Elijah is said to have restored the sealing power.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

No, I am only agreeable to thinking you are completely and utterly wrong.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Marriage is about the union between a man and a woman, and their having children, and their familial relationship (ideally) being preserved in the eternities, and all of this has been extensively addressed by both ancient and modern prophets as being ordained of God. And none of this has any application to same-sex relationships.

Again, NOT extensively addressed by ancient prophets. No evidence of that anywhere. Just vibes.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

If a revelation in the future changes this understanding or circumstance, I will embrace it. I don't see that happening, though.

Will you give me credit for reading all the divine hints in advance that this is coming and hail me as a prophet for it?

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

If the principal purpose of sex was physical pleasure, this might have more relevance. But I don't think that is the case. Our reproductive systems are principally about reproduction. This purpose of sexual behavior is both biological (procreation) and spiritual/social (procreation and strengthening of the husband-wife relationship).

Again, nothing to back up what the primary purpose is. Just vibes.

You also neatly dodged how badly designed the human body is if the primary purpose is to avoid same sex sexual activity since the human body incentivizes it. A LOT.

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Agreed. But the principal purpose of our reproductive systems is reproduction. Even the Church's teaching that sex has a second fundamental purpose (strengthening the husband-wife relationship) shows that it's all about the family. Husband and wife. Parents and children.

This is also a modern teaching. Paul preached celibacy as the ideal but was okay with married sex to have children or to prevent ‘burning with lust’ as a kind of prophylactic for those who didn’t have Paul’s gift for embracing celibacy. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of it strengthening a relationship.

The idea of it being a bonding method came much later. Its strongest proponent in history was (ironically) the Puritans.

MrShorty · February 20

To bring this back to Elder Gilbert, I saw this interview by the Deseret News (https://www.deseret.com/video/2026/02/19/deseret-voices-episode-16-elder-clark-g-gilbert-on-conviction-controversy-and-compassion/ ). In the interview, Johnson asks Elder Gilbert about some of the controversies and criticisms of his calling to the apostleship, and he gives some interesting answers. He responded by saying, "It is so hard...standing for truth with love." He then goes on to talk about BYU and mentions some statistics from surveys of students and faculty and he talks about how the changes at BYU in recent years have resulted in an increase in students who say they grew closer to Christ and increases in the satisfaction of faculty. What I immediately wondered was whether those increases were due to the "goodness" the policy changes at BYU, or were they due to a "shrinking of the tent" that pushed the students and faculty more likely to answer negatively out of the BYU tent. That's the tricky thing with statistics -- what is it they are really trying to tell us?

In another question, he was asked to respond directly to his critics, and his response included the same kind of tension between being compassionate and caring, but not giving any ground on (our perception) of truth. IMO, that is not something a "big tent church" dogmatically sticks to, but it seems to be what our church likes to cling to. I know we had a long debate about David Archuletta's choices here some time ago, and I don't want to resurrect that (as if I could stop it), but I listened to Archuletta's most recent interview with Richard Ostler. All in all, it seems to me that Archuletta is better off outside of the church's tent, in spite of Elder Gilbert's implication that people who move away from light and truth (implied to come from the church) will find happiness. It also seems to counter what Pres. Oaks said in his first devotional that God wants each of us [I assume he means all the world and not just the narrow audience listening that day] to be active participating members of the LDS church.

I guess we'll see what happens. Recent parts of this discussion thread just reaffirm to me that there is still a lot of division in and around the church that does not seem like "big tent" kind of thinking, but that kind of boundary maintenance might be what the church really wants. It seems to me that a church that wants to be "big tent" would want to second and third guess its boundary markers until it is absolutely certain those boundary markers are revealed from God. IMO, there isn't much that is more damaging to a church than to claim a boundary marker came from God, then to later decide that the boundary marker wasn't from God.

Peacefully · February 20

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Nobody has suggested that having children is a prerequisite to entering the temple.

The strawman here is getting pretty tattered.

Thanks,

-Smac

I wasn’t setting up a straw man, I was going with your talking point of same-sex couples not being able to procreate with each other, however they can create a family through adoption, surrogacy, etc. same as infertile heterosexual couples.

smac97 · February 20

1 hour ago, Peacefully said:

I wasn’t setting up a straw man, I was going with your talking point of same-sex couples not being able to procreate with each other, however they can create a family through adoption, surrogacy, etc. same as infertile heterosexual couples.

Not really "same as," as the child of a same-sex couple will, by design, be deprived of either a mother or a father.

Thanks,

-Smac

The Nehor · February 20

6 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Not really "same as," as the child of a same-sex couple will, by design, be deprived of either a mother or a father.

Thanks,

-Smac

Since you have suggested you think biology is the sole indicator of gender what if one (or both) of the parents is transgender?

Calm · February 20

35 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Not really "same as," as the child of a same-sex couple will, by design, be deprived of either a mother or a father.

Thanks,

-Smac

What about shared custody then? Or adding a third adult to the household to provide the missing parent?

Or create households with one male couple and one female couple.

Edited February 20 by Calm

gopher · February 21

19 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I don’t find it cynical or sarcastic. I am trying to take the writers of scripture seriously at their word. I found scripture much more interesting when I stopped making excuses for the bad behaviors of God and man in them. People will wrap themselves into pretzels to justify horrific actions without even realizing it and all too often the flimsiest excuses will do.

I don’t think this is harmless either. I have seen many Christians (and some LDS) justify horrible things in the modern world based on passages of scripture. Many like the vengeful tempestuous tribal deity that will brutally murder their enemies.

I guess I must have a different definition of cynical and sarcastic. I don't see much wisdom in abandoning your hope, faith, and love in God just because some people do harm while claiming to do it in His name. That doesn't automatically make them right and we are free to criticize them all we want. It's helpful to have those examples when you are looking to abandon your faith, but for those who are looking to draw closer to God, there is a lot to learn from the many more examples of believers who follow the example of Jesus, treat people with kindness, and serve without reward. I don't know what bad behaviors you attribute to God, but I hear from plenty of people who testify of His goodness and love. We don't live in the times of the angry God of the Old Testament. Someday we'll learn what really happened then which may be different than what's in the scriptures. I haven't figured how how much our own mental and emotional states influences our understanding of how God deals with us. It always amazes me to see people who have experienced horrible things in their lives still stand up and testify of God's love for them.

The Nehor · February 21

45 minutes ago, gopher said:

I guess I must have a different definition of cynical and sarcastic. I don't see much wisdom in abandoning your hope, faith, and love in God just because some people do harm while claiming to do it in His name. That doesn't automatically make them right and we are free to criticize them all we want. It's helpful to have those examples when you are looking to abandon your faith, but for those who are looking to draw closer to God, there is a lot to learn from the many more examples of believers who follow the example of Jesus, treat people with kindness, and serve without reward. I don't know what bad behaviors you attribute to God, but I hear from plenty of people who testify of His goodness and love. We don't live in the times of the angry God of the Old Testament. Someday we'll learn what really happened then which may be different than what's in the scriptures. I haven't figured how how much our own mental and emotional states influences our understanding of how God deals with us. It always amazes me to see people who have experienced horrible things in their lives still stand up and testify of God's love for them.

If I leave it won’t be primarily for that. It is also not limited to the Old Testament. You can find some weird stuff God does in the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and the D&C.

The Nehor · February 21

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Or create households with one male couple and one female couple.

Ah, the quad I was in back in my days of sin and vice. Good times.

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