Conference To Discuss Issues For Gay Mormons

[Daniel2]

Not sure if anyone has heard about or will be going to this conference mentioned in yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune. I have my kids this weekend, so I'm unable to go. If anyone does, it'd be interesting to have you "return and report."

Daniel2

Conference to discuss issues for gay Mormons

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

The Salt Lake TribuneFirst published Nov 03 2011 07:21AM

Updated Nov 3, 2011 11:28PM

Hundreds of gay Mormons, their families and friends will meet in Salt Lake City this weekend to explore issues of homosexuality and same-sex attraction at a conference titled "Circling the Wagons."

The purpose of the conference, sponsored by researcher John Dehlin, along with Mormon Stories and Open Stories Foundation, is "to create a space where LGBTQ or SSA individuals and their families and allies can gather to acknowledge, explore and honor shared experiences."

It will bring together speakers such as author and playwright, Carol Lynn Pearson, retired Brigham Young University microbiology professor Bill Bradshaw, Utah State Democratic Party Chair Jim Dabakis, filmmaker Kendall Wilcox, psychologist Lee Beckstead, as well as Dehlin, who has helped conduct online research within the LDS gay community.

A recent online poll, co-sponsored by Bradshaw and Renee Galliher of Utah State University, invited commenters from Mormon blogs, Facebook, LDS gay and lesbian support groups, media outlets and word of mouth.

Researchers found nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of the 1,600 respondents had tried to change their orientation, and 86 percent classified church counseling that sought to end their same-sex attraction as not helpful, somewhat harmful or severely harmful.

About a third (29 percent) of the respondents said they remained active in the LDS faith, a little more than a third were inactive (36 percent) and 26 percent asked to have their names removed from the church’s membership rolls.

Still, nearly 70 percent said they believed in God, 52 percent believed in Jesus Christ, and 36 percent believed that LDS Church founder Joseph Smith was "a prophet of God."

The question of a Christian response to same-sex attraction became paramount to Jimmy Creech, one of the conference’s featured speakers and a former United Methodist minister, when a member of his congregation came out as gay.

Creech, now retired and living in North Carolina, studied various translations and interpretations of the Bible’s passages about homosexuality. He concluded that the translations "had been botched and dangerously distorted," he wrote, "and came to believe that discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is morally wrong."

Since then, Creech has performed several same-gender commitment ceremonies, which caused the United Methodist Church to revoke his ordination credentials.

"No issues strike more deeply than who we love and how we understand and honor God," organizers said in a news release. "These issues carry an especially profound weight in Mormon communities and have been the source of a great deal of misunderstanding, judgment and hurt. Consequently, gay Mormons are deeply divided over how to address same-sex attraction and negotiate the choices they face."

pstack@sltrib.com

[Pahoran]

Not sure if anyone has heard about or will be going to this conference mentioned in yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune. I have my kids this weekend, so I'm unable to go. If anyone does, it'd be interesting to have you "return and report."

Daniel2

The most pressing issue for "gay" Mormons is to understand that the commandments -- including the Law of Chastity -- apply to them as well as to others.

IMHO, The number one source of grief for Latter-day Saints who struggle with that particular temptation is the very vocal and well-organised campaign demanding "acceptance" for immorality. Since those who advocate for this immoral position loudly claim to speak for all "gays," it is understandable that those who do not understand what is really going on might take their claims at face value and assume that anyone who self-identifies as homosexual shares in making those same demands.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Jaybear]

The most pressing issue for "gay" Mormons is to understand that the commandments -- including the Law of Chastity -- apply to them as well as to others.

IMHO, The number one source of grief for Latter-day Saints who struggle with that particular temptation is the very vocal and well-organised campaign demanding "acceptance" for immorality. Since those who advocate for this immoral position loudly claim to speak for all "gays," it is understandable that those who do not understand what is really going on might take their claims at face value and assume that anyone who self-identifies as homosexual shares in making those same demands.

Regards,

Pahoran

I am sure that they would characterize it a revising outdated concepts of morality. This law of chastity you follow can easily be applied to gay couples as it does to heterosexual couples.

But your way works, if you are not interested in having a discussion.

[Pahoran]

I am sure that they would characterize it a revising outdated concepts of morality.

The calendar has no relevance to eternal moral principles.

This law of chastity you follow can easily be applied to gay couples as it does to heterosexual couples.

The Law of Chastity doesn't apply to "couples," it applies to individuals.

And the Law of Chastity, for every individual, is: No sexual connection is permitted with any person, except within the bounds of Holy matrimony; an estate also known as marriage, and which necessarily consists of a man and a woman.

But your way works, if you are not interested in having a discussion.

Of course I'm interested in having a discussion; I'm just not interested in allowing immoralists to pre-emptively determine the boundaries of the discussion.

Regards,

Pahoran

[california boy]

And the Law of Chastity, for every individual, is: No sexual connection is permitted with any person, except within the bounds of Holy matrimony; an estate also known as marriage, and which necessarily consists of a man and a woman.

Regards,

Pahoran

It seems like the ones that proclaim the loudest about the immorality of gays are the exact same ones that do all they can to prevent gays from marrying. Sex outside of marriage is not that common in the heterosexual world. For the most part gays don't even get that option. But if you want to rant about homosexual immorality, don't let that stop you.

[Libs]

IMHO, The number one source of grief for Latter-day Saints who struggle with that particular temptation is the very vocal and well-organised campaign demanding "acceptance" for immorality.

The number one thing you need to understand is that the "very vocal and well organized campaign" in support of GLTB rights (for the most part) do not hold to your premise that homosexuality is "immoral".

[cdowis]

It is important for you to understand one thing.

It is tiresome for some to show no diferrence between a homosexual individual, those who have natural tendency, and homosexual practices. They conflate the two with such words as "immoral" to apply to both. "Mormons hate homosexuals" etc.

[Pahoran]

The number one thing you need to understand is that the "very vocal and well organized campaign" in support of GLTB rights (for the most part) do not hold to your premise that homosexuality is "immoral".

Well, duh!

Regards,

Pahoran

[Deborah]

The number one thing you need to understand is that the "very vocal and well organized campaign" in support of GLTB rights (for the most part) do not hold to your premise that homosexuality is "immoral".

And that should make a difference to the Church how? Most of the world doesn't have a problem with pre-marital sex either.

[california boy]

It is important for you to understand one thing.

It is tiresome for some to show no diferrence between a homosexual individual, those who have natural tendency, and homosexual practices. They conflate the two with such words as "immoral" to apply to both. "Mormons hate homosexuals" etc.

When a gay person falls in love, finds that person he wants to spend his whole life with, of course he wants to have an intimate relationship. It is how ALL humans are made. Even straight people must get that concept. I wonder how successful the church would be if they TRUELY applied the same standards to straight couples as they do gay couples. Can you imagine asking straight couples when they have found the love of their life that they are not allowed to marry, not allowed to have any intimate relationships, aren't allowed to form a solid legal family and in fact should not even have that close of relationship with anyone of the opposite sex? How many straight couples would choose to walk away from the church. I doubt it would be much of a difference in percentage of the number of gay members that walk away from the church. Not many churches have survived that required celibacy from all of its members. I hope you can understand why most gay members walk away from the church.

I point this out not to argue with the church doctrine on how they treat gay people. I only point this out to help explain why gay people don't really feel it is immoral to have sex outside of marriage. It is a box most churches have put them in. How they feel about the person they fall in love with seems different than how the church tells them they should be feeling. The scripture wackiness never was happiness seems to ring hollow for them. Finding someone to share their lives with and having that bonding that comes with intimacy brings them much more happiness then living a celibate life, without any possibility of ever finding love or even close relationships with those who they are attracted to. Immorality is suppost to bring with it unhappiness and guilt. Falling in love causes neither feelings. In fact it causes the opposite feelings. We are taught all our lives as Mormons to trust our feelings. Weigh it out in our minds. Follow that burning in our bossom. That seems stronger and more right than the condemnation the church gives us.

Of course those that are straight and have never felt those feelings for the same sex are going to disagree with what I am explaining. When you have a church that supports how you feel inside, it is much easier to go with that church and those feelings. They are linked together in a common direction. There is a path to exaltation with the person you are in love with. When you are gay, you have no such common link with the church. Your heart and mind tell you one thing, your upbringing tells you the opposite. There is no path, no exaltation with the person you are eternally in love with.

[blackstrap]

So,california boy, what percentage of homosexual men desire a long term, faithful ,monogamous relationship and what percentage prefer short term ,promiscuous,mostly anonymous encounters?

[california boy]

So,california boy, what percentage of homosexual men desire a long term, faithful ,monogamous relationship and what percentage prefer short term ,promiscuous,mostly anonymous encounters?

When you tell a gay person that he is an abomination and going to hell, there isn't much of an incentive for him to make the same moral commitments that a straight person would make when they are told that if they are faithful, them and the person they eternally love can become like God and will receive exaltation.

I wonder what the percentage of straight guys would have anonymous encounters if they had willing partners and were told they were going to hell anyway. Do you think the results would be all that different?

[cdowis]

When a gay person falls in love, finds that person he wants to spend his whole life with, of course he wants to have an intimate relationship. It is how ALL humans are made. Even straight people must get that concept.

How the heart bleeds.

A straight man has been married for over seven years and have three children with the same wife. She put him through medical school. Now that he is an MD, he finds someone else that he now wants to spend the rest of his life with, that fits his new station in life. He is tired of the old model and wants to get a new, more sophisticated one.

How the heart bleeds for him.

Swap out the old one for a new one -- that is how ALL humans are made. I can give you many other examples of human nature -- a father falls in love with his daughter, a mother with her son. Should they be denied?

We do indeed understand human urges and how humans are made.

Now, we have a choice to follow human nature or to follow the commandments that God, in His wisdom, gave us. Let's see how it works out in the end for both homo and hetero -- follow the human urge or follow the Lord.

[california boy]

How the heart bleeds.

A straight man has been married for over seven years and have three children with the same wife. She put him through medical school. Now that he is an MD, he finds someone else that he now wants to spend the rest of his life with, that fits his new station in life. He is tired of the old model and wants to get a new, more sophisticated one.

How the heart bleeds for him.

Swap out the old one for a new one -- that is how ALL humans are made. I can give you many other examples of human nature -- a father falls in love with his daughter, a mother with her son. Should they be denied?

We do indeed understand human urges and how humans are made.

Now, we have a choice to follow human nature or to follow the commandments that God, in His wisdom, gave us. Let's see how it works out in the end for both homo and hetero -- follow the human urge or follow the Lord.

What is your point?

[selek1]

When you tell a gay person that he is an abomination and going to hell, there isn't much of an incentive for him to make the same moral commitments that a straight person would make when they are told that if they are faithful, them and the person they eternally love can become like God and will receive exaltation.

This rant perfectly encapsulates the two great lies at the heart of the deviant catechism.

First and foremost- a person whether straight or homosexual is not defined solely by their sexual identity, however much their enablers.might pretend. To insist that their place in society be defined solely or even primarily by where they prefer to stick their genitalia is deeply difunctional and deeply demeaning.

That insistence comes wholly (if not singularly) from their enablers and cheerleaders.

Second, we the faithful do not "tell a gay person that he is an abomination and going to hell". We tell them that their behavior is contrary to God's law and that they need to repent of it and exercise the two most hateful words in the leftist lexicon: "personal restraint".

I wonder what the percentage of straight guys would have anonymous encounters if they had willing partners and were told they were going to hell anyway. Do you think the results would be all that different?

The problem with this logic is that they are not deterred from this behavior even by the very real health and wellness implications of their behavior. Why then would they be deterred by the threat of Hell?

There is real-life, real-time evidence that homosexuals suffer from radically increased health problems (affecting both physical and mental health), radically shortened lifespans (on the order of thirty to forty years less than their straight counterparts), radically increased incidents of personal and domestic abuse at rates (approaching twice the levels of heterosexual couples), and a higher rate of self-on-self criminal assaults incidents than any population other than the worst inner cities such as Detroit and Baltimore.

Incidents of suicide and other personally abusive/destructive behaviors run far higher among homosexuals than in nearly any other population- even in the most tolerant/accepting countries on the planet.

If these real-time facts and implications fail to deter this kind of self-destructive behavior, why then would the mere threat of Hell do so?

Perhaps if their cheerleaders and enablers spent less time trying to foment an attitude of religious/political persecution and spent more time discussing the real-life dangers of the "lifestyle", this would be a very different conversation- and a very different convention.

In the meantime, your rant perfectly demonstrates the mentality that both defines and limits individuals solely by their sexual predilections and tries to justify any level of disfunction under the cop-out of blaming someone else for their own personal choices.

What is your point?

His point was that anyone can rationalize and find mealy-mouthed self-justification for sinful/selfish behaviors. The homosexual lobby is no different, and homosexuals are not exempt from God's laws simply because their particular flavor of deviancy is currently in vogue among the glitterati.

[thesometimesaint]

Selek1:

3 words. Log Cabin Republicans.

[california boy]

His point was that anyone can rationalize and find mealy-mouthed self-justification for sinful/selfish behaviors. The homosexual lobby is no different, and homosexuals are not exempt from God's laws simply because their particular flavor of deviancy is currently in vogue among the glitterati.

And you call my post a rant??? Obvously you both missed the entire point of my post, or choose to ignor it. I was not trying to justify homosexual behavior, I was only responding to blackstraps question. So let me make it more simple for you.

Tell me a story of a straight man who longs to find the love of his life. That life time longing is eventually fulfilled by his falling in love with that special woman he wants to spend his lfe with, the one he has been searching for his whole life. But he is told by the church that acting on that love is evil and an abomination. So instead of marrying and building a life with the person he loves, he goes against his interfeelings and chooses a life without companionship. This straight man is asked to serve as executive secretary but his calling causes an uproar when he states that he would still like to find someone to share his life with. But he remains faithful to the chruch his whole life and dies a lonely man, only thinking of a life that would have been so different.

What the church tells him as a reward for choosing this lonely life? He will get to spend eternity with another man a sex he has no attraction to, and everything will be wonderful for eternity.

And that my friend is the reason why so many gay members choose to leave the church to live a life of love and companionship. Now can you sit here and tell me that most straight people would choose such a life? It is not a justification of immorality, it is an explaination of it.

[thesometimesaint]

California boy:

"What the church tells him as a reward for choosing this lonely life? He will get to spend eternity with another man a sex he has no attraction to, and everything will be wonderful for eternity".

?

[Sky]

A gay person might find the love of their life and feel genuinely happy for a time. But what about after this life? If I understand the doctrine correctly, they will end up without the love and companionship of either a man or a woman. They will be lonely for eternity. But they are free to ignore the doctrine and choose a different path if that is really what they want. People do that every day – regardless of their sexual orientation.

I can say for certain that people with this challenge who stay in the Church are depending on it not lasting forever.

I believe we are doing them a great disservice by sending the message that the only way to find true happiness is by leaving the Church and finding a same-sex partner.

And how can we know for sure that most gay members walk away from the Church? That is not the case for everybody. Their stories deserve to be heard too.

Nobody gets to act on all of their physical urges. Everybody must learn to bridle their passions. That is one of this life’s great tests. Same-sex attraction makes this more difficult than usual, but it can be done. God will help.

[Calm]

California boy, it comes down to, IMO, not some specific 'reward' is something that anyone looks forward to or not, but whether or not an individual chooses to trust the Lord. How does a worthy single hetero know whether or not the unknown individual s/he will end up with will be the love of eternal life? How does a woman married to two or more men in this life know she won't feel cheated by her own eternal relationships? How do parents of wayward children know? How does a second husband whose biological children are sealed to another man know he will experience what he desires most as an eternal being for eternity? What does a faithful temple sealed spouse in a faithful, but unhappy or unsatisfying marriage have to look forward to (I know real cases where there is no moral or other reason to 'cancel' a sealing save that the individual has no desire to spend eternity with their spouse and in fact views the idea more as he-ll than heaven.)

I know a young man who justified deciding to live an immoral life now because he didn't see anything worth living a good life for eternally speaking since God was omniscient and that meant he himself would never be the "first" in doing, knowing, or discovering anything and would instead "be just the same as everyone else".... Which was his version of he-ll.

Do we believe the Lord when he says man is that he might have joy and that God intends to ensure that this happens for those who prepare themselves to fully accept his gift or not? Can we leave it in his hands and then walk this life if faith?

[california boy]

California boy:

"What the church tells him as a reward for choosing this lonely life? He will get to spend eternity with another man a sex he has no attraction to, and everything will be wonderful for eternity".

?

When you tell a straight man that he will spend eternity with another man is the same thing as telling a gay man he will spend eternity with a woman. It doesn't sound all that appealing does it.

[california boy]

Do we believe the Lord when he says man is that he might have joy and that God intends to ensure that this happens for those who prepare themselves to fully accept his gift or not? Can we leave it in his hands and then walk this life if faith?

I completely trust in God and I completely believe I will continue to have joy not only in this life but in the next life. I just don't plan on spending the next life married to a woman in the hightest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. Now that is something that would truly make me unhappy for eternity. Maybe for a straight person that is a good thing. But for me, I am trusting that God may have something different in mind for me. I bleive that this life is also a time of love, joy and fulness. I am sure you as a straight person find joy in this life being a member of the church. For a gay person, being active in the church is not such a happy experience. While wickedness never was happiness, being openly gay has brought so much more joy into my life then when I was hiding behind a lie pretending to be straight. Dishonesty does not bring joy.

I know it freaks people out thinking that a gay person can find someone to share this life with and be happy in this life. But we are not striaght. We can't fit into a straight church that has straight goals and straight doctrine for its members.

[california boy]

I can say for certain that people with this challenge who stay in the Church are depending on it not lasting forever.

You know there is no doctrinal support for your hope. No magic wand to make you straight after we die. Our nature in this life will rise with us in the next.

[Sky]

When you tell a straight man that he will spend eternity with another man is the same thing as telling a gay man he will spend eternity with a woman. It doesn't sound all that appealing does it.

Keep in mind that a relationship with a woman may not sound appealing right now, but that could change in the afterlife. If you believe the leaders of the Church:

- No eternal blessing will be denied to anybody who remains faithful to their covenants.

- Same-gender attraction will not be a post-mortal difficulty.

- An opposite sex relationship is much more desirable than being single forever, as eternal same-sex relationships are not an option.

[california boy]

Keep in mind that a relationship with a woman may not sound appealing right now, but that could change in the afterlife. If you believe the leaders of the Church:

- No eternal blessing will be denied to anybody who remains faithful to their covenants.

- Same-gender attraction will not be a post-mortal difficulty.

- An opposite sex relationship is much more desirable than being single forever, as eternal same-sex relationships are not an option.

You know none of that is doctrinal.