Ssa And Recognizing Marriages

[EllenMaksoud]

No. But I am wondering if you got your story straight.

 

Not only am I confident such a thing would not ordinarily happen in the Church, I'm fairly certain that a bishop who knowlngly did such a thing would himself be subject to correction.

Well, it would be an injustice to those affected to reveal their identity.  I'm for the Holy Spirit to do the correcting.  To be clear that I am NOT advocating for SSM; being very content to let the science impact the theology. I hear a lot of stories about it being about choice, and have also been present to witness the tears and hear the sobbing. I do not have priesthood, or do I ever desire it. Women are not born with hubris, nor do I wish to shave.

[Calm]

What do you mean by "transgender woman"...someone who has had a sex change or someone who has both male and female characteristics, who has identified as female or something else?

[Scott Lloyd]

Well, it would be an injustice to those affected to reveal their identity.  I'm for the Holy Spirit to do the correcting. 

The Holy Spirit would not sustain an action by a bishop that was done contrary to what is allowed in the Church.

[EllenMaksoud]

What do you mean by "transgender woman"...someone who has had a sex change or someone who has both male and female characteristics, who has identified as female or something else?

I do not specifically know their circumstances, and actually do not know them. She apparently attends our ward, but I have not knowingly seen her.  If being gay or lesbian is an issue, being Inter-sexed is something else entirely. In my opinion, people should be judged on their conduct ,not their genetics.

[EllenMaksoud]

The Holy Spirit would not sustain an action by a bishop that was done contrary to what is allowed in the Church.

Right now, I am repentant of having mentioned the matter.

[Scott Lloyd]

Right now, I am repentant of having mentioned the matter.

Whatever the circumstances might be with this incident, I am quite certain it is incorrect that "SS marriage at the ward level" -- or at any level in the Church -- "is permissible."

Edited August 26, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[CV75]

There's a difference between embracing and addressing confusion.  Clearly we don't accept everything that is legal as being moral.  But unlike alcohol, abortion, etc., chastity is commonly defined in church teachings as depending on the law - ie., "the law of chastity is that we do not have sexual relations outside of a legal and lawful marriage."  Surely you can see how a teenage member of the church could be confused on this point.  Going just by that common church definition, Bob and Larry are not violating the law of chastity.  Rockpond's point is that, unlike with other church teachings that do not incorporate the law of the land, our teachings on chastity may need to be made more clear to address this newly-developed conundrum. 

Not sure where the confusion is, since "legally and lawfully" are in eh context of where the Church stands on what should be legal and lawful.

 

But if some unfortunate teenager (or anyone else) is actualy and sicnerely confused on that point, it is easy enough to clear up, especially if he asks with a sincere heart and real intent.

[CV75]

Importantly, President Young's statement was quoted verbatim in the 1949 First Presidency Letter which affirmed that the racial priesthood bad was a "not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization ..."  Members today often misunderstand their history.  The ban was not something that could be lifted anytime.  It was a doctrine that could not be lifted until all non-cursed individuals had an opportunity to receive the priesthood.  That was the great struggle in 1978 and the reason why Elder McConkie said (paraphrasing) "forget everything I said prior to 1978."  What had been said - including the 1949 statement - directly conflicted with the 1978 revelation.  Elder McConkie defended the change by proffering that the brethren were now working under greater light than they had previously (something I thing we can all agree upon).

 

So to get back to the topic, if greater light can lead to a change of doctrine in 1978, surely the same can happen in our day too.  Every prophet has bounds to his authority and one of those bounds is time.  A prophet can declare the word of the Lord for his/her day.  But they cannot bind future prophets.  Whatever the current teachings, no mortal can say with any authority "this will never change."  Nothing stops future McConkie's from saying "forget what I or President Monson, or President Packer said on the subject.  We were working under lesser light." 

I think one clear indicator of operating under lesser light is to assert a principle in contradiction to that which has been revealed with the light we have been given, and suggesting that it is in fact a welcome principle of greater light based on a sense of fairness borne of that lesser light.

 

How can a person, admittedly working under a degree of light that he expects yet to expand, assert what greater light has yet to reveal, and live according to that unkown?

[CV75]

Now I’m going to assert my right to beat a dead horse: That an eternal couple comprised of a man and a woman is the only way spirit children can be brought forth is shown by the following verses in D&C 132:

 

19 And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word ... it shall …be of full force when they are out of the world ...a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. 20 Then shall they be gods, because …they continue… 22 …unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives…

 

29 Abraham received all things …and hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne. 30 Abraham received promises concerning his seed, and of the fruit of his loins—…which were to continue so long as they were in the world; and as touching Abraham and his seed, out of the world they should continue; both in the world and out of the world should they continue as innumerable as the stars… 31 This promise is yours also, because ye are of Abraham, and the promise was made unto Abraham; and by this law is the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself.

 

32 Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham [who was not in a “barren” homosexual union]; enter ye into my law ye shall be saved. 63 … to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

 

24 This is eternal lives—to know the only wise and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. [Jesus did and taught the things He saw His Father do and what His Father taught, and the principle of continuation od the seeds by covenants between man and woman in fulfillment of the command to multiply and replenish the earth, and thus continue via not only immortality but the continuation of the seeds in both time and eternity]

[Questing Beast]

How ironic, for me, that D&C 132, my least favorite passage of scripture bar none, comes to the rescue of common sense vis-a-vis SSA and SSM. I don't see how the words can be twisted to anticipate a completely unfounded, radical addition to "continuation of the seeds forever", to include some hypothetical same gender allowance in the eternities. "We don't know how spirit children are created". Really? We know enough to know it is the intercourse of male and female.

 

I don't care if this world's technology divorces a woman's physical body from the necessity of bearing children: that someday the entire process can be artificially induced and completed to term, and manipulated to achieve "designer children" via genetic manipulation, etc. and etc. and etc. That future "reality" will not alter a thing, since no "spirit children" are involved whatsoever. To implicate God as somehow a greater technician, who can snap his fingers and come up with new ways to create spirit children, so why not homosexuality, is itself a perverse belief. It is entertained solely because biology in mortals speaks louder than words. And "rock pond" et al. wish to obey their biology, justify it as good, and forget about any possibility that the biological urge is nothing more than an aberration of nature and does not exist in the afterlife at all....

Edited August 27, 2013 by Questing Beast

[rockpond]

Just a faithful believe who attempts to makes sense out of the nature of God.

Me too.

[rockpond]

I think one clear indicator of operating under lesser light is to assert a principle in contradiction to that which has been revealed with the light we have been given, and suggesting that it is in fact a welcome principle of greater light based on a sense of fairness borne of that lesser light.

How can a person, admittedly working under a degree of light that he expects yet to expand, assert what greater light has yet to reveal, and live according to that unkown?

I think that we should live according to the light that we currently have whilst hoping for greater light to come.

[rockpond]

How ironic, for me, that D&C 132, my least favorite passage of scripture bar none, comes to the rescue of common sense vis-a-vis SSA and SSM. I don't see how the words can be twisted to anticipate a completely unfounded, radical addition to "continuation of the seeds forever", to include some hypothetical same gender allowance in the eternities. "We don't know how spirit children are created". Really? We know enough to know it is the intercourse of male and female.

I don't care if this world's technology divorces a woman's physical body from the necessity of bearing children: that someday the entire process can be artificially induced and completed to term, and manipulated to achieve "designer children" via genetic manipulation, etc. and etc. and etc. That future "reality" will not alter a thing, since no "spirit children" are involved whatsoever. To implicate God as somehow a greater technician, who can snap his fingers and come up with new ways to create spirit children, so why not homosexuality, is itself a perverse belief. It is entertained solely because biology in mortals speaks louder than words. And "rock pond" et al. wish to obey their biology, justify it as good, and forget about any possibility that the biological urge is nothing more than an aberration of nature and does not exist in the afterlife at all....

1. As a father (happily married to my children's mother) I do not think that the biological urge is an aberration of nature. And I certainly hope it exists in the next life.

2. We don't know how spirits are formed. If that has been revealed, please provide the reference.

3. To conclude that intelligences are formed into spirits via the same method as the creation of physical bodies is nothing more than speculation. I think it's much more likely that spirits are formed through the priesthood power held by a couple united in the new and everlasting covenant. (Which could, someday, include homosexual couples if that were to be the will of the Lord.)

[rockpond]

Now I’m going to assert my right to beat a dead horse: That an eternal couple comprised of a man and a woman is the only way spirit children can be brought forth is shown by the following verses in D&C 132:

19 And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word ... it shall …be of full force when they are out of the world ...a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. 20 Then shall they be gods, because …they continue… 22 …unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives…

29 Abraham received all things …and hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne. 30 Abraham received promises concerning his seed, and of the fruit of his loins—…which were to continue so long as they were in the world; and as touching Abraham and his seed, out of the world they should continue; both in the world and out of the world should they continue as innumerable as the stars… 31 This promise is yours also, because ye are of Abraham, and the promise was made unto Abraham; and by this law is the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself.

32 Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham [who was not in a “barren” homosexual union]; enter ye into my law ye shall be saved. 63 … to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

24 This is eternal lives—to know the only wise and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. [Jesus did and taught the things He saw His Father do and what His Father taught, and the principle of continuation od the seeds by covenants between man and woman in fulfillment of the command to multiply and replenish the earth, and thus continue via not only immortality but the continuation of the seeds in both time and eternity]

If you've read my response to Questing Beast this is kind of a repeat. But I don't see why those verses wouldn't apply to "continuation of seed" through priesthood power born of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. For me, it makes more sense that spirits would be organized through priesthood power and not through the same physical act used to create mortal bodies.

[rodheadlee]

Are you are prophet, seer, or revelator?

 

Just wanting to check.  

Yes, for my family. Yes for everyone under my stewardship.

[EllenMaksoud]

How ironic, for me, that D&C 132, my least favorite passage of scripture bar none, comes to the rescue of common sense vis-a-vis SSA and SSM. I don't see how the words can be twisted to anticipate a completely unfounded, radical addition to "continuation of the seeds forever", to include some hypothetical same gender allowance in the eternities. "We don't know how spirit children are created". Really? We know enough to know it is the intercourse of male and female.

 

I don't care if this world's technology divorces a woman's physical body from the necessity of bearing children: that someday the entire process can be artificially induced and completed to term, and manipulated to achieve "designer children" via genetic manipulation, etc. and etc. and etc. That future "reality" will not alter a thing, since no "spirit children" are involved whatsoever. To implicate God as somehow a greater technician, who can snap his fingers and come up with new ways to create spirit children, so why not homosexuality, is itself a perverse belief. It is entertained solely because biology in mortals speaks louder than words. And "rock pond" et al. wish to obey their biology, justify it as good, and forget about any possibility that the biological urge is nothing more than an aberration of nature and does not exist in the afterlife at all....

It is my sincere hope that in time science will prove the theology.

[Storm Rider]

The more this topic is discussed ad nauseum on this Board and the more I see certain participants discuss their "logic" the more I am forced to acknowledge how strong the hold of the evil one is over us mortals. How anyone can conclude in any fashion that "priesthood power" will be the saving method for homosexual couples in the afterlife is.......straining on gnats to swallow camels. This is not a gray area; this is black and white. There is no middle ground; there is no, "let's wait and see how God handles this" type of issue. Man is made for the woman just as woman is made for man. That is all there is. The entire Plan of Salvation is built on this overriding principle.

 

It does not matter how many shows you watch on television about the fun, loving homosexual couple, or the every so fun gay guy; it does not matter how many movies are made that bow down and kiss the agenda of perversion out of Hollywood; there is only one answer. No, that is perversion and God does not, will not, not now, now ever, condone homosexuality. This is an area of extreme opposites; there is no middle ground of any kind. There is no waiting for further light and knowledge; there is hell fire and damnation on one side and salvation on the other. You get to choose.

 

The very elect will fall; nothing is so jarring as to see it run rampant through the saints as it is on this Board. It scares me. Are we that easy to deceive? How does one read the scriptures; any scriptures, and come away with this kind of twisted, incomprehensible position?  There is no room for perversion and to still claim to sincerely follow the Savior. There is no problem with an individual dealing with controlling his/her passions, failing, and striving to maintain a penitent heart; this is the very definition of a disciple of Christ. However, to wrap one's self in the gospel and maintain this deception of the evil one is to be lost to the most fundamental understanding of God's relationship with his children.

 

We can either repent or we can be damned. Choose.

[Kenngo1969]

Every time this subject comes up on the Board I say the same thing, and every time it's ignored in favor of people advancing their own agenda over what God has revealed on the subject.  No matter how many people dislike it and to what extent they do so, two incontrovertible facts have existed eternally and will never change:

 

1.  Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.

 

2.  God commands complete chastity before marriage and complete fidelity afterward.

 

I can call a man my "wife" (or he can call me his "husband") in a homosexual relationship.  I can say we're "married" according to the law of the land if our marriage takes place where such a marriage is legally recognized.  But try as I might (if I were to try) I can't get past the two incontrovertible facts above.

[CV75]

I think that we should live according to the light that we currently have whilst hoping for greater light to come.

But there is no faith and humility in presuming to define what that greater light should offer, nor in asserting it at the expense of embracing the light we do have, and availing the light we do have to any that do not have it.

[CV75]

If you've read my response to Questing Beast this is kind of a repeat. But I don't see why those verses wouldn't apply to "continuation of seed" through priesthood power born of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. For me, it makes more sense that spirits would be organized through priesthood power and not through the same physical act used to create mortal bodies.

Because the fulness of priesthood power is only manifest when a man and a woman are united in it and use it together. This is the eternal pattern as established in D&C 132. Not two men or two women, or a man or a woman alone trying to do this, as much as they might want to. "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."

[Questing Beast]

1. As a father (happily married to my children's mother) I do not think that the biological urge is an aberration of nature. And I certainly hope it exists in the next life. 2. We don't know how spirits are formed. If that has been revealed, please provide the reference. 3. To conclude that intelligences are formed into spirits via the same method as the creation of physical bodies is nothing more than speculation. I think it's much more likely that spirits are formed through the priesthood power held by a couple united in the new and everlasting covenant. (Which could, someday, include homosexual couples if that were to be the will of the Lord.)

Confusing you with "California boy", sorry. Iirc, then, he's the one who asserts that he was married, had children, got divorced and now lives with his significant other of the same gender, in the sexual way.

 

I think that your "much more likely" is based on absolutely nothing more than the most obvious speculation, whereas the belief that spirit children are formed between exalted men and women is based on "revealed scripture" and thousands of years of understanding. You seem to be dispensing with understanding and replacing it with some kind of fuzzy feelings, "can't we all just get along" position. I can only surmise on the necessity for resorting to a belief founded on nothing more than your imagination and a paucity that you detect in doctrine: If it hasn't been specified, then "it is much more likely" to be true someday. Anyone can predict literally anything, based on your logic, if it hasn't been provided details in scripture up to this point. You've made much about sealings not being marriages, and that this somehow allows same gender sealings to take on a biologically dynamic relationship in the hereafter. But where, in all of scripture and doctrine, does it say or even remotely insinuate, that a sealing between two men (e.g. BY and John D. Lee as father and adopted son), includes the same promises of eternal increase, "continuation of the seeds", between them forever? That kind of language is only in the temple marriage, between men and women, and has its basis in D&C 132....

[Buzzard]

Just as the whole notion of gay marriage has only existed in society for about a decade and a half, the notion that homosexual couples can have eternal increase and that eventually the Lord will give us this "further light and knowledge" has existed in the fevered minds of a few (current) members for less time than that. It shows the power of the adversary in deceiving the world, and now even some of the very elect. As Storm Rider stated more eloquently than I, there is no middle ground. To be caught in no mans land during this war is surely to be cut down. 

[rockpond]

But there is no faith and humility in presuming to define what that greater light should offer, nor in asserting it at the expense of embracing the light we do have, and availing the light we do have to any that do not have it.

 

Agreed.

[Questing Beast]

How can you agree? Are you backing off from everything you've been saying? If so, then you can agree. If not, then I think you don't even understand what CV said....

[rockpond]

Confusing you with "California boy", sorry. Iirc, then, he's the one who asserts that he was married, had children, got divorced and now lives with his significant other of the same gender, in the sexual way.

 

I think that your "much more likely" is based on absolutely nothing more than the most obvious speculation, whereas the belief that spirit children are formed between exalted men and women is based on "revealed scripture" and thousands of years of understanding. You seem to be dispensing with understanding and replacing it with some kind of fuzzy feelings, "can't we all just get along" position. I can only surmise on the necessity for resorting to a belief founded on nothing more than your imagination and a paucity that you detect in doctrine: If it hasn't been specified, then "it is much more likely" to be true someday. Anyone can predict literally anything, based on your logic, if it hasn't been provided details in scripture up to this point. You've made much about sealings not being marriages, and that this somehow allows same gender sealings to take on a biologically dynamic relationship in the hereafter. But where, in all of scripture and doctrine, does it say or even remotely insinuate, that a sealing between two men (e.g. BY and John D. Lee as father and adopted son), includes the same promises of eternal increase, "continuation of the seeds", between them forever? That kind of language is only in the temple marriage, between men and women, and has its basis in D&C 132....

 

Again, there is no revealed scripture that explains how spirits are formed.  Even if you and CV keep claiming that there is.

 

As to your last question... the answer is "nowhere".  It doesn't say that.  Just as revealed scripture didn't provide the ordinance that sealed BY & John D. Lee.  And just as D&C 132 has been changed in its application it could again through further revelation.

 

It's interesting to me why this is so offensive to some people.  Why does the idea that the Lord could reveal a sealing ordinance for a loving homosexual couple even need to be shot down?