Elder Bednar - "There are no homosexual members of the church."

[The Nehor]

13 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Number of laws violated?

Pretty sure it is the same number unless you are arguing that being unmarried counts. That is like convicting someone for jaywaling and then tacking on a secondary charge of jaywalking without a license.

[JLHPROF]

2 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Pretty sure it is the same number unless you are arguing that being unmarried counts. That is like convicting someone for jaywaling and then tacking on a secondary charge of jaywalking without a license.

Not really.  Unmarried heterosexual acts violate the law of chastity.
Homosexual acts violate the law of chastity too.

I think we understand (based on scripture and precedent) that there are also other laws of eternal order and design violated by homosexuality.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, cinepro said:

I think my post was pretty clear.  Obviously we don't know what the conditions in the Terrestrial and Telestial kingdoms will be, but if they all have resurrected bodies, and there is any kind of social interaction, then I can't see what will be stopping people from being friends with other people.  And if we get to choose who we spend time with, then I can't see what would be stopping people from spending the rest of eternity hanging out with a specific person for the rest of eternity.  And if the scriptures are right, their bodies would be fully functional, so I can't see what would stop them from "enjoying" each other for the rest of eternity if they want to.

I guess if you want to theorize that there won't be any type of physical enjoyment between anyone in the Telestial and Terrestrial kingdoms, then you can do that.  I just don't see any scriptural justification for it.  You can make a special caveat that resurrected bodies in the lower kindgoms do not have functional hormones and plumbing, but I don't think that's found anywhere in the scriptures, and then you're asking people with homosexual tendencies to base their entire earthly belief in the afterlife on your non-scriptural (and, some might say, oddly sex-centric) theories about the hereafter.

In other words, the sales pitch is getting a little fuzzy:  "You should be a Mormon, because if you do everything right, God will change your desires so you'll want to be with a person of the opposite gender for all eternity, and then such a person (or persons) will be provided to you and you will be able to have endless increase and become like God.  If you don't, you'll still be resurrected, but I'm pretty sure God will alter your resurrected body so you can't enjoy the physical company of another person, but you'll still presumably get to hang out with your friends for all eternity.  So it's either endless heterosexual enjoyment, or nothing.  Can we come back next week to share our second discussion with you?"

I pretty much agree.

I have no reason to believe that lower kingdoms and/or Outer Darkness lose the sex drive, only that they cannot procreate which is unclear because we do not know how such procreation even works. Seems harmless at that point really. Depends on what kind of things are burned out in hell I suppose before people inherit a lower kingdom of glory. I suspect homosexuality will be one of them if it is even an issue. On the other hand I am not sure those urges will survive death. If the apostles are right it did not exist before and it will not persist after so wouldn't it be like waking up from a dream and having the whole thing fade away. I am hoping that will be the case with a lot of the temptations I endure that scream at me for fulfillment and claim that they alone can make life worth living. It is a small period of time we are here. I suspect most of our biological, genetic, and even mental issues will seem then like a short-term disease.

[The Nehor]

Just now, JLHPROF said:

Not really.  Unmarried heterosexual acts violate the law of chastity.
Homosexual acts violate the law of chastity too.

I think we understand (based on scripture and precedent) that there are also other laws of eternal order and design violated by homosexuality.

What laws are those and are you sure they aren't covered by the law of chastity?

[smac97]

3 hours ago, ALarson said:

Well, you seem to have a specific commandment in mind.  Which one are you referring to?  Maybe that will help.

I'm looking for a general precept.  I suppose we could talk about application in the particulars later on.  But for now: "Do you think that Latter-day Saints are at liberty to disobey commandments which are in force and effect now by claiming that God may change His mind about such commandments in the future?"

It's a fairly straightforward question.

Thanks,

-Smac

[JLHPROF]

6 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

What laws are those and are you sure they aren't covered by the law of chastity?

I suppose they might be.  But even "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord" and "it is not good that the man should be alone" seems to go a bit beyond the law of Chastity which is specifically about sexuality.

[Hamba Tuhan]

12 hours ago, consiglieri said:

But seriously, what on earth does Elder Bednar mean when he says, "There are no homosexuals in the Church"?

I think this has been explained several times already in this thread, but since it would appear that you still haven't grasped it, let me try to break it down for you from my perspective as both a professional historian and faithful Latter-day Saint:

1. Sexual identity is a recent social construct, dating to the second half of the 19th century. Before that, neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality (or any other kind of -sexuality) existed, either as words or identities. Same-sex behaviour, of course, has been ubiquitous. In addition to all the quotes from queer and queer-friendly historians that I have provided on this forum in the past, let me add a few more here:

• 'Modern sexuality moved from a situation where same-sex activity was merely excessive sex (sexual acts) to a regime where sexuality was linked to self (sexual identities). It was a shift that also saw the division into heterosexual and homosexual, a split that has been assumed in modern sexual paradigms' (Barry Reay, 'Writing the modern histories of homosexual England', Historical Journal, 52:1 [2009], 213.)
• 'Many historians of sexuality have argued that a hetero/homosexual binarism emerged only after 1869 following the coinage of "homosexuality", which, according to Foucault, introduced the homosexual as a new "species" of being. Some interpretations of Foucault's work had emphasized the precise moment when the "homosexual" created a radical rupture in western understandings of sexual deviancy. According to this view, the social and cultural identities based on an exclusive same sex-erotic attraction were virtually impossible before the nineteenth century' (Robert Beachy, 'The German invention of homosexuality', Journal of Modern History, 82:4 [2010], 802-03).
• 'Other gay historians have supported Foucault's periodization but questioned his exclusive emphasis on medicalization ... Dan Healey's work on Moscow and St. Petersburg documents a shift in same-sex relations around 1900 from an earlier model of adult men patronizing both younger male and female prostitutes to a subculture of men who desired exclusively other men' (ibid., 803).
• 'A central -- if not perhaps the most central -- element that has characterized modern homosexuality is the understanding of erotic same-sex attraction as a fundamental element of the individual's biological or psychological makeup. Homosexuality has thus been defined and constructed around the debate over the innate character of sexual identity, whether governed by nature or nurture, biology or culture, genetics or environment' (ibid., 803-04).
• 'This idea of (homo)sexual personhood has a very recent history. The homosexual "species" emerged and took root in Germany after the mid-nineteenth century through the collaboration of Berlin's medical scientists and sexual minorities. This confluence of biological determinism and subjective expressions of sexual personhood was largely a German phenomenon, moreover, and it clearly underpins modern conceptions of sexual orientation' (ibid., 804).

2. This new social construct spread slowly at first but started to become ascendant in the West in the second half of the 20th century, when it was adopted for its political utility. In many ways, one can read the wholesale invention of 'gay marriage' and the current legal and social attempts to silence all dissent to it as the clearest indication that the discourse has gone from merely ascendant to genuinely hegemonic.

3. In their quest for normalisation and domestication, all ascendant discourses attempt to mask their genealogies by creating narratives of having 'always already' existed. These enabling narratives become essential to propping up a hegemonic discourse and inevitably result in historical revisionism, wherein the new discourse is projected backward onto histories that predate it (a point perfectly expressed in Orwell's 1984: 'The past was alterable ... Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia'):

• 'But the conceptual quandary is deeper (and relates to the distinction between sexual acts and identities referred to in the opening sentence of this article). The difficulty starts, quite literally, with the titles of these two historical surveys. The lesbian of the 'lesbian' history does not appear until chapter 7. The gay in the 'gay' history (as indeed its authors point out) is not applicable until the book's closing pages ... The danger of writing general homosexual histories is that the very nature of the exercise, the act of naming in the book's title -- "A gay history", "A lesbian history" -- imposes modern meanings and interpretations' (Reay, 'Writing the modern histories', 215).

4. Under the direction of the prophets, the Church has at no point in its history embraced this new discourse of sexual identities. Consequently, whilst the Church recognises the reality of same-sex behaviour (and even same-sex attraction, though one could reasonably argue that this is itself a modern construct, arising from the suggestive influence of the normalisation of homosexuality as an identity), the Church has maintained the sharp distinction between behaviour and identity.

5. The Church's position puts it at odds with a number of trends/forces in Western society -- and with those, like you, who have uncritically embraced the new discourse of sexual identity -- but it is a position far more in harmony with the paradigm that has existed for nearly all of human history and which remains the dominant paradigm around the world in areas least subject to Western colonisation of the imagination. It also is in harmony with the work of all serious historical scholarship on this topic.

6. Fortuitously, the Church's position also happens to be a defence of revealed truth relating to these issues.

Quote

I am getting the feeling that Elder Bednar thinks that something is true just because he says it.

Which, interestingly, describes exactly how a whole new category of being human was called into existence by the 19th-century Europeans who first named it.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Hamba Tuhan

[Duncan]

if God is going to change homosexuals in the next life then why bother  with all the restriction on them here? if it ultimately doesn't matter there then why does it matter here?

personally I believe that homosexuals aren't on trial as much as we are and to see if we truly live up to the second greatest commandment, I don't think they get a free pass but I don't think we know all their is about how homosexuality or any other sexual condition fits into the plan of salvation

[deli_llama]

5 minutes ago, Duncan said:

personally I believe that homosexuals aren't on trial as much as we are and to see if we truly live up to the second greatest commandment, I don't think they get a free pass but I don't think we know all their is about how homosexuality or any other sexual condition fits into the plan of salvation

You just offered up a bucket full of cold wisdom from a deep well. Thank you. 

[Duncan]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Does it mean that there are no polygamous members of the Church?

Does it mean that there are no heterosexual members of the Church?

Does it mean that there are no illegal alien members of the Church?

or pedophile members or ex convict members or pro Seattle Seahawk members. If he is eliminating that distinction then wouldn't it also eliminate every other one as well?

[Duncan]

4 minutes ago, deli_llama said:

You just offered up a bucket full of cold wisdom from a deep well. Thank you. 

hahahha! oh thanks! I am high on diet pepsi and cheese right now

[deli_llama]

12 minutes ago, Duncan said:

hahahha! oh thanks! I am high on diet pepsi and cheese right now

It must have been a somatotherapeutic utterance; as I understand it, that combo is potent. 

[Duncan]

Just now, deli_llama said:

It must have been a somatotherapeutic utterance; as I understand it, that combo is potent. 

I'm part German I have an iron stomach for these things

[smac97]

52 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I pretty much agree.

I have no reason to believe that lower kingdoms and/or Outer Darkness lose the sex drive, only that they cannot procreate which is unclear because we do not know how such procreation even works. Seems harmless at that point really. Depends on what kind of things are burned out in hell I suppose before people inherit a lower kingdom of glory. I suspect homosexuality will be one of them if it is even an issue. On the other hand I am not sure those urges will survive death. If the apostles are right it did not exist before and it will not persist after so wouldn't it be like waking up from a dream and having the whole thing fade away. I am hoping that will be the case with a lot of the temptations I endure that scream at me for fulfillment and claim that they alone can make life worth living. It is a small period of time we are here. I suspect most of our biological, genetic, and even mental issues will seem then like a short-term disease.

So fornication, which is sinful in this life, will exist in the kingdoms of glory prepared by God?  That appears to be what you are saying, so I just want to be clear about it.

What about other sins?  Will hatred and violence occur in the lower kingdoms?  Theft?  Rape?  Avarice?

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the type of existence you folks seem to conceptualize as existing in the kingdoms of glory prepared by God.  Apparently it will be some sort of hedonistic bacchanalia, where the concepts of sin and righteousness, right and wrong, etc. do not exist.  By this reckoning the Terrestrial and Telestial Kingdoms will be even more depraved than this world.  At least this world, when ripened in iniquity, will be cleansed.  The wickedness and disobedience to God will end.  But you folks are proposing that God has prepared eternal abodes wherein His children will be at liberty to live in sin and depravity and wickedess for eternity.

I can't square this with my general understanding of the Restored Gospel.  The Church teaches that The Law of Chastity "is a principle of eternal significance."  We are told that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."  I do not think the kingdoms of glory here described will include sinful conduct such as hate, or violence, or avarice, or lust, or fornication.  I do not think God would expend so much time and effort teaching His children about the various aspects of the laws governing His children, only to then dispense with those laws in the eternities.

Those outside the Celestial Kingdom "cannot have an increase."  So there are clearly some material differences between how we live now and the eternities.  Marriage and "increase" is available to saint and sinner alike in this world, but not in the world to come.  In the world to come, those blessings are limited to the Celestial Kingdom.  We are also told that "[a]ll covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise ... are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead."   We are also taught that those who do not enter into a celestial marriage "are not bound by any law when they are out of the world," that such persons "neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants," and that such persons - as angels - "cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity."  So I don't see family units, either heterosexual or homosexual, existing in the lower kingdoms.  

The kingdoms of glory prepared by God for His children, even the lesser kingdoms, sound like they will be so wonderful as to be beyond our ability to currently comprehend.  I am profoundly grateful for that.  But I don't think we do ourselves or others any favors by proposing that God's plan is to have His children live in sin forever, fornicating their way through the eternities.  I just don't see that as being part of the Plan.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[Duncan]

I am not gay but I get a loud and clear message that the Church doesn't want people with SSA. I learned at a youth conference years ago God is what the Church does. 

Edited March 2, 2016 by Duncan

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 minutes ago, Duncan said:

I get a loud and clear message that the Church doesn't want people with SSA.

Bull crap.

[Duncan]

5 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Bull crap.

Do you know anybody with it? I know two but they are married with kids actually three, one has been divorced multiple times and one got married when he was like 60 and had kids and he's semi active i'd say and the other one not too sure. I hear comments from so called high priests and others about it and how can you have it and sit there and hear that nonsense? For example last summer the WML told everyone in gospel principles class gay people are in a secret combination trying to take over the government and there is no salvation for them and he's a High priest or thinks he is, among other things he's said and he isn't the only one

[Hamba Tuhan]

I don't know anything about what you have or have not heard, but my comment was better, I thought, than issuing a CFR that 'the Church doesn't want people with same-sex attraction'. That makes as much sense as saying that the Church doesn't want people who wish to smoke, and you know it.

[Duncan]

Just now, Hamba Tuhan said:

I don't know anything about what you have or have not heard, but my comment was better, I thought, than issuing a CFR that 'the Church doesn't want people with same-sex attraction'. That makes as much sense as saying that the Church doesn't want people who wish to smoke, and you know it.

the Church has the addiction recovery program-we don't have anything for overcoming your sexualityness. I just don't see how you can fit in the Church with that. I am all ears for how homosexuality fits into everything and the purpose of it and why you would want to believe in God if this is the true Church, no thanks. I\d prefer to wait until I met God himself to find out what the truth is because it seems to be confusing down here

[Hamba Tuhan]

8 minutes ago, Duncan said:

I just don't see how you can fit in the Church with that. I am all ears for how homosexuality fits into everything and the purpose of it and why you would want to believe in God if this is the true Church, no thanks.

I'm guessing you didn't read my long post above...

[canard78]

7 hours ago, rockpond said:

I agree with you on the point the Elder Bednar was trying to make.  Sadly, he followed it up with a rather lengthy monologue on, what I'll call, the "doctrine of heterosexuality" within Mormonism.

So, while he started by telling people to not define themselves by their sexual orientation, he ended by explaining that heterosexuals should not only define themselves that way but that it is the only way to eternal salvation.

 

While I, personally, don't agree with his point of view and teachings it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. 

If one thing is clear from the last 20 years or so of church leadership rhetoric, gender and your roles within a (straight) marriage definitely are defining. In Mormonsim, your eternal identity is clearly linked to your roles as a man or woman and whether you are married or not. 

I would say that's probably been the case for most of the church's history, they've just chosen to put more emphasis on this particular aspect of it in the last couple of decades. 

On that basis, I don't think Elder Bednar's answer was the victim of entropy. I think the second half was intentionally linked to the first half and the opening question. He describes homosexuality as a trial of the flesh, like many others, but does not consider it to be a defining characteristic. Gender and a straight relationship IS defining based on the beliefs he holds and teaches. It might not be an answer that you feel is scripturally supported, but he (and others on this board) seem to say that there really is not a difference between being gay and straight because we are all eternally, in effect, straight. We might be born with any number of "trials of the flesh" (like beauty, disability or same sex attraction) but that doesn't define us.

You and I can disagree with his answer (and I do, on nearly every point), but we should at least not be surprised by it. 

[canard78]

27 minutes ago, Duncan said:

the Church has the addiction recovery program-we don't have anything for overcoming your sexualityness. I just don't see how you can fit in the Church with that. I am all ears for how homosexuality fits into everything and the purpose of it and why you would want to believe in God if this is the true Church, no thanks. I\d prefer to wait until I met God himself to find out what the truth is because it seems to be confusing down here

I think the church has (thankfully) got out of the game of trying to tell homosexuals that their attraction can be cured. 

There isn't a proposed way in the church today to remove the attraction. The only proposal is a lifelong abstinence. 

With alcohol or tobacco one can eventually lose any desire to act on the attraction. I think the church has finally accepted that the same is not true of being gay. 

The best they can offer or ask is abstinence. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 minute ago, canard78 said:

The best they can offer or ask is abstinence. 

I think that's precisely what we offer those who crave tobacco or alcohol. I know faithful Church members who still crave these substances many decades after giving them up in order to be accepted into baptism.

[Duncan]

4 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I'm guessing you didn't read my long post above...

I did!

[Storm Rider]

9 hours ago, california boy said:

No seriously.  I did ask the question what is the worse that can happen to me for being gay.  I guess it is outer darkness for me.  Nothing else really matters does it.

Cal, for being gay there is no condemnation - at least not in the eternities or by the Church.  Elder Bednar would agree with that statement.  You are no different than me or any other child of God.  

I don't think Outer Darkness has a part in this conversation unless you have seen the Savior and no longer live by faith.  

If I remember correctly, you argue from the point that your being gay is not a reflection of this carnal world, but it is an eternal, integral part of your nature; that without being gay you do not exist, have purpose, or can be happy.  This is where we differ - my position and I go so far as to state the position of the prophets and apostles - a gay person, or however one wishes to describe it, is a function of this mortal world and has no eternal role or influence.  We will all be washed in the blood of the Lamb and be resurrected into a perfect body.  I believe that the higher the kingdom obtained will also affect the quality, purity of the Spirit we enjoy.  For those in the Celestial Kingdom our very being will be in unison with the Father and the Son - their holiness, desires, will and joy will be ours.  All of the impulses of the carnal world of mortality will fall away.