Some Kind of Weird Double-Speak
I'm warning you right now: there are going to be lots of posts addressing intersections of sexuality and Mormonism. Here's a second one.
While browsing the Church's website recently about the ABC Nightline story on the LDS Church and homosexuality on 7 June 2006, the Church's press arm insisted: "We believe the standard of morality is clearly defined and applies to all of God’s children. The Church teaches chastity before marriage and complete fidelity within a marriage. Marriage is also defined by God as the union of a man and woman, and we are not at liberty to change that definition." [More of the Church's delicious defensive crap can be read here.]
These three sentences encapsulate the impossible position that the LDS Church puts its gay members and other LGBTQ individuals. The statement was in response to a gay former member who stated that: "There is no place for me in the gospel as a person who never married." Clearly, there is no point to following the laws of chastity to "save yourself for marriage" when YOU CANNOT GET MARRIED. What really gets my goat, though, is the blatant hypocrisy of the statement that "we" are not at liberty to change the definition of marriage as set forth by God. If I'm not mistaken, the Church decided (of course, only with God's permission through "revelation") in 1890 to change the definition of marriage to the union of ONE man and ONE woman upon political pressure for the Territory of Utah to join the United States. So, apparently, God can change the definition of marriage from polygamy to monogamy to satisfy the Church's political and financial situation (actually, according to LDS doctrine, polygamy continues to be the Lord's preferred and endorsed mode of martial bliss in the hereafter), but only if his servants feel the arbitrary urge to proclaim it His will that it be so?
Who is leading this Church? And will they please get their heads out of their asses?
While browsing the Church's website recently about the ABC Nightline story on the LDS Church and homosexuality on 7 June 2006, the Church's press arm insisted: "We believe the standard of morality is clearly defined and applies to all of God’s children. The Church teaches chastity before marriage and complete fidelity within a marriage. Marriage is also defined by God as the union of a man and woman, and we are not at liberty to change that definition." [More of the Church's delicious defensive crap can be read here.]
These three sentences encapsulate the impossible position that the LDS Church puts its gay members and other LGBTQ individuals. The statement was in response to a gay former member who stated that: "There is no place for me in the gospel as a person who never married." Clearly, there is no point to following the laws of chastity to "save yourself for marriage" when YOU CANNOT GET MARRIED. What really gets my goat, though, is the blatant hypocrisy of the statement that "we" are not at liberty to change the definition of marriage as set forth by God. If I'm not mistaken, the Church decided (of course, only with God's permission through "revelation") in 1890 to change the definition of marriage to the union of ONE man and ONE woman upon political pressure for the Territory of Utah to join the United States. So, apparently, God can change the definition of marriage from polygamy to monogamy to satisfy the Church's political and financial situation (actually, according to LDS doctrine, polygamy continues to be the Lord's preferred and endorsed mode of martial bliss in the hereafter), but only if his servants feel the arbitrary urge to proclaim it His will that it be so?
Who is leading this Church? And will they please get their heads out of their asses?
posted by K. Ian Shin | 3:31 PM
1 Comments:
Dear Ian Shin,
Thank you for sending the Library Company a copy of your thesis on Nathan Dunn's Chinese collection and race. We have decided to add it to our reference collection, to make it available to other scholars.
Congratulations on a fine piece of work. And best wishes for your future in ... investment, art history, and activism!
-- Cornelia S. King, Reference Librarian, Library Company of Phila.
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