Quote:
“What kind of pressure and confusion would be placed on a child who’s learning one thing at church and seeing the complete opposite at home?”
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What kind of pressure and confusion is placed on a child who’s learning at home to love everyone and treat everyone with respect, and that God loves ALL His children- then to go to church and find out that while they claim to be following God, they’re doing the exact opposite?
Quote:
“What contention might that cause when the child wants to live according to church teachings but their parents choose not too?”
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Since at age 8 the child is considered accountable for his own choices and has his own free will, why is this any different than any other child that wants to get baptized into the church but their parents choose not too?
Quote:
“The church would rather keep peace in the family unit-“
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No. The church would rather keep certain people it considers unsavory out of the church, including their children, and try to deny them the blessings of God- rather than love and accept everyone God loves and accepts, according to God’s teachings. This isn’t the first time they’ve done it. And it won’t be the first time they suddenly change their mind and doctrine later on down the track.
Quote:
“This really isn’t a new policy;”
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Until gay people started getting rights and the church panicked and put out the Proclamation on the Family, it wasn’t policy at all. And it isn’t doctrine either. There’s not a single word against homosexuality in the BoM, Doctrine and Covenants, or the Pearl of Great Price.
Quote:
“The LDS church has made no secret of its stance of same-sex relationships from the get go.”
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They also made no secret of their stances against other minorities until they suddenly changed stance and then pretended their original stances never existed.
It’s not the fact that this is a surprise, it’s the fact that it’s NOT a surprise and it’s a crappy thing to do regardless. They're not justified in what they're doing just because it's not a shock.
Quote:
“Entering a same-sex marriage flies directly in the face of church teachings and as such is apostate.”
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Yet, nothing about it at all is mentioned in any of the actual church scriptures, nor is it in keeping with a loving God. Nor is it justification to make the children ‘apostate’ and punish them for the ‘sins’ of their parents.
The church is either inclusive or exclusive. God is inclusive, the Church has only made it clearer that they’re Exclusive.
Quote:
“No one is saying that LGBT people and their children are not welcome and not loved.”
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That’s exactly what they’re saying. They’re not welcome as they are, they’re not loved (not the same as STRAIGHT people anyway) as they are, and they’re unworthy…according to the Church…for God’s love and blessings because of how they are. Something God never, ever actually taught or demonstrated.
Quote:
“They can still attend activities-“
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Why? To be reminded they’re not good enough? To be reminded they’re second class in the eyes of the church and are merely being 'allowed' to be there but not actually fully included? To be reminded that while the Church preaches that God loves and includes everyone, the Church itself doesn’t practice what it preaches?
Quote:
“A same-sex couple does not meet those requirements.”
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Those are the requirements of man, not God. I don’t recall God ever saying “I love everyone…except them. Ick.”
Quote:
“Family ALWAYS comes first-“
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Not according to the Church. According to the Church STRAIGHT family always comes first. The church is willing to toss out families from what it considers eternal blessings and requirements for salvation in exact contradiction of what they claim God wants, instead of examining its own policy…remember, not doctrine, POLICY.
Policy is not made by revelation, it’s made by men.
Quote:
“Leadership has seen a potential conflict between church and family.”
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And in such a conflict, family should take precedence. You claim family takes precedence, but that’s not what the church is doing. They’re making the CHURCH precedence, not family. If the Church comes into conflict with family it is the CHURCH that needs to be examined and changed, not the family.
Quote:
“They are making it clear that a stable, loving family is more important.”
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No, they’re making it clear that they think that gay couples and their children are not and cannot be stable and loving families.
Quote:
“And they want these precious children to be ready and absolutely sure of the decision they make regarding whether or not they want to be members of this church.”
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And yet, this is one of the few times they insist upon that. If they truly wanted this, this would apply for all children in the church, and all children in the church would have to wait until they were eighteen before they could be baptized.
Quote:
“And the way I read it, the child just has to denounce the lifestyle, not their parents.”
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What LIFESTYLE? Point to me two gay couples that have the identical lifestyle. They’re not saying they have to denounce a non-existent ‘lifestyle’, they’re saying they have to denounce the fact their parents are gay and love each other, despite how stable and healthy and committed and deeply in love their parents are. Or they have to announce that they themselves are not gay. It's not the 'lifestyle' that is being rejected- there IS no 'lifestyle', it's a myth. It's the people.
Quote:
“They don’t have to stop associating with or loving their parents-“
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They just have to say they believe that their parents and their parents love isn’t as good as straight people and straight people’s love and that their family is somehow not real, or is lesser, or doesn’t ‘count’ as a family, because.
Quote:
“Unwed couples are encouraged to either get married or live separately before they’re able to get baptized as well.”
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Unwed straight couples are ALLOWED to get married according to the church, it’s not an equivalent comparison.
Quote:
“A lot of the membership of the church is struggling with this announcement.”
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Why do you think that is? Could it possibly be because the membership knows and recognizes what true family and love actually is, and the church doesn’t seem to be able to? Is it because the membership doesn’t see any reason that a gay couple or their children should be excluded from God’s blessings but the church keeps insisting that they should be?
The congregation also struggled a lot with the Church not allowing minority members to hold certain offices or hold certain powers either. Guess which one was right?
Quote:
“It can be difficult to reconcile one’s religious teachings and personal conscience when they get to be at odds with each other.”
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No, it’s pretty easy if you believe in a loving God of any kind. Which one is in keeping with love? Whichever one isn’t is the one that is in error.
Quote:
“I definitely don’t envy bishops and stake presidents who are going to be bearing the brunt of this.”
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They put themselves in that position and if they don’t want to be in it, they don’t have to be. Gay couples and their children didn’t ‘put’ themselves into any position, they’re being outcast for no other reason than they exist.
Quote:
“That all this is treating the kids of gay people like the kids of any other sinner-that they have to be of an age where the kid can legally decide to be different from their parents.“
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Except it’s not, because EVERYONE is a sinner, including the most straight-laced Mormon couple you’d ever find, and baptism is at eight for every other child in the Church. THEY can’t legally decide crap. If the church wanted to wait until the kids are old enough to decide for themselves, what they should be doing is changing the baptism age across the board to 18 instead of 8. Otherwise, they’re only interested in singling out a particular group of kids and are hiding behind rhetoric.