So everyone seems to bandwagoning either the gays or the Mormons again. A president in the church made a remark about how homosexuality is unnatural, but God still loves you and will accept your repentance and the gay community took offense and decided to demand an apology out of the man.
Here's what I don't get. Why do they care? He didn't say anything mean to the gays. He simply stated his religions viewpoint on homosexuality. Is that not one of the rights of the country? To be allowed to have a religion that has points of view which may be different from another person's? I mean c'mon. I'm not even conservative and I support gays being allowed to be with other gays. I still think they're stupid for getting mad at this. It's almost like they're trying to find reasons to take offense, thinking that if they act like a pathetic little victim they will garner respect. Wrong, you lost my respect. I understand you were pissed when the LDS church gave money to a campaign against prop 8. Understandable. This is a tax free organization and as so should not be allowed to influence campaign funds with their money. If they want to tell their homosexual members that there is hope for them I see no problem with this though. I read that 1/11 people are either homosexual or bisexual. Of the 12 or 13 or... I lost track... ex girlfriends I have, three were admittedly bisexual (though usually in the closet about it.) All 3 of them were Mormon and went to church. Considering there are 13 million Mormons in the world I think this talk was probably nice to quite a few people who have this concern. Dear super-sensitive gays, Quit being so sensitive, no one is going to take you seriously until you quit acting like fags. Yes, there is a difference between bi/homosexuals and fags.
On the flip side of this, I don't like that President Packer compared heterosexuality to gravity. This is a stupid analogy. Gravity is defined as [6.67*10^-11(m1)(m2)]/r^2 . Now please, tell me, what is the mathematical equation for heterosexuality, because I have some friends that I would greatly enjoy testing this on. Fail. This is a terrible analogy whether you're scientific minded or not. Gravity simply exists, you can not deny it. Can you fly against it? Sure, but gravity is still acting on you. Orbit? Gravity is still acting on you, without gravity you could not orbit. Homosexuality is not something which is definable like this. Some people simply feel gay. That's cool. They're allowed to and they're allowed to choose whether to act on their gay tendencies or not. I know for certain that one of my best friends from high school is bi, he's married to a woman and has never done anything homosexual. He made this choice, some people don't. No one has a choice whether or not they accept their gravitational attraction or not. Heterosexuality is not a "natural law," it just happens to be what is the most functional and makes the most sense.
So I guess in conclusion, while the church official made a poor comparison, he's right. The LDS church does not accept homosexuality as right, but accepts homosexuals and even allows them church positions if they overcome their gay tendencies. He should have worded things differently and not gone into the whole "it's unnatural" thing. My Molly Mormon friends will have a hard time agreeing with me on that point because they don't understand that church officials are mortal and sometimes don't word things correctly, but really? If this is going to set off the gay community, then they need to not ever repent and go to hell.
In order to understand the gay community's response to this issue, you have to put yourself in their place. And for the three weeks prior to conference, that place included a devastating string of heavily publicized suicides by young men. The suicides led to the formation of the It Gets Better Project one of the largest and most public attempts to end suicide that I have ever seen. Dozens of celebrities, elected officials, and random people from all over the country have recorded videos to try and prevent suicide. People have been tearing their hair out and doing whatever they can think of to try and fix this problem. Even the governor of New York came out with his own video this week.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the midst of all this furor about gay suicide, President Packer delivers a message that says if you just fast a little more, pray a little harder, and have a bit more faith, you won't be gay anymore.
So that is why people got so upset. To be clear, Elder Packer has every right to stand up and preach his views about homosexuality. But that doesn't mean that people will not call him out on what they see as words that are untrue, harmful, and dangerous to our youth.
brandon for like the second time ever i agree with you. i do believe and trust everything pres packer says . thats just my prerogative i guess but the way he put it i found off putting and i can see why some gay people (church members and non members) would be a offended by it. but as a church we are allowed to have our own feelings. and i did like the part where he said we wouldnt change our feeling on it. we've made our stand and now whatever happens thats where we've chosen to be. but because we have done that i feel like the church is getting a horrible rep to be gay haters when (to an extent that isnt applied to probably thousands of mo-mos worldwide) its not that at all. but what can you do?? thats all. i enjoyed reading this brandy brandy brando.
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