The bottom line on homosexuality
 

can be boiled down to one thing. Is it wrong or not? The "enlightened" ones here don't think so and consider those of us who do backwards. So be it. But whichever side you fall on, if you don't at least understand the position someone is coming from, you will continue to just talk in circles.

I believe homosexuality is wrong. I have no idea if it is nature, nurture, choice, a combination of all of the aboe, whatever. But it really doesn't matter. I don't see it any differently than other challenges, trials, or (gasp) "disabilities" human beings come to this earth and have to face.

I will never say homosexuality is accepted, normal behavior. That does not mean I hate gays or think less of them as children of God. I have compassion for them and thank God I am not in their shoes.

What I do know is that God is both merciful and just and in the end, He wil sort it all out.

You have boiled a complex characteristic in moral terms.

Why not look at the characteristic in the other terms in which it can be analyzed?

First, you identified it as a trait, and connecting it with the activity. For you and me, heterosexuals, it's a difficult trait to understand, it's incomprehensible to us.

Good point. Maybe it's better if the Church just says to gay people: "We don't have a place for you in our Church. You're not wanted here. We think you're disgusting."

That's the truth, although the Church tries to pretend to a more charitable attitude ("You can stay as long as you adhere to the same rules as all other members. Uhhhh, except you can't get married like other members -- that's disgusting. How will we explain that to our kids?").

I'll be bashed for any comparison I could possibly make. Caveat that I am NOT saying these are the "same".

But ...

- pedophilia is incomprehensible to me
- suicide is incomprehensible to me
- suffering from mental defect that robs me of my intellect is incomprehensible to me
- dependence on a subsstnace such as drugs or alcohol is incomprehensible to me
- and on and on ...

I am completely separating the moral issue from the "trait". The moral issue is that the behavior is wrong, period. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter WHY one acts as they do, whatever the sin might be.

If I have a bad temper that "runs in the family", that doesn't make it okay to beat my wife and kids. It's something that I have to deal with / overcome that some others do not.

As I have said before, it is the very definition of conundrum. What I do know is that the heterosexual family unit is sacred and eternal. That does not change. The closest thing I can comprehend is that SSA is a "cross to bear" that for whatever reason, some of the human race is afflicted with, most are not.

I can't boil homosexuality down when I don't even understand it. And since I cannot explain it nor understand it, I can't say whether it is right or wrong.

If we took this approach, then, when it all boils down to it, we are all sinners and homosexuality or heterosexuality is irrelevant. The sin of homosexuality is no different than the sin or lusting after a woman in your heart or whatever other sin we want to pick. I have no list that ranks sin, but I do know that God looks upon sin with the least degree of tolerance.

I think I will put homosexuality on simmer for awhile until we learn more. Until then, I choose to not worry about boiling it down.

I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with FM's talke, btw. Just adding my 2 euros (I converted my thought currency recently as a hedge against the falling dollar).

You exchanged 2 cents for 2 euros? Somewhere, a Frenchman is crying.

I don't understand it either. But there are lots of things I don't understand. In fact, if it weren't for the Spirit bearing witness to things, I would probably be an atheist for this reason. But there are an awful lot of things that go into the bucket of "I don't understand it now ... someday it will be revealed".

What I do know is that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and if he says it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't need to know the "why" for everything.

Perhaps the "top line" would have been better. I'm NOT trying to simplify this because it's not simple. I'm just saying that for us to understand each other, we have to realize that some of us think homosexual behavior is wrong and is a sin, regardless of the "why" someone is gay. Others think that it is normal behavior. We havet o agree to disagree and let discussions go from there.

Can't those on both sides of that still engage in thoughtful dialogue about things like the role of gays in society, what constitutes "rights", the question regarding choice vs. nature vs. nurture, etc.?

To be clear, whether or not behavior is a sin or whether or not nayone finds it disgusdting was not what prop 8 was about, at least not for me.