Church makes gays and their children apostates

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Levin

That's why the Church should get some professionals so that he doesn't get to lead on all these issues. It's ridiculous that he's the only source of information and the Church's PR is "no comment"

Amateur hour.

If this were a for-profit corporation, you would have shareholder-derivative suits for mismanagement. There would be a vote and the board of directors would be ousted. New levels of incompetency in terms of PR have been evinced ever since Prop 8.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by Levin

That's why the Church should get some professionals so that he doesn't get to lead on all these issues. It's ridiculous that he's the only source of information and the Church's PR is "no comment"

I think the article you just posted was actually pretty fair. Credit the writer for getting some sources other than Dehlin to paint a more complete picture of the church regarding gay issues. But I agree it feels disturbing that ex-members get to be the ones breaking news. Something isn't working right. Also, someone with information has to be feeding it to him secretly, which is also a little disturbing.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by BlueK

I think the article you just posted was actually pretty fair. Credit the writer for getting some sources other than Dehlin to paint a more complete picture of the church regarding gay issues. But I agree it feels disturbing that ex-members get to be the ones breaking news. Something isn't working right. Also, someone with information has to be feeding it to him secretly, which is also a little disturbing.

He was buddy-buddy with Oaks before he left. Not surprised at all with his connections.

[ChinoCoug]

Plus there are a lot of active wolves like his former self.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by Levin

The "clarification" that is coming also shows that it's still amateur hour at the COB. The incoherent and disastrous PR statement re the scouting change: "we're on vacation and this is contrary to our doctrine anyway." And then how this was exposed and it's put into a manual only for SP's and Bishops when it affects the whole Church to its core.

I love President Monson, but this has been my frustration with him as President: he doesn't seem to be talking to us TODAY. Any of his talks could have been from the 1880s, 1920s, 1960s, or 1990s. They teach wonderful principles, but they are at a level of generality that is not rooted in specific issues the membership and Church as a whole are facing. It is something I really appreciated about President Hinckley -- he would talk to us about issues we were facing. I remember his talk, "What are people asking about us?" and then he gave specific answers to the questions. Something like that from TSM would be appreciated.

President Monson seems to be struggling with age, as many in his position have before him. I love him too, but I see him as just trying to do the best he can. The extreme "mullahs" I think do the church a disservice by basically falsely preaching the idea that even minor human mistakes or misjudgments by church leaders are essentially impossible. My understanding of agency leads me to believe that the Lord is ultimately in control and but he allows his servants to also be human and learn from mistakes just like everyone else. They receive revelation, but as President Hinckley once said, it comes to him most of the time in the same way it comes to any other member who seeks it. And we all know that the Lord doesn't dictate every action in detail to us. If he did it would negate the whole purpose of this mortal existence.

So I try to be patient and give my leaders my support and the benefit of the doubt just like I would hope others would do for me. I've seen numerous policies come and go in my 4+ decades of life. Not all of them make sense. And often they change. Years ago I once had to be released as a temple worker because I hit my 30th birthday and still wasn't married. It was just the policy that no one really knows why is there. Yet as soon as the temple president told me I was released he told me he really wanted me to keep coming to serve as a "volunteer" instead which didn't have the same age restriction. So the net effect was almost nothing. I kept going but just couldn't officiate in a few things I could before. Policies on top of other policies.

My theory is that President Monson is probably not going to be with us all that much longer but President Nelson is getting some time right now to be ready. We'll see. President Nelson is actually older than President Monson but it seems his health is better right now.

[MikeWaters]

I'm of the opinion that President Monson likely does not have the same faculties he did just a few years ago. And that's why he has seemed less engaged. And by my estimation feeling "off" from the Elder Monson of my childhood and younger days.

That's fine. It's often like that in the church. With SWK and ETB.

I sure do miss GBH. In retrospect, those were golden years.

[MikeWaters]

Some of you guys may not remember the cycle of leaks related to the handbooks, and then the church successfully getting them off the net. Until finally wikileaks leaked the whole thing and the church was powerless to have them removed.

So it increasingly doesn't make sense for the handbook to be private because in this day and age it is almost impossible to keep a document like that private that is shared with, what, tens of thousands of people?

Even if the document was private, we'd have heard rumblings about canceled baptisms and the policy would have come to light in a similar way. Through innuendo, media reports, confirmation from church PR, etc.

How many of us were aware of the policy on polygamists, in their specific particulars? I wasn't. I knew that in general there were specific special rules. Like a polygamist in another country couldn't be baptized while still married to more than one woman.

I think the rule is about expunging polygamist sympathies in the church. Which means that the new gay rules are about expunging gay sympathies in the church. But why don't they say that then? "We don't want people with gay sympathies in this church." Of course, then bigotry charges would stick like hot tar. "Yes, we admit it, we are bigots. For the Lord. He commanded us." But instead they have to say it's all about loving gay families.

It's a mess. When you are in a mess, tell the truth.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Some of you guys may not remember the cycle of leaks related to the handbooks, and then the church successfully getting them off the net. Until finally wikileaks leaked the whole thing and the church was powerless to have them removed.

So it increasingly doesn't make sense for the handbook to be private because in this day and age it is almost impossible to keep a document like that private that is shared with, what, tens of thousands of people?

Even if the document was private, we'd have heard rumblings about canceled baptisms and the policy would have come to light in a similar way. Through innuendo, media reports, confirmation from church PR, etc.

How many of us were aware of the policy on polygamists, in their specific particulars? I wasn't. I knew that in general there were specific special rules. Like a polygamist in another country couldn't be baptized while still married to more than one woman.

I think the rule is about expunging polygamist sympathies in the church. Which means that the new gay rules are about expunging gay sympathies in the church. But why don't they say that then? "We don't want people with gay sympathies in this church." Of course, then bigotry charges would stick like hot tar. "Yes, we admit it, we are bigots. For the Lord. He commanded us." But instead they have to say it's all about loving gay families.

It's a mess. When you are in a mess, tell the truth.

The polygamy rules with kids and baptism I think have been around for a pretty long time and were probably more about giving the message that we don't do polygamy in this church and we're not the same as the FLDS or others who do. Polygamy seems to be less of a cultural taboo today though, but it was a big deal maybe 30 or so years ago when a lot of false info seemed to go around about how we still did it. The anti's of the time were less savvy and/or didn't care if they knowingly gave out false information as long as it made anyone less positively inclined toward the church. Pre-internet days it was much easier to put blatantly false stuff out there and not be called out on it.

Also, I didn't listen to this podcast available on this site, but it sounds like there may have been a legal motivation for the policy that has something to do with divorce laws combined with anti-discrimination laws in some states (most notably California), or something like that. When stepping back to look at it with more perspective it seems very odd to handle it in this way and I'm assuming it will change in some way shortly.

http://athoughtfulfaith.org/church-p...xts-james-ord/

[MikeWaters]

there's been a blog post on BCC talking about why the legal justifications don't make sense. Or maybe it was another blog.

If this is for legal reasons. It's an solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

If this is for legal reasons. It's an solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Creating new problems by "solving" problems that don't really exist is unfortunately what lots of legislators, courts and lawyers often do.

It's also what a lot of companies do when writing new policies -- very often when taking advice of lawyers. No offense to Archaea, but I think it's the nature of the beast.