Just when I though that I had nothing to say I find this on the Yahoo movies homepage.
Obviously this made me a little bit angry. And here are my refutations of the movie without me actually watching it.
1) Mormons were not the only ones pushing proposition 8. In fact, financially speaking Mormons were not the greatest contributors. The Catholics and various other Evangelist Christian organizations also made significant donations.
2) While I do remember letters encouraging donations for Prop 8 there was never, at any time, a requirement for members to do so. I did not donate money or time to Prop 8, and my church membership was never questioned.
3) The LDS church does not hate gays (or any other group with variant sexual orientation). The church DOES believe in a strict code of morality in regards to human sexuality and guess what. . .gay sex is outside of that. It is a sin. But so is adultery, so is sex before marriage. I could go on, but suffice it to say, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is against sin, of any kind, and any time the allowance of sin is legislated in state or national laws the Church will be fiercely opposed to it.
4) Even from the trailer for this film, you can tell that the director is blatantly misrepresenting statements by Church leadership. This is the power of film. And it's easy to forget that context matters very much when an individual makes a statement. Also, it's funny how you can take a film image of say, Elder Ballard, and make it a little grainy, slow down the image a little bit, to make the image seem a little bit creepy. In the same case, the people shouting in the streets against gays aren't necessarily Mormons (some of them could be, but I'd wager most aren't). Also, the guy who said that gays are "the greatest danger to America" was a Utah politician, and in no way related to the leadership of the Church.
Anyway, I'm just mad. This "documentary" is a stupid attempt to attack the Church.
3 comments:
I don't care if gays are unified under civil laws so that they can have the same governmental benefits as married couples (on taxes for example). But call it something besides marriage. The problem arises when gay marriage is legal, but the LDS church refuses to perform gay marriages inside its temples and then gets sued for doing so. And I completely agree with all your points. Any sexual relationship outside of the marriage of one man and one woman is sin. However, it is not sin to be gay.
I DO care if "gays are unified under civil law" or are in any way acknowleged as legitimate by kind of gov't agency, entity, or individual. The "gay marriage" movement is nothing more than an attempt by gay adherents to take away the "sin" of being gay. Neither man nor gov't can alter God's laws, and God's laws clearly define being "gay" as an "abomination" (Lev 20:13; 18:22; Rom 1:24-27; etc.). And, I disagree. "BEING" gay is a sin. Having homosexual tendencies or same sex temptation is not a sin. But, unless I misunderstand the concept, being "gay" is succumbing to such tendencies and temptation, in other words, the doing of it. It is in the doing that it is sin. I think it was Pres Hinckley that said having such temptation was not sin. But even that concept is troubling to me. How else can you explain Christ's teaching in Matt 5:28? Isn't having lust for a woman that is not your wife temptation? It is not the doing of it. And yet Christ clearly indicates such temptation is sin, doesn't He?
I really appreciated the talk by Jeffrey R. Holland called "Helping Those Who Struggle With Same-Gender Attraction" in the October Ensign of 2007. In it he states, "same-gender attraction is not a sin, but acting on those feelings is—just as it would be with heterosexual feelings." I am not going to debate the definition of being gay. To me it means a person is attracted to a member of the same gender. Having them unified under civil law would not change the fact that having a sexual relationship with a member of the same gender is a sin. Just as you said, government cannot change the laws of God. I would also say that lusting after someone is a lot different than being attracted to them. If lust and attraction are the same, then even a man attracted to a woman is sinning, so the entire process of finding a spouse is a sin, which I don't believe. I think it is eternally natural and right for men and women to be attracted to each other. I don't know why men are sometimes attracted to men and women to women. But it is not a sin until they actually commit sexual acts because then they are breaking the law of chastity which says that sexual relationships are only ok when performed between one man and one woman that are married to each other. All the scriptures you mentioned are referring to the actual sexual act, not the same-gender attraction. There are many righteous members of the church that hold temple recommends but struggle with same-gender attraction. I pray every day that no one in my family will have this trial because it is so horrific. I highly respect those people that have the strength to deny their feelings, follow the laws of the gospel, and have families all while being attracted to the same gender.
Post a Comment