Comments on: Update On That Mormon Email: LDS Backs Away

By: Shofixti

Shofixti — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:44:26 +0000

What was deceptive?

By: Priya Lynn

Priya Lynn — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:35:34 +0000

Papad said “Although the Church believes that all forms of behavior traditionally labeled by Western Society (and most civliations) as “immoral” including adultry, fornication, pedophilia, pornography, masturbation, abortion AND homosexuality–it does not hold the latter any MORE immoral than other types of immorality.”.

It never fails to amaze me how people continue to make such idiotic statments. They think they’re being generous by saying gayness is no more immoral than pedophilia when its obvious they’re being extremely insulting – the word fatuous comes to mind. No Papad, gayness isn’t immoral in the slightest and for you to claim its just as immoral as pedophelia is outrageous and evil.

And Shofixti, enough with the BS already. No intelligent person believes a word your deceptive self says.

By: Shofixti

Shofixti — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:02:15 +0000

I cannot fathom how you can ask me that.

I have answered you. I am not side-stepping anything.

In addition, I have requoted myself for you, answering that exact question. Explicitly. Openly. Fully. Clearly.

Which part of what I said did you not understand?

I support marriage between two adults irrespective of gender. You can have one, two, even three or no gender at all and I support the marriage’s legality and all attached rights.

EA: I don’t care about his concept of marriage one way or the other.

Amazing! If everyone can have their own ‘real’ marriages, with no consideration for what another thinks their or your own marriage is or means – then that is both a pluralistic view and a constructivist view and a discursive view.
And it means we agreed all along.

By: Enough Already

Enough Already — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:55:52 +0000

You’re putting words in my mouth, Shofixti.
I don’t care about his concept of marriage one way or the other.
What I do care about is that you have very neatly sidestepped, once again, plainly stating that you are an advocate of full civil and human rights for gays including gay marriage with all the legal rights and responsibilities which are now granted to heterosexual marriage.

This is why I don’t trust you – you’re perfectly capable of playing word games to avoid making a clear statement.

So, how about it – can you make that clear statement?

By: Shofixti

Shofixti — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:05:47 +0000

Uh, EA - no, no, no, emphatic no. You are failing to understand what Halperin means by "object" and "discourse". Discursive does not mean something does not exist, or is unreal - but that its existence is contingent. For instance if marriage is a real object then it is incapable of change, ever - but if we look at history and how culture, economics, feminism have all contested and expanded marriage - we can see it for what it is, a discursive formation. It is not a finite thing, lying in a field, that some ancient tribe discovered and protected throughout the aeons. "Their marriage is real" and "They have a Real marraige" are two different statements and that difference has nothing to do with my compassion. Your marriage exists, your "faithful, true, monogamous, loyal, life-long commitment to each other" exists! I have never ever had a problem with this. Never ever. It actually makes me feel warm inside. You are the one who keeps telling eveyone how when you go to the USA that this ceases to be recognised - so you should have no problem comprehending the contingency of marriage and the need to fight for validity. But PapaD sees things as you do as he is also arguing that marriage is real. Only in his version, the realness of marriage means that you can't or shouldn't have yours. Real gay marriage cannot exist if real marriage means heterosexual not homosexual. Your truth claim means he can't have his real and exclusive marriage, so by your own logic you are trying to destroy PapaD's marriage (fancy that). You are in a war of real verses real. How do you propose we tell these two claims on reality apart? With your empirical brilliance, can you devise an experiment whereby we can distill the essence of real marriage, or prove the realness of one, both or the other truth claims?

By: enough already

enough already — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:52:02 +0000

Shofixti,
Take a look at the interview – about two minutes in – with this man whose husband is about to be deported from the US.
Their marriage is real.
It is people like you who are destroying their lives.
Does this not even raise a trace of compassion in you?
Or is compassion towards gays just a matter of discourse, too?

By: enough already

enough already — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:21:36 +0000

shofixti said:
Marriage is not a real object, marriage is a discourse.
endquote
Another attack on my marriage by you.

Our marriage is just as real and just as valid as any heterosexual marriage.

Our faithful, true, monogamous, loyal, life-long commitment to each other is not lessened one iota by your desire to destroy our marriage.

Gay marriage is real, it is your pretence that you aren’t our enemy which is the lie.

By: Shofixti

Shofixti — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:03:45 +0000

Dear PapaD

Thank you for a detailed picture on Mormonism that is quite hopeful.

While I would never comment on what humanity’s first beliefs about marriage were. I can direct you to a lengthy exposé on marriage by Rob Tisinai on this site. As it does give you a bit of information on what it is like to contend with the overt genital obsessiveness of religion in regards to marriage.

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2011/02/07/30333

I know that there is great joy and security in calling a man – a man, a woman – a woman, black – black and white – white, which all seem to be lovely discrete categories. But they tell little about the policies that regulate these signifying practices.

Take marriage, it looks like a real thing. David Halperin (1995) suggests that the epsitemological regime known as ‘realism’ often miscodes and misreads and misrepresents as an “object” the things that are actually “discursive”. Marriage is not a real object, marriage is a discourse.

By: PapaD

PapaD — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 05:52:28 +0000

I am a sixty-year old Mormon convert from a main-stream protestent religion. I have been an active member for over forty years now. I am up-to-date, a Priesthood holder and I have full access to everything officially LDS on the Internet.
I can tell you that I have found far less prejudice againt homosexuals in the Mormon Church than in my former church. Although there IS certainly personal prejudices within the ranks of LDS church members, it is, in my perception, far less than that of the general poulation.
Although the Church believes that all forms of behavior traditionally labeled by Western Society (and most civliations) as “immoral” including adultry, fornication, pedophilia, pornography, masturbation, abortion AND homosexuality–it does not hold the latter any MORE immoral than other types of immorality.
Since the LDS Church believes that God is unchanging in his judgement, leaders and/or any rank-and-file members who are active and has a good understanding of our doctrine does not dislike or hate people who believe differently than us. To the contrary, the LDS Church encourages those they deam as immoral to participate and fellowship with Church members. We believe that Jesus Christ loves everyone.
We believe, as a church, in the acceptance of differences in all other legal cultures, religions, and life-styles–just as we would desire similar respect for our own beliefs–which, incidentally, we seldom have recieved ourselves as a group.
We believe in individual freedom and the the right to believe and worship as one chooses in as much as it does not infringe upon the rights and welfare of others or the law. We believe in our (USA’s) political system and the right and need to vote in elections and use personal intellect and judgement to decide how to vote.
The Church is officially neutral regarding how people vote or campaign. The political views of LDS Church members varies widely. There is a specific and intentional effort to seperate individual beleifs from any Official Church positions regarding political issues. (There is a long history and precedent that makes this stance desirable and necessary–especially in Illinois). This nuetral position is of itself a vital church beleif.
The Church as a whole simply does not encourage people to take any specific political view or dictate any political party or individual view over another. It actually prohibits this. My personal friends in the church have widely varying political views AND views regarding gender-identity and other issues. It is at best, complicated.
The Church has never, to my knowlege, and I am as certain as a person can be, has NEVER SENT OUT AN EMAIL of the nature as “this one” bishop may have done.
My guess is that “this” Bishop was privately corrected by his Official Church leaders for misusing the Church’s online directory in the way he did (if he truely did). We, as church members, are specifically prohibited from using this resource for private, or non-church related matters–especially political ones. This capability is not even used for the distribution of official Church material, for a lot of reasons–not the least of which is the lack of monitoring by Church Leaders and for the propensity for mistakes and unauthorized edits.
I have only twice used this church ward membership directory online; this was for official church business of a strictly administrative nature, and it was actually only used as a resource to locate the phone numbers of a fellow church member–on two seperate occasions–in order to follow-up on an item of church business during mid-week–when we were not meeting.
To characterize the Church Directory online as a “Social-Networking” system is laughable. I have never even considered it for such use–nor have I heard of it EVER being used by ANYONE in this way.
The fact that Mormons generally believe in the biblical teachings concerning morality, as do many if not most other religions, does not mean that Mormons are conspiring or protesting or lobbying against homosexuals or any other group.
What the Church IS invloved in is protecting the age-old institution of marriage and family between a man and a wife as a sacred and necessary institution upon which society and civilization is founded. Even “this” is my own private interpretation of what the Church believes and why.
Free-agency is vital to our belief-system. One must be free to choose whether to behave according to Gospel principles or it would mean nothing. Coercion has no place in the Mormon Church. It is against the basic tenants of our church. If homosexuals choose to cohabitate where it is legal for them to do so (ours is a world-wide law-abiding church, and laws do vary), then it is their business. We have no designs to coerce them to do otherwise.
However, what we DO oppose (at least as I interpret Mormon Doctrine), is confusing such arrangements with the age-old institution of “marriage”. Nor do we want to label common-law cohabitation outside the sanctity of the institution of marriage–as “marriage”. We don’t believe that either is approved of by God.
Even the most liberal-minded proponent of homosexual unions, could agree that if everyone had chosen to live in this manner that we deam “immoral”, that humans would likely have ceased to exist due to the obvious implcations that such arrangements have upon moral procreation.
We feel that we have the right to believe this just as others have the right to beleive as they do. We should not be required to believe a certain way simply because the tides of what is acceptable to man may have changed what is today politically correct. We believe that people individually answer to a higher law than man or government, although we DO beleive in following the laws of the land.
As Christians, Mormons believe in loving our fellow human beings who are more or less in the same state of imperfection. We all fall short of the Glory of God, which necesitates our Savior’s (Jesus Christ’s) atonement to be “saved” from our own carnality.
We beleive that man’s spirit makes him more than a a mere animal who follows his own lusts or inclinations. We also happen to believe that it is wrong to sleep to much or to waste time or resources or to dring alchohol–and a host of other unpopular things that are hard for humans to do.
But those are OUR beliefs. We do not impose them upon anyone. If we are trying to be good members, we try to personally rise above carnal urges (with imperfect success I might add). Each individual has his work cut out for him to govern himself.
We generally believe in majority rule, when it comes to politics. But we do not beleive that God’s will is changeble by majority vote. In fact we believe that it will be a small minority who try to live by God’s laws. So we are certianly not against minorities. But we do seek the same “live and let live” attitude toward ourselves.
I once knew a person who was clearly a hermorphadite. This person had the sexual organs of both male and female. So I have to personally believe that such things DO occur. However, I believe that it is the rare exception and not the rule. Do some people identify more with the predispositons of one gender over the other? Even when it is not the “usual” occurence in nature. It obviously IS so.
But I beleive that just as one more highly-sexed heterosexual person finds it a greater challenge to remain “moral” than does one who is less highly-sexed, I beleive that we are intended to overcome the inclinations of such predispostions when it differs from what God’s standards dictate, regardless of how hard it is for us personally.
This is the nature of overcoming our carnal natures–and it implies personal growth.
I believe similarly regarding homosexual inclinations. It is what it is, to coin a phrase. No apologies in behalf of God. I don’t have the right to change what God dictates. This is MY belief. But I certainly don’t require the same standards of others (although God may).
So why should those who believe differently than I, impose their beliefs upon me? I don’t impose mine upon them.
Maybe its an “I was here first” sort of problem. Humanity largely first believed that the institution of marriage as ordained of God was to be between a man and woman. It was only recently that free societies even allowed people to choose to live together as homosexual couples. So why should this johnny-come-lately minority overrule and change the ideals of the institution we call “marriage” by calling their unions “marriages”, thereby confusing our own youth and others who are not homosexually- inclinded with what we regard as the wholesome and God-sanctioned institution we have come to call marriage?
Just call it something else. It is NOT marriage–as we believe it to be. It is just NOT. It is as inherently different as are men’s and women’s genitilia. It doesn’t matter how hared we believe it to be the same. It IS different. I di not make it different. Nature or God or SOMETING made it so.
Why is this simple concept so hard for some people to understand? It is not. Everyone knows what is the “norm”. I did not make it this way. Deny that a homoxsexual union has a set of complicating social/physical/psychological differences from what has been traditionally called marriage. I would gues that it is much harder to live this way. Deny it. Anyone who does deny this is either lying or delusional or both.
It IS different! That’s all I am saying. So if it IS different–then why can’t you agree to call it something besides marriage. You don’t call a man a woman–just because the man wants to be a woman. No matter how many harmones are injected, or how many surgeries are completed.
That man who wants to be a woman is still only a physically altered man. A white man cannot become a black man or a red man or a yellow man. He is just different. Get angry, hold your breath, and turn blue in the face. It does not change the facts. A man-made woman just ain’t as woman as a God-made woman. How hard is that.
The emperor had no clothes on–even though everyone was afraid to tell him he was naked. It didn’t change the facts. The emporer was naked. Or so goes the old fairytale.

By: chrissypoo

chrissypoo — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:28:47 +0000

“Anti-Mormons”

Is that what anyone who criticizes the Mormon church’s involvement with politics is?

Somebody’s civil marriage performed by a justice of the peace is not a moral issue, but an issue of status. It doesn’t affect the Mormon church at all. Mormons don’t want gays in stable relationships because it undermines they lies they have told over the years about gays.