applepansy

We should mean it.  Everyone is a child of our Heavenly Father.  They have a right to housing and work.  They have a right to live.   They also have a right to the natural consequences of their actions.  But as a society we don't have the right to say they can't live or work in our community.
 
Vort, I'm curious.  Why do you always go here when discussing these issues?  It doesn't further the conversation.  Shock value?  I'm baffled.

In this particular case I meant "allow" in the same sense as allowing others to worship how, where, and what they may. A general term that implies more than it might literally mean. We cannot truly allow or disallow these things, because they are based on agency which cannot be removed, but we can TRY to dis-allow them by advocating for legal restrictions and punishments and the like. I merely mean that the church is choosing to not TRY and dis-allow them by legal restrictions and punishment at this point in history. There are, clearly, other points in history where the "church" as led by revelation from God, distinctly dis-allowed moral decay by way of severe punishment, up-to-and-including death. And it is certainly worth noting that even these severe laws did not literally dis-allow wicked behavior.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. Christ will come when he comes, and the wickedness of the world will not change that.

I agree with JaG on the matter. I think the church is supporting non-discrimination as a bandaid (based on understanding as given by revelation from the Lord), rather than as a catch-all virtue that non-discrimination is the righteous path in every instance. I think viewing non-discrimination as right in every case is silly and destructive. I also believe that laws are meant to reflect morality, and the fact that society has morally accepted homosex as moral is sad. But the fact is, simply, that society HAS accepted it as moral. Therefore, to get along with society, we must accommodate their right to view morality different than us. In this case, that principle means advocating for non-discrimination. The church's stance, in my mind, is clearly an indication that being civil and allowing society to decay if they choose to do so is the overriding principle, and does not speak to the idea of non-discrimination as a principle of right/wrong at all.
 
In my thinking, discrimination is neither good nor bad in and of itself. Good discrimination exists. So does bad discrimination. The mere discriminatory act or thought does not self-define itself as inherently wrong. It is more complicated than that. To simply claim that we should not discriminate strikes me as a view that has not been fully considered. I believe that is the point Vort is trying to express with his questions.

I think everyone has a right to housing and a job without being discriminated against due to their sexual preference.  And Vort I'm not talking about with animals and such.  The press conference was regarding the LGBT community. So I'm leaving it at that.

Vort, in substance I agree with you.  I'm a libertarian, and if I'm running a hotel or boarding house or apartment complex--my house, my rules.  If I want to tell my tenants that they can't smoke, or cook meth, or run a telemarketing operation, or keep a dog, or sodomize each other, or use contraception, or have sex at all under my roof--by golly, I think I have a natural right to do so; because it's my property.  Irrational discrimination, I believe, is best dealt with by the market; and holding a gun to people's heads and telling them to "play nice" cannot, does not, and will not work in society any more than it works on the playground. 
 
I also acknowledge the immorality of a person's being denied housing or employment just because of the types of sexual intercourse that person find appealing (regardless of whether the person actually engages in said intercourse or not), but let's be blunt--nondiscrimination legislation is, at the end of the day, about legitimatizing and accepting practices, not people.
 
So, yes:  From a political standpoint, I think nondiscrimination legislation is generally wrong.
 
And yet the Church has endorsed it.  Why?  Have the Church leaders gone soft?  Have they decided, after the last twenty years since the Proclamation on the Family issued, that this Law of Chastity thing isn't such a big deal after all?
 
I rather think not.  The apostles that presented today have a combined two-hundred-odd years of life experience, and two of the finest legal minds (Oaks and Christofferson) in the Church today.  The quorum they represent, in conjunction with the First Presidency, has over a thousand years of life experience.  I sustain them all as prophets, seers, and revelators. 
 
Even so:  there have been many, many times in Church history that the Church acted in ways that I may not feel were per se right, but which turned out to be necessary.  For example: 
The Church currently denies baptism and other priesthood ordinances to millions of Hitler's victims, simply because they are Jewish.  I think that's wrong.  But it's also necessary because of external pressures on our family history program. At the height of the Mexican war--which it's hard for me not to think of as a wholly unwarranted land grab--the Church sent five hundred volunteers to fight in that war, for the same government that had just allowed unspeakable horrors to be perpetrated against them.  I think that was wrong.  But it was also necessary, both because the US Army was paying in desperately-needed gold, and because the Church could sense where the political winds were blowing and needed to make sure it wasn't adverse to the guys who were ultimately going to come out on top. Abandoning Jackson County was wrong.  We were supposed to build up that place.  But it was necessary, because of the armed opposition that was insistent on our leaving; and a later revelation approved the action. I happen think the Church's policy on immigration undermines the United States' long-term sovereignty and is wrong.  But I also think it is necessary given the prophecies of what the Lamanites' descendants are going to do to the seed of the Gentiles in the last days with or without the Church's policies--so again, it may be best to adopt a "make ye friends of the mammon of unrighteousness" position. Here, too:  I'm not completely comfortable with the Church's concession re nondiscrimination legislation.  I wasn't in 2009, and I'm not now.  But I have confirmation--just in this past hour--that the Church leadership is acting with divine sanction in order to forestall, or at least blunt the effects of, whatever fresh hell Babylon has in store for us.  If our leaders don't know exactly what they're doing, the Lord does; and so I'm content to let the matter rest there.

As a libertarian and even an American, I may well live to regret what the Church has done today.  As a Latter-day Saint I believe I will not.  My testimony and my hope is that at some point in the eternities, this curious decision will rank with Nephi's seemingly bizarre action of making a second set of gold plates.

Nope . . . life, liberty, pursuit of happiness . . . . nothing about housing in there.
 
I can guarantee I've studied it way more than you have.  
 
Life, liberty, property, doesn't mean I have the right to force someone else to provide me with something.
 
Who owns the apartment complex, the government? Nope.  Whoever owns it has the right to pursue their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as they see fit.  The moment you claim they must provide you housing you have infringed on their pursuit of happiness. 
 
You are infringing on the owner's rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness by making the claim that you are entitled to their housing.

You are missing a very simple one (Compelling reason that is) Vort... The ability of both parties to consent to the act...  A lot of your examples (not all) fail when the parties involved must be capable of granting consent.

There are laws that make such sexual conduct illegal -- to the point that you go to jail for it! -- and thus effectively bar the sexual minority from societal interactions.
 
If you are an advocate of homsexual "rights", then I can think of no compelling reason that you should not be an equal advocate for the "rights" of other sexual minorities, including zoophiles and the incestuous. And if you favor equal treatment under the law and under all civic matters for homosexuals, how can you be honest and consistent without also favoring equal treatment under the law and under all civic matters for zoophiles and the incestuous?
  
And this is fine. I agree with it, at least in principle. But how well do people live it? How much do they really believe it?
 
Do you really believe that the pedophile deserves exactly the same love and acceptance as the homosexual? Because he does. And if you do not support him, or the dog-lover, or the incestuous couple, you are acting hypocritically, pretending to a virtue you do not possess.

I think he was pointing out the very clear flaw in your statement...
 
If I do not have any skills or money... Being of a protected class does not mean I automatically have both a place to live and a job...  Those are valid reasons for a person not to have either one.
 
I think what you meant was that no one should be denied a place to live or a Job based solely or even mostly based on being a protected class.  That is what the church is saying.   And that is where your statement runs into problems

No, no one is entitled to a job and housing. They are free to seek jobs and housing. They may even qualify for special assistance. But they don't get jobs and housing just for breathing.

I never said disregard the village.  We need to be very aware of the village and we have heard that over and over in General Conference.  We need to improve the village.  My argument is that it certainly doesn't take a village to raise a child.  And that's a reality.  Is the village raising children? Yes!  Is it good in today's world? No!  More and more families are having to protect their children from the village.  I am all for improving the village so families don't need to protect their children from the village.

I wasn't aware there were laws that restricted you from renting to someone who likes to have sex with their dog.
 
But that aside, The news conference spelled it out and Eowyn is right.  We do not discriminate against any of God's children.  We are commanded to love everyone.  We are not commanded to love their sins.  Regardless of sexual orientation everyone is entitled to a place to live and a job.  And that was stated very clearly in the news conference today.

People, people, it's not a batter of balance, it's a matter of whether or not a person belongs to a protected class.  Outside of that, the argument is kind-of mute.

I'm interested in the answer to Vort's question, too.  It's the concept of pushing an idea to an extreme to see if it still holds.
 
I have recently become more aware of this concept during a conversation i had with the hubby.  We were discussing a chapter we read together in a Christian book about forgiveness.  It reminded me of an unusual idea about forgiveness i had read in an LDS book.  I found the book and read the part i was thinking of to my hubby.  He said it was an interesting idea and held very well for the flippant example the author used but suggested we use a more extreme example to see if it still held.  We did, and the idea didn't hold very well for the more extreme example.  It was fascinating.  It doesn't mean the idea doesn't have merit at all, just that it maybe doesn't always hold for every situation.

Sorry you took offense. My question was in earnest, and I think it's perfectly reasonable. If we say "It's bad to discriminate based on sexual preference!", do we mean it? Or do we mean only those sexual preferences that are currently being promoted by outside (immoral) interests as acceptable?
 
I also don't think there's an obvious correct answer. If the answer is, "No, I don't support horse lovers or child sex advocates having equal access to societal means", then the whole idea of "nondiscrimination based on sexual preference" is false. Isn't it? Seems obvious to me that it is.

Death is part of this life.  Most children can handle it.  It shouldn't be traumatizing unless something is forced on the child, such as maybe giving "grandma" a kiss goodbye in the casket and the child doesn't want to do it.  I believe it's okay for children to see grief.  They need to know that grief is okay and natural, and to see that even grown men and women cry.

I remember going to funerals at ~5.  It's not traumatizing or anything, just an opportunity to talk about life, death, and God.  
 
The bigger challenge with young kids at funeral is keeping them from being too rowdy.

IMO, nope. not too much. It is good to teach kids about life and death, especially at a young age so they can gain a respect for both life and death.

The first funeral I went to was when I was roughly two or three.  I remember my dad holding me up to see inside the casket.  He said it was an uncle of his.  I was wondering why someone would put a mannequin in a box.  Next (still before 8), one of my great grandmothers died.  I knew it was her dead body, and I remember everyone saying how lifelike she looked.  I still thought a dead body looked about as lifelike as a mannequin.
 
By the time I was 8 years old, I'd been to at least three funerals. I don't recall being traumatized.

I wish I liked to get rid of "stuff".  I hang onto it for no good reason, except for the excuse "I might need it some day".  My mother instilled in me a fear that in the last days even a rag will be scarce.  She grew up during the depression, and had a hard time throwing anything away.  Is this an inherited trait?  lol

My first two kids were in cloth diapers. Not because I chose but because that was what was available and affordable. Disposables weren't as good as they are today and they were expensive.
When we got my grandson, disposables were it.
What I didn't like about cloth were the rashes, the diaper pail, plastic pants,
sigh...
P.S. My dad read an article a few months back which said a couple of BYU students had found a bacteria(?) that would decompose plastics. So . . . this is good news for all those who feel guilty about the diapers in the landfills.

Clutter.... oh my.  I've been hauling boxes of old clutter and junk out of my house for 5 years.  Somebody must be hauling stuff back in because it doesn't look like I've made a dent.

Clutter.... oh my.  I've been hauling boxes of old clutter and junk out of my house for 5 years.  Somebody must be hauling stuff back in because it doesn't look like I've made a dent.

Clutter.... oh my.  I've been hauling boxes of old clutter and junk out of my house for 5 years.  Somebody must be hauling stuff back in because it doesn't look like I've made a dent.