Just_A_Guy

Frankly, Godless? I'm not at all confident that a gun-ban would be enforced in a politically even-handed way. When the left occupies government buildings, it's "peaceful protest". When the right walks into a government building because some (not all) surrounding cops said "go on in", it's insurrection. When Mike Brown attacks a cop, it's the excusable venting of an oppressed young man (that cop was following him, doncha know?). When Kyle Rittenhouse shoots a couple of guys who attacked him, it's "He shouldn't have had his gun there. Everyone takes a beating sometimes, right?" When Donald Trump's kids do or say something stupid or seem to be enjoying life a bit too much, it's front-page news for months. When Hunter Biden appears to be neck-deep in multi-million dollar influence-peddling schemes (apparently with his father the VP being complicit in the whole sorry business), it's . . . a media blackout. The general concept at play with gun regulation, I fear, is the phenomena Ayn Rand warned about: You make everyone a criminal; you extend munificent mercy towards the ones who are useful to you, and you crack down on the rest. Additionally, on a less-theoretical level: Progressive advocates have spent a lot of energy pathologizing/marginalizing mainstream conservatives, and have done so for a very long time (I came across an article sometime ago showing quotes of every Democratic presidential contender since Truman painting their Republican adversary as a fascist). It's still a bit of a leap from "conservative" to "mentally ill" to "dangerous"--but not nearly as big of a leap as it used to be. (At the risk of threadjacking) I'd be interested to hear the results of what you've looked into. My impression hasn't been that there's really a lot of fat to trim in law enforcement budgets (they get some MRAPs and other stuff, but frankly, I believe a lot of that is gotten for near-free as military surplus). And, being in a position where I work very closely with social workers (shared office space with social workers for two years)--the ones I know aren't particularly keen on going into tense situations without a police escort.

Maybe; but this sort of presupposes modern Western notions of what it means to be offended, and where the cultural boundary lines are in terms of showing ill will towards one's social betters. This thread reminds me that some years ago, someone (I don't remember who) published a ThirdHour (I think it was MormonHub at the time) article talking about Bathsheba as a sinner because of what happened with David; and a lot of folks here pushed back with the point that Bathsheba wasn't necessarily in a position to refuse the king's advances and that it wasn't fair to definitively paint her as a scheming adulteress. It was quite the kerfuffle at the time; but I can't find any trace of it by searching the forum archives.

This elicits a couple of offhand thoughts from me: 1) Human sexuality seems chaotically complex, and I wouldn't presume to have a perfect knowledge of what causes it to present the way that it does in any particular person. I will note, though, that being some form of LGBTQ often has other--for lack of a better word, comorbidities. I don't deny that some people just find members of their own sex more attractive and may be genetically hard-wired to do that; but it also seems like in a huge number of cases life experience/trauma, social pressure, desire to be noticed, predilection for drama, contrarianism, etc. also seem to be present. So frankly--and responding to some later points in this discussion--I don't really know what it means to be authentic in one's sexuality. Does authentic mean, what my preference would be if my twin brother had a different sexual preference? If I hadn't had that best friend in elementary school who treated me the way he did? If my first hand-hold/kiss/sexual encounter had gone differently, or how it interacted with my religious upbringing and the faith crisis that I happened to be going through at the same time? If I didn't fall in with that peer group that approached sexuality in a particular way? If my relationship with my parents had been different? Or is "authentic" just newspeak for "whatever I want right now, I should get right now; and if what I want changes in the future I should automatically get that, too"? 2) A social worker colleague of mine (got his BS in the last 5 years, and he is very progressive) claims that "effeminate" behavior in a gay male is basically, at a subconscious level, a way of trying to identify other males whose sexual predilections match his own--in other words, he's (perhaps inadvertently) hitting on you; and this is supposedly the case for gay males from a very young age. Now, I don't have the educational chops to know whether this is accurate or not. But assuming, for a moment, that it is; and assuming that heterosexual males also pick up (perhaps subconsciously) on this sort of prepositioning: I think it's human nature to be repulsed by unwelcome sexual advances; and the less one is attracted to the initiator of the advance, the greater the feeling of revulsion will be.* I'm not particularly bothered by "butch" women (and I apologize if that's now become a slur); other than being tempted to consider them mildly freakish and thus a little dopey (a temptation I struggle with for people with all manner of deviations from what I consider to be "normal"). But I know my wife is really creeped out by "butch" women. 3) I think that for LDS dads--especially of a more traditional bent--we want to know that our daughters are marrying provider-defender type guys who, if nothing else, are not going to be a burden to our loved ones or ourselves. That doesn't necessarily mean these guys have to be alpha-males or whatever. But a lot of the stereotypical characteristics of effeminate men tend to undermine their emotional stability, material self-sufficiency, and/or long-term relational success; and (speaking very generally here) I think it's right to see effeminacy as a bit of a relational red flag. My answers to your first two questions are probably "yes", and then "no"; though I'd like to push back a bit and have you clarify what you mean by "accepting of LGBT lifestyles". My answer to your third question is: I think we may be moving into a social milieu where it's less helpful to talk in general terms about "masculine" and "feminine", and more helpful to have detailed conversations about specific attributes that we think are desirable for friends generally and (where romantic relations are concerned) that tend to complement/mitigate the strengths and weaknesses of the other partner. (Yeah, those virtues would still probably tend to fall under the umbrella of "traditionally masculine" or "traditionally feminine"--but there's been a lot of linguistic well-poisoning over the past few decades; and of course, not all "traditionally masculine" or "traditionally feminine" traits are necessary or even desirable in a friend/spouse anyways.) We should absolutely teach our children to be stringently, ridiculously, even unfairly discriminating when selecting a mate; and (to a lesser extent) when selecting our close friends as well. *Edited to add: I should probably say the “it-goes-without-saying” part explicitly: This does *not* mean that we are justified in treating effeminate men or “butch” women in a cruel or unChristlike way. I’m just saying that the presence of these feelings, in and of themselves, doesn’t make one uniquely bad; it just means that we just have to work extra hard to channel/ control/ “repress” those feelings and make sure that our behavior reflects patience and charity and respect.

I recently read “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes”. The authors suggest that a) Bathsheba’s being seen in flagrante delicto by David was probably no accident on her part; b) David’s affair with Bathsheba couldn’t help but have been known by the various palace servants and courtiers (he had openly asked his servants about her name and background); c) Uriah must have heard about what his wife and the king had done; d) David knew that Uriah knew; e) David asking Uriah to . . . err . . . go to his wife was a tacit way of asking Uriah to publicly forgive (or at least ignore) David’s offense, and f) Uriah’s response indicated that he was not. having. it.

Welcome!

I would add that the essay that seems to get cited most is very careful not only in what it says, but in what it does not say. Yes, it situates some old LDS teachings on race in the context of what other Americans of the era said and believed; but: — It does not say that the priesthood ban was contrary to God’s instructions to then-church leaders. —It disavows the old explanations for the ban as they apply to black people today. I happen to think Young’s hypothesizing about Cain’s literal descendants being denied priesthood until Abel could have priesthood-bearing seed, may have something to it (Mormonism is too rife with the idea of patrilineal inheritances and benefits, to completely dismiss out-of-hand that patrilineal liabilities and disadvantages may also be A Thing). The fact that a group of people now are relieved of a patrilineal liability, doesn’t mean that that group’s ancestors a hundred years ago were immune to it. But I think it does little good to dwell on the topic, especially because hysteria about “racism”* ultimately crops up and sucks all the air out of the room, foreclosing any further discussion. *But in a bit of irony—a case was recently argued before the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which (among other things) lets Indian tribes sweep into a state foster care case to stop an adoption by non-Indian family even if the tribal authorities had previously disavowed/ ignored/ abandoned the child and even if the child has been fostered by the non-Indian family for years, bonded with the foster parents and siblings, etc. One of the justifications that the law’s proponents offered to the Supreme Court was that ICWA isn’t really racist because the test of whether ICWA applies to a particular child is based on the child‘s lineage [as a descendant of citizens of a [semi-]sovereign nation], not the child’s race.

Yes, IIRC LDS apologists have typically been careful to distinguish “the curse” (spiritual) from “the sign of the curse” (physical). I’m inclined to think that the visible differences probably arose over generations as a result of the Lamanites being less devoted to Mosaic law and therefore more willing to intermarry with other indigenous peoples. I’m frankly not sure what to make of Cain at this point. I believe that a number of Biblical scholars/commentators are now interpreting Cain’s mark as an act of divine mercy. I rather suspect that that particular story is the result of a few kernels of known history and an awful lot of now-forgotten/unknown history, mixed with at least some allegory; and I’m not entirely sure where I’m comfortable drawing the line.

Shouldn’t that have been brownies, rather than a cake?

The point I keep waiting for someone to make on the “gay wedding cake” debate, is: No one has said the baker has to make the cake taste good . . . Isn’t there an old canard about never picking a fight with a person who is alone with your food?

As someone who lives with a lot of these, I’m just going to point out: You don’t recover from depression. You manage depression. It’s likely going to be an issue all his life. And if he can’t serve a mission for whatever reason, that reason is again likely to be something that will affect other aspects of life together—his ability to get along with people, ability to hold a job, ability to be a breadwinner, ability to help with kids, ability to sustain you in your life goals, etc. I sort of get a vibe that you’re the “caretaker” in that relationship, and that’s gonna get old really fast. Nineteen seems awfully young to get saddled with all of this. I hope you tread carefully.

I'll address your second point first: You are generally correct, post-Moses, when the "lesser law" was implemented (including the designation of the Levites as the priestly class of Israel). But Moses's implementation of the Aaronic priesthood (and the rest of the Mosaic law) didn't represent the Lord's vision of the patriarchal ideal; it was simply the best that the Lord knew ancient Israel was capable of doing at that particular point in history. But generally speaking, when we talk about modern priesthood functions, we are generally talking about the patriarchal order of priesthood. This order, formally known as "the holy priesthood after the order of the Son of God" and to which we generally refer as the "Melchizedek" priesthood, preceded Moses and the levitical order of priesthood that he instituted. It was the order under which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob offered sacrifice and otherwise functioned in a priestly role on behalf of their families (and under which they designated their successors via birthright), and is the order under which the modern Church is led today. As for your first question: I don't know what else I can say other than what I said before: Non-Ephraimites who convert and join the Church join in the covenant blessings and responsibilities of Ephraim by virtue of the covenants they make through baptism, priesthood ordination, and temple rites. That’s a huge part of the “gathering” process President Nelson is so fond of talking about. We’re all fundamentally doing the same work; though (and this is something I recently learned, and with contours that I’m still exploring) we may have differing tribal legacies that lead us to go about that work in subtly different ways. It is awkward, per LDS terminology, to speak of a non-Ephraimite Latter-day Saint exercising "right of the firstborn"*; because non-Ephraimites are not technically members of the birthright tribe. But again, as I wrote (twice, now!) above, "[w]e’re all fundamentally doing the same work; though . . . we may have differing tribal legacies that lead us to go about that work in subtly different ways." *Of coursee, if non-Ephraimite Latter-day Saints are true and faithful to their covenants, they (like all Church members) become members of what the scriptures call the "Church of the Firstborn", but in that usage "firstborn" refers back to Christ Himself and not to any particular Abrahamic lineage.

Holy mackerel; how did I miss this when it first came out?

See here.

@JohnsonJones I believe the first five verses of D&C 51 specify that people would receive their stewardship by legal deed, which would remain their property even if they left the Church. As to @Backroads’s OP: I get the willies whenever anyone says “that’s what it’s there for”, because in my experience it usually (not always, but usually) coincides with a certain sense of entitlement; and consecration—whether implemented through tithing or through the United Order—is all about giving, not receiving. The Church doesn’t “owe” me church welfare just because I am a full tithepayer; and it seems to me that the Church’s teachings on tithing have consistently been that if you pay your tithing first no matter what, the blessings will come and you’ll get by somehow. (That’s what I’ve found to have been true as I’ve personally applied that principle.) Church welfare may or may not thereafter be a part of that “getting by” process. Either way, irrespective of tithepayer status—I look at Church welfare as a last resort; but once all other avenues are exhausted I feel no shame in asking for it.

I have always held to the tradition of calling ex-bishops “Bishop ________”. The difference between calling someone “Brother ____” versus “Bishop ___” seemed negligible. But I confess, as I get older and find myself on a first-name basis with the other brothers in the ward who are the same age as our ex-bishops, it starts to feel more awkward to single the ex-bishops out in that way.

Killjoy.

Me too. An advantage of being a mod is the ability to instantly hide my own duplicates. 😎

I could get behind that. It's sort of a downward spiral. (Incidentally, I've always thought that the "pride cycle" could be better described as a "pride toilet bowl". But I digress . . .)

MOE, you know I love ya; but I would respectfully suggest that I find this a bit selective. The context surrounding your second quotation is extremely suspicious of labels. Specifically, the section of the webpage entitled "Identity and Labels" reads in full as follows: We should exercise care in how we label ourselves. Labels should be used thoughtfully and with the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Labels can affect how we think about ourselves and how others treat us and may expand or limit our ability to follow God’s plan for our happiness. Labels may impact our goals, sense of identity, and the people we call friends. If labels get in the way of our eternal progress, we can choose to change them. Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained in a 2006 interview: “I think it is an accurate statement to say that some people consider feelings of same-gender attraction to be the defining fact of their existence. … We have the agency to choose which characteristics will define us; those choices are not thrust upon us. “The ultimate defining fact for all of us is that we are children of Heavenly Parents, born on this earth for a purpose, and born with a divine destiny. Whenever any of those other notions, whatever they may be, gets in the way of that ultimate defining fact, then it is destructive and it leads us down the wrong path” (Interview With Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Lance B. Wickman: “Same-Gender Attraction,” 2006). If one experiences same-sex attraction, he or she can choose whether to use a sexual identity label. Identifying oneself as gay or lesbian is not against Church policy or doctrine; however, it may have undesired consequences in the way one is treated. No true follower of Christ is justified in withholding love because you decide to identify in this way. President Russell M. Nelson reminded us: “One day you will be asked if you took upon yourself the name of Christ and if you were faithful to that covenant” (“Identity, Priority, and Blessings,” Ensign, Aug. 2001, 10). As Paul expressed it: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27–28). One day, at the end of this short mortal journey, we will return to the presence of our Heavenly Parents. One day, all other labels will be swallowed up in our eternal identity as children of God. In context, your quotation that "[one] can choose whether to use a sexual identity label" is more along the lines of a rhetorical "you can choose whether to smoke crystal meth", not a permissive "go ahead and take my car on your date tonight, and everything will be fine!". In this case: yes, people have their agency--but one course of action is wise, and the other is not. One course of action is approved by God; the other--at least as a general proposition--He has consistently warned against. Just as a bit of historical geekery--I think we forget just how tenuous the United States' position was during the Napoleonic Wars. Adams reluctantly agreed to these as war measures; he knew they were deeply problematic. I'd highly recommend McCullough's biography of Adams for more on the issue. He had his flaws, to be sure; but Adams was no tyrant. I'll offer some thoughts on Jefferson, in my response to MOE below. Well, yes--the Constitution had to be adapted in a form that everyone would agree with; and so on topics where not everyone agreed, the Constitution said as little as possible. This sort of ties back in to Godless’s point on Jefferson: The filthy little corollary of Jefferson's idea that governments should reform every couple of decades, was that he didn't see any problem with armed insurrections and even wholesale, massively bloody revolutions with the same degree of frequency. So far as I am aware, Jefferson was more or less a cheerleader of Robespierre's Reign of Terror and only much later was more-or-less shamed into acknowledging its "excesses"--before then, I believe he went on-record saying that a revolution that left only one male and one female alive to repopulate a country was preferable to "tyranny". At any rate, the practical lesson here seems to be that if we don't respect the text of the US Constitution because we see it as an extraordinary document borne of the extraordinary wisdom of an extraordinary group, we should at least respect it because any attempt to use atextual or extratextual interpretations of constitutional law to force-fit novel ideas onto large swaths of the populace increases the probability of an armed insurrection. To put it bluntly--if one agrees with Jefferson, then one doesn't get to express moral outrage over the January 6 brouhaha/ mob/ "insurrection". And a significant key to the Constitution's longevity has been its relatively-universally-acknowledged silence, vagueness, or ambiguity on the major political controversies of any particular moment in American history. As for Adams and Madison's comments about a moral populace: When they spoke of the need for a degree of civic "virtue" or "morality" in order for the Constitution to function--I suspect they were defining those terms much more broadly than simply sexual probity (either homosexual or heterosexual). Certainly, sexual profligacy and (in those days before birth control) unwed parenthood/ illegitimacy/ bastardy could be deeply socially problematic in and of itself. But I suspect that Adams and Madison were speaking of deeper core values--concepts like the individual divinely-decreed worth of each human, respect for the rights of others as well as ourselves, reason and rationalism, tolerance, respect for rule-of-law, self-discipline, an ability to take the long view, and a willingness to deny one's baser appetites and even to voluntarily subordinate one's self-interest to a greater good. My understanding is that Adams (and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Madison) saw these as part-and-parcel of a fundamental Judeo-Christian moral framework; though certainly there's been a long and lively debate about whether these can sustainably exist outside of such a framework. In that sense: While I agree that American civics is in deep trouble and that a lot of it has to do with the moral decay that Adams and Madison warned about, I think that the LGBTQ movement (and indeed, the sexual revolution as a whole) is a symptom, not the cause, of that moral decay. I think the same of Trumpism, by the way. "Civic virtue" as (I would argue) most of the framers understood it, seems incompatible with most of the core arguments embraced by adherents of either faction.

This is awesome. My family has been doing a weekly Sunday night program during Advent for the past four years now (based on material drawn from Eric Huntsman’s “Good Tidings of Great Joy”), so last night was a discussion on “hope”. This will make a nice addition.

I appreciate your being willing to talk about what you’ve gone through, and certainly want to be respectful of that. I will simply note, as far as LGBTQ individuals go, that it’s comparatively rare to hear the conservative/religious family member post their side of the story; and when they do, it doesn’t tend to get as much distribution. The two LGBTQ folks in my own extended family—at least from my perspective—got unqualified family support and love from their immediate families; one family almost immediately [left] the Church in support, and the other almost immediately quit talking about religion in the LGBTQ family member’s presence. And yet both have made long, drama-queenery Facebook posts about how their families were just so terrible to them. I didn’t think too much of it until reading Shrier’s Irreversible Damage, where many of the parents of transgender teens were extremely progressive, irreligious, and even (in one case) lesbian—yet their experiences were still characterized by extreme alienation and wild accusations of bigotry being made by the transitioning teen. Additionally, my professional experience in family law has reiterated to me that “supportive family” can be a very slippery term—there’s a) the kind of support we want to get; b) the kind of support our family wants to give; and c) the kind of support we actually need—which may be somewhere on the spectrum between a) and b), or somewhere else entirely. It has been said—perhaps with more than a few grains of truth—that many Mormons have something of a persecution complex. I think this as well as the experience of many teens who are setting themselves apart from their parents—in terms of religion, sexuality, or a host of other issues—suggests that at some level, some part of the human psyche has a need to be misunderstood. I suppose that traditionally, society was structured in such a way that more or less forced us to outgrow it and eventually we realized that, tactical differences aside, our families really did love us and have our best interests at heart and that we had more in common with them than our teenaged selves had thought. Nowadays, though, there are all manner of intersectional groups ready and willing to tell us that “no one in your life understands you the way I do”—leading us to not only wallow in our narcissism and go seeking for validation of our self-pity like addicts to crack; but we make that worldview the foundation for our future selves. And then we wake up one day in our forties or fifties and wonder why the last three decades of our lives have basically been an unbroken line of failed relationships (and often, professional mediocrity as well).

On a semi-topical note, I recently saw the below on Twitter and thought it worth quoting: 1. Convince gays to kick people out of their lives if they’re religiously orthodox 2. Watch their support systems dwindle [JAG adds] 2.5. Replace those support systems with an LGBTQ “community” that values the individual, first and foremost, as a vessel for and object of sexual desire 3. Witness them becoming isolated, lonely, and resentful 4. Put full blame on religious people

Would it be? Would the Democrat have swallowed the Lee amendment if the Republican caucus had held firm?

The impression that just came to me—and I could well be wrong—was, “The church is placing its faith in people, rather in law.” This approach revolts against every fiber of my political and professional being. But, taking the Church as a church, and tracing the interactions of the people of God with the broader societies in which they found themselves throughout scriptural history; and considering the atextualist dog-and-pony show that is post-FDR American constitutional law—it’s not necessarily that bad of a decision. Cruz and Lee are making two dangerous assumptions: that the Lee amendment (or something like it) is even politically possible; and that it would be honored even if codified in law; whereas the Church is playing a very ancient game—one that predates both the modern nation-state and the idea of representative government as we know it.

Good friend of mine from childhood wound up gay, and he posted that article on his Facebook with a diatribe basically blaming the “don’t say gay” bills and the “groomer” panic. I’m still debating whether to push back on it. Will probably give it a few days to see if this story of the shooter being non-binary pans out . . .