ninelegyak

Just a few points I want to make here, perhaps because I live in the city, where lots of different kinds of people brush by each other every day, including Mormon missionaries. With regard to not praying in public schools, it's not just about atheism and secularism, but it's also about making room for other faiths that immigrants have (as this country would not exist if it weren't for immigration). Kids can still pray in school, they can set up a LDS/Christian group if they'd like. There is no law against that, and never will be: "freedom of association." The Church is pretty clear about letting others worship who and what they worship, which is why the Church respects Muslim nations requests not to proselytize the Arab world (the Church would be expelled from most of these nations anyway, if it tried to proselytize). But my feeling is that the Church is comfortable with the work it's doing here and in other parts of the world, and not saying that this work should stop (by no means), but that there's a good system in place to "protect our children from secularism," and whatever else. The other thing I'd mention is that same-sex attraction is not just something that exists outside the Church. It is also within the Church. There are gay LDS people who live by the Gospel, and take the single luxury of identifying as "gay" because it's the best word around to describe themselves, even if it comes with a lot of negative thinking from others. Many just say, "I struggle with same-sex attraction." But if you're married and have been living with this attraction for years, it's basically like: "I'm gay. So what? Stop pestering me about it." I do not believe this stance is Satanic. It is what it is.

The ordinance is not just to protect those who "act on their attractions," but also those who are perceived as gay/lesbian/bisexual/same-sex attracted/transgendered/queer/whatever. A lot of surveillance goes on in society to try to cut off sin at the pass, and this surveillance often manifests as discrimination and judgment. I see the conundrum that you have lain out about gayness slowly becoming "right," but I think the Church is comfortable with the "thought/action" distinction for the foreseeable future. I believe Church leaders have come to recognize that there is indeed a kind of discrimination going on in the form of judgment. It was never about what people are actually doing, what sins people are actually committing... since we're all sinning, right? If you believe in the thought/action distinction, then really all the gay norms do (such as the media, the Temple Square incident, etc) is put on display the gay contingency. I don't quite see how this display slowly makes gay activity "right." Perhaps you can elaborate?