Leah

But you aren't telling the truth.

I have a hard time picturing you as meek.....

But you said you made a choice. At what point did you make that choice? At what point did you make a conscious decision to be straight? Your comments regarding bisexuality just further illustrates your ignorance on the subject. If you are saying that straight people are not born straight, either, you are stilly saying that EVERYONE makes a choice as to whether they are gay or straight. I ask you again, when did you make that choice? Why did you make it at the time that you did? You speak of being "influenced" by parents and "religion" to be straight. Are you saying that had you been raised in a different environment, you would have chosen to be gay? Are saying our sexual orientation is only influenced by how we are raised? How do you explain children all raised together in the same family/environment, and some are gay and some are straight? Didn't they all have the same influence? And if you are saying it is by choice only, then doesn't that suggest that any one of us can make a choice in either direction at any time? Are you saying that if you wanted to....tomorrow you could cast aside your early influences and be attracted to men? I didn't make a choice to be heterosexual. It's just how I am. I never had to stop and thing....gee....hmm....do I want to have sex with men or with women?

So you are saying that one day you woke up...thought "Hmmm.....do I want to be gay or do I want to be straight?"...pondered it for a bit...weighed the pros and cons....and then made a conscious choice to like women as opposed to men? Do you believe that every straight person wakes up one day and makes this conscious and deliberate choice?

I've never heard of anyone having to rent or buy the necessary clothing to do baptisms. Call the Temple and ask, just to be sure.

By "proxy's", do you mean baptisms? According to the age on your profile I am guessing you don't have children old enough to be receiving their endowments. For baptisms, she does not need any special clothing. She just needs to wear Sunday best, and everything she needs to wear during the baptisms is provided by the Temple.....jumpsuit, underwear.... If she prefers, she can wear her own underwear, she just needs to be sure it is white and to bring an extra set.

He may have SOME insight that a heterosexual person does not, but he does not and cannot speak for all gay people. No one can. He can speak for his own experience and offer opinions from that, but no one person is representative/"spokes-person" of an entire demographic, no matter what that demographic is. He made some pretty blanket statements saying "The reason ANY gay.....". That is attempting to speak for an entire demographic and basically saying all gay people are the same. I have no trouble accepting his word for what HE experiences/thinks. I just don't accept that every gay person on the planet desires marriage for x reasons ONLY, any more than if somone made the statement that every straight person on the planet desires marriage for the same (limited) reasons. We are all individuals....gay or straight.....and no two people's experiences/feelings are exactly the same. He is stating that the reasons HE sees for gay people wanting to marry are the same for ALL gay people. I've spoken with enough gay people about the subject to know that that is simply not true.

So you think that you can speak for every single gay person on the planet? That they are all the same and all have the same feelings? That is pretty arrogant and presumptous. I don't think it is fair to put gay people into a one-size-fits-all box, any more than it is to do that to straight people. Simple being of one particular sexual orientation does not give every single person of that orientation the same feelings and thoughts on ANY subject.

Exactly. Just as there are also those who think that verbal abuse is not "really" abuse, nor that it is damaging. That as long as - for example - the husband is not hitting the wife, there is really no abuse happening.

Vort, it is clear that you have your mind made up on this subject and no one's words - be they of personal experience, data, studies....whatever......will dissuade you from your pre-set opinion. I suggested you open your mind to the possibility. You clearly do not want to do that. Your words clearly reveal that your opinion does not care to be bothered with the experiences of other people or the observations of experts. Your statement about "the very act of sex is an intense bonding experience that creates those emotional ties" is not true for everyone. I have no doubt that is true for YOU...the type of worthy priesthood-holder that you are. And it is what sex SHOULD be. But for MANY men (and plenty of women, too!) , sex is "just" sex and is no more of an "intense bonding experience" than is going bowling together. They can have sex and walk away and not give that person another thought. People who engage in sex under the appropriate circumstances as taught by the Church DO find it the bonding experience that you describe. But for a large percentage of people in today's society.....sex is just something fun to do - no emotional attachment needed. There ARE women who would prefer - if cheating is going to happen - that their husband engage in a purely physical affair than an emotional one. An affair that is purely physical will not last..and often any body will do...just as any purely physical relationship between two single people will not last. But when you allow your heart instead of just your genitals to become attached to someone else.....that is harder to overcome. God forbid it would ever happen, but believe me, if your wife ever developed that kind of emotional attachment to someone else, you would understand exactly what I am talking about.

I have to suggest that you get over your amazement. Emotional affairs are hugely damaging to marriages. They can be just as damaging as a physical affair can be without actually becoming physical. Often, the tie to the other person runs far deeper than when a person is having a physical affair. An emotional attachment can be far harder to break than a physical one. I am sure someone else can explain it better than I, but the pain and damage from an emotional affair is devastating. There's a reason the Church offers guidelines regarding married people and friendships with the opposite sex....and it extends to protecting against emotional affairs as well as physical ones.

Deciding to follow specific direction and counsel given by the Church makes one a "brainwashed zombie"? Gee, and I thought choosing obedience was also part of our free agency.

Well, there is specific guidance given. Some people choose to forget that part, though.

No, I don't. Please enlighten me.

I agree with Bini on this one. You cannot fix him. He has to do that himself, along with the help of our Heavenly Father. I do not understand why it's not "fair" to break up because of his porn addiction. He's a boyfriend, not a husband. This is part of dating.....finding out if you are compatible...and if your VALUES are compatible. Breaking up with someone because you don't share the "value" of watching pornography is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. It might be hard to believe because of the many threads here about this subject, but there are PLENTY of men for whom pornography is not an issue...it's not part of their lives. Why tie yourself to a boyfriend who has shown he has this problem and is apparently not trustworthy? You don't have to be his girlfriend to supportive of his choice to seek help for this problem, if that's indeed what he does. If you stay with this guy, are you willing to accept the possibility that you will be dealing for the rest of your life with the impact of his addiction on your marriage....including your children? Do you want a lifetime of wondering? Do you want your children to have a father who engages in pornography? Things to think about.

Well, in a post from 6 or 7 months ago, you clearly stated you'd been having sex. I think it would be a reasonable assumption on anyone's part - knowing that you have a fiance - that the sex ocurred with the fiance because it was so recent. Now it appears that you had sex with at least one other person previously, and are currently engaging in sexual activity (yes, "grinding" IS sexual activity" with your fiance. The bottom line is that you seem to be unable to maintain the law of chastity on your own. If you can't do something on your own, it's time to ask for help. You do want help, don't you? You do want to be Temple-worthy, don't you? Or are you looking for a way to justify and/or continue your activity without it having any impact on your impending wedding?

That's "all" there is to do in Vegas if that is your only focus. There are actually a lot of other things to do there. In fact, I was there just a month ago and had an amazing experience where the presence of the spirit was incredibly strong. Yep, in Vegas.

That is not a question that anyone here can answer. That can only be answered by your bishop. He is the one with stewardship over you.

Actually, Pam was trying to be helpful. She was trying to give you a wake-up call. This is not a "gray area"....you are not living the law of chastity. Re-read JudoMinja's posts, she spelled it out pretty clearly. It's time to talk to your bishop...again.

I think a lot of people forget that the Church does give counsel and examples on this subject and many others, and I appreciate you bringing that up, Vort. And I think that many investigators and others outside the Church get the impression from the repeated "it's between you and the Lord" that there are NO guidelines/expectations and that anything goes as long as one states that God told them it's okay to...fill in the blank.....not wear your garments if you don't want to.....play sports/shop, etc. on the Sabbath, drink coffee, drink light beer...... Yeah...I know I'll get flamed for this post, because it goes against the "anything goes" mantra. But I'm one of those crazy people who does believe that there ARE activities that are not in the spirit of the Sabbath. And, yes, I know all about free agency, etc. I just don't buy into the thought that the 'rules' are for everyone else, but I get a special pass. If you think keeping the Sabbath according to the guidelines of the Church is too difficult to maintain, try being an Orthodox Jew keeping the Sabbath. After that, what the Church/Heavenly Father would ask of us is a piece of cake! And there are amazing blessings to be had.

I think condemning an entire group because a few people were uninformed about Islam is a bit of an over-reaction. If one did that every time someone had misinformation about one's religion (past or present), I think the number of people we'd be avoiding/condemning would be rather large. Perhaps they were simply trying to clarify things they had been told, and you had a unique opportunity to do that. I converted from Judaism. As a Jew, I found a lot of people were terribly mis-informed about Judaism and I find the same now with being a Mormon. I'd rather educate than get angry.

I agree. To the OP....if he is a "great guy", why is he treating you so disrespectfully? A great guy would not treat any women this way, much less a girlfriend. You say you could "never fathom" leaving him. Again, I have to wonder why you couldn't fathom breaking up with someone who treats you so disrespectfully and has such disdain for the church. I don't see how these things add up to a "great guy". Which is more important to you....staying with this person or returning to the Church? Which is going to be the right thing to do in the long run?

Violence = "poor relationship skills"? That is such a minimizing of the reality, it's just stunning. Violence is wrong. It is not a "relationship skill". I see no sanctity in violence.

"These generally lead to abandonment"? Really? Do you have any statistics/studies to back that up? That abusers tend to "abandon" their spouse? It's often the opposite, as a lot of abuse is about control, and when the victim tries to leave, she usually is abused more, and sometimes pays the price for trying to leave with her very life. Would you really counsel your daughter to stay with a man who beat her on a regular basis? "Just hang in there, honey, maybe someday he will stop". My first husband beat the daylights out of me on a regular basis. Even if he had managed to stop (he never did. Not with me, not with subsequent wives), I would not have stayed with him. The damage done was far too great. And to force my daughter to live with such a person? Not a chance. I keep hoping the days of "But what did you do to make him hit you" are over, but it seems some will never see the light.

You totally missed the point.