Bednar- No homosexual members of the Church

[_Kishkumen]

Every time these guys intone these lines about Heavenly Father's Plan, I wonder just where it is this plan is laid out in scripture, or if they are relying on the fundamentalist conservative claptrap known as the Proclamation to the World on the Family. In the actual scriptures I read about the plan of salvation, the plan of redemption, the plan of mercy, the plan of restoration, etc. Nowhere do I read about everyone marrying a member of the opposite sex as necessary for any of those plans.

Leaving aside the fact that they never existed outside of myth, Adam and Eve's part in the "plan" was to make it possible for other spirits to inhabit physical bodies and be tested. Not every person plays the same role in the divine plan. Not every one is Adam and Eve. Not every one is Jesus Christ. The crucial aspects of the plans laid out in scripture are that people are to come to earth, gain a physical body, be tested, be resurrected, judged, and then assigned a kingdom of glory.

The idea that everyone must be sealed to a spouse of the opposite sex or live as though they are getting ready to be sealed to a member of the opposite sex in the next life is utter tripe. It is the worst kind of one-size-fits-all literalism to turn such a specific set of circumstances into a prescription for all as though eternal salvation were an alchemical formula of some kind. The stupidity of it all is obvious. It is only the desperation of dead-end, fundamentalist thinking that turns the mysteries of God into a simplistic set of instructions with a single aim.

But, unfortunately, this is what the modern LDS Church has become. It has become a place in which no uncertainty or mysteries are to be tolerated. What is wanted is a formula, a very simple prescription wherein obedience to leaders and simply statements guarantees a narrowly defined salvation and godhood. Narrow and simple. It is a vision of the eternities in which everything is exactly like their fundamentalist, Leave It To Beaver ideal, except super duper, shiny clean, and in magnificent abundance.

It's a shame for all the people who are born into the LDS Church, actually like parts of it, but do not fit the narrow prescription and never will. The tragedy is not that they do not fit. The glory is that they do not fit. The tragedy is that they are hammered with an unimaginative prescription for what they ought to be, while their true beauty and individuality is systematically denied and rejected. That is because the Church demands that its present, small-minded definition of things be accepted as the "Word of God." If the person you feel you are does not match, then your sense of who you are must be sacrificed to theirs. "There are no homosexual members of the LDS Church," says Elder Bednar.

Here's what I say, "There are no men who speak for God. There are men who pretend they speak for God, and may actually believe they do. We can look upon them with compassion for the pitiable creatures they are, blinded by their own arrogance and certainty, unable to appreciate the full beauty and richness of the world and God's creatures. Such a person is Elder Bednar."

[_Doctor Steuss]

Elder Bednar states:

There are no homosexual members of the church. We are not defined by sexual attraction. We are not defined by sexual behavior.

Well, if that's the case, what's all this hubbabaloo about needing to marry someone of the opposite sex? I mean, if we are not defined by sexual attraction, then there aren't any heterosexual members either. No?

[_moksha]

Well, if that's the case, what's all this hubbabaloo about needing to marry someone of the opposite sex? I mean, if we are not defined by sexual attraction, then there aren't any heterosexual members either. No?

Ha! You are using logic when you know something has gone horribly wrong at headquarters. This is a time for us to pray for their recovery - you start since you are the ranking Elder.

[_DarkHelmet]

In answering the question, Bendars opening sentence is:
"...but first I want to change the question."

What a dick. After listening to his answer the questioner should have said "I would like to change your answer..."

[_beefcalf]

At 7:50, Bednar states: "...and [Heavenly] Father has not changed his mind about how the plan should operate".

Does someone need to remind him that Heavenly Father DID change his mind 38 years ago?

Elder Bednar, why shouldn't we expect Him to do the same thing again?

[_SuperDell]

Makes looking to pray to Joe Pesci make sense more every day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHot3XQQ_5Q

Trouble with these GA's is that we used to believe they actually knew something of a spiritual nature.

[_Dr Exiled]

It seems that sexual orientation is partly biologically based but also has other factors involved: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015 ... ental.html

Web.md says:

"Most scientists today agree that sexual orientation (including homosexuality and bisexuality) is the result of a combination of environmental, emotional, hormonal, and biological factors. In other words, there are many factors that contribute to a person's sexual orientation, and the factors may be different for different people.

However, homosexuality and bisexuality are not caused by the way a child was reared by his or her parents, or by having a sexual experience with someone of the same sex when the person was young. Also, being homosexual or bisexual does not mean the person is mentally ill or abnormal in some way, although there may be social problems that result from prejudicial attitudes or misinformation."

So, from the youtube video cited above, it seemed that Bednar acknowledged that there may be inborn sexual orientation factors at play in church members, but that they should not be defined by their attraction or behaviors. However, if he admits that it is at least partly a biological phenomenon, that God had a role in these members' creation, then isn't it pretty horrible of God if He punishes those with this so called "problem"? But, the same seems to be the case for Christianity in general: God creates sinners to punish supposedly unless they submit to church-guy or to Bednar and his Q/15 buddies in the case of Mormonism.

[_Dr Exiled]

Makes looking to pray to Joe Pesci make sense more every day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHot3XQQ_5Q

Trouble with these GA's is that we used to believe they actually knew something of a spiritual nature.

Joe Pesci gets things done!

[_Nightlion]

I see despotic arrogance behind his eyes and his wife? is sensing the same.

[_I have a question]

David A. Bednar says there are no gay people in the Mormon Church because, essentially, there are no gay people. The youngest Elder to be named to the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bednar is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Speaking in Chile last week, Bednar was asked, “How can homosexual members of the church live and remain steadfast in the gospel?”

Bednar, a former president of Brigham Young University–Idaho, replied, “I want to change the question,” as Raw Story's David Edwards first reported.

He then explained his theory, one held by the Church and many other anti-gay groups, that no one is actually born homosexual (or bisexual, for that matter) but rather, God gives people challenges they are to overcome, homosexuality being one of them.

“There are no homosexual members of the church. We are not defined by sexual attraction,” Bednar, who is 63, insisted. “We are not defined by sexual behavior. We are sons and daughters of God. And all of us have different challenges in the flesh.”

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... urch_video

The efforts of the members in welcoming gay people and embracing them as part of the ward flock have been utterly betrayed.
We just went back to 1950.

I note that Deseret News is yet to post coverage of the session.
And I also note Sister Bednar is taking notes of what her husband is saying, perhaps she's heard it all before...