My goal here is to look at the issues factually, point by point, and to be fair to both sides. I will not be dissecting all of the opinions, some of which are valid, that have been shared on Facebook by people for or against these new policy decisions; rather I will explain my own points of view regarding the official language of the written policy and the official explanation for those policy changes given by the Church. This will probably make this post sound boring and devoid of emotion, but there are plenty of emotions running high on Facebook about this, and that's not what I want this post to be about.
(Just as a heads-up: this will be a long post because there are many points to talk about and I want to be thorough.)
First off, the policy changes.
Two days ago the leaders of the Church made additions to the Church Handbook of Instruction, Handbook 1 regarding how to deal with homosexual couples and their children. There are two halves to the Church Handbook of Instruction, and Handbook 1 is for bishops and stake presidents only and isn't available to the general public. For that reason, I don't think the leaders of the Church intended for these changes to be made public, but the additions got leaked to the media which is how everyone now knows about them.
These are the additions: (I can't copy and paste them for some reason, so I'll type them out here as they appeared in the media article)
Policies on Ordinances for Children of a Parent Living in a Same-Gender Relationship
The following additions to Handbook 1 have been approved by the Council of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for immediate implementation.
- A new section in Handbook 1, 16.13 will be added as follows:
Children of a Parent Living in a Same-Gender RelationshipA natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may not receive a name and a blessing.A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may be baptized and confirmed, ordained, or recommended for missionary service only as follows:A mission president or a stake president may request approval from the Office of the First Presidency to baptize and confirm, ordain, or recommend missionary service for a child of a parent who has lived or is living in a same-gender relationship when he is satisfied by personal interviews that both of the following requirements are met:1. The child accepts and is committed to live the teachings and doctrine of the Church, and specifically disavows the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage.2. The child is of legal age and does not live with a parent who has lived or currently lives in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage.
- Handbook 1, number 6.7.2 is to be updated immediately as follows (addition is highlighted):
When a Disciplinary Council May Be NecessarySerious Transgression. . . It includes (but is not limited to) attempted murder, forcible rape, sexual abuse, spouse abuse, intentional serious physical injury of others, adultery, fornication, homosexual relations (especially sexual cohabitation), deliberate abandonment of family responsibilities,. . .
- Handbook 1, number 6.7.3 is to be updated immediately as follows (addition is highlighted):
When a Disciplinary Council is MandatoryApostasyAs used here, apostasy refers to members who:1. Repeatedly act in clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its leaders.2. Persist in teaching as Church doctrine information that is not Church doctrine after they have been corrected by their bishop or a higher authority.3. Continue to follow the teachings of apostate sects (such as those that advocate plural marriage) after being corrected by their bishop or a higher authority.4. Are in a same-gender marriage.5. Formally join another church and advocate its teachings.Priesthood leaders must take disciplinary action against apostates to protect Church members. The Savior taught the Nephites that they should continue to administer to a transgressor, "but if he repent not he shall not be numbered among my people, that he may not destroy my people" (3 Nephi 18:31; see also Mosiah 26:36).
That last paragraph wasn't in the news release but it was included on a scanned copy of the new handbook page that I saw, so I'm guessing it's been at the end of that Apostasy section for a while. I included it here because it helps to explain why the disciplinary process is mandatory for apostasy. I'm really big on knowing the "why" behind decisions, and this explains that one.
The leaders responded to the social media explosion yesterday through a video interview with Elder D. Todd Christofferson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, explaining the policy changes. I'll link that video here; it's just over 10 minutes long: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/handbook-changes-same-sex-marriages-elder-christofferson
So there we have the changes to Handbook 1, as well as a Church leader's official explanation for the changes. I am going to talk about those changes as well as address what Elder Christofferson said. But before I get into that, I want to explain my stance on the issue of homosexuality so it's clear where I'm coming from.
I am currently an agnostic: there is not enough evidence to support the idea of a supreme being. I no longer believe that the Book of Mormon or the Bible—or any religious text for that matterùare the word of a god, and thus I do not believe homosexuality is a sin. I also personally have no problem with homosexuality; I'm perfectly fine with that sexual orientation and with the people who identify as such. However, I also understand that many religions do believe that practicing homosexuality is a sin—the LDS church being one of them—and because of that, I understand why the Church feels it must take a strong stance on homosexual relations.
Alright, on to talking about these policy changes.
I'll start off with the decision to add same-gender cohabitation and marriage to the lists of serious transgressions and of things that may require a disciplinary council, because in this instance the Church is justified.
The scriptures repeatedly speak out against homosexuality. The Church believes that both the Book of Mormon and the Bible are the word of God. In the New Testament, Jesus and his apostles repeatedly denounced homosexuality. Mormons believe that the Lord of the Old Testament was Jesus Christ, and Jesus in the Old Testament denounced homosexuality and even burned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of it (by the way, that's where the word sodomy comes from).
I read an article from the Mormon Newsroom website a few years ago (I want to say it was back in 2006) that discusses the Church's current view on homosexuality. It's an interview with Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Lance B. Wickman; it's long but it's also very thorough, and if you want the LDS church's official current views on homosexuality, that's the article to read. Here's the link:
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/interview-oaks-wickman-same-gender-attraction
So in recent years the Church has come to be more accepting toward homosexuals. That wasn't always the case. In 1969 in his book The Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W. Kimball claimed,
"Many have been misinformed that they are powerless in the matter [of homosexuality], not responsible for the tendency, and that 'God made them that way.' This is as untrue as any other of the diabolical lies Satan has concocted. It is blasphemy. Man is made in the image of God. Does the pervert think God to be 'that way'?" (p.85).Presidents of the Church have become wiser since then, and they now recognize that some people for whatever reason really are born being attracted to the same sex, it's something they really didn't choose for themselves. Leaders now teach members that homosexuals are to be treated with kindness and respect just like anyone else. The Church also supports equal treatment for homosexuals when it comes to employment and housing. Homosexuals are allowed to be baptized into the Church, receive callings, and even go through the temple for their endowments, without the need to be "cured" and "rehabilitated" as President Kimball advocated (those words applied to homosexuality make me cringe). Officially it is not a sin to have homosexual feelings and desires; until a few months ago, the requirements for a homosexual member of the Church to be in good standing with the Church and the Lord were the same as for any heterosexual member who is unmarried: you are to be sexually celibate until marriage.
Historically, gay people couldn't legally get married to each other, which meant that gay members were expected to be celibate for their entire lives if they wanted to be in good standing with the Church and the Lord, and having sex with someone of your own sex meant you were fornicating. But because of the US Supreme Court's decision in June of this year regarding gay marriage, all 50 states are now required to allow and recognize gay marriage within their state (it wasn't a unanimous decision, by the way; the ruling was 5-4. If you're interested in reading really long legal documents, I applaud you :) and the Court's decision and the opinions of the judges are in the middle of this NPR article: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/26/417717613/supreme-court-rules-all-states-must-allow-same-sex-marriages ).
This ruling changed things. Now gay members of the Church who had been celibate up to this point could legally get married and have their union recognized as a marriage. This means that having sex with their spouse of the same sex wasn't considered fornication. So the Church had to clarify its policies and differentiate gay members' requirements from those of unmarried heterosexuals.
In the Bible, the Lord never approved of homosexual relations. And in the Church's announcement "The Family: a Proclamation to the World" from 1995, the leaders wrote down their firm stance on what constitutes an acceptable marriage in the Church (here's the link: https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng ). While gay members of the Church can now legally be married to someone of the same sex, the Church sought to clarify that religiously, according to their doctrine, homosexual relations are still a serious sin, and that in their religion the only marriages that are acceptable to God are between one man and one woman. If gay members are to be in good standing with the Church and with the Lord, they are still expected to either be celibate for their entire lives or to marry and have sex only with someone of the opposite sex. Anything outside of this is considered living in sin. While I strongly disagree with these requirements on a personal level, it is nevertheless what the Church expects of its gay members.
Gay members of the Church know this requirement. Or if they didn't know it before, the leaders in the disciplinary council will explain it to them thoroughly. Then, if the member still chooses to move forward with a homosexual marriage or with living with someone of the same sex, then they are choosing to go against the teachings of the Church and thus they will be excommunicated if they persist in their intended course of action. By extension, these additions also clarify that nonmember gay couples will not be allowed to join the Church as long as they are married to or sexually cohabiting with each other. Whether or not they'd want to join is irrelevant—the policy says they cannot even if they wanted to.
Something I feel is incorrect and needs to be mentioned here is when Elder Christofferson said "We're not going to yield on our efforts to help people find what brings happiness, but we know that sin does not." This is a commonly held belief in the Church that comes from the scripture Alma 41:10 which says "wickedness never was happiness", but it is actually incorrect. Elder Christofferson failed to acknowledge that a gay member marrying and having sex with someone of the same sex who they love and are sexually attracted to could bring them genuine happiness. It would be more accurate to say: "sinning does not bring the Lord happiness," because that better describes the reality of this situation. The Church will disregard the happiness of the individual making "sinful" decisions, and instead it says that what makes the Lord happy is all that matters and is all that should bring happiness. "We're not going to yield in our efforts to help people find happiness in doing only what the scriptures and modern-day prophets say the Lord wants them to do." THAT is what Elder Christofferson's statement actually means.
Well, in the end, regardless of the General Authorities' and local leaders' feelings on the matter, they are abiding by and enforcing their religious views and rules regarding homosexuality, which are based on what Jesus and his apostles said in the Bible.
Elder Christofferson was correct when he said that in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, the Church needed to add those parts to the transgression and apostasy sections to provide clarity to doctrines and policies that already existed within the Church. In that sense, the Church is justified in that course of action.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Now I'll move on to the part regarding the children of parents living in same-gender relationships. Part of that section I feel is justified, and part of it I don't believe is justified at all.
The policy that says "A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may not receive a name and a blessing," is justified. Babies in the LDS church are given a name and blessing only if their parents are believing members of the Church. The people in a homosexual relationship either never were members of the Church, they unofficially left the Church, they officially left, or they were excommunicated. Either way, they're not believing members of the Church in good standing and thus their child won't be given a name and a blessing in the Mormon church. That's reasonable.
What I don't think is reasonable and what I don't agree with are the requirements that need to be met for a child of a gay couple to be baptized and confirmed, ordained, or recommended for a mission:
"1. The child accepts and is committed to live the teachings and doctrine of the Church, and specifically disavows the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage.
What this says is that no minor child of a gay couple can join the church at all, regardless of their parents' consent. Once that child is an adult, they must specifically disavow the practice of same-sex cohabitation and marriage and they have to have moved out of their parents' house first before they can get baptized into the Church, be ordained, or be recommended for a mission.2. The child is of legal age and does not live with a parent who has lived or currently lives in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage."
Many opponents to these changes are saying that children of gay couples are now being punished for their parents' choices. I think "punished" isn't the right word to use here. Rather, I feel that "discriminated against" is a much more fitting phrase to use. And I believe that regardless of what the leaders intended these policy changes to do, what has actually happened is that gay couples and their children are now being discriminated against, and this is my evidence for that claim: of all the cultural, religious, or transgression-filled households that a child can come from, only children from homosexual parents (and those of polygamous families) are expected to meet these requirements. I'll cover those few types of households to explain my point.
First of all, this is what Elder Christofferson said in his interview regarding these policy requirements for the children of gay parents when they are minors, and I will refer back to this in my arguments below:
"This policy originates out of that compassion [that husbands, fathers, and grandfathers have for their children and grandchildren]. It originates from a desire to protect children in their innocence and in their minority years. . . We don't want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different. And so with the other ordinances on through baptism and so on, there's time for that if, when a child reaches majority, he or she feels like that's what they want, and they can make an informed and conscious decision about that. Nothing is lost to them in the end if that's the direction they want to go, and in the meantime they're not placed in a position where there will be difficulties, challenges, conflicts that can injure their development in very tender years."
This statement is true for any family where the parents, for whatever reason, will not give their consent for their minor child to be baptized into the Church, and the Church has to respect that. However, Elder Christofferson's statement is NOT true for households where the parents do give their consent and yet there are cultural, religious, or transgression differences. I'll explain the differences.
Transgressions
Of all the serious transgressions specifically listed in Handbook 1 that a parent could be involved in—attempted murder, forcible rape, sexual abuse, spouse abuse, intentional serious physical injury of others, adultery, fornication, homosexual relations (especially sexual cohabitation), deliberate abandonment of family responsibilities—homosexual relations is the only one where the child of those parents or that household has to meet those listed requirements for joining the Church. That says to a child, "If your parents were sexual abusers, if they were physically abusive to their spouse, if they were cohabiting but not married, if they neglected you and your siblings, if they tried to kill someone, you could still join the church as a minor with their permission, and you could still join the church as a legal adult with no need to disavow your parents' life choices or move out of their house. But because your parents are gay, you must meet these very specific requirements to join our church, to be ordained, or to be recommended for a mission."
Members participating in any of those serious transgressions will be treated the same by the Church: their bishop will have a talk with them in his office; if they don't change their ways, then they will be brought into a disciplinary council and talked to there; and if the person still will not repent and change their ways, then they will be excommunicated. In that sense, homosexual relations aren't treated any differently by leaders of the Church than are the other serious transgressions. However, they are now viewed differently. This new policy regarding the children sets apart homosexual relations/cohabiting as the most serious of those transgressions, as the worst of those transgressions, because it's the only serious transgression on that list that affects their child's ability to be baptized into the Church, ordained, or recommended for a mission.
Religion
Islamic cultures are the most-often cited example by Church members of where the Church is very careful about how they proselyte, because in the Islamic religion a Muslim can be imprisoned or even killed for converting to another religion. However, that is the extreme example. Anywhere else in the world as far as I know, if the parent or parents believe in a non-LDS religion or aren't religious at all, their child can join the LDS church as a minor with their permission or freely as an adult on their own. The children of non-LDS religious parents don't need to meet the same requirements as do those children of gay couples. The Church does not require a child of, say, a Catholic mother and a Protestant father to specifically disavow Catholicism or Protestantism, nor does it require the child to move out of their parents' mixed-faith house as an adult in order to be baptized. There might still be religious conflicts and difficulties that arise at home when a child joins the Mormon church—even with their parents' permission—but the Church does not take that into consideration.
Culture/Nationality
There are some countries where the teachings of the Church are incompatible with their culture. In Japan and China, for example, women are not equal with men. Women do not have the same social status as men, they are not respected the way men are, and they are not equals in their marriages. That's a cultural reality. And yet the Church will not ask a Japanese or a Chinese child about their home life or require them to disavow their culture of gender inequality and move out of their parents' house before getting baptized into the Church. It just doesn't happen.
Another example: New Zealand. For a few years my husband and I were seriously considering moving to New Zealand. However, about a year ago I was looking online for an idea of what life would be like for us there, and I came across a website where probably a hundred people commented on an article about the discrimination by native New Zealanders (Kiwis) toward Americans specifically. New Zealand television shows poke fun at America and its citizens all the time; Americans who move there are instantly viewed with suspicion and they are constantly and severely antagonized and discriminated against; it's really bad. Any American tourists who travel there are merely tolerated. The label "xenophobic" absolutely applies to Kiwis on a national level (not all Kiwis feel this way, but the majority do).
If you want to read that article and the hundreds of comments, here's the link; it's pretty enlightening: http://e2nz.org/migrant-stories/chapter-4/its-true-kiwis-dont-really-like-americans/
So after reading that, we changed our minds about moving there. ;) But the LDS church—which is an American religion—will not refuse to allow Kiwi minors to join the Church who have their parents' permission, nor are the children required to disavow the practice of discriminating against Americans or to move out of their parents' house if their parents are xenophobic toward Americans. They're free to join the Church as minors if their parents give their permission and as adults on their own. Their current or previous xenophobic home-life isn't asked about or taken into consideration.
So if any other set of parents, regardless of their religion or culture or LDS-defined transgressions, were to give their minor child consent to join the Church, the Church would allow it without considering if this would create difficulties or challenges or conflicts at home. The exception is gay parents, whose minor children will not be allowed to join the Church even with their consent. In addition to that, once the child of any other couple is a legal adult, the Church won't care if the person is still living at home where cultural or religious conflicts might occur, nor will it require the person to move out of their parents' house before joining the Church, being ordained, or recommended for a mission. Those requirements must only be met by children with gay parents (and polygamous parents, but that's a separate issue).
When Elder Christofferson says that the leaders of the Church "don't want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different," that sounds nice but it's actually not true. The Church must respect a parent's wishes if that parent will not give consent for their minor child to join the Church. The members can pressure and try to persuade, but they cannot perform the baptism without the parent's consent. However, members of the Church and their leaders actually praise converts who join the Church despite strong opposition from their families. Those converts are seen as faithful, courageous, and dedicated to the Lord and His church. Familial approval and harmony are in no way taken into consideration when seeking to convert someone over the age of 18. Elder Christofferson's statement suggests that once the child is 18 and a legal adult, they're now able to handle any negativity or difficulties or conflicts their families can throw at them. This, of course, is also not true.
I wish I could give the leaders of the Church the benefit of the doubt and say okay, maybe you did intend for this policy to be done out of love and compassion, to help preserve unity and harmony within the family. But I can't give that to them. My feeling is that they're trying to convince themselves as much as everyone else of this, but I feel that theirs is an empty claim, because these supposed concerns for the well-being of a minor child only apply to the children of gay parents. If these new policies were to apply to all children whose parents are participating in any of those serious transgressions listed in the handbook, and to all children of parents whose culture or religion are at odds with the teachings of the Church, then their claim of love and compassion could be valid and there probably wouldn't be as many people getting upset about this. However, the Church only singled out children of gay parents, which is what makes it discrimination against them and why so many people are upset and confused by these changes (that, and because the Church meant for this to be done quietly in the Handbook, not announced to the general public). The Church is claiming that only the children of gay parents—and inevitably all children of gay parents—would experience conflict and difficulties at home if they were to join the Church as minors and if they were to continue living with their gay parents after they have turned 18 years old. That is a ridiculously broad generalization and simply untrue, but that is the Church leaders' story and they're sticking to it.
So in conclusion, my opinion is that because of the Church's doctrine—because they adhere to the teachings of Christ and his apostles in the Bible regarding homosexuality—the leaders of the Church were justified in clarifying their stance on what is acceptable within the Church regarding marriage and what may or will require a disciplinary council. I also feel they were justified in saying that only children whose parents are members of the Church in good standing (which homosexual couples are not considered) may get a name and a blessing. But I feel the Church is discriminating against gay couples and their children, since the new baptism/ordination/mission recommendation policy change does not apply to children of any other parents, regardless of their parents' religion, culture, or LDS-defined serious transgressions; it applies only to children of homosexual couples. That is blatant discrimination, not love and compassion, and that is what makes this specific policy decision wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment