Most people reading this have had the awkward experience of trying to explain the Church’s standards of homosexuality and same-sex attraction. Let’s face it: it can often be very difficult.

The Church believes that same-sex attraction is not a sin but that same-sex sexual activity is a sin. The Church also supports traditional marriage.

A few stories and recent blog posts may help readers explain the Church’s position.

Most importantly, people should visit the Church’s web site on this issue.

There is an interesting case of two men who live together and were formerly lovers but who now maintain the standards of the Church and are both temple worthy.

As our relationship has changed, I feel a greater love for Kenneth—a love in the purest sense of the word “Christ-like”—than I ever felt when we were in a sexual relationship together. I’ve learned that no kind of love in this world can compare to the pure love of Jesus Christ, the love that is a gift bestowed by God upon those “who are true followers of his son” (Moroni 7:48). We truly love each other truly like I imagine Jesus Christ loved His disciples. I know that the Lord is blessing us and will continue to bless us as we continue to live in accordance with His gospel. There is no greater joy than when we join in prayer throughout our day. Also, being worthy to maintain temple recommends makes our hearts sing. We truly feel blessed in our love and brotherhood since I converted (and Kenneth re-converted) to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can read more about these two men here.

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An LDS bishop tells the following story:

Members of the Relief Society Presidency were upset. Several sisters felt completely overwhelmed by the visiting teaching duties. There were members who were suffering, and the sisters were spending hours every day helping. They were cooking for the people who were suffering and doing their laundry and organizing groups to take care of weeding the garden.

But after several months of doing this, the sisters discovered that the people involved had grown very comfortable with the constant attention. The people had overcome their problems but continued to expect constant visits, constant meal preparation, constant help with the yard. The people involved were physically able to do such work, but they preferred having someone else do it.

And this of course created resentment on the part of the sisters who were doing the helping. They had no problem helping out temporarily, but they assumed that the people involved would become more self-sufficient. And they didn’t. And the sisters who were helping had become part-time maids, constantly doing things for people who were pretty capable of taking care of themselves. This constant work of helping others was taking over their lives, making them neglect their own families and their own needs.

An LDS counselor I recently talked to says that this is an extremely common phenomenon. People in the Church love to help people. They love to give of themselves to another. Caring, sharing, compassion and empathy are extremely important qualities. But sometimes they don’t know when to stop. And pretty soon the people doing the helping start “owning” the problems of other people. This creates more problems than it solves, this counselor said.

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This year’s FAIR Conference (held Aug. 1 and 2 in Provo) will have an incredible agenda. In addition to Robert Kirby, the conference includes a talk by Maxine Hanks, one of the “September Six.”

(You can learn more about Maxine Hanks, who was excommunicated from the Church and has been re-baptized here).

For more information, please visit this page.

I was not going to address the George Zimmerman trial on this blog, until I was forwarded this essay from “Mormon Iconoclast.” The post gets almost everything important wrong, but I think it is instructive because it explains a lot about modern culture and why we have so many problems in the world. Bottom line: a lot of smart people, including the author of this post, are simply incapable of logic and critical thinking, and it is truly a sad thing to behold.

Let’s start, however, with a two things that the author, by accident apparently, gets right. He agrees that the verdict was correct, ie that George Zimmerman was not guilty. So, even a post as bad as this one can get that basic point right. And he points out that Zimmerman’s actions, i.e. killing another man, will cause the person doing the killing a lot of grief. Again, this is true and fairly obvious. Zimmerman will be a marked man the rest of his life.

Let’s go through the Mormon Iconoclast post point by point looking at actual facts and evidence, as opposed to the emotional blather we get in the post.

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One of the most striking messages for me when I first read the Book of Mormon is the constant condemnation of people who are “learned.”

I am thinking of 2 Nephi 9:28, which famously says: “When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.”

In the Book of Mormon we are constantly hearing about lawyers who are “learned in all the arts and cunning of the people; and this was to enable them that they might be skillful in their profession.” (Alma 10:15). Sherem, the first anti-Christ introduced in the Book of Mormon, was learned and had perfected the art of flattery.

But there is much, much more: 2 Nephi 27:20 says of the scriptures: “The learned shall not read them, for they have rejected them, and I am able to do mine own work; wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee.”

We are warned that the learned become “puffed up” (prideful) because of their learning (2 Nephi 9:42). People begin to distinguish themselves by the fact that they are learned (3 Nephi 6:12). In 2 Nephi 28:15 the learned are compared to those who commit whoredoms!

All of these references to the “learned” in the Book of Mormon raises an interesting point: what they heck were they learning and how were they learning things? Continue reading →