DiscussMormonism.com

Gaz,

As you know, my little sister is gay. She is also deaf and the reason I know sign language. Although she has not been active in years, she is still on the rolls of the Mormon church. You once told me that she should be killed for her sin, which was acutely offensive to me.

She told me she was gay while I was still a Mormon. I could see that she was dreading my response. Her revelation was no surprise to me, though my response was to her.

"So? I love you, Cassie. You're good with me." And so she shall ever be, Gaz. She is my sister. And yes, she and her partner are welcome, with open arms, in my home. My daughters adore her. I adore her.

I was there in the hospital room when she was born. She's thirteen years my junior, so I had the opportunity to babysit her more than I really wanted to, but I'm glad of it now. I love her even more because of the time I spent with her. I find your wishes for violence toward her and others like her incredibly saddening.

Gaz, your unveiled disgust toward gays is not only saddening, it's gallingly unattractive and insulting. Worse than that, the near hatred you harbor for them harms you. It's much more harmful for your soul than it is for the targets of your vitriol, at least as long as your violence is expressed in word and not deed.

Even when I was a Mormon, like you, Gaz, I believed that God loved all His children. That He desired to draw them in to Him. Do you believe that? Don't you believe that God loves homosexuals, even if He doesn't love sin? Don't you think you ought to try to love people, too? After all, are we not all sinners?

I understand that you believe marriage should be between a man and a woman. If you have the opportunity to vote your conscience on that matter, then I think you should. I also think you should learn to love people with whom you disagree. Loving people can come so easily if you just try.

You believe in prayer, Gaz. And, you have been instructed to pray for your enemies. Because you believe homosexuals to be your enemies, it is incumbent upon you to pray for them. I challenge you to pray to love gays and lesbians. You do not need to love what you believe to be sin, but you should love the sinners themselves. Pray to love them. Do it every day, morning and evening, or whenever you take time to talk to God. Maybe you will experience a change in your heart? Perhaps you can love people you never believed you could?

You want to be a pious man. There are two great commandments, Gaz. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. One can never be sure who does or doesn't love God. But it's easy to see who loves their neighbor. The second should flow from the first. Please take the challenge and pray daily to love the people you now seem to despise. I believe it will work for you, Gaz.

Kimberly Ann

Very nice post, KA. From what Gaz has said in the past, I wonder if he might react to a gay/lesbian son or daughter this way:

"I actually received my Mormon endowments — my initiations you'd call them — in this temple, and my father helped to build it," says Robert Little, pointing to the stately limestone building with a steeple topped with a golden statue of the Mormon angel, Moroni.

Little is gay and says his family expelled him as soon as they found out. They contributed $30,000 this year to support Proposition 8.

Little is a former Mormon now and says the church should stay out of what he sees as a secular issue.

NPR

Over to you, Gaz, but if this is Christianity - count me out.

From what I recall, Ray, Gaz has already stated that were one of his children gay, he would throw her/him out on the street.

I sincerely hope Gaz can become more tolerant. I think he can if he will try.

Kimberly

I kind of think it's just talk. I don't think Gaz -- it's just a hunch here -- is an incredibly successful, ballsy, or driven person in real life. So I kind of doubt he'd ever take real life action on any of these deep beliefs he says he has. So when he makes his statements, I discount them by quite a bit by what I feel his real-life maturity level is. Gaz's speeches are more of a spoiled little boy talking than a hardened, hateful bigot.

I don't wish to enter into a debate here, but I do have a few words to say. So far as these types of boards are concerned, I consider Gaz to be an e-friend of mine. I've known him since Z and he indeed followed me here. Why on earth would some LDS (presumably dyed in the wool TBM) guy have any interest at all in following a royal pain in the ass from Jersey like me?

I think he's said why in the past: it's because I challenge him.

I see Gaz as synthesizing his views on this board. No one goes through life unchanged. I remember when his posts on Z were nearly total scripture ref's or religious images. Not so now.

I think you should all give the guy a break. None of you are more developed than he is or than he will become. I've known some of you on this board for upwards of 10 years from other boards. I know some of your personal stories, your concerns, your heartaches, your frustrations, your mistakes, your regrets and your joys, because you've told them to me out of your own computers either publicly or privately.

I'd like to know where any of you get off attempting to hold yourself above or look down at Gaz on account of his current postings regarding homosexuals either intellectually or morally? His journey belongs to him and has nothing whatsoever with your own.

Cast the first stone, indeed.

Jersey Girl

Jersey Girl wrote:
I think you should all give the guy a break. None of you are more developed than he is or than he will become. I've known some of you on this board for upwards of 10 years from other boards. I know some of your personal stories, your concerns, your heartaches, your frustrations, your mistakes, your regrets and your joys, because you've told them to me out of your own computers either publicly or privately.

I'd like to know where any of you get off attempting to hold yourself above or look down at Gaz on account of his current postings regarding homosexuals either intellectually or morally? His journey belongs to him and has nothing whatsoever with your own.

Cast the first stone, indeed.

Jersey Girl

I'll go ahead and cast the first bison friche. Any cock goblin that says he would kick his kid to the curb simply because the child is gay is vile. I mean... It's your child. What kind of mental defect do you have to have that allows your Magical Mystery Man in the Sky to take precedence over your own child?

A big one. That's what. For you to defend that kind of behavior is sick. No excuse for you either... Sister.

I'll go ahead and cast the first bison friche. Any cock goblin that says he would kick his kid to the curb simply because the child is gay is vile. I mean... It's your child. What kind of mental defect do you have to have that allows your Magical Mystery Man in the Sky to take precedence over your own child?

A big one. That's what. For you to defend that kind of behavior is sick. No excuse for you either... Sister.

Dear crap for brains,

Nowhere on this board or on this thread have I defended any behavior whatsoever. You are apparently content to make crap up instead of dealing with what's before your eyes on the screen. And this from the author of female genitalia and other such remarks, whose posts are regularly jettisoned to lower forums on account of content. Mental defect, indeed.

Reply to the post as it is written, stop trying to mind read or kiss my ass.

Whichever pleases you.

So true Anti. It doesn't take a very high horse, just a little rocking horse, to mount and ride high above Gaz. The guy who thinks KA's little sister should be killed for her sins or hopes the gays will open the door to the temple and all be killed by a bolt of lightning. Looking down at Gaz can easily be done from the back of an earthworm, in fact. It's not hard at all.

There is no personal journy here. As Gaz admits, he's never even been friends with a gay person or has any relevant experience. Which is good, in a way, because that means we're witnessing a little boy spouting out his frustrations and not a truly dangerous or evil person. If Gaz's anti-Gay campaign went any deeper than online venting, if it were really part of a personal journy in the real world then he'd be a very reprehensible person. I don't think that's the case.

Gadianton wrote:So true Anti. It doesn't take a very high horse, just a little rocking horse, to mount and ride high above Gaz. The guy who thinks KA's little sister should be killed for her sins or hopes the gays will open the door to the temple and all be killed by a bolt of lightning. Looking down at Gaz can easily be done from the back of an earthworm, in fact. It's not hard at all.

There is no personal journy here. As Gaz admits, he's never even been friends with a gay person or has any relevant experience. Which is good, in a way, because that means we're witnessing a little boy spouting out his frustrations and not a truly dangerous or evil person. If Gaz's anti-Gay campaign went any deeper than online venting, if it were really part of a personal journy in the real world then he'd be a very reprehensible person. I don't think that's the case.

Of course it's a personal journey. He has one and you yourself have one. And you place yourself above him because?

In my case I'll inject a little reminder here. But first, let me make it clear that I like Gaz, and always have. I suggested long before Gadianton did, that Gaz was probably only venting feelings he'd never follow through with in real life. I'm old and senile enough to realise that, and have five adult children of my own.

Yesterday Gaz made a spirited appeal to me to "hang on", and let the Holy Ghost lead me, and I expressed my admiration for him as a person, and I'm sure in real life he is a good person, husband and father.

Then he wrote this in response to Mike Reed:

What they should have done was grab your head and drive their knee into your face. And its hard to be concerned over your video camera when your picking it out of your teeth.

All I asked was, is this what you call Christianity?