JohnW wrote: ↑Thu Nov 24, 2022 3:01 pm
What you are describing is a caricature of church leaders.
I'm referencing a number of things General Authorities have actually done and said over the years. Including the deliberate covert weaponising of members during Prop 8. Including talks about people "choosing" to be gay. Including policies being introduced that placed same sex attraction as liable for the same Church discipline as murderers and child sex offenders. Including advocating electro-shock therapy to cure "gayness". That's not me making a caricature, that's a list of actions that General Authorities have actually done.
Overall, I'm talking more about how we as members learn how to include others in a loving way and the LGBT community learning how to find a place in the church. That doesn't happen without people stepping on each other's toes. Yes, church leaders are involved in that process, but certainly not the only ones learning here.
In what way(s) do members set the tone, the agenda, the policy, the language, the programmes necessary to change the institutional church into something that can be classed as a welcoming environment for the LGBQT community? Members have been excommunicated for asking awkward questions, General Authorities have articulated that activism is evil when it's directed at changing the church. Members have been told not to write to the General Authorities, they're too busy. Talks have been given that make it plain that criticism of church leaders, even if that criticism is warranted, is apostasy. Again, that's not me making up a caricature, those are actual, real, examples.
My experience appears to be the opposite of yours. Either you are intentionally trying to mischaracterize the situation, which I don't think is the case, or our experiences with church leaders are just too different to have a meaningful conversation.
I completely agree. I've cited numerous real world examples of why and how General Authorities have been the driving force behind making the church a toxic environment for the LGBQT community. Even the most recent so-called endorsement of the marriage equality bill is not an an example of the church finding a way of including the LGBQT community in the church environment - they have made sure to protect the church's right to be exclusionary and discriminatory of the LGBQT community. Feel free to cite the examples I've missed where they, the General Authorities have driven inclusion.
From the quote from 1994 in the OP
We encourage members to appeal to legislators, judges, and other government officials to preserve the purposes and sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, and to reject all efforts to give legal authorization or other official approval or support to marriages between persons of the same gender.
From General Conference April 2022
...the Lord has required His restored Church to oppose social and legal pressures to retreat from His doctrine of marriage between a man and a woman, to oppose changes that homogenize the differences between men and women or confuse or alter gender.
That's a member of the First Presidency speaking officially at General Conference to the membership of the Church. How can that be considered an effort at inclusion?