Why do you keep ignoring your own apostles that state the church does not know if it is a choice or nature. Why do you ingnore the command to forgive all even if they do not repent?
Actually, what the Church has said, to the degree it has made a unanimous statement upon the subject, is that homosexuality is not inborn or innate. I quote Elder Oaks from a recent interview on the subject available here:
http://newsroom.LDS.org/ldsnewsroom/eng ... attraction Over past years we have seen unrelenting pressure from advocates of that lifestyle to accept as normal what is not normal...
The distinction between feelings or inclinations on the one hand, and behavior on the other hand, is very clear. It’s no sin to have inclinations that if yielded to would produce behavior that would be a transgression. The sin is in yielding to temptation. Temptation is not unique. Even the Savior was tempted.
I think it’s important for you to understand that homosexuality, which you’ve spoken of, is not a noun that describes a condition. It’s an adjective that describes feelings or behavior. I encourage you, as you struggle with these challenges, not to think of yourself as a ‘something’ or ‘another,’ except that you’re a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and you’re my son, and that you’re struggling with challenges.
Yes, homosexual feelings are controllable. Perhaps there is an inclination or susceptibility to such feelings that is a reality for some and not a reality for others. But out of such susceptibilities come feelings, and feelings are controllable. If we cater to the feelings, they increase the power of the temptation. If we yield to the temptation, we have committed sinful behavior.
We don’t understand exactly the ‘why,’ or the extent to which there are inclinations or susceptibilities and so on. But what we do know is that feelings can be controlled and behavior can be controlled. The line of sin is between the feelings and the behavior. The line of prudence is between the susceptibility and the feelings. We need to lay hold on the feelings and try to control them to keep us from getting into a circumstance that leads to sinful behavior.
...we do not accept the fact that conditions that prevent people from attaining their eternal destiny were born into them without any ability to control. That is contrary to the Plan of Salvation, and it is contrary to the justice and mercy of God.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS: You’re saying the Church doesn’t necessarily have a position on ‘nurture or nature’
ELDER OAKS: That’s where our doctrine comes into play. The Church does not have a position on the causes of any of these susceptibilities or inclinations, including those related to same-gender attraction. Those are scientific questions — whether nature or nurture — those are things the Church doesn’t have a position on.
We should also not forget Elder Oaks statements on the matter from his definitive talk of 1996:
We should note that the words homosexual, lesbian, and gay are adjectives to describe particular thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. We should refrain from using these words as nouns to identify particular conditions or specific persons. Our religious doctrine dictates this usage. It is wrong to use these words to denote a condition, because this implies that a person is consigned by birth to a circumstance in which he or she has no choice in respect to the critically important matter of sexual behavior.
Just as some people have different feelings than others, some people seem to be unusually susceptible to particular actions, reactions, or addictions. Perhaps such susceptibilities are inborn or acquired without personal choice or fault, like the unnamed ailment the Apostle Paul called “a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure” (2 Cor. 12:7). One person may have feelings that draw him toward gambling, but unlike those who only dabble, he becomes a compulsive gambler. Another person may have a taste for tobacco and a susceptibility to its addiction. Still another may have an unusual attraction to alcohol and the vulnerability to be readily propelled into alcoholism. Other examples may include a hot temper, a contentious manner, a covetous attitude, and so on.
In each case (and in other examples that could be given) the feelings or other characteristics that increase susceptibility to certain behavior may have some relationship to inheritance. But the relationship is probably very complex. The inherited element may be nothing more than an increased likelihood that an individual will acquire certain feelings if he or she encounters particular influences during the developmental years. But regardless of our different susceptibilities or vulnerabilities, which represent only variations on our mortal freedom (in mortality we are only “free according to the flesh” [2 Ne. 2:27]), we remain responsible for the exercise of our agency in the thoughts we entertain and the behavior we choose. I
I really don't think it quite accurate to describe the Church's neutrality on the scientific issue as on of "not knowing". The Church is neutral on the scientific issue, but the
Gospel does not seem to be, and Elder Oaks' teaching of the Gospel here would indicate that the Church, to the extent his statements are view as authoritative, perceives the origins of homosexuality, for all intents and purposes, pretty much as the present scientific knowledge allows: that homosexuality's origins are a deeply complex and unique stew of social, psychological, and, in some number of cases, biological biases, susceptibilities, and predispositions, a set of complex dynamics that is going to be very difficult-if not impossible-to disentangle one from another.
Note that the Church's position here, through Oaks, is not regarding the orgins of homosexual behavior or the homosexual identity (Gay), but of homosexual feelings, inclinations, or susceptibilities which are differentiated from one another very clearly. This must be the case if the cardinal doctrines of agency and the fairness and integrity of the Plan of Salvation are to be preserved.
I think Oaks teaching here provides a great deal of nourishing food for thought, especially in its central contention that while many things, homosexual perceptual biases being one, have some genetic component to their origin, none of this determines our behavior or sets us firmly, in a deterministic manner, upon some inexorable and predetermined course.
And this is where the Church and the world part company and lock horns.