Imagine you are 10, or 12, or 15 and hiding the secret that you are a gay Mormon and you are terrified, and you hear these words from Dallin Oaks from an interview in 2006.


PUBLIC AFFAIRS: At what point does showing that love cross the line into inadvertently endorsing behavior? If the son says, ‘Well, if you love me, can I bring my partner to our home to visit? Can we come for holidays?’ How do you balance that against, for example, concern for other children in the home?’

ELDER OAKS: That’s a decision that needs to be made individually by the person responsible, calling upon the Lord for inspiration. I can imagine that in most circumstances the parents would say, ‘Please don’t do that. Don’t put us into that position.’ Surely if there are children in the home who would be influenced by this example, the answer would likely be that. There would also be other factors that would make that the likely answer.

I can also imagine some circumstances in which it might be possible to say, ‘Yes, come, but don’t expect to stay overnight. Don’t expect to be a lengthy house guest. Don’t expect us to take you out and introduce you to our friends, or to deal with you in a public situation that would imply our approval of your “partnership.”

These words will cut you like a knife. These words can rip a heart out. These words can put a gun or a rope or a plastic bag in your hand.

Dallin Oaks is HATE.

And yet the Big 15 claim compassion and caring for the kids killing themselves. And my own family believe them to be "of God." I cannot separate them from the Big 15 anymore.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2016 12:21PM by blueorchid.

Wow! Where was this interview published? So, if my child is gay I should probably say, "don't come around here no more...but if you do, don't expect us to act like we love you."? I knew these guys said lots of stupid $#!+, but this is unbelievable. I guess I shouldn't be shocked by this kind of stuff from the morg anymore.

www.mormonnewsroom.org/.../interview-oaks-wickman-...

I'm not good linking things. I guess this is it. I just googled "Dallin oaks 2006 interview gay" and found it.

I will never forget the first time I heard his words and I don't think it should ever be forgotten what he said.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2016 12:40PM by blueorchid.

Wow, thanks for posting that; I had not been aware of that interview. My mouth was open and I felt a physical pain in my stomach after reading Oaks' comments. It's hard to imagine anything that could be less tolerant, Christian, or loving. It really made me feel sick. What an embarrassment that I once thought highly of him.

I am astounded at that advice! How can any parent of a gay child follow it? And what sort of example is it to set for any other children in the household? Certainly not a Christian one!

Dallin Oaks is judgement personified. He is a former judge. But unlike his hero Kimball, he tries to be somewhat fair. He thinks he is being fair.

I don't know why I'm speechless and feel like I've just had the wind knocked out of me, because I worked for them for 27 years, and used to hear that kind of talk (like the remarks in the interview) all the time from leaders at all levels.

It may be because I've been away from it for so long that I'd forgotten how cold, insensitive, and cruel they are.

He is actually handing to parents a method (and exact words) for rejecting their own children. What a P.O.S.

That's what I was thinking.
I have a young family member who I think may be homosexual, but the immediate family is all TBM. I hate to think that the parents may have read and could be using the advice and maybe even the SCRIPTING from that interview. Because really, isn't that what parents would be looking for? Exactly what can I say? Where should I draw the line?

I left before that the time of Oak's being bigot. That is exactly the way my family has treated me and my wife. We have two major sins, I'm an exmo and my wife is mexican-american so an interracial marriage.

Then they complain and wonder why I don't talk to them or let them see their grandkid's.

Bigotry, prejudice, & racism is the fruit of TSCC.

I heard this line of reasoning used by a higher up in ChurchCo

locally, who added something to the effect of "Do you love the

Savior enough to put him first, even if it means upsetting or

disappointing your children?"

Heard a lot of shelves start to creak when that was said!

" . . . and by "upsetting or disappointing" I actually mean condemning and alienating.

seekyr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> " . . . and by "upsetting or disappointing" I
> actually mean condemning and alienating.


Seekyr: You are correct (IMHO).

I think he saw it as being something like "tough love" or

"scared straight" but he likely would have parroted anything he

was told.

is when I wrote Packer about my gay boyfriend. NEVER have I been treated so despicably as I was by him. The letter nearly drove me to suicide. If my sister and BIL hadn't been there when I opened it, I may have done it.

I remind myself that within my lifetime, as a southern man, I’ve seen attitudes about race so radically change that I have to say… Oaks, Ballard, Holland, et al. go ahead and keep it up. What the memory of George Wallace is to mine and my parents generation, you bigoted dirtbags will be to the millennials and their kids.

Let them keep talking until being Mormon carries the same stigma that being gay did in 1950’s America.

Let them keep talking until church membership is seen in the same light as membership in the KKK.

Let them keep talking until West Virginia looks progressive in comparison to Provo, Orem, etc.

Let them keep talking until the Mormon Diaspora collapses within the civilized world and Mormonism and slinks back to within the borders of Utah.

Let them keep talking until what’s left of the the Mormon Diaspora starts carrying around their Quads in discreet paper bags and meeting in unmarked buildings.

Let them keep talking until they’re having to run Temple Tourism ads in between GC sessions because the European and East Coast temples would have to be boarded up otherwise.

Let them keep talking… They’re already the poster child for ridiculousness and are the goto example of absurdity when religion is being ridiculed by the pundits, comedians, etc.

Yeah, keep it up you evil gasbags. You are your own worst enemy. In the Western world, religion is beginning to die a much deserved death because the likes of Mormonism and Islam have offered up such an ugly image of God that fewer and fewer people see any value in preserving the fiction.

In the end, Mormonism will have helped create a better world by being invaluable in letting the world see how the "religious sausage" is made and how nasty the process is.