Posted by:
GetTheLedZepOut
(
)
Date: May 18, 2013 12:03AM
So, today we are watching the church leadership orchestrate a concerted effort to oppose any gay equality legislation. Indeed, they seem to be doubling down and placing all of their chips on one number and a spin of the wheel. Not surprising seeing who the old...and I mean OLD guard are.
But who would have predicted reversal of B Young's staunch assertions that blacks are second rate citizens who deserved no less than slavery? Or even in John Taylor's regime? Or Lorenzo Snow's?
Odd how it takes advanced societies so long to reject previous untruths and swing the pendulum so far the other direction, but it's true. Over and over its true. I've never seen the pendulum at bottom dead center...ever. Case in point. My folks whipped me with a belt. Teachers spanked us (pretty damn hard, I might add) with aerodynamically engineered paddles to inflict maximum pain. And I guarantee you, not only was there never talk of "suing", I was assured of a belt whipping when I got home if ever I had received a paddling at school. Our friends' folks had permiso to thump us as well. A generation later, my folks, my friends' parents, and most of my teachers would be rotting in a jail cell for the same things they did 40 years ago. You can't thump little Johnny even if the ignorant little bastard sorely deserves it.
Which brings me to the church's stand on gays in the ranks of the saints. It's always been church policy to label being gay as being evil and deviant and worthy of the most harsh punishment the church can mete out. Open support of prop 8....well, that surprised even me. It does show they've placed even more chips on the table. They seem to be pretty smug and entrenched in that stand. But I still say the pendulum is starting to swing back.
They have to know their old mantras are outdated and laughably stupid. And that they make no more sense that JS's rantings about slavery being just reward for the negro man. Or do they? At least the old guard doesn't yet grasp it. Packer and those like him continue to squeal about the evils amongst us. But those guys are damned old and they are going to be passing on at a pretty brisk rate as years pass. What about Dieter? Or others who, if Im reading them right, are much more moderate in their beliefs?
Even if it is bound to happen like Im predicting, just how will it play out? After all, there is a lot of face to be lost here. And it's hard to imagine how the church will spin it from where it is to an acceptance of gays as "normal and worthy of the Lord's blessings" as anyone else. But I believe it will happen. Gays being married in the temple? Not so sure about that one. But more acceptance? No excommunication for "practicers"? Probably. Maybe even a "don't ask don't tell" policy would look like a compromise to the church. Hard to imagine in a church so meddlesome in the lives of its members but, hey, they will be forced to find some face saving middle ground to spin.
Why? Because critical mass is building. Same as it did in the late 70s. Too many are losing loved ones to the horrors of suicide. The old arguments against homosexuality just aren't resonating with as many people as they once did. Too many TBMs are torn between the church's policies and their loved ones. I have a gay nephew and it tears me up to see his folks struggling with the church's horseshit. And what about the shit he is dealing with?
I predict within 10-15 years the reversal that seems so impossible now will have happened. Tommy will likely be gone. Packer too. It will be seen as a way (secretly by the 15) to stem the bleeding of membership.
It will be interesting to watch, as a nonmember observer, how the core majority will hail it as yet another manifestation of God's divine prophetic gift in the church.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2013 12:16AM by GetTheLedZepOut.