1. I’m not exactly sure how “progressive liberal members … profess[ing] their confidence in the equality of traditional marriage with same sex marriage in God’s eyes” has anything to do with someone joining the Church under false pretenses.

2. At any rate, in responding to my argument, you omitted an important qualifier–the words “to their peers.” Even if a child of a parent in a same-sex relationship had a motivation to join the church under false pretenses, it is unclear how that might pose a hazard to their peers above and beyond the hazard posed by any other person doing this.

I will say that I agree with what you suggested in comment 20 about the potential influence that the children of openly gay parents who are cohabiting with or married to a person of the same gender. They are more likely to be accepting of gay romantic relationships than your average church-going child and would probably sway them to accept gay marriage and gay rights. I think that the motivation behind this new policy can be explained in part as an attempt to curb the influence of gay-rights-supporting children (as small of a number as the children whose parents are in gay relationships might be) at church.

Divorce is a failure and the Savior taught that we should be be perfect, knowing full well we can’t live up to it. He didn’t excuse the commandments, he asked us to live them. So he didn’t teach divorce, knowing full well, we would still have failures in marriage requiring it.

Gay marriage is not a “just” failure in marriage. It’s an active pursuit in an opposite direction from the outset. It’s not an acknowledgement of “we tried to do the right thing and failed”, but asking someone from the outset to acknowledge the wrong thing as a step in right direction.

Again, it’s one thing to try and fail. It’s another thing to try to fail.

Divorce may undermine marriage, but it does not cause confusion about the ultimate goal. We recognize divorce is a failure. Do you recognize gay marriage as a failure?

I’m not sure that you understood the OP. What I gathered from the OP was that if the LDS church can have a policy on divorce that is at clear variance with Jesus’ stance on divorce as recorded the the New Testament and yet still claim consistency with the doctrine in the standard works, then why couldn’t they potentially reverse their stance on same-sex marriage down the road (a matter that Jesus does not even explicitly forbid anywhere in the scriptures) and claim to maintain consistency and harmonious continuity with the past. The post has nothing to do with what is and isn’t good for the institution of marriage, but the viability of policy change.

Nate, I disagree. Not only do children post a hazard, to use your word, but adults do as well. It’s a badge of courage among the more progressive liberal members to profess their confidence in the equality of traditional marriage with same sex marriage in God’s eyes. That false conversion is taking place among adults who should know better. Why would you not assume it would be even more pernicious among children?

I’m not teaching my children that those in homosexual marriage or relationships are evil by any means, but when the subject comes up I am not at all ashamed to let me children know that many people in the world are confused about what God wants for his children. We don’t need that confusion brought into the church.

I think the issue at hand is there is a lot of confusion over the plan of salvation, the nature of God and Godhood, as well as our eternal destiny as children of God.

Does allowing divorce cause that level of confusion? Mostly not, but you could probably argue at the margins a bit. The state of marriage is where it is, in large part because of our attitude towards that divine mandate.

But does allowing gay marriage cause further confusion about God’s ultimate plan for his children? Yes. We do not need confused soles testifying of an eternal family in an unGodlike pattern. This may sound harsh, but that’s literally what it is. Our most sacred truths, which are only foreshadowed through the temple or prophetic teaching point to Godhood as man and woman.

Divorce may undermine marriage, but it does not cause confusion about the ultimate goal. We recognize divorce is a failure. Do you recognize gay marriage as a failure?

For many decades prior to this policy change the church has had an identical policy pertaining to children of polygamous households.

This is not quite true. First, minor children of “parents who have practiced or are practicing plural marriage” may be baptized if they “are not living in a home where polygamy is being taught or practiced.” (CHI-1 § 16.3.9, at 145 (2010).) Children of “a parent who has lived or is living in a same-gender relationship” may only be baptized when they are “of legal age” AND they do “not live with a parent who has lived or currently lives in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage.” Second, there is no provision in the Handbook (or at least the 2010 version) prohibiting a baby of parents in a polygamous relationship from being named and blessed.

Also, while I am not 100% sure of the purpose behind the Church’s requirement that children of parents practicing plural marriage must obtain permission from the First Presidency before they are baptized, my understanding is that it was a response to the requirement of some polygamous communities that a young man could not remain in that community unless he brought a wife into the community from outside. Young men from those communities would convert, get married to LDS women, and then go back to the polygamous communities. It was a policy designed to protect young LDS women from being pulled into polygamous marriages. Children of a parent in a same-sex relationship do not pose the same hazard of “false conversion” to their peers, so applying that policy to them does not make sense.

The silence regarding this policy on polygamy (which has already affected actual people) would indicate that no one much cared about it (or cared enough to even know about it). And yet, when the church decides in the wake of the recent SCOTUS decision to institute an exactly analogous policy to likewise refrain from being affiliated in any way with the sanctioning of gay marriage, suddenly SHTF. Why would that be? Is it because polygamists are a moral out-group, and therefore they and their children are afforded a corresponding low status? Ew! Nobody wants to be low status. And those huge hair-bump having, prairie-dress wearing women.. yeash! Talk about low status, amirite?

Over the past decade, gays, on the other hand, have been made not only part of our society’s moral in-group, but their relationships are increasingly held up by entertainment media and the press as moral paragons and thus given a corresponding high status.

It is difficult not to conclude that much of the negative response to the recent policy change and the previous non-response to the identical policy re: polygamy are indicative of status-signaling or virtue-signaling on the part of negative responders. Real psychological angst is felt when there is the possibility of being considered and thus shunned as part of the moral out-group. So you get the negative responses that have been so common on social media, which, when translated as the virtue-signaling they are, come to read something like, “Please know that by feeling badly about this new policy I too should be considered part of the moral in-group. I have come to see over the past decade that caring about gays–especially married gays, and most especially their children–is kind, decent and virtuous. I therefore wish to register my kindness and virtuousness and thus be afforded the high status of an in-group member.”

If the church had instituted this exact policy after the legalization of gay marriage in Canada a little less than a decade ago prior to the ramping up of the current pro-gay virtue signaling, I venture to guess it would be experienced and understood no differently than the sanctions against children from polygamous households.

A bishop who enters divorce proceedings while in office must be released. This happened in a local ward just recently. Also men who have been divorced cannot be called as bishops (and I’m assuming Stake Presidents, etc though I’m not as certain on that one).

On a somewhat related note, in my ward when I was growing up one of my youth leaders that I really liked and admired went through a a very bitter divorce after it was discovered that his wife was cheating on him with another member of the ward. During the proceedings his wife accused him of abusing her and sexually abusing their children. Some of the children corroborated the claim and others denied it. He was released of all of his callings and was eventually excommunicated. No criminal charges were filed against him.

To this day I’m still sad about it – was he a terrible human being that I unknowingly admired, or was he wronged by an aggrieved, philandering spouse? I have no idea. Either way no one came out of that situation unscathed and unbroken. It was all just… sad and we all mourned despite most of the membership of the ward inevitably taking one side or the other.

I’m feeling those same feeling now, and from everything I’m reading I’m not the only one.

You’re right, James Olsen. In addition, we have this statement from Joseph Smith: “That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, ‘Thou shalt not kill;’ at another time He said ‘Thou shalt utterly destroy.’ This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed.”

That leaves a big enough theological loophole for the brethren to drive a truck through, an easy way out of the same sex marriage dilemma.

31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:

32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

And Jesus says in Matthew 19:8-9:

8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

Jesus’ words seem quite clear. Men should not “put away” (translation of Greek apolyo, meaning to dismiss from the house) their wives, except in the case that one partner has had illicit intercourse with other person. For in so doing, they cause the woman to commit adultery. I suppose that Jesus considers this to be the case since by being dismissed/banned from the house by her husband, she is likely to be married off to someone else, and he regards the marriage to be an adulterous one. Jesus believes that Moses allowed his Hebrew followers to divorce because they were hardhearted, but he doesn’t appear to justify Moses allowing this. Men commit adultery by dismissing their wives from the house and marrying another woman, and also by marrying a woman who has been divorced.

Indeed, the LDS church’s stance on divorce is completely different. They don’t consider a male marrying a divorced female to be a form of adultery. Jesus’ position and the current LDS position are irreconcilable. They are in diametric opposition.