As a single bisexual homoromantic man, myself, relabeling homosexual monogamy as apostasy (a.k.a. enemy of the Church) has not made me feel more encouraged to get out there and date women. There is already plenty at stake in dating. Raising the stakes by declaring that acting on my most natural and desirable inclinations are grounds for expulsion from my community only paralyzes me in the face of family formation.

If the stakes were intentionally lowered — if I was told that I had permission to pursue a SSM for time only vs. pursue an OSM for eternity, I might be persuaded to go for the gold of my own volition. But lately all I’ve felt is intense pressure to conform OR ELSE. And that OR ELSE tends to drive me in the opposite direction. I know I’m not the only gay man who feels this way.

That OR ELSE is a direct result of the ramped-up rhetoric on The Family that Julie’s been writing about.

Christian, I think we’re starting to see (5) changing to simply having a parent home for the children. I also think there’s been a significant shift in (4) to pay more attention to people’s abilities. So it’s more have as many children as you are able, but pay attention to your limits (and especially wives’ limits given our social expectations).

Alison, fornication though is conceived of as “a deviation of the proper behavior that will not be acceptable no matter the circumstances.” Admittedly the same acts in most fornication can be made legitimate in marriage and that’s not true of gay relations. If that’s what you mean then I agree. But I think the evidence is the Church conceives of SSM as fundamentally different an issue than say gay-curiosity by young people. Maybe you’re right and that will change though.

Brad, you don’t need a family in this life anymore than you need baptism in this life. But just as church membership as seen as important in this life, so too is marriage. That is the structure is seen as significant on its own terms.

Now I think this is why since the demographic shift starting in the 90’s that the church has struggled. It just doesn’t know how to deal with a populace that is becoming more and more single. Trust me, I married rather late, and as I said it’s very difficult feeling like one has a social place in the church after around 26 let alone 30 when you get the boot from singles wards. It was pretty devastating and there really is no transition for members.

So don’t think I’m downplaying the significance here. But I think a big part of the reason it is so problematic isn’t just the social issues (I’m bored, what do I do socially? Who should my friends be?) Rather it’s that gnawing feeling like you’re not a part because you’re not involved in these structures you feel to be essential. Certainly I felt like that in my 30’s and it wasn’t pleasant. In hindsight I think I was significantly overreacting. But at the time it really was a huge stress.

Perhaps a type of fornication with more social stigma in the 20th century but fundamentally no different.

I’m not sure I’d agree with that. It seems the church’s position is that homosexual relations are more than a proper behavior used in improper circumstances (like “regular” fornication), but a deviation of the proper behavior that will not be acceptable no matter the circumstances. This makes more sense of the apostasy position, I think.

I think you’re talking past one an other by equivocating over vehicle…It’s kind of akin to how a Protestant might say baptism couldn’t be necessary as Christ is the way to God. Baptism is just a sign. You seem to want to make family kind of an accidental and non-necessary trapping but I’m not sure you can really make that move. There’s just too many explicit scriptures going the other direction.

Exactly.

Brad L, it seems you are conflating the church’s positions about our condition when we die vs requirements for godhood. Yes, children who die before accountability are saved in celestial kingdom. Yes, single adults who keep their covenants can enter the celestial kingdom. There is no doctrine that suggests these people won’t need to have a spouse in order to attain godhood.

From LDS.org (emphasis mine):

From another revelation to the Prophet Joseph, we learn that there are three degrees within the celestial kingdom. To be exalted in the highest degree and continue eternally in family relationships, we must enter into “the new and everlasting covenant of marriage” and be true to that covenant. In other words, temple marriage is a requirement for obtaining the highest degree of celestial glory. (See D&C 131:1-4.) All who are worthy to enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage will have that opportunity, whether in this life or the next.

It makes sense that those who would choose to “continue eternally in family relationships” would need to be in family relationships.

Why? Because he has the gonads to speak in a plain believing vernacular?

We will not be exalted outside of a familial context. And that context, whenever it is expressed or pointed to in the scriptures is based in the bond of man and woman. Simple? Yes, but not simplistic. There’s a lot going on that we really don’t understand. But even so, scripturally speaking, what we have is: Husband, wife, and progeny — however extended the process may be.

I’ll let Rob speak for himself of course. But again I don’t think we’re talking just metaphoric families. The whole view of Malachi in the church is making the church as a whole into one large family unit. When within the church the patriarchal order is talked about (not in the feminist sense) it’s wrapped up with a theology of families with Adam as the head.

This is pretty key theology and isn’t meant metaphorically at all. The whole idea within the church is that we’re not saved individually but as families.

However part of following Jesus entails entering to the structure of family.

Considering that Rob said that SSM and heterosexual cohabiting destroy the vehicle to exaltation, he is talking about family in the sense of nuclear family units as in husband and wife with their children, not extended family or metaphorical church congregation families. Also, bear in mind that people who remain single their whole lives can be said, according to LDS teachings, to be following Jesus. So what you say is not in line entirely with LDS teachings.

it’s also clear that there is a special responsibility in family to teach and learn

That’s beyond the point, which was that there are other ways besides the family (well, immediate, nuclear family) in which the LDS church teaches its doctrines and administers its ordinances.

I think you’re talking past one an other by equivocating over vehicle. Clearly Jesus tells us we may have to choose between family and God. It’s not hard to find examples of this even in the restoration when people left family to get baptized and join the Church. However part of following Jesus entails entering to the structure of family. Both a literal one and then an extended family as we become a community in Christ.

Put an other way we have to distinguish between a particular family and the structure of family in general.

Again to your later point, certainly we can learn in many ways. However it’s also clear that there is a special responsibility in family to teach and learn that just isn’t there in the same degree more broadly. So I think your position simply is discounting the structure of the family as revealed. It’s kind of akin to how a Protestant might say baptism couldn’t be necessary as Christ is the way to God. Baptism is just a sign. You seem to want to make family kind of an accidental and non-necessary trapping but I’m not sure you can really make that move. There’s just too many explicit scriptures going the other direction.

Rob Osborn makes a statement that is mocked by some, but it’s pretty clearly the LDS position to a great extent.

Rob Obsorn’s assertion that the family is the vehicle to God is actually not supported by LDS church doctrine, hence the ridicule. In LDS church doctrine Jesus Christ is the vehicle to God, even at the expense of family (see the verse I quoted above, this is also supported by a few other verses in the New Testament). One cannot choose the type of family that he/she comes from. Many are orphans by no choice of their own. Furthermore, some don’t have the choice to get married and create a family, either because they die too young or they cannot attract a mate for physical and psychological reasons. Are these people excluded from reaching God? Not according to church doctrine they aren’t. Rob is overemphasizing the importance of family in church doctrine and misses the mark. What gets me is that Rob comes on here thinking that he is preaching church doctrine and telling us freethinkers to repent. What he doesn’t realize is that he is engaging in just as much freethinking in saying that the family is the vehicle to God as the active LDS person who supports SSM.

Rob also makes another claim that is inconsistent with church doctrine that I just caught, which is “the vehicle in which we use to administer that gospel and learn is through the family.” The family may be one way in which individuals learn about the teachings of the LDS church. I learned about them from my parents, and I’m sure many others have. But that isn’t the only way. LDS ordinances are administered by individuals to individuals regardless of whether they are biologically related or not. And LDS teachings are taught by individuals in the LDS church to other individuals, again, regardless of whether they are family-related or not. Rob Osborn clearly does not have a good understanding of the role of the family in the LDS church teachings.

Now I might be wrong in what I said. And I’d never say that’s all that’s going on. But if it were just about the eternities we might expect a different approach.

Regarding heaven, I think you raise some good points. But simultaneously I think you downplay too much how big a doctrinal issue this is for the church. To suggest that drawing inferences about SSM requires a lot of fairly arbitrary editing seems difficult to swallow. The ideal is men and women married. Now one could throw polyandry into the mix to make things more complex except that as far as we can see all cases of polyandry in church history are for this life only. Even if polyandry might make an interesting way of dealing with the situation, it’d still require a pretty massive revelation. Thus there just are no examples of male-male sealings, so drawing inferences from that isn’t hard.

Now the issue of women is trickier. Of course most of us get squeamish just thinking about the topic. (Oddly I’m far more open to my wife remarrying if I were to die prematurely than I’d be for remarrying were the reverse to happen) Again going to the history, however icky, women were married to men, and while they were in a kind of joint relationship via the man, they weren’t in a direct relationship with each other. (Ignoring the issue of what went on behind closed doors – just dealing with the theology. So far as I know the Church didn’t even conceive of problems behind closed door although as I recall that issue caused a schism in the Manti polygamous apostate group a decade or two ago) So from a theological perspective there’s simply no basis for SS relations for women that are considered authorized.

If we’re just going by our theology then any SS relationship would be intrinsically fornication/adultery. That seems to entail fairly clear inferences regarding SSM without really being speculative. We can always acknowledge there’s a lot we don’t know. But it seems reasonably safe to draw inferences from what we do know, even if it might turn out they don’t have universal application.

I think the assumption by many (not you) is that this is all conservative homophobia driving theology and overreaction. Yet I really think this ignores just how thorny an issue this is for the particular type of physicalist theology we Mormons have. As soon as you have marriage between a man and a woman as the basis for deity then intrinsically homosexuality is a theological problem it just isn’t for other Christians (who at best see it just as an issue of fornication).