Parental Affection Must Transcend Institutional Concerns / Lloyd

Recently a friend asked if a Facebook posting might not be part of a preface to an Abbott Family Chronicle. It wasn’t and I referred him to She Says, He Says to find our thoughts and experiences organized by subject matter. A quick review of our blog, however,  revealed a hodgepodge organized only by posting date.

To rectify the tangle I gave each post a subject label and built a first cut index that readers can see as a pop-up on the right edge of the screen.  In that process I took time to read, scan and cull the 334 posts that started in Oct 2008 when we began our blog, and to a degree I relived our documented challenges and concerns.

observations

As a result of that review and reliving I have several observations and three questions.

1. Our struggle with California Proposition 8 for me converted a lifetime of close interrelations with gays and lesbians to an uncomfortable institutional confrontation between Mormons and the LGBT community.
2. As I worked through my theological framework since 2008 I've became more convinced than ever that a samesex relationship is absolutely at odds with an eternal family pattern, wherein Heavenly Parents (a male and a female) conceive us spiritually and earthly parents provide mortal, physical bodies for our spirits.
3. That physical chain began on earth with the conception of our first parents Adam & Eve. They were born to immortal parents and raised in a family setting until they were joined in marriage and given the opportunity to transgress God’s commandment. Through transgression, Adam & Eve gained the ability to conceive children of their own within a mortal setting.
4. So much more than resurrection and immortality, eternal life is the state of married men and women with immortal, physical bodies. With these immortal, physical bodies husbands and wives continue the conception of spiritual beings within a family setting. Immortal parents then provide those children a mortal experience to acquire physical bodies of their own and eventually live in an expanding eternal family.
5. Consistent with this theological understanding, I find the fundamental gay and lesbian variance to this eternal pattern truly overwhelming.
6. And I’m amazed at the many gay and lesbian children I’ve encountered in the Mormon community.
7. I’ve been even more amazed and dismayed at the knee jerk shunning and ostracizing of these gay and lesbian children born in the covenant within our religious community that throws them into the hungry and waiting arms of the most tragic and harmful elements of society.

questions

Now the questions:  

1. Why is this great Mormon Community finding it so difficult to put aside the institutional concerns and encircle our gay and lesbian members, especially our own children, in an interpersonal embrace that heals wounds and provides these family members optimum mortal development?
2. Is our theology so narrow that we can’t recognize the value and potential for contribution of family members whether or not they are interested in or bound toward eternal family life?
3. Can we admit to no common ground within a current family relationship whether or not a family member is in full Church fellowship?

perspective

I have been working with men and women in violation of the doctrine and principles that lead to eternal life since my mission in 1964. Actually, since I began home teaching with my father when I was a teacher and a priest. He showed me it was possible to engage members, and men and women generally, in interpersonal relationships of respect and service. He showed me it wasn’t my place to be judgemental or punitive.  He was absolutely realistic of what was, but he never let that get in his way of extending a caring outreach. And he accepted rejection without rancor.

Every day I work professionally in a maximum security setting to provide wellness and recovery support to incarcerated men who have broken every commandment. And with the fewest possible exceptions, mostly among the seriously mentally ill who are yet to stabilize on medications,  we have found common ground for safe, respectful, and productive relationships.

I’m not so naive to ignore the importance to safety of the highly structured security measures in place. However, I’m still surprised at the caring stability that can be achieved even with the men who were most dangerous and destructive when they lived outside of security. And actually, the goal and reality is that the majority of these men will eventually be released to the community.

Therefore, I really don’t understand our own people that seem so ready to jettison their own children who are caught in such an anomalous disconnect with eternity. How can we cut them off, those little children we ourselves conceived and bore with such hope and love, waiting for the institution to get things sorted out?

The View from Grandfather’s Corner / Lloyd

This morning I discontinued and deleted two blogs that I began in mid-September to support Proposition 8: Family Man & Watch on Satan.

I do not enjoy criticizing or being in opposition. I prefer helping and encouraging. And so my blogging efforts with Judy on She Says, He Says will be more in keeping with “The View from Grandfather’s Corner.” Hopefully, I won’t be a  crotchety grandfather.  

Isn’t the Spirit of goodwill during the Christmas season grand?

Some interesting quotes / Judy

I have a friend whose brother-in-law is a dentist in the Central Valley and she says he is something like fifth on a list of businesses to boycott because he's a Mormon. Here are some things that have been written in newspapers lately that I thought were interesting:

“Amidst all this lawlessness, harassment, trampling of civil rights and now domestic terrorism, one thing stands out: the deafening silence of our elected officials,” said Frank Schubert, co-campaign manager for Proposition 8. “Not a single elected leader has spoken out against what is happening. Where is Governor Arnold Schwarzenenegger while churches are being attacked? And where is Senator Dianne Feinstein while people are losing their jobs and grandmothers are being bullied by an angry mob?” 

"'The falsehood of the tolerance doctrine has been shown to be a farce,' said Ron Prentice, chairman of the Yes on 8 campaign."

And the following are some comments from an article in a paper called The American Thinker titled, "It's Time to Speak Out Against the 'Mormom Boycott.'"(the article itself is also very good and lists about 20 specific incidents):

"Those who believe religious institutions should not have a voice in political questions have failed to learn or remember some of the most basic lessons of history: Where was it that the founders of this country first began to speak up against British oppression? Where did the anti slavery movement first begin? Where did the modern civil rights movement begin? In churches; dedicated places of worship where free thinking people of conscience learned about God's will for his children and embraced the brotherhood of man. When despot dictators (think Stalin, Hitler, etc) wanted to strike a blow to freedom how did they do it? By attacking religious congregations.  

 "The "witch hunt" we are now seeing directed at members of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of   Latter-Day Saints should remind all of us that the days of nazi intimidation are not far past. We should all (including supporters of gay marriage) be very afraid of the tactics being waged against free political expressions. The same weapons the liberal agenda are using could very easily be turned on them. That is not what this country has been about historically, and it is not what this country should be about in the future." 

My Personal Views on Homosexuality / Lloyd

WHEN I sat down to clarify my personal views on homosexuality for people who may read this blog, I discovered it was a far more complicated task than I had supposed. 

To preface these remarks let me say that Proposition 8 has been wrenching for me and my friends and colleagues who are gays and lesbians.The campaign has brought into the public arena private behaviors that I accepted because they were my friends. But now our relationships are at risk because they require a statement of solidarity with self destructive behaviors that I cannot support for society in general.

1. In my youth detailed talk about human intimacy was limited to heterosexual behaviors. During junior high school, if you wore green on Thursdays that meant you were queer and you got pantsed (beltless Levis pulled down around your knees), your books hit out of your hands and scattered all over, hit, or just called queer. My mother told me that queers were men who liked men, and that was the extent of it. For sure I avoided wearing green, but as I look back on the situation I can only imagine the terror felt by fellow students who may have had same-sex attractions or who demonstrated any degree of effeminate behavior and would have been bullied.  The subject didn’t resurface until college, when I read about a gay love affair in Another Country, a novel written by James Baldwin. That was the extent to what I knew about homosexuality.

2. In the early 70’s I worked as an addiction counselor at a New York City Methadone Maintenance Clinic and served gay men, lesbians, and transvestites. Some of my coworkers revealed they were actively in homosexual relationships. During the year and a half at the clinic my main concern was helping my gay clients stay alive or out of trouble with the law as they worked through one turbulent love affair after another. After 6 months the clinical supervisor said he was transferring additional gays to my caseload because I cared about them as people, whereas other staff members were less tolerant or refused altogether.

3. About this time at Church my Bishop assigned me to home teach a gay couple. He said that they were getting older and were at greater hazard for risky behaviors during their cruising. He said that my job was to keep them alive, that he would deal with the worthiness aspects of their Church membership. It was a match made in Heaven. We became good friends, and the helping went both ways. They really watched after our new little family. I wrecked their car coming from visiting Judy at the maternity ward, and they just shrugged it off with, “That’s what insurance is for.” They taught me a lot about being a friend.

4. I was the Plans, Ops, and Training Officer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC when the AIDS epidemic hit. I overheard two very senior Army officers say, “Now we’ll get the buggers out of the military once and for all—they’ll just all die of this homosexual epidemic.” I couldn’t believe anyone would feel that way, let alone say it out loud. Ironically, it was the nearby Armed Forces Institute of Pathology that confirmed the relationship between HIV, T-Cells and so many young gay men dying. This discovery would lead to medical research and treatment of AIDS.

5. My main contact with homosexuals has been as coworkers and clients in the helping professions. Oddly enough, it was a closeted gay man that hired me to work for the Boy Scouts of America as a District Executive. Within a month of my hire, he publicly announced his homosexuality and then sued the BSA when they put him on administrative leave with pay. They settled out of court.

6. The U.S. Supreme Court had just ruled that the BSA is a private organization and as such could set its own moral code, that forcing BSA to accept gays would violate its constitutional right to freedom of association. In reaction to that ruling three local organizations teamed up to “marginalize the Boy Scouts of America in our Society, beginning with the Central Coast of California:” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Organization of Women (NOW), and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). These organizations waged war against the Boy Scouts of America:

• a) they publicly denigrated Scouting in the media,
• b) lobbied to legally cut off all governmental recognition and contacts with Scouting, including state, county, city organizations and agencies, and local school systems, and
• 3) discouraged churches, fraternal and service organizations from sponsoring Scouting.

It was a bitter campaign full of ferocity and invective.

7. As a result of this vicious bullying by the bullied I tried to understand what was generating such negative energy against the Boy Scouts. So I renewed a more than 20-year-old acquaintance with A. Dean Byrd, currently president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), and also with Allen E. Bergin, who I first met when he taught at Columbia University Teachers College in New York City before he joined the faculty of Brigham Young University in 1972.

8. In reviewing the scientific literature that these professors provided or referenced, I began to appreciate the terrible, almost driven need for many members of the homosexual community to perceive that their sexual and relational behavior be considered totally normal and accepted. It is more than feeling safe from assault. I recall reading reports that indicated the incidence of suicide among gays and lesbians in European countries, where they enjoy general acceptance, was about as high as in the States. It may be that for many homosexuality is in itself unstable and unsafe and that no level of public acceptance will make it physically or emotionally more stable and safer.

IN SUMMARY, over my lifetime and even now I have enjoyed satisfying friendships and collegial relationships with men and women who have revealed to me that they are practicing homosexuals. I have mourned with them as they worked through terribly difficult relationships incident to their homosexuality. I have worked to help gay and lesbian clients be safe from their self-destructive behaviors. And I hope to continue these personal relationships and service. But this may be more and more challenging if our society continues on its current course to generally bully, politicize, officially normalize, and even promote, personal sexual and relational behaviors that can be so terribly self destructive and harmful to those involved in such relationships, especially for any dependent children.

The Criminally Insane Among Us / Lloyd

Last night I work in maximum security, forensic psychiatric hospital where I work, a patient said we either had to meet his demands right then or he would hurt himself, destroy property, or hurt someone else—including staff. His language was from the streets, pressured, and grating; and he had just finished loudly pummeling the metal water cooler.

Another patient complained because he didn’t get an increased level of hospital access privileges and demanded to know why. When reminded that he had recently inappropriately caressed one of the female staff, he yelled indignantly, “You’re taking her word over mine!”

Murder, assault, and forced sexual offenses are common convictions among the criminally insane, and I’m amazed at how well behaved they are until their demands are denied.

This is an entitled group and their tantrums mirror very young pre-socialized children and developmentally troubled older children.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, covers behaviors noted above among the criminally insane.

Now consider the behaviors of “Bash Back,” an extremist organization currently running free in the streets.

item one - bash back in lansing, michigan

“On Sunday, November 9, a band of about 30 gays stormed a church in Lansing, Michigan. Some were well dressed and were stationed inside Mount Hope Church; others were outside dressed in pink and black. The group of self-described homosexual anarchists, Bash Back!, claims the evangelical church is guilty of “transphobia and homophobia.”

“The protesters outside the church were beating on buckets, shouting “Jesus was a homo” on a megaphone and carrying an upside-down pink cross. Fire alarms went off inside the church, protesters stormed the pulpit and a huge rainbow-colored flag was unfurled with the inscription, “IT’S OKAY TO BE GAY! BASH BACK!” The church was vandalized, obscenities were shouted and worshippers were confronted. There were no arrests. “ (http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=30504)

item two - bash back in olympia, wash

"Bash Back! Olympia Trashes Mormon Church

"Last night, under the veil of fog, we visited the Church of Latter Day Saints. We left their locks glued with anarchist messages scrawled in spray paint over their boring veneer.

"We did this to show our solidarity with all who are resisting heterosexism everywhere, hopefully to spur them into action; and also because we are angry at the amount of money and propaganda that the Mormon church pumped into the homophobic Proposition 8 campaign. From their disgusting commercials to their despicable sermons to those gross lawn signs, we are sick of this parade of bigotry. The Church has to pay.

"We as anarchists are opposed to marriage but we see that this blatantly anti-gay act as a threat to all us gay, lesbian, transgendered and queer folk. The Proposition 8 campaign was used as a medium to instill homophobic fear into the population of California so as to squash queer culture, it is dangerous to let these actions go unchecked and not confronted.

"Liberating our sexual fantasies and desires is dangerous to this rigid system, because free people enjoying themselves in a plethora of ways sexually will eventually want to enjoy themselves in other areas of life too, capitalism doesn’t want sexually liberated people because they ask too many questions and may not show up to work on time (or at all).

"The Mormon Church (just like most churches) is a cesspool of filth. It is a breeding ground for oppression of all sorts and needs to be confronted, attacked, subverted and destroyed. The church reinforces sexism, transphobia, homophobia, racism, capitalism, and leaves its members emotionally wounded and unable to engage in critical thinking. The Mormon Church teaches us to hate our bodies, not to trust ourselves or our desires. This ends up deforming us as healthy sexual and communal beings. This is unacceptable.

"This is a few reasons why an affinity group of the Olympia, Washington Chapter of Bash Back! decided to attack their church with glue and paint. Let this be a warning to the Mormon church, dissolve completely or be destroyed. The choice is yours.. ~BASH BACK! OLYMPIA "http://bashbacknews.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/bash-back-olympia-trashes-mormon-church/ [link site no longer available]

comment  Had to wonder if “Bash Back” wasn't a terrorist group of street fighters not unlike “Occupy Wall Street” set up to create “news” and frighten & intimidate opposition. Let folks know just how bad things could get if they didn't get in line. A classic terrorist tactic that ideally takes off on its own, but is typically jump started with shadow organizers and outside financing. Would be interesting to learn more about the funding, organizers and instigators behind the masks.--5 May 2013] (emphasis added)

Mountain Meadows Massacre - A Cautionary Tale / Lloyd

Friday, 14 Nov 2008, email addressed to members of the church

“As all of you know, the protests from the “No on 8” side will continue this weekend.

“We are counseled not to hold counter-demonstrations. The other side will be looking for confrontations and if they get them, guess how the attending media will spin villains and victims?

“Please counsel our people to stay away from the demonstrations and let the police handle things. Especially encourage our most passionate supporters to stay at home. . .

“Keep things in perspective: We can paint over graffiti on our buildings and we can plant new flowers on our temple grounds, but it's more difficult to repair a reputation that has been tarnished because some member loses his temper.

Be patient and kind. Turn the other cheek. This too shall pass.”

contextual comments

1. The advice not only keeps supporters of Prop. 8 out of the camera lens attempting to add fuel to the frenzied fire, but also protects them from being caught up in the rage personally, which could get out of hand.

2. Mormons have faced this politically approved lawlessness many times in its history, especially in Missouri and Illinois. [See Missouri Governor Orders Mormons Expelled—or Exterminated and Wikipedia: Latter Day Saint martyrs. Added 5 May 2013.]

3. Since the demonstrating, vandalism, and terrorist threats began in the aftermath of Proposition 8 passing, not one politician has spoken out against it. On the contrary, in California politicians from the Governor down have been telling protesters to hang in there, that their cause is just, and that Proposition 8 will be overturned.

4. Mormons left the United States for Utah to escape State sanctioned rape, murder, and plunder. Earlier, the Prophet Joseph Smith personally petitioned United States president Martin Van Buren to intercede for his people. Van Buren replied: "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you. If I take up for you I shall lose the vote of Missouri." And just before fleeing the States, Mormon leaders wrote to every state of the Union asking for asylum. Their pleas were met with either refusals or silence.

5. Mormons endured many hardships getting to Utah, many died on the way and after arriving because of harsh conditions. But in 1857 a single event that was totally inconsistent with their theology and history, overshadowed their own just cause.

6. On September 11, 1857 local Mormon militia members in southern Utah, in the company of Paiute Indians, murdered 120 traveling emigrants, including women and older children, leaving only a few younger children to be farmed out among the Mormon settlers. This tragedy became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

7. I asked my Father about this tragedy when I first read about it in high school. His family was from Southern Utah—about an hour by automobile south of Mountain Meadows. He said that the emigrants came from Arkansas and may have participated in the earlier persecutions of Mormons. He said that people from this company expressed surprise at finding the Mormon settlement, that they thought killing off ole Joe Smith would have taken care of the Mormons once and for all, that they bragged about their own exploits in persecuting the Mormons, and that they threatened to come back and finish the job.

8. Now I don’t know what the folks from Arkansas may have said, and I don’t know how Dad learned this unless it was passed down through his family who settled in the region. But nothing said or done warranted a massacre. And in a recent study about the event, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, published by Oxford University Press, the authors ask, “How can basically good people commit such a terrible atrocity?”

9. I can tell you. They can let themselves be incited by Satan’s war cry, “Let’s you two go fight.” Any justification will do, but feelings of fear, hurt, and anger really prime the pump. And no one should figure he is completely immune to Satan’s promptings given the right conditions.

10. Currently, demonstrators in support of same-sex marriage are targeting those members of the religious community whom they blame for passing Proposition 8. And thus far that community is showing appropriate restraint. However, should Proposition 8 be overturned as politicians are promising, we may learn that many others voted to ban same-sex marriage out of hate for homosexuals, not with the objective of protecting traditional marriage. And these folks many not be so disciplined as the religious community in responding to terrorist attacks.

11. Regrettably, the political leadership in California has thus far pandered to lawlessness. Their behavior is more contemptible than that of President Martin Van Buren, who at least conceded that he was afraid to lose the vote of a loud and influential constituency by protecting life and property.

12. Whether Proposition 8 is overturned or not, the failure of politicians to uphold laws that were enacted through the established, Constitutional orderly and deliberative legislative and judicial processes have subordinated civil peace and safety to anarchy and terror. They may be jaded politicians seeking personal advantage or just cowardly. They have set the stage for a potentially more serious outbreak of violence in the future.

13. These politicians have become contributors to Satan’s agenda of civil conflict and disorder and will likely declare, "I had no idea things would get so out of hand." Such craven and criminal excuses have been repeated often and on a grand scale during my lifetime.

Something Positive / Judy

The following are some things that have been printed in the media lately. And while there are many more examples of negative, even scary things, it's encouraging that there at least a few thinking people out there.

1. From HumanEvents.com

The…response by gay-marriage advocates has been massive threats of retaliation against those participating in the political process, the LDS church in particular, as well as African-Americans, 70% of whom voted for Prop 8, according to exit polling.

Large, disruptive protests are being held at LDS places of worship in California and Utah. In the waning days of the campaign, gay-marriage advocates actually ran an outrageous hate-filled television ad “Home Invasion,” inciting religious hatred against the LDS church because its members donated to Prop 8.

These tactics however may backfire. Gay-marriage advocates are no longer looking like a movement devoted to love and tolerance. They are affirming the Yes on Prop 8 campaign's contention that religious liberty is on the line in the marriage debate. Gay-marriage advocates now appear to view anyone who thinks marriage means the union of one man and one woman is the equivalent of a racist, and can be treated as such.

Singling out minority religious communities because they exercised their basic civil rights to vote, organize and donate is a truly ugly new development..

2. Dennis Wyatt, managing editor of the Manteca Bulletin

Some of the tactics used against Proposition 8 supporters in California are objectionable:

People upset about others that voted in favor of Prop. 8 trying to put their standards on everyone else should look in the mirror -- they're trying to do the same thing. Equating a yes vote on Prop. 8 to being equivalent to hate is disingenuous at best and tells those you are trying to convince to change their views that if you disagree with them you'll get smeared.

Pursuing the principle of protecting the rights of minorities doesn't justify mob rule. There has yet to be one case of gangs of Mormons going out and defacing Gay & Lesbian Centers. Too bad the same can't be said about some who said they voted against Proposition 8 and have spray-painted meeting houses and stake centers.

Screaming in someone's face who thinks differently than you isn't an effective way to get them to change their position.

3. L.A. Times columnist Tim Rutten

When churches leap into the process as religious organizations, it raises hackles, and rightly so. It's a distasteful business, but so is singling out individual political donors for retribution and boycotts that deprive them of their living. A blacklist in the service of a good cause is still a blacklist."

4. Thomas Sowall in Mormon Times

Among the many new "rights" being conjured out of thin air, a new one seems to be a "right" to win.

Americans have long had the right to put their candidates and their ideas to a vote. Now there seems to be a sense that your rights have been trampled on if you don't win.

The worst of all the reactions from people who act as if they have a right to win have come from gay activists in the wake of voter rejection of so-called "gay marriage," which is to say, redefining what marriage has meant for centuries.

Blacks and Mormons have been the main targets of the gay activists' anger. Seventy percent of blacks voted against gay marriage in California, so racial epithets were hurled at blacks in Los Angeles— not in black neighborhoods, by the way.

Blacks who just happened to be driving through Westwood, near UCLA, were accosted in their cars and, in addition to being denounced, were warned, "You better watch your back."

Even blacks who were carrying signs in favor of gay marriage were denounced with racial epithets.

In Michigan, an evangelical church service was invaded and disrupted by gay activists, who also set off a fire alarm, because evangelicals had dared to exercise their right to express their opinions at the polls.

In Oakland, California, a mob gathered outside a Mormon temple in such numbers that officials shut down a nearby freeway exit for more than three hours.

In their midst was a San Francisco Supervisor who said "The Mormon church has had to rely on our tolerance in the past, to be able to express their beliefs." He added, "This is a huge mistake for them. It looks like they've forgotten some lessons."

Apparently Mormons don't have the same rights as other Americans, at least not if they don't vote the way gay activists want them to vote.

In the past, gay activists have disrupted Catholic services and their "gay pride" parades in San Francisco have crudely mocked nuns.

While demanding tolerance from others, gay activists apparently feel no need to show any themselves.

5. And finally, an email from Kristen that kind of puts it all into perspective

Last week a high counselor gave an interesting talk in our ward.  He had gone to the L.A. temple the day before, and he told some interesting things that he learned from the new temple president there.  The new temple president was just set apart on November 1st.  He said that his blessing to be set apart said that in the coming weeks the LA temple would stand as a beacon to the world more than it had ever been before.  The temple president said that since the election he has received letters from all over California and even the world thanking our church for standing up for marriage and family.  People feel this would not have passed if it had not been for the organized effort by our church.  Apparently he even pulled many letters out of his pocket to show a few.  He said that he had also received many phone calls and people asking him if he could take a credit card payment because people are so grateful that they wanted to make donations to "our organization."

It is nice to hear the other side of the story from the anger we always hear on the news.