Saturday, July 19, 2014

Misguided Compassion vs. The Word of God

"We can't hope to win our child back unless we include him," say desperate LDS families with unrepentant gay family members. "Compassion is the thing."

Our  hearts go out to such families. But is this really the way to win loved ones back? First of all, let's define include. Some think including means treating gay family members the same as they always have, pretending like nothing's wrong, welcoming current same-sex sexual partners into their homes and families. But including a person in your life can also mean spending time with them individually, keeping in touch, setting rules for family gatherings that do not promote homosexualism, and holding your ground. Both are inclusive of the person, but the first implicitly shows an acceptance of the bad ideas and behaviors as well.

Next let's define compassion. This word has been hijacked. Real compassion includes caring about a person's long-term well-being. Compassion is not about tolerating sin to keep up appearances. That would be the opposite of compassion, a sort of condemning the person to hell, really. These people are not the total victims they purport to be. Don't be deceived. However much you love and admire them, however wonderful and talented they are, whatever else good they may be doing, they are also deeply involved in risky pleasure-seeking sin, a very old and despicable vice.

About winning the family member back --- to the church, to the way they were taught, to righteousness. We have never seen this happen using the above tactic. It's Burke's famous quote brought home: "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." When Ammon went to preach to the wickedest of Lamanites (wild, ferocious, hardened, murderers, robbers, hearts set on riches) and had much success, it wasn't because he pretended nothing was wrong. It was because he preached sin and repentance and Christ (Alma 17-20). Those whose hearts were changed became a righteous people.

Families who treat this problem by shrugging their shoulders, turning a blind eye, and merely putting up with it may end up being won over themselves, brought along to homosexualism bit by bit. No one is immune. This is obviously what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. The vice spread and people just got used to it. Getting everyone used to homosexuality, even to recruit youth, family supporters, and activists, are stated goals of the gay agenda. Proud out gays have no doubt been trained on how to bring their families along, to flatter, to be very cunning and patient, and to see every inch as a gain. Let's not forget the scriptural warning against complacency, against the all-is-well-in-Zion philosophy (2 Nephi 28:21). Such prideful apathy brings with it slow and steady degradation.

Again, this doesn't have to mean we reject our wayward loved ones. Not at all. Setting boundaries is not the same as cutting a person out of your life, no matter what they say or how they react. There are many ways to show love and concern without allowing proud homosexualism, or any other shameless sinfulness, into our midst. Meet with them one-on-one. Express sincere love and concern often. Write. Call. Educate yourself. Offer facts and help in overcoming homosexuality. Support anything wholesome they are involved in. If the gay family member says they feel rejected in spite of continuing efforts of this kind on the family's part, the problem lies with them. You can't force people to be humble, to confess sin, to repent, to change. In this case, theirs are the hearts that must be softened, not yours. 

Most importantly, live your religion from the inside out. The misguided and perhaps self-serving compassion practiced by inclusive families being overrun by homosexualism is not the word of God. It's not only the path of least resistance, it's the devil's way. The word of God is the iron rod in Lehi's dream, more powerful than anything else (Alma 31:5). Preach it. Apply it. Love it. Have faith in it. Be patient. Be humble. Be confident in the Lord. Make Christ the Redeemer your center --- not family, not temples, not missions, not callings, not accomplishments, not service. Love God before all else. Be a living example of applying basic gospel principles such as faith and repentance in every facet of your own life. Seek the Spirit to know when and how to share your beliefs. Love all your family members enough to give them your conviction of the value of morality, health, and truth. Even as you find ways to truly love and safely interact with your wayward loved one, never get used to the sinful vice of homosexuality. Never give it respect. Never get comfortable with it.

This will be difficult. This will be uncomfortable. This is be a rocky road. But as for you and your house, you will be serving the Lord. 


Monday, July 7, 2014

Gay Training

Mark Twain said, "Training is everything. There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach or below it. It can turn bad morals to good, good morals to bad; it can destroy principles, it can recreate them . . . "

We at SoL have repeatedly asserted that no one is born gay; it is an acquired taste. Gays are trained into gayness. People turn gay. Activists have done a great job of convincing most everybody that this is not true. But it is, and some have even admitted it. Still, the public sentiment has been won over, and hardly anyone cares or dares to look behind the curtain, even when the health and safety and sanity of their loved ones are at stake.

Again, no one is born gay. Proper healthy sexuality is gradually learned and developed, beginning innocently in adolescence and on into marriage, that is, unless something has interfered with the proper development. This is because sexual feelings are just sexual feelings--everybody has them--and they can get stimulated by anything, or even nothing. They can take a variety of wrong directions or focus on a variety of  unnatural, extreme or inappropriate subjects. Unfortunately, in recent years, the correct model for human sexuality has been degraded, muddied up, even replaced. We now have many other models,destructive and dangerous dead ends, that young people can choose from. Immature, foolish, hormonal, narcissistic, sex-addicted, and carefully trained by our permissive, gay-affirming culture, many are making the mistake of crediting the sexual feelings they experience when surrounding themselves with same-sex sexuality with a gay "identity."

For the purposes of this blog post, we've listed some of the highly effective steps we've seen young males take who have been through this process and now proudly declare themselves as gay, that is, following the gay model rather than the correct model. The following list is certainly not comprehensive, nor must the steps listed be followed in any particular order or in total.

Steps in gay training:
Think a lot about sex and the sexual feelings. Allow your emotions to follow those thoughts. Become obsessed with sex. Question your masculinity. Obsess over other males. Envy them. Seek out same-sex porn, gay internet chat rooms, etc. Think of your body as primarily a romantic/sexual object. Masturbate. Decide that since you weren't attracted to this or that girl, you must be gay. Decide that since same-sex sexual material, which is what you are looking at, turns you on, you are gay. Seek out gay affirming materials and groups. Trust that these new people in your life who share your obsession with sex and sexuality care about you as a person. Meet, make friends with, and hang out mostly with openly gay or gay-affirming people. Confide only  in those who encourage gayness. Talk about the gay culture and sex a lot. Make and enjoy lewd gay sexual innuendos, jokes, and stories. Go to where gays hang out. Go to gay pride events and parades. Let your thoughts ultimately dwell on sex, gay sex. Make lust a regular mental activity.  Leave your church or try to change it. Decide there is no sin in what you are thinking, feeling, and doing. Break covenants you have made with God. Go back on things you have promised or testified to others. Begin smoking and using alcohol/drugs. Lose weight. Become obsessed with your body, physical appearance, clothes, exercise, food, entertainment. Seek constant stimulation, sexual and otherwise. Buy into all the current stereotypes for homosexuality. If you fit any of the gay stereotypes, use them to validate your choices. Construct, nurture, exaggerate, and adopt gay stereotypes for yourself. Adjust your personality, your interests, and the way you spend your time to fit those stereotypes. Listen to and internalize what your liberal college professors tell you about sex and sexuality. Listen to and internalize what uninformed people you met recently say about your being gay. Recharacterize your past to fit the exciting feelings you find pleasure in now. Repeatedly play pornographic thoughts and images through your mind. Reject what your parents modeled and taught you. Change or abandon your former life goals. Become emboldened enough to flaunt your radical choices and phony new personality in front of people who have known you all your life. Use affectations, clothes and accessories, and language to present yourself  to others as gay. Fantasize. Pretend. Playact. Be quick to accuse those who know you best of hating and rejecting you as a person and kicking you out if they question your decisions, the radical changes in your beliefs and personality, and your bizarre and risky ideas, behaviors, and activities. Choose your exciting new friends over those who have raised and cared for you all your life. Allow older gays to initiate you in increasingly perverse, unnatural, and dangerous sexual behaviors. Have no qualms about changing or adding same-sex sex partners. Be shallow. Don't think things through. Use sex like a drug. Use drugs with sex. Blame others for the harm you are doing to yourself. Keep up with the gay affectations, stereotypes, and behaviors in order to convince yourself and others that you really are gay. Decide you are smarter and cleverer than those who have gone before and the older, more experienced people around you. Believe you are invincible. Delude yourself that you will always be young and attractive. Get a thrill out of endangering your health. Join gay-affirming groups. Brag about admiring, or being hit on by, other males. Buy all the lies excusing and promoting homosexuality. Become an activist for all things gay.  Cruise the gay hotspots. Try anything that might be exciting, rebellious, edgy, escapist. Take no thought for your future, here and hereafter. Care more about your self-absorbed current pleasures than your future posterity, in other words, despise posterity itself. Quit college. Settle for a teenager job or two when you are in your twenties and thirties. Mooch off your parents. Pick a new career that will enable you to promote homosexuality while making a lot of money. Spread homosexualism any way you can. Pretend your parents and other concerned family members are hating and hurting you when you know you are doing the hating and hurting. Decide your pleasures are more important than the harm you are causing to yourself and others.  

We have seen that a careful and concentrated adherence to even a few of these steps could turn anybody gay sooner or later. Guaranteed.

The good news? Just as there is a way in, there is a way out. See standardofliberty.org. 

Thursday, July 3, 2014

A Sharp Distinction

Comment and question about post, "Exempt:"

Reader comment: People who experience SSA are subject to the same law of chastity as those who experience opposite sex attraction. Conscious sexual fantasy, looking at pornography, engaging in pre-marital relations, or adultery are in violation of the law of chastity regardless of the gender of the subject of those sins. I'm not clear how you feel this applies differently to people with SSA. What is the distinction you are trying to make? 


SoL: First, are you saying SSA is a gender, like male and female? We hope not. There are only two sexes or genders, made immediately obvious by genitalia and DNA.

Yes, we agree that the law of chastity applies to all, but there is a movement to excuse same-sex sexual lust for the same-sex attracted. Activists have done a great job of convincing everyone that this is their "identity," the way God made them, that it's wholesome and nonsexual (seriously?), and anyway they can't help indulging in these thoughts and feelings, that is, temptations. They have adopted as their mantra: the temptations  are not sinful, but they do not define temptations or indulging in those temptations, as in fantasizing, lusting, pornography. Yes, some of today's leaders have said same-sex sexual temptations are not sinful, but others have even more strongly said they most certainly are, including what is recorded in the scriptures. To say this ancient destructive vice is not a sin in both thought and deed and does not need repenting of is actually anti-Christ. Certainly it is not okay to have a dirty mind. Certainly a dirty mind fits us for hell. Sad to say, we notice that this softening toward homosexual lust is rapidly extending to all forms of sin. "Those who surrender on one issue tend to surrender on others as well" (D. French, Imprimis).

 Again, we agree that in the sense that sexual sins of any kind are wrong and can be forsaken and repented of through Christ, there is no distinction between hetero and homo sin. The distinction that is being passed over and that must be made is that homosexuality and heterosexuality are not equal: not equally important, not equally healthy, not equally productive. By not making this distinction, the door opens wide to same-sex "marriage." But gay marriage is just another name for the sin of homosexuality. Law or no law, monogamous or not, gay marriage can never be healthy or normal or productive or right.

Same-sex sexual attraction is always wrong. It is always selfish lust because it has no other purpose than sex. Same-sex people who are fond of each other and great friends need not sexualize that relationship; that makes it lust. Of course lust is when you experience explicit sexual thoughts and feelings for someone you have no business having explicit sexual thoughts and feelings about. This is a sin. It is always a sin for the same-sex sexually attracted, whether the law allows it, or the law says they are married, or public sentiment says it's fine. Heterosexuals can also be guilty of lust, that is having romantic/sexually explicit thoughts and feelings about someone they have no business having these types of thoughts and feelings about. But opposite-sex sexual attraction can also be properly developed in order for mating, is necessary for reproduction, and is right and good in preparation for and during marriage and family responsibilities. For opposite-sex attracted people it is merely a question of timing, appropriateness, and unselfishness. Sexual thoughts and feelings between a man and woman who intend to marry or are married, who are channeling their sexual feelings unselfishly, properly, and responsibly, are not guilty of lust, whereas the homosexual is always guilty of  lust. The scriptures call homosexuality men burning in their lusts toward one another, and even women doing that which is unseemly. It's never right, whereas proper heterosexuality in marriage is pure and right, and necessary to the human race.

Do you not know that LDS gay activism has exempted homosexual lust from the requirements of chastity? See In Quiet Desperation published by Deseret Book, "It Gets Better at BYU,"  mormonsandgays.org. and Northstar, to name just a few. Nowhere in these materials is purity of heart, mental chastity, or repentance addressed, nor are sex and porn addictions, professional counseling, health risks, personal responsibility, or change of heart mentioned in any applicable way (except to dismiss them). Nowhere do these materials acknowledge that proud coming out is a form of acting out, which it is. Indeed, nowhere is acting out defined. Nowhere is the warning that emotions follow thoughts, and actions follow emotions. Nowhere is there any real concern for the spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical health of the afflicted/deceived sinner or the future of his immortal soul.

For several years now there have been contradictory views and an absence of correction and help being offered for those with SSA or same-sex sexual attraction. Indeed, contrary to scripture, homosexualism has been both watered down and puffed up to sound nonsexual, innocuous, innocent, wholesome, even brave and to be respected. And this is the sin the Lord incinerated two cities for! So far it does not appear that heterosexual porn addiction or heterosexual lust are being treated in quite this way, although we seem to hear less and less about sin, sexual purity, or morality generally. Indeed, people are going soft on all these issues, but in the mainstream homosexuality is a done deal. No criticism allowed. No questions asked. No help needed. And certainly no repentance. We're supposed to believe little kids who say they are gay. We're even supposed to respect the view that sodomy is normal, natural, and fine. There may be some excommunications, but these same people are invited to speak at the BYU counseling center to teach students to accept their homosexuality! 

Yes, there's a great difference. Even though sexual sins run the gamut, heterosexuality is good, even necessary, in the one proper circumstance described in italics above whereas homosexuality is always wrong---in thoughts, feelings, and acts. And people publicly identifying themselves as gay or SSA and demanding that homosex be treated equally to heterosex or that homosexuality is good in any way are deep into sin. Heterosexuality, an attraction toward the opposite sex, can be properly and productively channeled; indeed, it's necessary to the human race. Homosexuality, an attraction toward one's same sex, cannot be properly and productively channeled and is a despising of posterity. The former can be sinful but isn't always. The latter is always a sin, a perversion, a maladaptation. We call that a sharp distinction that must be made. Otherwise, hetero and homo are indeed being treated as equal (as the activists want, and all doors become open to gay marriage, which is the legitimization and celebration of sodomy (and the like) by another name.

-Thanks and God bless

revised 9/15

Big We Care

Heard yet another host on a supposedly conservative radio show just now insisting that he doesn't care what people do with their lives, what they do in their bedrooms, if two men or two women want to get married, or whatever. Go ahead! Go for it! Enjoy! All he was asking is that others who disagree are allowed to live out their deeply-held religious convictions and freedoms at the same time, without being harassed or punished or forced to approve or support those actions. 

Hello. There are several things wrong with this thinking.

For one, no man is an island. What people do both in private and in public has a ripple effect on everyone. Aren't our taxes funding the killing of  innocent unborn babies because people privately participated in the reproductive act and don't want the consequences? Isn't a huge amount of our money and effort going toward research and medicine for people who engage in risky homosexual sex? Aren't sexual revolutionaries teaching unlimited sex and sexuality in our education system today to innocent children and the children spreading and experimenting with these ideas among themselves? Don't activist gays publicly push their beliefs and behaviors on the rest of us by every means possible through journalism, entertainment, and government? Isn't the proliferation of pornography/sex addiction a huge, destructive societal problem?  Yes, yes, yes, tons of yeses.

For two, we're talking about two diametrically opposed worldviews. As Robert Bork said, the two cannot peacefully co-exist. In every aspect of society, one will end up being preferred and the other harmed.Whereas in the past, the view of allowing unlimited sex and sexuality was frowned upon, even punished, now the view of traditional, Biblical morality is the one being frowned upon, even punished. We've experienced a complete turn-around, which is nothing new in the history of the world. In The Book of Mormon, peoples repeatedly turned from righteousness like a dog from his vomit, choosing full-on wickedness instead in less than a decade which ultimately led to their destruction. So, yes, we ought to care which worldview is being preferred and which is being harmed. This determines the mind and heart and destiny of the rising generation. 

For three, the above view of the radio host is immoral. Not care about what other people do? If they are hurting themselves? If they are hurting others? If they are hurting everyone?  What? Of course we care. BIG we care. That phrase is actually from my husband's careless, carefree youth. He and his friends would sarcastically wiggle their thumbs in circles and remark, "Big we care," when they actually couldn't care less about something. Sounds like the radio guy, who in so many words wiggled his thumbs and said, "Who cares." How clueless can you get? When it comes to the health and well-being and progress and happiness of our fellow man, we should all care in a very big way. C. S. Lewis said that concern for the continuance, health, and well-being of one's posterity is a quintessential moral value. What kind of people don't care about their children, their posterity, the future of their civilization? Only a very base, selfish, and barbaric kind.

Time was when all such wicked shenanigans were run out of town. Not anymore. Oh no. Just about everybody's allowed to do just about everything. Some say we're more tolerant, more accepting, more diverse, more enlightened, more civilized nowadays. But are we? What is the definition of civilized anyway? Does it mean we all just do what we want and turn the other way if people are harming themselves and others? I think not. It means we have ideals and laws for the safety, security, and responsible freedoms of all, ideals and laws that we adhere to, respect, and enforce. It means the public sentiment embraces certain standards we all agree on that keep us civil as a people. So, now that we have tossed out several of these time-tested sorts of standards, are we more, or less, civilized? Obviously less when you look at the big picture. Problems only exponentially proliferate in such a permissive, chaotic, harmful environment.

Not that we can or should force our own beliefs on anybody. No. And we can't force people to behave. We all make mistakes, make bad choices, get off on the wrong track sometimes. That's how we learn. But we ought to have standards, rules, laws and consequences.  We can and should support and share the wisdom of the ages, our own experience, principles of health, goodness, sanity, and common sense with each other. This is a moral obligation we have as members of the human race, especially if we claim to be followers of Christ. Are we not our brother's keeper?

For four, this radio man has to a degree given in to fear, intimidation, and misinformation. As a result he has made great concessions. He has given away a large portion of his safety and freedom. He has given an inch to those who won't stop at a mile. Is this naivete, ignorance, complacency, hubris? Does he think the legal and societal embrace of gay marriage will stop this movement? Most gays aren't even the slightest bit interested in any sort of marriage. A family lifestyle is not compatible with theirs. They are just being exploited. Same-sex "marriage" is just a ruse, a means to an end. When gay marriage is in the bag activists will want more, things decent people haven't even imagined. As we've said before, it's not about wanting marriage. It's about wanting wickedness. It's about thumbing one's nose at God and His goodness. And that's what causes the fall of all great civilizations.

Mr. Radio, you are wrong not to care, wrong on all fronts. Here at SoL we care big.