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Monday, December 21, 2015

My 22 Point Opinion About Temple Sealings for Gay Couples



by Shawn Tucker:


A friend recently asked my opinion about temple sealings for gay couples. I don’t know why anyone cares about my opinion. I’m not proselyting my view; I’m merely stating my opinion in 22 bullet points.

1. People don't choose to be gay, to be only sexually attracted to people of their same sex.
2. No one, I believe, would make that choice, since it is so socially frowned upon and since it does not lend itself to the advantages (of which there are many!) of heterosexual marriage.
3. Since they don't choose it, and since it is really born in them, I believe the gay people I know when they say that they do not feel that their attraction is wrong or a sin.
4. Mormons typically think that such attraction is inherently wrong and against God's plan, while gay people, especially gay Mormons, do not believe that their attraction is wrong or sinful.
5. Mormons see heterosexual attraction as normal, natural, and even God-given.
6. I believe gay Mormons when they say that they believe that their homosexual attraction is normal, natural, and God-given for them.
7. Homosexual marriage seems to interrupt God's plan, since such couples cannot have children in the traditional manner.
8. That is the common argument against gay marriage.
9. This, I believe, is partly why the church is placing so much emphasis on the family—to put up the traditional, heterosexual couple as the norm and their families as the only way to fulfill God's work and plan.
10. But I think that this emphasis has some bad consequences.
11. This emphasis tells single people that they are not actually fulfilling God's plan.
12. It tells couples that cannot have kids that they are not fulfilling God's plan.
13 It tells couples that feel like they should not have kids that they are not fulfilling God's plan.
14. I believe that God can have a plan for His children that does not include having children—this happens for singles, for the infertile, for those who believe they should not have children.
15. This can happen for gay couples.
16. People who do not have children can be of great, great benefit to their ward, stake, church, and world.
17. Their work can be just as important as having children. (This is a very important point—you might want to repeat it in your mind.)
18. I can imagine God being happy with that work, in fact just as happy with that work as any other. 19. I can imagine God very happy with same-sex attracted people finding each other, loving each other, fully committing themselves to each, and expressing that love and commitment physically.
20. I can imagine God fully sanctioning gay marriage as right for that couple.
21. I believe that the love that they share and develop here in mortality will accompany them in the next life, and that the “same sociality which exists among [them] here will exist among [them] there.” (D&C 130:2).
22. I can imagine God sanctioning temple sealings of gay couples.

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Shawn Tucker grew up with amazing parents and five younger, wonderful siblings. He served as a missionary in Chile during the Plebiscite and the first post-dictatorship election. After his mission, he attended BYU, where he married ... you guessed it ... his wife. They both graduated, with Shawn earning a BA in Humanities. Fearing that his BA in Humanities, which is essentially a degree in Jeopardy, would not be sufficient, Shawn completed graduate work in the same ... stuff ... at Florida State University. He currently teaches at Elon University in North Carolina. He and ... you guessed it ... his wife have four great children. Twitter: @MoTabEnquirer. Website: motabenquirer.blogspot.com.

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