This is a guest post by Nick Galieti. Nick Galieti is an experienced podcaster and was named the recipient of the 2015 John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award by FairMormon. Nick is the voice of Book of Mormon Central’s “KnoWhy” podcasts, and has directed and produced two documentaries on the life of Joseph Smith Jr., Picturing Joseph, and Murder of the Mormon Prophet.

An article was released by The Atlantic with the title, “Choosing Love or the Mormon Church.” The article addresses the issues of individuals who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and whom identify as gay, or experiencing same sex attraction. Aside from being somewhat divisive (something most article titles are supposed to do by design), the title makes as the assumption that the two, Love and the Mormon Church, are mutually exclusive. A good portion of the article makes a valiant attempt to humanize both the Church and those who identify with the LGBTQ community. I appreciate the effort that was put into the article and fear that my comments may be seen as an attack, which is not my intent. At the same time, the article makes some inaccurate assumptions that would be natural for one coming from the perspective of one on the outside looking in on the Mormon Community.

I won’t spend a great deal of time attempting to redefine how people identify themselves as being gay vs. not acting on same sex impulses. Although the world at large doesn’t see much of a difference between our impulses, or attractions, as being “who we are”, I see my effort to try and change that understanding to be a losing effort. However, I hope that those reading are able to understand that at least within a majority of the LDS or Mormon community, we seek to not define people by their sins, or by their impulses, but by their acts and in the intents of their hearts, if we “define” them at all. So if a person feels attraction to a person of their same sex, or if they feel attracted to someone of a different sex, it is the same so long as they don’t act in contrary to the Church’s Law of Chastity that states that there should be no sexual relations, except between husband and wife who are legally and lawfully married.
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Elder Bednar says in this video: “There are no homosexual members of the Church. We are not defined by sexual attraction. We are not defined by sexual behavior. We are sons and daughters of God, and all of us have different challenges in the flesh.”

Reminder: this is a blog that supports the Church and the Brethren and Elder Bednar. If you want to criticize an apostle of the Lord please take it to another blog. Thank you.

This is a guest post by Stephen Measure, who is a Mormon indie author. Most of his writing so far could be considered a defense of the moral positions of the LDS church on the controversial topics of our day. He’d like to write about something else yet continues to find there is more he needs to say.

This post was cross-posted at Stephen Measure’s personal site:

http://www.stephenmeasure.com/essays/2015/11/23/the-war-between-identity-and-behavior/

There is a war being waged within our culture today, two opposing worldviews about sexuality, both of which offer different visions of right and wrong. One of these worldviews is compatible with the moral beliefs of my religion, the LDS Church, and other religions that share those moral beliefs. The other worldview fights against us.

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This is a guest post by Huston.

It’s tough out there for a progressive Mormon these days. Reacting with horrified indignation on the Internet to current events has nearly become a full-time job! It’s almost enough to make one re-examine one’s passionately believed liberal assumptions. Almost.

But before you do something drastic like that, here’s how to deal with the exhaustion of always needing to rant online. After all, there are only so many synonyms for “sad” that you can dredge up in the service of your public moral vanity.

Just use this easy, user-friendly template for your next angry tirade against the LDS Church. It’ll even work for those trendy new rants that poorly veil their murmuring under the guise of being diplomatically disappointed.

Here it is:

I am (outraged / shocked / depressed) by the recent event in the LDS Church that everyone’s talking about. It (sickens / offends / discourages) my sensitive and compassionate conscience. Once again our leaders have shown themselves to be (out of touch / tone deaf / afraid of change / consistently faithful to their calling).
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