To Sorry Gary,

You are going directly contrary to doctrine and scripture, and you have no official support for doing so.

The principle of common consent is the foundation of the sustaining process in the Church. If not for that principle, there would be no need for offering the names of the Church leaders to the Church body and having them raise their hands to sustain them. None.

Therefore, no Church leader can possibly have a stewardship over anyone who is not a member of the body of the Church that sustains him. None. You can argue all you want, but it won't change the fact that non-Members (and there are a few more of them than there are members) do not recognize LDS leaders as having ANY authority over them, and the doctrines of the Church concur.

Sorry, buddy.

"The procedure of sustaining is much more than a ritualistic raising of the hand. It is a commitment to uphold, to support, to assist those who have been selected." - President Hinckley, 1995 April General Conference

"When we sustain the President of the Church by our uplifted hand, it not only signifies that we acknowledge before God that he is the rightful possessor of all the priesthood keys; it means that we covenant with God that we will abide by the direction and the counsel that comes through His prophet. It is a solemn covenant." - David B. Haight, November 1994 Ensign.

"We not only raise our hands in saying we sustain but that we follow his direction, that we listen, that we counsel, that we pray about it, that we're mindful of what comes from the lips of the prophet." - David B. Haight, November 1998 Ensign

"Whosoever receiveth my word receiveth me, and whosoever receiveth me, receiveth those, the First Presidency, whom I have sent." - D&C 112:20

"Blessed are ye if ye shall give heed unto the words of these twelve whom I have chosen from among you to minister unto you." - 3 Ne. 12:1

To put limits on what messages the prophet can deliver for the Lord seems absurd.
Had Noah ever sustained Abinadi as a prophet, yet Abinadi still delivered the Lord's message to Noah.
Had the people of Jerusalem ever sustained either Lehi or Jeremiah? Yet the Lord still gave his message to these men to deliver to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
The prophet can deliver the Lord's message to anyone in the whole earth. To put limits on who the Lord can direct the prophet to speak to is absurd.

I am not limiting anything. I am merely pointing out that the Church leaders are CHURCH leaders, and have no authority beyond the membership of the Church and beyond ecclesiastical matters. That is codified in the legal documents (Articles of Incorporation etc.) that the Church has had to file in order to be a Church at all, and it is also proven in the teachings of most of the Church leaders themselves, based on the principle of common consent.

The LEGAL debate over same-sex marriage is neither an ecclesiastical issue nor an LDS Church issue. Therefore, I have no problem being a temple-worthy Latter-day Saint and supporting same-sex marriage. If you have a problem with that, tough. You can do nothing about it. I am "sustaining" my leaders in the way God has revealed to me I should, and I am carrying out my civic responsibilities in the way God has revealed to me I should. Just because I don't conform to your MormoNazi brand of Phariseeical nonsense does not make me unworthy or apostate. Deal with it.

The Title of this opinion is "Homosexual Acts are Sinful."

This is obviously ONE perspective on homosexual acts, but not the ONLY ONE.

But even among those who agree that homosexual acts are sinful, that does not mean we should create a law or an amendment to make sinful acts illegal!

If we are obligated by God (OUR God) to make all sinful acts illegal, then we would be living in a dictatorship worse than any seen in human history!

Here are just a few of the sins (from a Judeo-Christian perspective) we would have to OUTLAW:

Not keeping the Sabbath Day holy
Being ANGRY with your brother
Using the Lord's name in vain
Coveting your neighbor's things
Lusting after a woman in your heart
Getting divorced
Eating shrimp

Now suppose the followers of Allah insisted that the sins defined by THEIR God should be illegal:

Disbelieving the Prophet Mohammet
Failing to carry out suicide bombings ordered by your Cleric...

Need I go on?

You who oppose same-sex marriage claim to be concerned for society. But what is more damaging to societies than allowing religious bigotry to take over civil law -- you know, the way it is in Iraq.

To Civil Society,
Is the war in Iraq an ethnic or a religious war. Since the Shi'ah Arabs and the Sunni Kurds are allied against the Sunni Arabs I anyone who studies the situation will admit that it is an ethnic war.
What religious principal divides the Shi'ah and Sunni that causes them to fight. There is none, they fight because both groups feel they should recieve the benefits from the government. This is not a religious conflcit.
What other religious conflicts might you bring up? Northern Ireland, where many of the "Catholics" are non-believers and where the Protestants are really Scotsmen who settled in Northern Ireland about four centuries ago. It is ethnic confliect.
Maybe you will bring up the Nazis. However they did not define Jews based on religion but based on race.
Did you even read the initial letter? It is an explanation of why a believing Latter-day Saint should see same-gender marriage as a bad thing. People have a right to come up with arguments against us, but to twist Latter-day Saint teachings to oppose us when we have the direct pronouncements of the First Presidency on our side is disingenous.

John,

How simple-minded of you to categorize all those conflicts as "ethnic" and therefore try to claim that they do not involve religion and religious bigotry is not the issue.

Do you even know what is meant by the word "ethnic"? Clearly not. The core of ethnicity is RELIGION (speaking in Western analytical terms that do not always do justice to Eastern and Middle-Eastern concepts). Talk about distorting and twisting!

More importantly, your argument does nothing to show that we SHOULD be making sinful acts ILLEGAL! That is exactly what you are trying to do with this amendment! It is immoral and unethical to usurp the civil law to force your religious beliefs onto those who do not share them! Why are you so muddled in your superstitious zeal that you cannot see that?!

Are homosexual acts sinful?

As has been pointed out countless times, homosexuality may not be under the control of conscious choice anymore than heterosexual behavior is.

Religious heterosexual people are fond of asserting that they control their sexual impulses all the time, so homosexuals should control their sexual impulses and the failure to do so is SIN.

There are a few facts that must be considered.

First, calling them "impulses" admits a certain level of biological automaticity and lack of conscious control over them (do you "choose" to get an erection?). Even heterosexuals must admit that they have an innate sexual drive that seems external to and beyond conscious choice.

Second, not all heterosexuals are stimulated by the same things. There are individual differences in how and what creates sexual excitement in different heterosexuals.

Third, FAR MORE heterosexual people FAIL to control their sexual impulses than those who succeed!

Therefore, we ought to be wise about sexuality and admit that homosexuality may be an individual difference in a biological process over which people have little conscious control. The moral implications should be obvious. We must be very hesitant to condemn people for non-conscious acts, and we certainly shouldn't outlaw it!

I think before any more heterosexual people should be allowed to share another opinion about this issue, they should have to walk in the shoes of a homosexual person for at least 6 months so they can get a taste of what it is like.

You really cannot understand what it is like to be somebody else unless you walk in their shoes and experience what they experience. I think you all would find it very enlightening and disturbing.

Patriot,
I think your process of understanding ethnicity in the Middle-East and Eastern Europe is reversed. I think you would gain a better view of the issue if you studied the Law of Return in Israel, which will let any Jew no matter how secular or athiest return as a citizen, as long as they have not converted to Christianity.
Beyond this you miscontrue the argument. We are not trying to make anything illegal. We are debating whether a practice should recieve proactive government support. No one will go to jail if the admendment passes in California.

To to All,
Peoples decisions to have sex with people of their own or other genders is a conscious choice.
Beyond this I have no identity with the rapist who forces his sexual will on other people. I make no apology for the adulterer, but support the church in excommunicating such when they do.
The law of chastity bans all sexual relations except for those that are approved of the Lord. Only sex between a husband and wife who are legally and lawfully wedded is approved of the Lord.
I might debate some of your other points, but any attempt to discuss the societal implications of homosexuality causes one to be called a "bigot". So I will just reiterate that it is a sin.

I will just reiterate that when I refered to "homosexuality" in the last post I meant "homosexual acts".
Although I have done my pest to make it clear that in my view homosexuality refers to homosexual actions, while same gender attraction is used to refer to the feelings people have that may or may not lead to such acts, I do feel a need to reiterate this again.
Creating same gender marriage is bad public policy. I would urge anyone who is unsure of this issue to investigate under marriage and public policy to gain a better understanding of the relationship between these two items.

John Lambert,

If we took a vote right now, an overwhelming majority of readers would vote that you be removed from the comments and restricted from posting because your irrelevant, bigoted droning on and on is beyond annoying.

Go get a life and let people with a clue have a meaningful discussion.

thanks.

"If we took a vote right now, an overwhelming majority of readers would vote that you be removed from the comments and restricted from posting because your irrelevant, bigoted droning on and on is beyond annoying."

No, I vote to sustain John Lambert to stay and make his comments, because we are not like him, where we oust people who we don't agree with.

We are not threatened by people who have different beliefs. We are not the Mormons, and therefore, do not act and do as the Mormons.

We don't hate the way Mormons do, which is to love their neighbor with their mouths, by not by their hearts.

We don't fear discussing those who have opposite views, and do not remove them from being a part of our society just because their beliefs are so wrong and so un-Christ like.

We accept them for who they are, and we want to love them as Christ has taught, which to love our enemies as thy self.

So, lets not vote to oust him. Otherwise, we just become the very people they have become, and our hearts become as evil as their hearts.