Ultimately, the wisest course for anybody who's afflicted with same-gender attraction is to strive to extend one's horizon beyond just one's sexual orientation, one's gender orientation, and to try to see the whole person.
I certainly discourage people getting involved with any group or organization that foster living a homosexual lifestyle.
This notion that 'what happens in your house doesn't affect what happens in my house' on the subject of the institution of marriage may be the ultimate sophistry of those advocating same-gender marriage.
Marriage of a man and a woman is clear in Biblical teaching in the Old Testament as well as in the New [Testament] teaching. Anyone who seeks to put that notion asunder is likewise running counter to what Jesus Himself said.
There's no denial that one's gender orientation is certainly a core characteristic of any person, but it's not the only one.
Merely having inclinations does not disqualify one for any aspect of Church participation or membership, except possibly marriage. But even that, in the fullness of life as we understand it through the doctrines of the restored gospel, eventually can become possible.
In this life, such things as service in the Church, including missionary service, all of this is available to anyone who is true to covenants and commandments.
Why somebody has a same-gender attraction... who can say? But what matters is the fact that we know we can control how we behave, and it is behavior which is important.
Isn't it really the significance of the Atonement in a person's life? Doesn't the Atonement really begin to mean something to a person when he or she is trying to face down the challenges of living, whether they be temptations or limitations?
Any opportunity to serve in the Church is a blessing.
One way to read the Book of Mormon is as a book of encounters between fathers and sons. Some of those encounters were very positive and reinforcing on the part of the father of a son. Some were occasions where a father had to tell his son or his sons that the path that they were following was incorrect before the Lord.
There's an old maxim which is really true for every parent and that is, 'You haven't failed until you quit trying.' I think that means both in terms of taking appropriate opportunities to teach one's children the right way, but at all times making sure they know that over all things you'll love them.
It really is true the Lord's way is to love the sinner while condemning the sin. That is to say we continue to open our homes and our hearts and our arms to our children, but that need not be with approval of their lifestyle. Neither does it mean we need to be constantly telling them that their lifestyle is inappropriate. An even bigger error is now to become defensive of the child, because that neither helps the child nor helps the parent. That course of action, which experience teaches, is almost certainly to lead both away from the Lord's way.
For openers, marriage is neither a matter of politics, nor is it a matter of social policy. Marriage is defined by the Lord Himself. It's the one institution that is ceremoniously performed by priesthood authority in the temple [and] transcends this world. It is of such profound importance... such a core doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the very purpose of the creation of this earth. One hardly can get past the first page of Genesis without seeing that very clearly.
We live in a society which is so saturated with sexuality that it perhaps is more troublesome now, because of that fact, for a person to look beyond their gender orientation to other aspects of who they are.
Homosexual behavior is and will always remain before the Lord an abominable sin. Calling it something else by virtue of some political definition does not change that reality.
It is comparing apples and oranges to refer to the love that the Savior expressed for all mankind, for every person, for every man and woman and child, with the doctrine related to marriage.
The worst possible thing for any of us - no matter what our temptations, no matter what our mortal inclinations may be - is to become fixated with them, to dwell on them. When we do that, not only do we deny the other things that comprise us, but experience teaches that there will be an increased likelihood that eventually we will simply succumb to the inclination.
