{"id":1603,"date":"2008-11-13T18:42:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-13T18:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janaremy.com\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2008-11-13T18:42:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-13T18:42:00","slug":"who-am-i-to-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2008\/11\/13\/who-am-i-to-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Who am I to say?&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This quote is from an <a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom.lds.org\/ldsnewsroom\/eng\/public-issues\/same-gender-attraction\">LDS church statement on homosexuality<\/a>.  The church leaders interviewed are equating the challenges of homosexuality with those of disability, explaining that just like someone with a life-altering disability has no hope of marriage, neither does someone with strong homosexual proclivities.  <\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t even know where to begin a discussion about how troubling I find this statement.  Can any of you help me out here??<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>ELDER OAKS: There are differences, of course, but the contrast is<br \/>not unique. There are people with physical disabilities that prevent<br \/>them from having any hope \u2014 in some cases any actual hope and in<br \/>other cases any practical hope \u2014 of marriage. The circumstance of<br \/>being currently unable to marry, while tragic, is not unique.<\/p>\n<p>It is sometimes said that God could not discriminate against<br \/>individuals in this circumstance. But life is full of physical<br \/>infirmities that some might see as discriminations \u2014 total paralysis<br \/>or serious mental impairment being two that are relevant to<br \/>marriage. If we believe in God and believe in His mercy and His<br \/>justice, it won&#8217;t do to say that these are discriminations because<br \/>God wouldn&#8217;t discriminate. We are in no condition to judge what<br \/>discrimination is. We rest on our faith in God and our utmost<br \/>assurance of His mercy and His love for all of His children.<\/p>\n<p>ELDER WICKMAN: There&#8217;s really no question that there is an anguish<br \/>associated with the inability to marry in this life. We feel for<br \/>someone that has that anguish. I feel for somebody that has that<br \/>anguish. But it&#8217;s not limited to someone who has same-gender<br \/>attraction.<\/p>\n<p>We live in a very self-absorbed age. I guess it&#8217;s naturally human to<br \/>think about my own problems as somehow greater than someone else&#8217;s.<br \/>I think when any one of us begins to think that way, it might be<br \/>well be to look beyond ourselves. Who am I to say that I am more<br \/>handicapped, or suffering more, than someone else?<\/p>\n<p>I happen to have a handicapped daughter. She&#8217;s a beautiful girl.<br \/>She&#8217;ll be 27 next week. Her name is Courtney. Courtney will never<br \/>marry in this life, yet she looks wistfully upon those who do. She<br \/>will stand at the window of my office which overlooks the Salt Lake<br \/>Temple and look at the brides and their new husbands as they&#8217;re<br \/>having their pictures taken. She&#8217;s at once captivated by it and<br \/>saddened because Courtney understands that will not be her<br \/>experience here. Courtney didn&#8217;t ask for the circumstances into<br \/>which she was born in this life, any more than somebody with same-<br \/>gender attraction did. So there are lots of kinds of anguish people<br \/>can have, even associated with just this matter of marriage. What we<br \/>look forward to, and the great promise of the gospel, is that<br \/>whatever our inclinations are here, whatever our shortcomings are<br \/>here, whatever the hindrances to our enjoying a fullness of joy<br \/>here, we have the Lord&#8217;s assurance for every one of us that those in<br \/>due course will be removed. We just need to remain faithful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This quote is from an LDS church statement on homosexuality. The church leaders interviewed are equating the challenges of homosexuality with those of disability, explaining that just like someone with a life-altering disability has no hope of marriage, neither does someone with strong homosexual proclivities. I don&#8217;t even know where to begin a discussion about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-lds"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Who am I to say?.... - PilgrimSteps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2008\/11\/13\/who-am-i-to-say\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who am I to say?.... - PilgrimSteps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This quote is from an LDS church statement on homosexuality. 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