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If you ever needed a reason to distance yourself from the LDS Church, Bruce C. Hafen of the Seventy has just given you one.  Oddly, this talk was linked to from the blog of the PR Department of the LDS Church as though it is worth reading.  I’m not sure why they are proud of it.  I recommend reading it yourself, but if you want some highlights, here’s what I found:

During a recent stake conference in Europe, I asked the stake president if Sister Hafen and I might visit one or two of his members who could use a little encouragement. As we visited one young man, a single returned missionary, we found that he cared deeply about the Church but was also very troubled.  When we asked how he was doing, he began to cry and said, with a look of real anguish, “I suffer from same-gender attraction.”  My heart went out to him. The longer we talked, the more compassion I felt, as I learned that the operative word for him really was “suffer.”

This makes it sound an awful lot like a disease!

But as hard as same-gender attraction is, your feeling it does not mean that your nature is flawed. Whenever the Adversary tries to convince you that you are hopelessly “that way,” so that acting out your feelings is inevitable, he is lying. He is the Father of Lies.

Many other people also live heroically with uninvited daily struggles. The victims of childhood sexual abuse also live with agonizing daily battles that may echo the experiences of some who cope with same-gender attraction.

Here, homosexuality is equated with childhood sexual abuse (he also equates it with quadriplegia.)

You are literally God’s spirit child.  Having same-gender attraction is NOT in your DNA, but being a child of God clearly IS in your spiritual DNA—only one generation removed from Him whom we call Father in Heaven.

Hmm… This sounds like a fact assertion.  Unfortunately for him, the data from twins studies suggests there is very likely a genetic component.  It may not explain all of the variation in sexual identity, but it explains some.  Once again, ignorant religious leaders deny science for their own agenda!

If you are faithful, on resurrection morning—and maybe even before then–you will rise with normal attractions for the opposite sex.

God don’t make no gay spirits.  He just chooses to punish you with gayness while you’re mortal, ’cause he’s a loving god!

It’s true that the law of chastity forbids all sexual relations outside the bonds of a married heterosexual relationship. And while same-gender attraction is not a sin, you need to resist cultivating immoral, lustful thoughts toward those of either gender.  It’s no sin if a bird lands in your tree, just don’t let him build a nest there.

The latest euphemism for gay sex – “building a nest”!

So something has been going on that has caused a kind of cultural earthquake in just the last few years. What is it? during the last few years to cause the cultural earthquake we’re now feeling on this subject?  We have witnessed primarily an aggressive political movement more than we’ve witnessed substantive change in the medical or legal evidence.   In 1973, in response to increasing disruptions and protests by gay activists, the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations removed homosexuality from their official lists of disorders. Significantly, they took this action by simply putting the issue to an open vote in their professional meetings–not because of any change in actual medical findings.  As LDS psychologist Dean Byrd writes, “This was the first time in the history of healthcare that a diagnosis was decided by popular vote rather than scientific evidence.”

Equal rights for homosexuals is “an aggressive political movement” not backed by science!  (My favorite part about this article – the hundreds of peer-reviewed articles that are… um… not included.)

The activists have used similar methods in the years since then, trying to prove that they are a legitimate demographic category with fixed and unchangeable characteristics.  They must present themselves in this way in order to justify their demand for the same legal protections now given to race and gender. That is a crucial point in understanding both the agenda and the tactics of intimidation used by today’s activists.

You heard it here, folks – homosexuals are less human and less deserving of equal rights than are women and blacks, only one of which the LDS Church has enfranchised.  Ergo, women might get some degree of parity in the LDS Church before homosexuals do!

However, the activists have almost convinced the American public about this point. A reliable 2009 poll asked U.S. adults what causes people to be gay or lesbian.  In the two most common responses, 42% of this public sample said gay or lesbian people are born that way, and 36% said they choose to be that way. Both of those responses are factually wrong.

Gays aren’t born that way and they don’t choose it.  They, um, become that way through forces outside of their control?  Are touched by Tinkerbell and her pixie dust at age 7?  WTF?

In other words, before puberty, boys are typically more interested in other boys than in girls. Then their interest gradually shifts to girls, but a few boys don’t make this transition. Often these boys are emotionally sensitive, introspective, and, especially among Church members, perfectionistic. When puberty hits this group, they can be sexually aroused by many factors.  When those factors include other boys, they can become fixated on the fear that they are “gay,” especially if they have male sexual experiences, including male pornography. Then their fixation can block their normal emotional-sexual development.  Adult men who have had such childhood experiences can often resume their normal development by identifying and addressing the sources of their emotional blockage, which usually includes restoring healthy, appropriate male relationships.

Bruce C. Hafen, lawyer, has now explained the root cause of homosexuality – Freudian fixation that results in blocked emotional-sexual development at puberty.  He’s qualified to make this pronouncement because he….  Um…. Oh, right, he’s not qualified to talk about this.

Both no-fault divorce and same-gender marriage allow personal adult rights to trump the best interests of society and children.  The radical personal freedom theory on which the Massachusetts same-gender marriage case is based is actually the logical extension of the same individualistic legal concept that created no-fault divorce. Think about it. When the law upholds an individual’s right to END a marriage, regardless of social consequences (as happened with no-fault divorce), that same legal principle can be used to justify the individual’s right to START a marriage, regardless of social consequences (as happens with same-gender marriage).

We finally get to the heart of the matter.  No fault divorce empowers women in crappy marriages to leave.  Thus, no-fault divorce is a scourge and should be stamped out (got to slap down those uppity women).  Spousal abuse isn’t a problem; let the women suffer.

Same-sex marriage may not result in more divorces, but it does redefine god’s ordained gender roles.  Thus, homosexuality is a threat to the male hierarchy of Mormonism.  Ergo, we must crush them out of existence!  If gays get rights, then women will want them too.  And once that happens, no more all-male clubs for the Mormon hierarchy.

I really recommend you read the whole thing as it is a very disturbing talk.

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