Thoughts on gay scene in Beauty and the Beast

[yjacket]

3 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

 I feel quite torn and the best I can do is keep trying to follow the Lord and love people at the same time. 

I understand; my guess is that as things continue not only you but many others will feel torn-maybe not on this issue but on others.  

25 years ago very, very few people in the Church felt torn on this issue, people knew of it, knew the behavior was unacceptable and that was about it. No one in the Church advocated homosexual bashing, etc. we were taught (while not explicitly-certainly implicitly) that beating someone up b/c they were homosexual was unacceptable.

But as things have gone, more and more members feel torn on this issue-the Church's policy on children from homosexual homes caused many members problems.

It is a very difficult balancing act-to condemn sin and yet still show love towards the sinner. More and more people want to be loved in their sins. They in effect love the way they sin. When one to stands up and condemns the sin to them it means that one is showing hate towards them.  An attack of the sin, becomes an attack on them b/c of how they love the sin. They don't want to feel guilt for the sins they have committed.

The ultimate love for others is the Christ-like love of seeing their full potential. As a parent, I have learned more about love then I would have otherwise. There are times when I as a parent must be very stern-I don't like it, but it is necessary. Part of growing up is learning when it is appropriate to feel guilt and when not, i.e. the development of a conscience. Part of a parent's job is to help develop that conscience and a huge part of that conscience is developed when a child understands unequivocally that certain behaviors are unacceptable. A parent's first job is to disciple their child in the way to live life.  To disciple a child requires many different facets, one facet is lead by example, another facet is in giving tasks to a child, another facet is in enacting some form of discipline when a child steps too far out of line, another facet is allowing them to learn by their own mistakes.

So as disciples of Christ we must do the same; we must boldly testify of truth and of error-when something is incorrect we should testify against it.  We should lead by example, we should allow others the opportunity to fail.  We should love others even when they do things opposite the gospel.  

Probably the most important aspect as disciples of Christ though is knowing exactly where we stand.  If we know that we stand with the Gospel, with the scriptures, with God, with the Church and with the Prophets then regardless of how torn we might feel-I think we will always eventually end up on the right side at the end of the day.

 

[yjacket]

14 minutes ago, Mike said:

I watched a couple episodes of Will and Grace--the comedy made me smile and laugh. I saw Brokeback Mountain--the tragedy made me frown and cry. I don't direct this at anyone. It's just for anyone who happens to care, or anyone who can relate to the emotions. 

To each his own . . .time is limited I'd rather watch a movie without the homosexual stuff that makes me smile or laugh and tragedies that make me frown or cry-plenty of other movies/shows that do that.

[Mike]

Just now, yjacket said:

To each his own . . .time is limited I'd rather watch a movie without the homosexual stuff that makes me smile or laugh and tragedies that make me frown or cry-plenty of other movies/shows that do that.

I agree that you shouldn't be forced to watch what you don't want to watch. (That's why i took care to say that my remark wasn't directed *at* anyone.  ) As for me, I'll take smiles where I can get them. And this world is so full of tragedy that I personally think it makes me a better man to be able to empathize to the degree that empathy has meaning for me personally without regard to what it means to someone else. I've got time.

[yjacket]

Oh and in one of those weird quarks, I'm against the State being involved in marriage.  I believe marriage is a religious ceremony and that the only reason the State should ever be involved is in the contract side; i.e. who gets what when one dies, etc.  I think there two aspects, one is a social contract which I believe anyone should be able to enter into whatever type of social contract they want with another individual (or even groups of individual)-regardless of my personal moral views.  Yes this would require the State to get completely out of the marriage business in taxes, insurance, etc. (and I would be all for that). 

I think marriage (which it was generally prior to 1900) is a religious ceremony and if two dudes want to form a Church that "marries" dudes, fine whatever-I'll still say it's morally wrong and unacceptable.

[Mike]

2 minutes ago, yjacket said:

Oh and in one of those weird quarks, I'm against the State being involved in marriage.  I believe marriage is a religious ceremony and that the only reason the State should ever be involved is in the contract side; i.e. who gets what when one dies, etc.  I think there two aspects, one is a social contract which I believe anyone should be able to enter into whatever type of social contract they want with another individual (or even groups of individual)-regardless of my personal moral views.  Yes this would require the State to get completely out of the marriage business in taxes, insurance, etc. (and I would be all for that). 

I think marriage (which it was generally prior to 1900) is a religious ceremony and if two dudes want to form a Church that "marries" dudes, fine whatever-I'll still say it's morally wrong and unacceptable.

I think I don't a problem with anything you just wrote. I especially don't have a problem with you saying  what you think about it (or, haha, anyone else disagreeing).

[SilentOne]

7 hours ago, yjacket said:

I don't think the video is 100% accurate (i.e. it was probably scripted)

Being familiar with the Brain Games show and having studied psychology (which included reading studies, participating as a subject in studies, and carrying out a few small real-world projects on my own), I'd say these people reacted this way naturally. Think about it this way: if a group of people who, as far as you know, are strangers to each other all react in the same way to some sort of stimulus, would you sooner assume that there was some reason for it or that they had all colluded beforehand to get you to act strangely?

[mordorbund]

8 hours ago, pam said:

A comment I've seen on facebook.  This generation of kids will know Emma Watson more as Belle than as Hermione.

I'm not sure about that.

 

[Guest MormonGator]

8 hours ago, yjacket said:

I refuse to watch shows like Will and Grace or movies like Brokeback Mountain, if everyone did the same things would change. 

That's the issue. Not everyone agrees. I've never seen Will or Grace or Brokeback Mountain. Not my thing either. 

[yjacket]

15 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

That's the issue. Not everyone agrees. I've never seen Will or Grace or Brokeback Mountain. Not my thing either. 

Not now; but 50 years ago they would agree. Like I said, it's the frog boiling in the part.

[NightSG]

21 hours ago, miav said:

I kinda reminds me a the scene from "Finding Dory". So many articles came out about a scene in the movie showing the first lesbian couple in a Disney movie. I watched the movie and it was just two women together, one with short hair, the scene was less then a minute and there was nothing to really indicate that they were lesbians. Everyone made a big deal over nothing.

And I seriously doubt it was a conservative that first pointed it out.

Let's face it; if Sherlock Holmes were first published today, there would be leftists all over the place pointing to it as a wonderful example of two brilliant gay men making the world a better place.

[Guest MormonGator]

7 minutes ago, NightSG said:

And I seriously doubt it was a conservative that first pointed it out.

Let's face it; if Sherlock Holmes were first published today, there would be leftists all over the place pointing to it as a wonderful example of two brilliant gay men making the world a better place.

It's already been argued in some academic circles that Holmes and Watson were more than friends. 

[NightSG]

15 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Again, this implies that I share beliefs with the LGBTQ community that I do not.  How many kids do you know that 'experiment" sexually?  None of my friends did, I didn't.

Are you sure?  Talking to a friend who was raised in the Church, she commented that she never knew anyone who sneaked off campus to smoke in high school.  Well, surprise; I ad two of her closer HS friends used to head over to the parking lot across the street every day for a cig.  Considering how strong five-minute-old tobacco smoke on the clothes is, it's almost inconceivable to me that anyone we had contact with after that was still clueless that we'd done it, but there it is.  Sexual experimentation tends to happen a bit more discreetly.  (Or at least most people do it when they will be bathing and changing clothes before going back to school.)

To carry the same analogy, some are born with a strong predisposition to certain addictions, including nicotine.  Those don't spontaneously manifest, however; regardless of the predisposition, a person who never experiments with nicotine will never actually become addicted to it.  Coerce them into smoking one just once, though, and some will have a hard battle to beat it just from that, while others may not get the cravings until they've smoked a few more times.

[NightSG]

4 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

It's already been argued in some academic circles that Holmes and Watson were more than friends. 

Of course it has; where do most gay fantasies thinly disguised as literary criticism come from?  Not blue collar lunchrooms.

Fairly certain I've seen someone trying to normalize homosexual pedophilia by claiming Plato and Aristotle were "obviously" lovers.  After all, why else would a teenage spend two decades with an elderly philosopher?

[Guest MormonGator]

4 minutes ago, NightSG said:

Of course it has; where do most gay fantasies thinly disguised as literary criticism come from?  Not blue collar lunchrooms.

Fairly certain I've seen someone trying to normalize homosexual pedophilia by claiming Plato and Aristotle were "obviously" lovers.  After all, why else would a teenage spend two decades with an elderly philosopher?

Like any freshmen in philosophy class can tell you, sexual identity was totally different to the Greeks than it would be to us. It is literally impossible to compare the two.  

Edited March 5, 2017 by MormonGator

[askandanswer]

I think that last night here in Australia, we may have had an example of the normalisation of homosexuality that has  been discussed on this thread. Last night, in Sydney, in the biggest gay and lesbian Mardi Gras in the Southern Hemisphere, Scouts Australia had their own float, with 45 scout marchers. I'm not saying it was right or wrong, I was just surprised to hear of it. Does this happen in the US? I was going to link to the article, but it comes from an LGBTIG online newspaper, and the accompanying ads were not pleasant. 

Edited March 5, 2017 by askandanswer

[askandanswer]

I think the clip below is thought provoking. It could be viewed as an example of how we love the sinner but hate the sin, or it could be viewed as an example of the normalisation of homosexuality (and I’m not in any way suggesting that the person featured in this clip is a sinner, she seems to be a very morally upright person). This comes from the Mormon channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd8LkJt9iPI

My guess about why some people are homosexual is that the answer probably has something to do with the idea of the “customised curriculum” that Elder Maxwell sometimes spoke about, ie, it is a situation that we made a fully informed decision in the pre-existence to accept, in the knowledge that righteously resolving that situation was the one thing that would aid us the most in our quest for exhaltation. I suspect that same thing applies to addictions of whatever kind.

“ I believe with all my heart that because God loves us there are some particularized challenges that he will deliver to each of us. He will customize the curriculum for each of us in order to teach us the things we most need to know. He will set before us in life what we need, not always what we like. And this will require us to accept with all our hearts—particularly your generation—the truth that there is divine design in each of our lives and that you have rendezvous to keep, individually and collectively.”

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/neal-a-maxwell_small-moment/

See also

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1990/04/endure-it-well?lang=eng

[yjacket]

33 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

I think that last night here in Australia, we may have had an example of the normalisation of homosexuality that has  been discussed on this thread. Last night, in Sydney, in the biggest gay and lesbian Mardi Gras in the Southern Hemisphere, Scouts Australia had their own float, with 45 scout marchers. I'm not saying it was right or wrong, I was just surprised to hear of it. I was going to link to the article, but it comes from a LGBTIG onlines newspaper, and the accompanying ads were not pleasant. 

Doesn't surprise me in the least.  In "After The Ball" it describes that one of the major institutions to go after and receive acceptance from was Boy Scouts-they have now become Queer Scouts rather than Boy Scouts (so sad).

[yjacket]

44 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

I think the clip below is thought provoking. It could be viewed as an example of how we love the sinner but hate the sin, or it could be viewed as an example of the normalisation of homosexuality (and I’m not in any way suggesting that the person featured in this clip is a sinner, she seems to be a very morally upright person). This comes from the Mormon channel.

I've seen that; there are things I like about it and things I don't like about it. I do like that the video combines the struggle with SSA and the Gospel and generally approaches it from a gospel sense.  

My own personal view, I like how the Church uses the term SSA, I personally do not like how some members identify themselves as homosexual.  There is a difference between having SSA and being homosexual; one is identifying a problem that one has and the other is taking SSA and identifying it as a core part of who they are. And that is a big difference.  As stated in the video there is a culture of being homosexual, there is generally a specific walk, speech pattern, basically a lifestyle that comes with being homosexual-if one is paying attention you can generally pick 'em out. Sidenote: Anyone else notice the uptick in homosexual stewards . . .I swear it's like every flight I get on-if it's a dude I give it at least 50-75% chance .. . .   There are a few surprises now and then, but it's not too hard to pick out individuals for whom they are homosexual. 

I think if an individual has SSA they probably need to be careful on how they view themselves. I severely dislike how an LDS counselor asks this gal if she wants to be married to someone of the same sex.  Personally, I think that's appalling-but then again my opinion of psychologists isn't very high and from my few interactions with LDS psychologists they aren't high on my list either.

In one of the videos this individual talks about the sadness about not having a family . . .umm yeah that a consequence of your actions (i.e. your decision to not want to be married to a man).  I'm pretty sure the plumbing works just fine with a guy but if you don't want to be married to a guy then no having a family in the Gospel is not gonna happen.  Having said that, I think her current choice of actions is probably just great, give it time figure out how to deal with it and live life to the fullest.

The sad fact that most people who are homosexual don't want to admit is that our experiences and how we react sexually changes over time.  My goodness I remember as a teenager-it was really hard to keep my thoughts in line. As I've grown, matured, gotten married, libido changes, etc. my ability to keep my thoughts in line has dramatically improved. I don't seek out the things I used to, my thoughts don't turn to impure thoughts quite as much.  I could be in the company of several beautiful women today and my reactions would be totally different vs. 20 or even 10 years ago.

I've become a better master over myself.  As we learn as we grow, the thoughts we think, the things we watch, small step by small step they are changing us and we are changing ourselves. If we give in to the natural man, we won't change but as we become men and women of God we change.  Our actual brain make-up changes. I'm not saying that someone who has SSA will one day wake up and never have SSA, but I am saying that as they become more like our Heavenly Father it will get better.

One of my pet peeves about modern culture is this stupid mantra and crap about "being true to oneself" . . .really?? What does that even mean, except I don't want anyone to tell me that I should be different. The goal isn't to be "true to oneself", the goal is to become like Heavenly Father-and that sure can't happen if you acting homosexual behaviors.

I don't think this video is normalizing homosexuality (even if I disagree with some of the things said)-showing dudes kissing is.

Sidenote: This might seem unrelated, but I really don't think we as a culture really understand the massive amount of side-effects that have occurred over the last 20 years since access to porn become prevalent.  As a man thinketh so is he and the statistics of users of porn is very sad and I believe it has had a very, very bad affect in normalizing behavior that is not normal.

Edited March 5, 2017 by yjacket

[The Folk Prophet]

On 3/3/2017 at 3:59 PM, Suzie said:

As far as I know,  it is just a guy dancing with another guy at the end of the movie. The end. No kiss, no love confession, no coming out (that's what I am reading so far) so Mormons can continue breathing in peace, Hollywood is not in flames just yet.

The point being made is still the point being made. Whereas the problem I have with it is the point being made, I still have the problem. yes, something more explicit might make me more personally uncomfortable. But in principle, it's not discomfort that I think needs to be stood up against. It's the point being made.

[The Folk Prophet]

On 3/4/2017 at 3:58 AM, LiterateParakeet said:

I think some are born that way.  

...

How many kids do you know that 'experiment" sexually?  None of my friends did, I didn't.  

These two ideas seem contradictions.

[The Folk Prophet]

On 3/4/2017 at 8:00 AM, Just_A_Guy said:

I didn't choose to be a porn addict.  

I'm not quite sure how one comes to this conclusion. Saying something like, "I didn't choose to have a messy house, I just chose to never clean it, never put anything away, etc" rings very, very false to me.

[The Folk Prophet]

On 3/4/2017 at 8:00 AM, Just_A_Guy said:

Let's be theologically clear:. It's not just different; it is evil.  (To be clearer:  not the attraction; but acting on the attraction.)

I disagree. The attraction is, indeed "evil". The distinction is that the person facing the temptation is not inherently evil for being tempted. But a temptation itself is the core of evil. Temptation is of the devil. Pure, straight up, unquestionably evil. It is something designed to drive us from God. That is implicit in the very meaning of the word. Otherwise it wouldn't be labeled a temptation.

[The Folk Prophet]

20 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Point taken. I'm just not convinced that there is some design to convert more people to homosexuality by all this. 

That is probably true. But it is irrelevant. Whether the inclusion of a normalized homosexual lifestyle in a children's show is by intentional design or not doesn't change anything.

Edit: Also...it may not be by design of the movie makers and/or the production company. But you can bet yer boots it's by design of someone altogether more sinister. The one who actually has "the agenda".

Edited March 5, 2017 by The Folk Prophet

[Just_A_Guy]

1 hour ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I'm not quite sure how one comes to this conclusion. Saying something like, "I didn't choose to have a messy house, I just chose to never clean it, never put anything away, etc" rings very, very false to me.

That's just it.  We don't consciously desire the effect; but we consciously indulge in the actions that create the effect; thus turning ourselves into something we never thought we would or could become.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[Just_A_Guy]

1 hour ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I disagree. The attraction is, indeed "evil". The distinction is that the person facing the temptation is not inherently evil for being tempted. But a temptation itself is the core of evil. Temptation is of the devil. Pure, straight up, unquestionably evil. It is something designed to drive us from God. That is implicit in the very meaning of the word. Otherwise it wouldn't be labeled a temptation.

True.  I guess the point I was trying to make (poorly) was that merely being subject to the attraction does not make the person evil (or even sinful) per se.