https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church
I've heard some say that it is an honor to live your life in such a way that the Westboro Baptist Church pickets your funeral. Gordon B Hinckley certainly did live a very compassionate life. One of the best examples of that is from November 1999 Ensign article wherein he defends "traditional" marriage and yet he said this:
"Nevertheless, and I emphasize this, I wish to say that our opposition to attempts to legalize same-sex marriage should never be interpreted as justification for hatred, intolerance, or abuse of those who profess homosexual tendencies, either individually or as a group. As I said from this pulpit one year ago, our hearts reach out to those who refer to themselves as gays and lesbians. We love and honor them as sons and daughters of God. They are welcome in the Church. It is expected, however, that they follow the same God-given rules of conduct that apply to everyone else, whether single or married."
While I think that the Prop 8 fiasco violates the principle of agency Gordon B. Hinkley seems to have still been holding to the one commandment Jesus added to the law which was "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." If the Westboro Baptist Church feels he was being too accepting of gay people perhaps he was moving us closer to actually living out that commandment.
We are commanded to love others as Jesus loved those He met, as He loves us.
And yet Mormons all too often do not display that love to those who live by different choices, different politics, differing styles of dress or who were born with different sexual/romantic orientations. Mormons like Rock Waterman face excommunication for differing beliefs and yet Cliven Bundy is a member in good standing.
This article speaks to just how many of the homeless youth in Utah were kicked out of there homes and sent to live on the streets because they were gay and most of those were from LDS house holds so we must follow the prophet until he asks us to be loving to those people(gay, liberal, foreign)then Jesus' commandment to love others as He loves us doesn't seem to apply. Jesus seems to be ignored on this issue and I think comments from other general authorities do make it easy to make exceptions to the one commandment Jesus gave to us.
The problem as I see it is the mixed messages from our church leaders, mormonsandgays.org says one thing, purportedly the official church position, then Apostles make comments seemingly contrary to those official positions. Some preach tolerance and love while others preach that tolerance is a trap and other us vs them exclusionary "doctrines."
Jesus said to love one another as He loves us and there are no exceptions that Jesus allowed for. One does not have to agree with everything someone says or does but there is a big difference between disagreeing and loathing those who are different, from disowning and abandoning children and forcing them to wander the streets alone because they refuse to accept their own family as they are.
I feel I can only truly love my children because I fully accept them. I accept their fashion sense, their taste in books, music and movies. I accept their off color and sometimes off putting jokes. I accept their colorful personalities good qualities and bad. I fully accept them and so I can fully love them and that's how we can truly love all of Gods children. Buddha said attachment is the source of all suffering but I think acceptance causes just as much suffering because parents of gay children often refuse to accept their children as they are because they are too attached to judging their children by the standard of how they think their children "should" be. Most any therapist will say it is an unhealthy mindset to "should" all over others.
Love is radical if it is truly embraced and practiced and many members of our church are not yet ready to embrace the radical depths of the love Jesus preached, a love without exceptions, without conditions a love that can and has changed the world. A love that still can.
A love that meets hate with love, a love that turns the others cheek, a love that embodies it's love for God in the way it treats all of His children. Jesus did say in Matthew 26:40 "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
So the way Cliven Bundy and other members treat and talk about gays and minorities(a term applied to the majority of the world) is by this scripture, defined as the way they have treated Christ. How does that behavior, that language, look now in the light of Christs' words now?
Love is not easy, it takes work and if one lives the ethos of love as Christ did then it will turn the world upside down but the world is upside down by the standards of The Lord and it is only love that can turn it right side up.
Love is the essence of the Gospel according to talk by the same name from an April 2014 conference talk by President Thomas S. Monson.
It's easy to love those who love you but we are asked to love those who hate us, to love our enemies. That's hard but that's what Christlike love is defined as by Christ Himself.
Maybe one day more people will be ready to live by the Christlike standard of love so often professed. It feels like we are sinking by so often giving into hate, intolerance. It just seems as though we are so polarized that even those who criticize the intolerant become intolerant themselves.
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." Dr. Martin Luther King
posted on 19 September at 10:39
Do not misquote Lord Buddha, from whom most of Jesus' teachings were influenced by. Lord Buddha said craving is the source of all suffering. Craving is the feeling of not being complete and looking for completion through constant sensory pleasures.