Church making same mistake?

By Michael Jarvis, Salt Lake City

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015 | 2 a.m.

President Thomas Monson’s closing remarks in last October’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints General Conference admonished us all to “stand up for what you believe in.”

The tone of the Jan. 27 LDS church press conference was very Christ-like in terms of love and compassion toward our LGBT brothers and sisters. I question its timing, however, as the U.S. Supreme Court is just now gearing up to rule on same-sex marriage nationwide. LGBT people got the same kind of compassionate endorsement from the LDS church just prior to the vote that allowed openly homosexual boys into the Boy Scouts of America.

We may well hear Elder Dieter Uchtdorf in a future General Conference admit that “we made a mistake” again, like the church did with the Boy Scouts. It could be, however, that Monson needs us to stand up on this issue because he, his counselors and the Twelve Apostles can’t do anything other than state the church’s position on marriage and cooperate with LGBT people after the fallout from church support of Proposition 8.

The LGBT community is a well-organized international network with political power in high places. Some of my letters on this subject have been published internationally. One country has advised me that because of those letters, I am now “quarantined” from that country and that I should make note of it on my passport. Imagine the impact on the missionary program of the Mormon church if its missionaries were suddenly banned from entering various countries. They will be banned in the U.S. someday, along with all other Christian activities, if the LGBT community persuades the U.S. Supreme Court to redefine marriage to the detriment of a further-encumbered United States.

If the U.S. Constitution is saved, it will not be the church that saves it, but individuals who are not willing to let evil triumph.