This I believe

God does not write the Handbook.

Rainbow Girl

A new section in Handbook 1, 16.13 will be added as follows: Children of a Parent Living in a Same-Gender Relationship. The following additions to Handbook 1 have been approved by the Council of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for immediate implementation:

A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may not receive a name and a blessing.

A natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship, whether the couple is married or cohabiting, may be  baptized and confirmed, ordained, or recommended for missionary service only as follows: A mission president or a stake president may request approval from the Office of the First Presidency to baptize and confirm, ordain, or recommend missionary service for a child of a parent who has lived or is living in a same-gender relationship when he is satisfied by personal interviews that both of the following requirements are met:

1.         The child accepts and is committed to live the teachings and doctrine of the Church, and specifically disavows the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage.

2.         The child is of legal age and does not live with a parent who has lived or currently lives in a same-gender cohabitation relationship or marriage.

  November 3, 2015

Handbook 1, number 6.7.2 is to be updated immediately as follows: When a Disciplinary Council May Be Necessary Serious Transgression

. . . It includes (but is not limited to) attempted murder, forcible rape, sexual abuse, spouse abuse, intentional serious physical injury of others, adultery, fornication, homosexual relations (especially sexual cohabitation), deliberate abandonment of family responsibilities, . . .

Handbook 1, number 6.7.3 is also to be updated immediately as follows: When a Disciplinary Council is Mandatory Apostasy.

As used here, apostasy refers to members who:

1.           Repeatedly act in clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its leaders.

2.           Persist in teaching as Church doctrine information that is not Church doctrine after

         they have been corrected by their bishop or a higher authority.

3.            Continue to follow the teachings of apostate sects (such as those that advocate plural marriage) after being corrected by their bishop or a higher authority.

4.             Are in a same-gender marriage.

5.             Formally join another church and advocate its teachings.

Not under moral transgressions but “apostasy”?

As someone wrote: "Probably worth noting that the new policy appears to put legal same-sex marriage on par with murder, rape, sexual abuse, etc....but it's almost worse, because children of murderers can still get baptized."
PLUS, it's legal so I do not consider the parents sinning either. Of course, I never did. 

Dear Mormon leaders: Know the truth about homosexuality

BY SAM WOLFE PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 21, 2015 SLTRIBUNE

To Mormon leaders: As a child, I attended weekly Sunday school bearing a secret, knowing that it was unsafe to tell anyone. I heard only negativity about gay people. Such lessons sank deep: being gay is a “perversion,” so I was a perversion. No visible LGBTQ people existed in my world. Being discovered could mean death — like Matthew Shepard, who a Mormon raised boy crucified, hanging him to bleed to death on a desolate Wyoming fence one bitter night. My teenage body became emaciated through fasting and prayer upon dark Pacific seas while an airman fighting what you said was my dragon to slay. For years, I pled for fortitude to overcome what you taught was a temptation. Later, I served two years as a missionary managing to hide my homosexuality for fear of being sent home in disgrace. At Brigham Young University, I tried conversion therapy in the counseling center modeled from Joseph Nicolosi. His theories deceived many: homosexuality is a developmental disorder surmountable through “therapy” to reach one’s “full potential.” Earlier aversion therapy at BYU hooked boys’ penises to heinous contraptions while inducing vomiting when aroused to cure a disease that does not exist. One night, a brother from the conversion¬ therapy group planned to leap off a cliff in Provo Canyon to release the pain of your false teachings. We saved him. Yet untold others are lost — including Stuart, whose blood stains the steps of a Mormon chapel, his final plea, a senseless sacrifice, for greater understanding. Members embraced me when I came out during testimony meeting asking whether there is a place for us. But leadership swiftly convened a court. That stormy night in a room without air ¬conditioning, 17 men held an appalling trial with false witnesses. By 2 a.m., the stake president pronounced excommunication for “apostasy”— a severing from the church of my pioneer ancestors and eternal damnation — because I showed up at church as a self ¬affirming gay person. My story is not unique. More than 500,000 Mormons are LGBTQ. My parents named me after a Book of Mormon prophet, Samuel, a Lamanite. Lamanites were outsiders to the church that had become corrupted. He famously stood upon the city walls saying what the Lord put into his heart. You teach to liken scriptures to ourselves. Following Samuel’s example, the Lord has put this into my heart: General and local leaders of this church must repent for failing to follow the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule and the First and Second Great Commandments. Samuel asked then as now: “How long will you suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides? How long will ye choose darkness rather than light?” Justice cries out: Wo unto you for professing to lead Christ’s church while failing to love LGBTQ people as yourselves! Wo until you whose hands are stained with the blood of LGBTQ souls! Wo unto you for spiritual violence against LGBTQ people and our children, while waving banners of “religious freedom” and “family values”— blind to the worth of our families and denying our religious freedom to remain a part of our faith! Wo unto you for purposeful ignorance to light and knowledge available in plain sight! I am filled with the Spirit of indignation out of love for my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, whom to know is to love, as Jesus has loved you. Such a love would reveal to you an understanding now proven by social scientists: supportive environments toward LGBTQ people correspond with positive mental and physical health outcomes. Hostile, unaccepting environments yield the opposite. Samuel Wolfe is an attorney living in Alabama. 

Ironically, the front of the Fruit Heights 7^th Ward bulletin for Sunday November 15, 2015, reads:

When the scribes and the Pharisees brought the woman taken in adultery to the Savior, they asked if she should be stoned to death. Jesus ignored the question, but said to them, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” The Savior stooped down to write in the sand. As he did so, “one by one, the accusers, thoroughly reproved for their impure lives and motives, began to leave. Not until they had all gone did the Savior stand and face the woman. . .He said to her, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee; Go and sin no more,” containing, in just a few words, the elements of forgiveness and the prospect of lasting change! Suddenly the focus had reverted from her mortal life to her eternal life. Imagine the memorable impression on her soul as she walked away from her Redeemer, perhaps weeping for joy.” BYU Devotional given by Gary L. Bunker, March 1, 1994. Scriptural reference John 8:6-11.

Am I the only one who gets it? This was in our bulletin the week after the new section was in the handbook calling all gays and lesbians apostates and stating their children cannot be blessed or baptized. Who are the scribes and Pharisees bringing the wicked to Jesus? The woman whom Jesus forgave had sinned; according to law, the gays and lesbians have not.  What would Jesus say to us?

Deja’ Vu. As the stories unfolded during the week, I began to realize more and more the reason I related is because it’s our story too. Not the gay part but the rejection and total disregard for our feelings and autonomy. Over the past 20 years they have 1) Made decisions for us that we should make for ourselves; 2) Pushed us out; marginalized and/or ignored us. 3) Been condescending.  

  All in the guise of keeping the Church pure and following the Handbook. 

  Eddy was and is worthy to and capable of going to the Temple, cognizant of personal responsibility and accountability. In our family, Eddy is the “Rainbow Girl”, the one sneered at because he is not in white and cannot go to the temple and is needlessly barred from significant sacred family events.