[Apollyon]

DarkJedi wrote:

Ann wrote:

I’ve had many cynical, negative moments this last year, but this isn’t one of them. I’m taking a ridiculous amount of encouragement from Elder Uchtdorf’s talk.

Me, too. And thank you for your comments Mom3. I also hurt for others this weekend, particularly those who are homosexual. However, I found the greatest hope for myself – much more than I have had for years – in Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk.

^This.

Thank goodness for Pres. Uchtdorf. I am going to write that man a thank you letter, no joke.

[Apollyon]

Yeah, so I’m absolutely, 100% in favor of gay marriage. I think that it is also a completely different issue from polygamy.

Gay marriage involves allowing people who are attracted to others of the same sex to marry people to whom they are actually sexually attracted. There is an element of genetic wiring, along with this idea of the right to choose one’s partner.

Polygamy shares the “choice of partner” idea, but not the “genetic wiring,” unless you’re arguing that some people are genetically incapable of being monogamous, but that is kind of proving my point (getting there in a bit.) In addition, it has an extremely dangerous public policy issue. Basically, whenever any legislation gets passed that changes the game, you have a lot of movement along the border. Thus, while it’s easy to say, “oh come on, legalizing polygamy certainly isn’t NORMALIZING it,” which is generally true, it is not true for people along the border. (Not talking about Mexico here.) 99% of people today, if polygamy were suddenly legalized, would probably not jump on that bandwagon and start signing up for multiple spouses. But what about, say, the incredibly rich man with a hot trophy wife? If polygamy were suddenly made legal, wouldn’t that be a demographic where you could see a sudden rise in plural marriages? A beautiful woman draped across one’s arm has long been a sign of status in our society…how much better would it be if you could have TWO? THREE?!?! And once a few members of the ultra-elite have established a new (admittedly eccentric) status symbol, how long do you think polygamy will remain limited to certain religious groups? I am certain that any kind of polygamist law would make room for polyandry as well, but as a social construct I see that as less likely to be prevalent. A “trophy husband” is a far less common concept, and one that is still viewed negatively by most people. I don’t see that really having room to catch on the way polygamy would.

Some argue that socially, the people most disadvantaged by a polygamist society are extremely undesirable males and extremely desirable females, as a society that allows multiple women to partner to the same man leaves the men at the bottom of the totem pole without any available women. Similarly, a woman who otherwise would have been able to secure an extremely desirable partner for herself without having to split his attention would now be obligated to do so, so these extremes both have a tangible disadvantage. But for everyone else, hey–why not? (Although in this case, probably the extremely desirable women would just practice polyandry or, hey, monogamy, since this situation is not a “polygamist society” so much as a society that allows for polygamy.)

My issue with this idea is that it doesn’t take into consideration the changes in quality in the relationship, as well as the relationship dynamics. Any world in which it is even remotely acceptable for a partner to say, “You’ve upset me, so now I’m going to go away and spend time with my other spouse,” seriously stunts honest emotional communication. It also puts the pluralizing spouse in a position of unfair power, where his/her needs are put first, and the pluralized spouse is in constant competition for his/her affection. There is a constant lean on the pluralized spouse to agree, submit, and placate the pluralizing spouse. Since I believe the most common practitioners of polygamy would be single men paired with multiple women, I feel like this is a serious step backward in women’s rights. In addition, I believe it legitimizes the idea that some people just “can’t be with one person,” which is eye-rollingly annoying.

There are a lot of rights that I want for people to have, but polygamy just isn’t one of those. People who are determined, for religious reasons, to practice polygamy have been able to do so; officially legalizing it for the country at large creates more problems than it solves.

IMHO.

[Apollyon]

I have a couple of cents to throw into the ring here.

First of all, from your post you sound like you’re conflicted/feeling guilty about how you’re feeling. Don’t worry about that. It’s perfectly natural for you to feel this way, given (1) the way you’ve been raised and your values, (2) your expectations in a spouse, and (3) the fact that you’re now having to grapple with something that goes against both those things.

I can tell you a little bit from the other end of things. I’d had one other partner before my husband. When I told him about it I was pretty sure that was going to be the end of our relationship. He decided (and this was a personal decision for us, not necessarily for you guys) that it was something he could live with. We got married and for the first little while (about a year or so) he would occasionally feel insecure that I would be thinking of/comparing him to that other partner. For my part, I can tell you that has never happened, not even one time, and that the experience is so profoundly different from what it was before that it’s honestly apples and oranges.

We’ve been married for quite a bit longer now and this hasn’t been an issue in a long, long time. I think that before marriage, especially (or exclusively?) in the church, we place such an emphasis on the physical because it’s like a shiny unopened present that we’ve been eyeballing under the tree. It’s new, and exciting, and it’s one of the few parts of marriage that are easily anticipated from the other side of it. Once you’re married, though, the physical stuff just blends to become a single aspect of the relationship, and not even the most important one. For example, 10-15% of married couples in the U.S. are considered “sexless,” meaning they have sex three times a year or less. The median group is at (bear with me, I haven’t read over these studies in a while, but I did actually conduct research on this topic so this isn’t just “something I read online once”) somewhere between 1-5 times a month. By volume, the vast majority of your time in marriage is spent on different parts of your relationship, like communication and trust and pesky in-laws. Also a lot is spent sleeping, working, taking care of the kids, grocery shopping, and just generally living life.

So what is it about her physical past that bothers you, then? That’s not meant to be condescending; that’s the crux of the issue. There is a reason you’re having a hard time forgiving and I doubt that reason is an inability to grasp how the Atonement works. For my (then boyfriend), he was worried that it would affect our relationship (it did, in that it made him more insecure for a while), that it would color my expectations of him (it didn’t), and that it reflected some core flaw that he might have to grapple with at some point (so far, so good). If this is something that you aren’t going to be able to get through together, I agree that you should let her go now rather than drag it out. The absolute worst thing you could do is decide you’ll “try” to forgive her and then go into marriage without being 100% there, then have that lurking in the background for both of you.

That said, take some time and do some introspecting and see what you come up with. I do think it’s significant that she is a convert; just like you spent your childhood with certain expectations about life, so did she. She didn’t have the greater light and knowledge to know the importance of chastity. Therefore, to me it looks like this is more likely to be a past-life issue than something that would bleed over into your marriage at all. But ultimately, the reality is that this is not an easy choice to make, and I can’t tell you what is right for the two of you. Good luck sorting it out!

[Apollyon]

Old-Timer wrote:

Quote:

“I feel immense peace and love in this home.”

Perfect summary.

This kind of summarizes my personal feelings about homosexuality. Here’s the basic jist:

We’ve all probably heard the portrayal of Satan as the “master counterfeiter.” In other words, he can’t be the source of anything that’s truly good and pure, but he can counterfeit (the example I always heard was pleasure standing in for happiness; something that approaches the lasting joy of happiness but is, in this case, a sham.) Therefore, in order to assume that homosexuality is inherently evil/sinful, I think you also have to make the assumption that every homosexual relationship is, itself, a counterfeit of a happy heterosexual relationship. In other words, it mimics it but never quite gets there.

So it imitates real, committed, Christ-like love for a spouse/partner, but somehow falls short. It has to be somehow more selfish, or carnal, or abusive, or something. I think this is sort of the underpinning for the justification against homosexuality, and the problem with it is that it only takes one or two contacts with people who actually are in these kinds of committed relationships to realize that they actually CAN and DO love each other, just like heterosexual couples.

I actually disagree with an earlier poster; I do believe that eventually the church will allow homosexual couples to be sealed in the temples. Frankly, I feel like once you say, “We acknowledge that you are married civilly, and we believe you are worthy individually to receive temple ordinances, and that you want to be together with your spouse forever just like this heterosexual couple over here,” there is just no real argument to then say, “BUTTTTT you can’t.” However, I think that we’re not going to see either change for several decades.

[Apollyon]

This is also a hot-button issue for me. I have never been so depressed in my life as I was after I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. I have a lot of strengths and talents in life, but literally NONE of those seems to be child-rearing-related.

I have nothing but respect (okay…that’s not true; there’s also a healthy dose of awe) for those women who can/want to do this role. It’s pretty freaking remarkable. But my strengths lie elsewhere. I’m just a little sick of feeling like this makes me a failure as a woman, when in reality every member of my family has been happier, and our home has been a better place, since I decided to go back to work.

I just don’t believe that God made 50% of all people nurturers and then decided that would correspond exactly with their gender. Plenty of guys I’ve met have been more inherently nurturing than me. Plenty of gals, too. Through my work, I’m able to help a lot of people who are in desperate need of it, and I have a real knack for my work. Talks like these give me a guilt complex. Should I quit work, which makes me happy and benefits a lot of other people, so that I can stay home, where I am miserable and my talents are crammed under a bushel? I feel the only answer the church has for me is, “Develop more womanly talents,” but that’s not really consistent. In every other area of the Gospel we’re taught that everyone has different talents, and that our responsibility is to use what we’re given and nurture that. But somehow, every single woman on Earth (except me, apparently?!?!) got the nurture bug and I need to get on board with that.

Sigh. This was not my most favorite General Conference.

[Author]

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