[MadamCurie]

I’ve also wondered the same thing, Bill. What are those “bots” and what are they doing?

[MadamCurie]

We had a pretty great FHE tonight. Didn’t do much in the way of a lesson, though. Some friends came over – they have a little girl our DS’s age and they go to day-care together – and we said a prayer, had dinner, played with the dog, and watched a movie. The kids played with legos and destroyed the house. A good time was had by all!

[MadamCurie]

Welcome, Ella! You appear to be in a better place then many are when they first find StayLDS, since you are moving out of the anger phase. I hope you are able to find good fellowship here.

[MadamCurie]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

E. Scott warning against pornography in the general session rather than just PH session might have been because of the stats that 25% of porn viewers are women, and the number is increasing.

Interesting statistic, Hawk. Out of curiosity, is that all solo porn watching, or could some of that be couple porn? I ask since couple porn is increasingly common in non-LDS circles.

[MadamCurie]

Thanks, George. I always appreciate your cultural insights.

[MadamCurie]

Thanks, Hawk!! This will be great!

Just an FYI, Mister Curie and I are doing a live-blog at my website as well for GC: http://thirdwavemormon.blogspot.com, in case anyone is interested. We had a pretty good discussion in the comments going on with the RS General Broadcast. It should probably be noted that I am, um, a bit of a feminist.

[MadamCurie]

bridget_night wrote:

I do believe in personal revelation but have sometimes gotten inspiration that is against church teachings. Not as bad as Nephi who was told to kill Laban, but other things in my life. I have had people tell me that God would never tell you anything against church teachings but I have definitely experienced that and when I followed the prompting it turned out for the good. What are your thoughts on this?

Bridget, you have described the story of my life and of my disaffection with the Church.

For me, I ultimately take any personal revelation received to be more important than what I hear over the pulpit. I think that relationship with God – and understanding what he wants for each of us personally – is a spiritual growth that has to happen despite or in spite of any of the good teachings of the Church. I will agree with others, though, that its important for me personally not to see my own personal revelation as more than personal.

It reminds me of something Ray says frequently on here (forgive me, Ray, if I paraphrase), that he wouldn’t blame homosexuals for leaving the church over their sexual orientation. That is clearly a choice that the church would disagree with, but there is no reason for you or I to say that God would or wouldn’t. I think the same thing applies when we are talking about any such situation where what the church teaches and what God teaches us individually are at odds.

I guess I would also say that it also matters when we are talking about a Church law versus a law of the land. I don’t know that I would condone embezzlement, for example

[MadamCurie]

spacious maze wrote:

Aside from whether or not the church should shift their views, I personally wonder if the church can actually change their views on homosexuality. The church has a ton of laws which derive from history, revelation and scripture; and since history, revelation and scripture have not been kind to the same-sex lifestyle, how can the church justify any shift on such a long and adamant stance?

I really don’t see how their change in their stance on polygamy differs that much from a change in position on homosexuality. Once the Church taught that polygamy was absolutely required for entrance into the CK, using history, revelation, and scripture to support it. Now they ex people for doing it.

Our current view of the nuclear family structure of heaven is very different from the view of heaven BY had, and both today’s prophets and BY use/used history, revelation, and scripture to support their stances.

I think that in 100 years or so, if the political and social environment has changed to accept homosexual marriage, the church will do the same.

[MadamCurie]

MWallace,

That is a neat study. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about that study, and several addition ones (including a meta-analysis) that replicated the findings:

Chromosome linkage studies

Chromosome linkage studies of sexual orientation have indicated the presence of multiple contributing genetic factors throughout the genome. In 1993, Dean Hamer and colleagues published findings from a linkage analysis of a sample of 76 gay brothers and their families.[15] Hamer et al. found that the gay men had more gay male uncles and cousins on the maternal side of the family than on the paternal side. Gay brothers who showed this maternal pedigree were then tested for X chromosome linkage, using twenty-two markers on the X chromosome to test for similar alleles. In another finding, thirty-three of the forty sibling pairs tested were found to have similar alleles in the distal region of Xq28, which was significantly higher than the expected rates of 50% for fraternal brothers. This was popularly (but inaccurately) dubbed as the ‘gay gene’ in the media, causing significant controversy.

A later analysis by Hu et al. replicated and refined these findings. This study revealed that 67% of gay brothers in a new saturated sample shared a marker on the X chromosome at Xq28.[16] Sanders et al. (1998) replicated the study, finding 66% Xq28 marker sharing in 54 pairs of gay brothers.[17] Although two other studies (Bailey et al., 1999; McKnight and Malcolm, 2000) failed to find a preponderance of gay relatives in the maternal line of homosexual men[17], a rigorous replication of the maternal loading was reported on samples in Italy in England. One study by Rice et al. in 1999 failed to replicate the Xq28 linkage results.[18] Meta-analysis of all available linkage data indicates a significant link to Xq28, but also indicates that additional genes must be present to account for the full heritability of sexual orientation.

Mustanski et al. (2005) performed a full-genome scan (instead of just an X chromosome scan) on individuals and families previously reported on in Hamer et al. (1993) and Hu et al. (1995), as well as additional new subjects.[19] With the larger sample set and complete genome scan, the study found somewhat reduced linkage for Xq28 than reported by Hamer et al. However, they did find other markers with significant likelihood scores at 8p12, 7q36 and 10q26. Interestingly, one of the links showed highly significant maternal loading, thus further confirming the previous family studies.

[MadamCurie]

The link is through the “What I believe” button. There are two refutation posts there, parts 1 and 2.

[MadamCurie]

I was so angered by this that I finally did a point-point refutation of the talk on my blog. It felt good, in a cathartic, fight -ignorance-with-fact sort of way. I was up all night last night working on it, but now my head feels a lot better (the frustrations stopped swirling around with no where to go).

[MadamCurie]

MWallace57 wrote:

Here is a list of why parents and Church Leaders need to have competent medical consultation before determining the cause of SSA:

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (little boys born without testosterone receptors)

5 Alpha Reductase Deficiency (little boys that are missing an enzyme that converts testosterone to the biologically active steroid – dihyrotestosterone (DHT)

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia in females (little girls born with external male genitalia because their adrenal glands produced large quantities of male sex hormones)

Klinefelter’s Syndrome – little boys born with an extra chromosome – XXY genotype

Sex Chromosome Mosiacs – some cells have XY, some body cells have XX

Prenatal Exposure to the powerful estrogen DES – 10 Million pregnant women given DES during pregnancy to help prevent miscarraige – (approximately 1 in 4 girls born with SSA)

Prenatal Exposure the Methamphetamine – Methamphetamine can cross the placenta, enter fetal brain and disrupt “Androgen Imprinting”, resulting in “sexual dypsphoria” – child not knowing what gender he or she truly is.

Prenatial Exposure to Thyroid Hormone Replacement Therapy (Mom’s with thyroid conditions)

I think it is important not to confuse homosexuality with gender-identity issues, since they are not the same thing. Several of the above concern the latter, and not the former.

[MadamCurie]

Old-Timer wrote:

My hope, as I have expressed elsewhere, is that, in the short term, everyone can understand that intimacy is FAR more than sexual intercourse – and that the wide variety of intimacy allowed for heterosexuals can be allowed for homosexuals. Actually, I hope the restrictions can be loosened a bit, but I don’t want them obliterated – for anyone, gay or straight. Stright members who can’t remain celibate (for good reason) leave the Church regularly, but nobody screams discrimiation because of the standard they face. That is the real tightrope, imo – and it is the least understood aspect of the criticism leveled against the Church. It simply MUST be consistent, so it can’t allow for gay memebrs what it doesn’t allow for straight members.

Again, I believe there are ways to even the playing field more than it is now, but, at the moment, I think the only option open to the Church (unless directed by explicit revelation) is to broaden the activities that are considered ok for homosexuals to include everything that is acceptable for single heterosexual members.

I’m not sure whether or not we agree on this, Ray, so I’m going to explain how I see the issue and then we’ll see

At the moment, a heterosexual single male can hold hands with, kiss, cuddle, snuggle, even make out with a girl without being called in for an interview with his bishop. In fact, those actions are encouraged, particularly if there is the hope that they will lead to marriage. The same is NOT presently even allowed, let alone encouraged, for homosexual members. A gay man who is leading a celibate lifestyle (by heterosexual standards) but who has a boyfriend will still be subject to church counsel. If it is an issue of celibacy and celibacy alone, then this should not be.

I think that the Church would argue that it isn’t a matter of celibacy alone – that any physical relationship between two members of the same sex is inherently unnatural and, therefore, a sin. But if that is the case, then this isn’t a celibacy issues at all. Furthermore, if it isn’t an issue of celibacy, then we are in essence saying that the feelings alone are sinful. I think it wrong to put forward the false notion that it about celibacy (for the church) if it isn’t, because it presents a logic catch-22.

[MadamCurie]

Wow… sounds like it could really be a good one!

[MadamCurie]

Fascinating quiz…

1. Liberal Quakers (100%)

2. Unitarian Universalism (98%)

3. Neo-Pagan (94%)

4. Reform Judaism (93%)

5. Mahayana Buddhism (86%)

6. New Age (86%)

7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (85%)

8. Baha’i Faith (84%)

9. Theravada Buddhism (75%)

10. Sikhism (72%)

11. New Thought (69%)

12. Jainism (67%)

13. Hinduism (61%)

14. Orthodox Judaism (60%)

15. Scientology (60%)

16. Orthodox Quaker (58%)

17. Taoism (56%)

18. Secular Humanism (55%)

19. Islam (53%)

20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (43%)

21. Seventh Day Adventist (30%)

22. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (30%)

23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (30%)

24. Nontheist (29%)

25. Eastern Orthodox (25%)

26. Roman Catholic (25%)

27. Jehovah’s Witness (19%)

[Author]

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