Responding to the notion that being queer means you love all people, and that God loves you, and that is enough, including a justification of setting aside the church of God.
…I’m sure you’re dealing with people walking away from your friendship over this [declaration of being Queer]. I enjoy your company and wish life wasn’t so busy. It is not hard to see why many are drawn to you… I would love to help you get a blog going where you can detail for us your philosophies and debate them with your friends respectfully…
I’ll give you some of my thoughts on same sex attraction, take it or leave it. My gender identity is that I am sexually attracted to all good-looking women. That conflicts with God’s laws found in the scriptures, which say I must pick and stay with 1.
Trying to base my life choices on what the scriptures say is often hard for me, but I trust that, as Joseph Smith promised, if we remain faithful, God will make up all our losses to us in the resurrection. I don’t know about you, but I’ve experienced a lot of losses, and wake up every morning looking forward to the day that that promise will be fulfilled. Life is so very hard for you, for me, for everyone. Some of us are private about our emotions, but we all have them, and we’re all broken in one way or another.
As for loving all people, we can focus our romance rather than share it with all interested people. Jesus said, ‘cast not your pearls before swine, lest they turn again and rend you’. That means we have to be careful about who our closest circles are. That doesn’t mean we can’t ‘love’ everyone, we just have to learn to use different kinds of love for different kinds of people. I can’t wait for the soon coming day when Jesus Christ will again live on this earth, and show us firsthand how to truly love all people. Being near him will be like standing near a campfire after wandering through the cold woods all night. If there’s one thing I believe above anything else, it’s that Jesus Christ is real, and will come to live on earth soon, and feed us what we’re so hungry for, love. I foresee you and I weeping for joy together when He returns.
I don’t have same sex attraction, so I don’t know how hard that is to not act on, but I can say I’ve seen people who, even in that scenario, chose to curve their natural man and loose themselves in temple and other types of service to help them endure to the end. Some crosses are heavy. I know enduring doesn’t sound fun, but life’s not about fun, it’s about eternal investment (though there’s surprisingly lots of fun when we do that). The world says, “be yourself”, Jesus says “be like me”. Yes, I agree with you, that’s asking a lot, and it’s often painful and embarrassing. We all have a long journey ahead of us as far as that goes.
As far as Heavenly Father’s love goes, yes, he loves you and everyone. The fullness of his blessings are available to you and everyone if you and I will curve our natural man into a divine man. Our bodies are weak today, and sometimes it is hard to understand why God decided to give us weak bodies, but in the resurrection our bodies will be strong. Our feelings will be clear. Our vision about long term consequences will be clear. This life is tricky because so much of that is unclear, and we can hardly remember what happened 24 hours ago. Whatever you chose, remember doors are open for alternatives if you ever wish to go through them. Thank God for keeping those doors open, no matter what.
Your desire to love everyone is evidence that the stirrings of God are in you. Your destiny is to become a God someday [name], make no mistake about it. It won’t be easy, and we can learn together how to truly love all people. What joy we will have as we save thousands, and with them rejoice! Make no small plans… I invite you to make your closest circle of friends those people who wish to support you in that quest.
…Like I said, whatever you chose to do, I’ll be looking forward to spending time with you whenever possible, friend.
