The Straight Line: Boyd the bigot strikes back

Last week’s LDS General Conference once again brought the bigotry of LDS leaders into the light. President Boyd K. Packer, noted last year for his ridiculous remarks about homosexuality as a choice and sin, uttered these choice remarks:

“In another revelation, the Lord’s standard of morality command that the sacred powers to beget life be protected and employed only between a man and woman, husband and wife. To misuse this power is exceeded only by the shedding of innocent blood and denying the Holy Ghost.”

Let’s start with the obvious, “exceeded only by the shedding of innocent blood and denying the Holy Ghost.” So, two people that love each other and are committed to one another are more detrimental to society than say, thieves, embezzlers, child abusers (that don’t draw blood), arsonists and other assorted criminals? Boyd’s god would rather forgive these people for sins they willingly commit, but cannot accept the existence of homosexuals, people that make no choice about their sexual orientation or identity? Nice god.

But let’s take a deeper look. What Boyd is also saying is that someone who commits adultery or engages in sexual activity outside of marriage is also in more dire moral straights than criminals. There are so many levels of idiocy here that it’s actually quite hard to separate them all.

Let’s start with the homosexual angle. Two men that engage in sexual activity fall into this category of sin because their seed is wasted on ground that can’t produce children, right? So what if both of these men are sterile, does that make their homosexuality acceptable? They can’t create children, hence they are not abusing the sacred power to beget life.

What about homosexual women? They don’t lose their eggs by engaging in homosexual activity, so they aren’t really abusing this sacred power either, other than the fact that they aren’t employing every opportunity to get pregnant and make babies. What about women who make a choice to not have children, especially those who are not sexually active at all? Are they in some way abusing their power to beget life because they are not attempting to create life during every available biological cycle?

Is Packer arguing that the only non-sinful way to engage in sex is for the purpose of procreation?

What about birth control? If married couples engage in sexual activity but employ birth control methods, are they abusing this sacred power? I can’t help but flashback to a bit of Monty Python: “Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great, whenever sperm gets wasted God gets quite irate.”

While I personally find it offensive and honestly incomprehensible that an organization that claims to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ would so openly promote intolerance and hatred, I accept the fact that the Mormon Church has every right to their beliefs and bigotry. What I don’t accept is the continued claim that we, as a society, need to respect that bigotry in the guise of protecting religious freedom. We do have to accept it, but we don’t have to respect it.

If the LDS Church chooses to believe that homosexuality is in some way immoral, that’s fine. They have the constitutionally guaranteed right to their beliefs. What’s not fine is the way in which they approach it. To make a statement that the sin of homosexuality is exceeded only by murder and the denial of God is not only patently absurd, but morally reprehensible on too many levels to count.

But hey, I guess my LGTBQ friends can take comfort in the fact that atheists like me, even straight ones, are headed to hell faster than they are.