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“Rather than excluded, we would like to see [our children] included and made welcome in our worship services and church community” September 2007 Family Fellowship, a Mormon organization for the families of gay and lesbian people, has issued a response to statements made by Dallin H. Oaks and Lance B. Wickman in an interview staged last year by LDS Public Affairs. The full response is available on the Family Fellowship website. According to Family Fellowship's response, most gay Mormons do not choose to remain celibate and active in the Church. Family Fellowship parents say that when they see their children confronted with the options of marrying someone of the opposite sex, living in promiscuity, or living in a same-sex committed relationship, they prefer their children “to live in a committed relationship with fidelity.” Family Fellowship expresses concern about Oaks's and Wickman's emphasis on sin and condemnation, but praises the interview for acknowledging that sexual orientation is a core characteristic of personality. “We are extremely grateful that this is included,” Family Fellowship writes, “and we are hopeful that from this time forward more and more leaders and members of the Church will comprehend the importance of this fact.” Family Fellowship expresses concern that the LDS Church has not fully addressed the issue of how to respond to gay and lesbian couples who live in Massachusetts, Canada, and other parts of the world where they are legally married to their partners. “There should be a way for the Church to reach out to such couples,” Family Fellowship writes. “Rather than excluded we would like to see them included and made welcome in our worship services and church community.” Family Fellowship's response takes issue with Elder Wickman's comparison between gay people and those with mental disabilities. “Many of our homosexual children consider it demeaning for others to speak of their condition in the same terms one speaks of physical or mental disabilities or disorders,” they wrote. “Being physically or mentally incapable of marriage is different from being physically and mentally capable of marriage and yet be denied that experience.” Family Fellowship also takes issue with Elder Wickman's rejection of same-sex marriage on the basis that “as an institution, marriage... can only have one definition.” In their response, Family Fellowship parents say that have a hard time explaining this notion to their children given the fact that Mormon families once practiced polygamy. “Many of our family histories include ancestors with a rather different form of marriage,” Family Fellowship wirtes, “—one that not only went against ‘thousands of years of human experience,’ but which the government considered unlawful and the vast majority of citizens considered barbaric.” “When our homosexual children enter into committed, monogamous relationships, whether sanctioned by law or otherwise, they are attempting to abide by a higher moral and social standard that those who live promiscuously,” the document concludes. “When they choose [such] relationships, our choice.... is to welcome them into full family fellowship.” “It is heartbreaking that they are not welcome into... Mormonism,” the document laments. “They and we look forward to a time when they might be able to worship in the congregations of their fathers and mothers.”
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www.affirmation.org