"No [blank], No Opinion"

You don't need my permission to advocate for eternal families

From Sunday school to work committees, I have been in many situations where LGBTQ issues are discussed through the lens of the gospel. In these discussions, there is always an added measure of love, grace, and respect for LGBTQ people and their experience within the church. I’m always happy to see members of the church taking the call to love our neighbors seriously, but there is usually a glaring piece missing from the puzzle: the unequivocal declaration of eternal truths.

Within the minutiae of these discussions, there are beliefs orthodox church members have, beliefs that unorthodox members or secular people have, and beliefs both sides agree on. The Venn diagram below lists some examples. 

With rare exceptions, the majority of the gospel discussions in the church avoid everything on the left of the Venn diagram and focus mostly on the things in the middle. While it’s good to seek unity where possible, I worry about the inevitable consequences of ignoring the truths on the left. 

When only one side of an issue feels emboldened, there’s an imbalance in the conversation. At best, this imbalance leads to unorthodoxy; at worst, it leads to radicalism. The less we talk about a doctrine, the more obscured it gets, and the more despised and misunderstood it becomes. Those on the side of a more modern version of sexual morality are becoming increasingly emboldened. On the other side, traditional sexual morality is becoming more obscured, more despised, and less understood.

Especially in the case of misunderstanding the doctrine of eternal families, it becomes much easier to let a short-sided—albeit genuine—compassion turn you into an excuse-making enabler for LGBTQ members of the church.

Compassion-fueled Exception-making

The promise of the Plan of Salvation is an everlasting joy we can’t currently comprehend. If you don’t subscribe to our doctrine, that’s your prerogative. Without the context or belief in the Plan of Salvation, I perfectly understand the logic of gay marriage. But for those of us who do believe in the Plan, how can we justify going along with anything that deviates from that plan? We acknowledge and respect others’ agency, but that doesn’t have to include staying quiet about issues with such lasting consequences.

We don’t have all the answers, but the scripture is “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;...For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” There isn’t an “unless you identify as LGBTQ” caveat to those words from Christ Himself. The gospel of Jesus Christ works for everyone. Different circumstances necessitate individual adaptation, but those adaptations need not be deviations.

The more we understand the doctrine, the more we’ll realize how important it is to include our LGBTQ brothers and sisters in the discussion of eternal families. Not in a way that undermines, excuses, or belittles the doctrine, but in a way that encourages, empowers, and emboldens LGBTQ members of the church to include themselves in the plan the best way they know how.

For some like me, that could mean carefully and thoughtfully pursuing a mixed-orientation marriage. For others, that might mean fighting against the painful gender incongruence they may have or making the agonizing decision to remain single for now. Making sacrifices is a large part of discipleship, and some sacrifices are harder than others. What makes God’s promise so amazing is that despite these sacrifices, whatever they may be, the reward unequivocally makes up for it in the end. 

Understanding the promises of the gospel, why do we remain so afraid of shouting it from the rooftops? As far as I can tell, social pressure plays the biggest role.

You Don’t Need Our Permission

I often get messages to the effect of “thank you for standing up for eternal truths. I wish I had the courage to do the same.”  To these members of the church, I’m always thankful for the encouragement, but please know this: you don’t need my permission to advocate for eternal families. Just because you don’t share my experience with something in the LGBTQ acronym, that doesn’t mean you have to take a back seat in the discussion. Being a light on a hill means proudly shining the truth of the gospel in its entirety. We each have different frequencies of light that we’re able to shine brighter at different points in our life, but we don’t need to be afraid of frequencies with which we’re less familiar. There are people in our circles who need our light, no matter how dim it is, so they can find their way through the dark field of modern philosophies.

As far as I can tell, this fear of speaking up comes from two places: the potential of retribution—with which I can certainly relate—and the senseless cultural idea that only those who are most directly affected by something can voice an opinion on it.

“Only women can voice their opinion on abortion.”

“Only racial minorities can voice their opinion on how to effectively fight racism.”

“Only LGBTQ people can voice their opinion on the issue of gay marriage.”

Using the abortion example, the common mantra is something like, “no uterus, no opinion”. In other words, men aren’t allowed to voice their opinion on the morality of abortion, because women are more directly involved in the wonder of childbirth. This type of attitude bleeds over to many other discussions, such as racism and LGBTQ issues. Sometimes it’s more direct, such as this abortion example, and sometimes it’s a more subtle attitude that only those with direct experience with something should speak out about it. Not to mention, it’s a reductive attempt to lump everyone of a certain identity group into a box. Not all women are pro-choice—in fact, the pro-life movement is led largely by many brave women—but it’s easier to lump people into groups, so you can engage with them as the shallowest version of an ideology instead of an individual.

Those who are more directly affected by something may have important insights, but you don’t have to have direct experience with a moral issue to voice an opinion on that moral issue. 

We operate this way all the time. If your child asked you if it’s wrong to steal, but you’d never had an experience stealing something or having something stolen from you, you’d still answer your child in the affirmative. If we had to wait until we had experience with something to offer any insight into it, we wouldn’t get very far as a society.

The “no uterus, no opinion” type attitude is nothing more than an attempt to limit the discussion to one side. It’s much easier to silence your opposition than it is to listen to their point, seek to understand their point, and then determine whether and how to refute their point. 

In reality, people who advocate for this thinking don’t want the outgroups to remain completely silent. (For example, men staying quiet on the issue of abortion.) Rather, it’s an attempt to manipulate the outgroup into parroting the opinion of the ingroup. For instance, women on the pro-choice side of the debate would typically be happy to hear a man advocate for abortion rights.

This type of social pressure is nothing more than a dishonest attempt to get more on your side of an issue. We each have individual experiences that provide unique insight into one topic or another, but you don’t have to wait for someone to steal your bike to warn against the evils of theft.

When it comes to the crossroads of LGBTQ issues and eternal families, some members of the church feel unqualified to say anything, because they don’t identify with an experience under the LGBTQ umbrella. Please understand that we need your help moving this conversation in the right direction.

The problem harkens back to the imbalance I mentioned earlier. LGBTQ members of the church who remain committed to the gospel are relatively uncommon. Additionally, unorthodox thinkers in the church feel completely justified advocating for one side of the conversation—loudly disparaging eternal truths like the nature of eternal families while calling themselves our allies. We need everyday members of the church to join us in lovingly and boldly declaring the eternal nature of families in church settings and online. We need parents of LGBTQ children to cut against the pervasive idea that the Plan of Salvation is only for “straight” members of the church—or more damaging, that you can effectively engage in the Plan of Salvation while pursuing a same-sex relationship or gender transition. We need more leaders and teachers to push back against ideas that teens hear online and that contradict the Plan of Salvation.

We have to ask ourselves if we really believe in the promised blessings of God’s plan for us, whether or not we believe those promises extend to everyone, and if we have the faith to invite all to embrace the Plan of Salvation, even if it means some hard conversations.

Conclusion

We all have a stake in tactfully and lovingly advocating for anything that draws us and our culture closer to God; conversely, we all have a stake in warning against anything that will draw us further from God. Breaking His commandments is one of those things. As always, there is a time, a place, and a graceful way to do it, but the courage to speak up doesn’t come out of nowhere; it comes from practice. Additionally, fostering a culture within the church that values both grace and truth will make the journey less difficult for the rising generation.

Some commandments are harder to keep than others; some are less popular to advocate for. Even so, each commandment has the expressed purpose of helping us bridle our passions, point us toward our Savior, and limit the hoard of barriers in the way of our salvation.

Christ was the perfect exemplar of truth and grace, and He never once shied away from either.