Gender and Same-sex Attraction

In the The Family: A Proclamation to the World we learn, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." In class we learned about the differences of men and women. Men are task oriented and spacial oriented. Women are able to focus on lots of things at once and relationship centered.  Even when boys and girls are just a few days old, girls tend to move their mouths more. Girls also have five times as much connective tissue connecting the emotion and communication centers in their brains then boys do. I think these are important differences that are divinely given. Elder Bednar, an apostle of the Lord, has said, "For divine purposes, male and female spirits are different, distinctive, and complementary. The unique combination of spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional capacities of both males and females were needed to implement the plan of happiness. Alone, neither the man nor the woman could fulfill the purposes of his or her creation. The man perfects the woman and the woman perfects the man." The Proclamation states that men are to preside, provide, and protect their families and women are to nurture their families. I think men and women are different to help provide these different needs for families.

In class we also discussed same-sex attraction. From the research we studied, there isn't any good and valid studies that support the biological argument that gays are born that way. A. Dean Byrd, a professor and researcher with a Ph.D., M.B.A., and M.P.H., says, "The most likely explanation of homosexuality is that it results from a complex combination of biological factors (such as temperament), environmental traumas (such as trauma associated with sexual or peer abuse), and difficult parental relationships, all of which vary with the individual. And in considering these explanations, one must not exclude the role of agency or choice in response to such attractions." Elder Oaks has said, "homosexual feelings are controllable. Feelings can be controlled and behavior can be controlled. The line of sin is between the feelings and the behavior. It's no sin to have inclinations that if yielded to would produce behavior that would be a transgression. The sin is in yielding to the temptation."Elder Wickman said, "we can control how we behave, and it is behavior which is important." "same-gender attraction did not exist in the pre-earth life and neither will it exist in the next life. it is a circumstance that for whatever reason or reasons seems to apply right now in mortality, in this nano-second of our eternal existence."
This is a link to the Church's website that has lots of good information and videos about how the church feels about same-sex attraction!
Mormons and Gays


I am so grateful that I have been sealed to my amazing husband. I am so grateful that we are different and that we each have our different abilities and talents. And I'm grateful that we bring the best out of each other. I love him with all my heart!