Dive deep into the complexities of faith, identity, and personal growth in this transformative episode of "The Midlife Revolution." In this episode, I explore my journey of leaving the Mormon Church after decades of membership, focusing on a significant talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks from October 2019. This discussion centers on his views on women's roles and the church's stance towards the LGBTQ community, highlighting the gap between the church's inclusive rhetoric and its exclusionary policies.

Listen as I dissect the implications of these teachings on personal lives, especially for women over 40 who are reevaluating their faith and seeking authenticity in their spiritual journey.

Learn how small, positive changes can lead to profound life improvements, using my own experience as a testament to the power of personal revolution at midlife.

Explore the dissonance between 'all are welcome' statements and the reality of church policies that bar full participation for the LGBTQ community.

This episode is not just about critique; it's a beacon for those navigating their way out of high control environments, whether religious, familial, or otherwise. Join the conversation on:

Finding your voice after years of silence

Rebuilding your life with authenticity and joy 

Embracing change in midlife

Leaving Mormon Church, high control religions, women over 40, Dallin H. Oaks, LDS Church critique, faith deconstruction, personal growth, midlife change, small positive changes, LGBTQ exclusion, spiritual awakening, authenticity in faith, leaving religion, life after church, women's roles in church.

 #MidlifeRevolution  #FaithDeconstruction #HighControlReligion

Subscribe to "The Midlife Revolution" for more stories of transformation, empowerment, and finding your path in midlife. Click the bell icon to get notified about new videos that might just change your life's trajectory. Join our community of brave souls choosing to live their truth, one step at a time.

WEBVTT

Hello, beautiful humans.

Welcome to Midlife Revolution.

I'm your host, Megan Conner.

And today I want to cover a

topic that is probably old

news to some of you at the very least.

In October of twenty nineteen,

Dallin H. Oaks,

who is the first counselor

in the presidency of the

Corporation of the Church

of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

gave a talk during the

women's session of conference.

This is a session that's

just designed for women who

are twelve and older.

Mothers and daughters go to

this session together to be

told by the priesthood

authorities of the church

what we're supposed to be doing.

And in this particular talk,

Dallin H. Oaks addressed

some of the LGBTQ issues

that have come up in the church.

And I came across this talk

in preparation for an

episode that I'm doing

about the new transgender

policy that the church

released back in August.

And I hadn't heard this talk

in its entirety before,

but listening to it today,

I realized that in this short,

thirteen minute talk,

there is a lot to talk about.

And I wanted to go over some

of the topics because

people who may not be as

informed about the way that

the church treat its LGBTQ members

you're going to want to

listen to this talk.

This talk really

encapsulates the way that

the church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints feels

about LGBTQ members.

And I think it's important

for us to go over what's

being said from the pulpit

and more importantly,

what's not being said.

So I'm going to share this

talk with you

I'm going

to stop and add some

commentary as we go through it.

Just so you can understand

from my perspective,

as someone who was in the

church for forty years,

who was a seventh generation Mormon,

who knew everything there

was to know about the church,

or so I thought,

because I was a gospel doctrine teacher,

I was a Relief Society teacher,

I was in the primary leadership,

I did every music calling that there was,

I was a very, very faithful,

card-carrying, temple-attending Mormon.

for the majority of my adult

life and the reason i say

the majority is because

there were a couple of

years right after high

school where i was out of

the church for a little

while but i came back

because i wanted to raise

my children with a

foundation of faith and

when i started to learn

some of the real truths of

mormonism that had been

covered up i got very upset

about the fact that i had

been lied to and deceived

for the majority of my life

and i resigned from the church after

a long struggle with a lot

of the problematic history of the church.

I do an entire deep dive on

why and how I left the

church on my channel.

That episode is available in

the show notes for you.

And I highly recommend that

you go through it.

It talks a lot about truth claims,

but it also talks about

harmful policies and the

fact that even if the truth

claims were true,

the church is still a

really harmful organization.

And no, I don't believe that it does

more good than harm in the world.

I actually believe the

opposite when you take into

account the coercive

control and the abuse that

the church perpetuates on

its members and the abuse

that's been covered up

historically over the last years.

So let's take a look at this

talk and I'll show you what

I'm concerned about.

My dear sisters in the

gospel of Jesus Christ,

I greet you as divinely

assigned guardians of the eternal family.

Okay, so right off the bat,

Dallin Oaks says that we

are divinely assigned

guardians of the eternal family.

And what he's referring to

here is in the family,

a proclamation to the world,

which was put out in

nineteen eighty five.

That document very clearly

defines the roles of men

and women in the church of

fathers and mothers and

what their roles and

responsibilities are.

So when he says that we're

divinely assigned guardians

of the eternal family,

he's talking about the role

of women to protect the

sanctity of the family unit.

And he's saying that we are

appointed by God.

This is our role that we're

supposed to fulfill in our

lives on the earth.

President Russell M. Nelson has taught us,

quote,

this church was restored so that

families could be formed, sealed,

and exalted eternally, end quote.

So here he's quoting the

current president of the

Corporation of the Church

of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

self-declared prophet.

And he's saying that the

entire point of our entire

existence and the

restoration of the gospel,

which he's referring to the

Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints,

is so that families could be formed,

sealed, and exalted eternally.

So what he means by that is

so that a man and a woman

could get married together,

they could be sealed in the temple,

which is just a special

ceremony basically saying

that your marriage is not

just for this life, but it's for forever.

And exalted eternally refers

to the idea that only a man

and a woman married, sealed in the temple,

can reach exaltation,

which basically means the

highest level of Mormon heaven,

and that when you're exalted

as a couple in this way,

that you can go on to have

your own spirit children,

have your own world basically

just continue procreating

into the eternities and

perpetuating this over and over.

If you've never heard this concept before,

I know it can be a little bit wild.

So I totally understand if

you're lost at this point,

but try to hang with me

because that's not really

the most important thing.

There is another episode on

my channel where I do talk

about the three levels of Mormon heaven.

I will also link that in the

show notes to this episode.

that teaching has important

implications for persons

who identify as lesbian gay

bisexual or transgender

okay so this is literally

the third sentence of the

talk and the first sentence

reminds us of our role that

was assigned by god for us

to be guardians of the

family unit the second sentence

talks about the purpose of

the restoration of the

gospel of Jesus Christ was

to bring families together

and then exalt them in heaven.

And in the third sentence,

he's saying this has

implications for the LGBTQ community.

Although he can't even say lesbians,

right?

He says lesbians,

which tells me he probably

doesn't know any lesbians

and he's probably never

actually spoken to a lesbian,

or at least not that he knows of.

So very clearly he's setting

this talk up to directly

address LGBTQ people,

but he's not directly addressing them.

He's othering them already.

He's saying persons who

identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual,

or trans.

When he uses this kind of language,

it means that he doesn't

believe there are any LGBTQ

people in the audience.

Otherwise, he would say,

this has important

implications for those of

you who are LGBTQ.

He just says persons who are LGBTQ.

So me,

as a bisexual woman sitting in that

conference center,

would have heard this talk and thought,

persons who are LGBTQ, okay?

So he's talking to me,

but he's not really addressing me.

He's talking to other people

about me while I'm in the room.

Commonly referred to as LGBT.

President Nelson has also

reminded us that we don't

have to always agree with

each other to love each other.

Okay, so the very next point,

without making any effort

to tie these ideas together,

Dallin Oaks is saying, number one,

women are the divinely

appointed guardians of the family unit.

Number two,

the whole reason that the

gospel of Jesus Christ was restored,

and I'm always going to put

that in air quotes,

is to form and exalt families.

Number three,

this has implications for the

LGBTQ community.

And number four,

we don't have to agree with each other.

So the unspoken implications

that he's talking about for

the LGBTQ community are that gay couples,

lesbian couples, trans people,

queer people can't form

family units in accordance

with teachings of the

church and can't be exalted

as a family unit, right?

That's the implication he's talking about.

He's not going to directly say it.

He's going to speak around it,

but he's not going to come

out and say it because it

would be a really bad look

for somebody to clip out a

quote like that

and say that.

And so he's talking around it.

He's so far has made four points,

none of which he has made

any effort to tie together.

The fourth point is,

we don't have to agree in

order to love each other.

And the implication

underneath that statement is,

we don't agree with LGBTQ people.

We don't agree with their lifestyle,

because it doesn't fit into

the doctrine of our church.

So just soak that in for a moment.

He's not coming out and

directly saying that we

disagree with them.

He's quoting somebody else

who said that we don't have

to agree to love each other.

Immediately after making a

statement about LGBTQ people,

indirectly saying that

they're not able to achieve

exaltation as a family unit.

I don't know if anybody else

understands how insidious this is.

Because if you ask

individual members of the

Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints, they will say,

we welcome the LGBTQ community.

Our sign on the outside of

every building says, visitors welcome.

We love you.

We want you to be part of

our congregation.

But what we're hearing from

the pulpit in Salt Lake City,

which is the definitive

word on how the church is

supposed to be run,

what we're hearing from the

leadership are these sort

of veiled commentary that

LGBTQ people don't actually fit.

And we don't really know

what to do about it.

We disagree.

We're going to say we welcome them, but

the policies and the

doctrines that we teach are

clearly not welcoming to

the LGBTQ community.

I have prayerfully sought

inspiration to speak to

this audience because you

are uniquely affected by these questions,

which directly or

indirectly affect every

family in the church.

Okay.

So he's laying the

groundwork that he has

prayed about what he's going to say.

And if you haven't paid

attention to Mormonism before,

When Dallin Oaks speaks,

the thinking has been done.

Nobody can dispute it.

And also,

nobody can question it

seers, and revelators,

the top fifteen men in the church,

again they present

themselves as prophets and

so what they're saying is

coming from god so it's

beyond contestation so the

implication is that

whatever i say here today

i've prayed about it the

spirit told me what to say

therefore you can't really dispute it

He's also pointing out that

what he's about to say,

either directly or indirectly,

affects every family in the church.

So what he means to say,

or let me help you out here, Dallin Oaks,

what would have been more

appropriate to say is that

some of us have family

members who are in the LGBTQ community.

So these issues will directly affect us.

Some of us don't have families.

family members or people

that we know and love who

are in the LGBTQ community.

But the policies and

doctrines that we put in

place that affect those

people ultimately have

effect on everyone because

the family is the most

important thing in the church.

I'm going to put an asterisk

next to family because the

eternal family is

is the most important thing in the church.

The church does not really

care about all families.

They only care about what

they consider to be eternal families,

which means a man and a

woman married and sealed in

the temple with the proper

authority who have children

who are born into the covenant,

which means that ceiling

works for them too.

All the children are

automatically a sealed to

parents who have been

sealed in the temple.

So that eternal family unit

is the ideal that is always

taught in Mormonism.

And if you have not lived up to that ideal,

for example,

if you have a part member family,

if the mom or the dad isn't a member,

or if they got married

civilly but not got married in the temple,

they're just not there yet.

They're not going to get to

the highest level of Mormon heaven.

And since we're always teaching the ideal,

that means we're going to

leave some people behind

and we're okay with it

because God told us this

was the right way.

I begin with what Jesus

taught were the two great commandments.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy

God with all thy heart and

with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

End of quote.

And if we could just end right there,

if we could end the talk

right there and end the

meeting right there and end

the discussion right there,

that would be perfect.

Let's just say that.

Love God.

Love your neighbors.

The end.

Love your gay neighbor,

love your lesbian neighbor,

love your bisexual neighbor,

love your transgender neighbor,

love your queer neighbor,

love your straight neighbor,

love your cisgender neighbor,

love your non-binary neighbor.

Like we could just end it

right there and that would

be perfectly fine.

But that's not what happened,

unfortunately.

This means we are commanded

to love everyone.

Yep.

The end.

That's all.

since jesus parable of the

good samaritan teaches that

everyone is our neighbor

but our zeal to keep this

second commandment must not

cause us to forget the

first okay this is right

where when reviewing this

talk in preparation for

another episode i start to

get upset admittedly i

start to get angry because

now you're interpreting scripture

And of course,

he thinks he's entitled

because he thinks that he's a prophet.

He thinks that he's a revelator,

that it's his job to

interpret the scriptures

for us and tell us what God

wants us to do.

But there's nowhere in any Bible,

in any other Christian text, anywhere,

that gives us that qualifier.

he has the audacity to

qualify that we shouldn't

let loving our neighbor

interfere with loving our God.

So clearly God comes first,

neighbors come second.

Noted.

Just want to make sure we're

all on the same page with that.

God requires us to obey his

commandments because only

through that obedience,

including repentance,

can we return to live in

his presence and become perfect as he is.

So I just want to make sure

that everybody who is not Mormon,

never been Mormon,

understands the doctrine behind this.

In order for us to return to heaven,

we have to keep all the

commandments and not just the big ten.

Because remember,

Mormons have a whole other

list of commandments listed

throughout the Book of Mormon,

the Doctrine and Covenants,

the Pearl of Great Price.

Not to mention any

commandment that modern day

prophets have given us.

So anytime that these guys

speak from the pulpit,

what they say is considered

to be scripture.

And if they tell us to do

something like keeping a

year supply of food storage,

it's a commandment.

And we have to keep all of

the commandments in order

to return to the presence of God.

Not only that,

but he does mention repentance.

which means that if we've

done something wrong, if we've sinned,

we have to go through the

repentance process in order

to be considered fully

clean and fully worthy to

enter the presence of God.

Now,

Mormons do repentance a lot different

than most other churches do.

Most other churches, you either

confess to a priest, like in Catholicism,

or in Protestantism,

where you just pray to God

and you ask for forgiveness

and you promise to do better.

In Mormonism,

there are certain sins that

you have to confess to a bishop.

So anything considered a serious sin,

which does anyone want to

hazard a guess at what

might be a serious sin in Mormonism?

That's right.

Anything having to do with

relations of any kind,

even with yourself.

All that has to be confessed to a bishop.

And then the bishop gets to

decide what your repentance

process looks like.

For some people,

that looks like not taking

the sacrament in a very

public ceremony every single Sunday.

For some people,

it looks like telling you

not to go to the temple for a while,

removing your temple recommend,

asking you not to wear your garments,

things like that.

It's bishop roulette.

They get a little bit of guidance on this,

but not anything really super specific,

except for a little bit of

training that they receive

every once in a while.

And the reactions of

different bishops vary

widely depending on that

bishop's experience, background,

whether or not he's nuanced or orthodox,

whether or not he...

you know, his age, his marital status,

like all of those things come into play,

like personal dynamics come

into play so much when

you're a bishop in the church.

There are some bishops who

are really great, wonderful people,

good men trying to do the

best they can with the very

little that they're given.

And there are other bishops

who wield that authority

and enjoy punishing people

when they come to the bishop

with a confession of some kind.

So your repentance process

is going to vary depending

on who your bishop is.

And you have to go through

that process in order to be

considered worthy to go to the temple.

Again,

you have to be a card-carrying

temple recommend holder in

order to reach the highest

level of Mormon heaven.

Just want to be clear that

everybody understands that.

Oh, and one other thing.

Did you notice the mention of perfection?

Because the scripture in the

Bible that says, be ye therefore perfect,

even as my father in heaven is perfect,

is not something that

Mormons just strive for.

It's something that they

believe in literally.

They believe that we can't

be perfect in this life,

but once this life is over,

then we're going to have

that thousand years when

Jesus is reigning on the

earth to perfect ourselves

and literally become just

as perfect as Jesus Christ.

How's that for something to aspire to?

In his recent talk to the

young adults of the church,

President Russell M. Nelson

spoke of what he called the, quote,

strong connection between

God's love and his laws, end of quote.

Okay, get ready for it.

He's setting us up to say

that God's love is tied

directly to obedience to his laws.

I'm telling you,

this is a concept that most

Mormons don't understand,

that Mormons actually

believe that the fullness

of God's love is

conditional upon your

obedience to his commandments.

Now,

We've had lots of debate

about this over the years.

This was a debate that

happened when I was a

member of the church.

I actually taught this

concept because I was

taught this concept that, yes,

God loves everyone,

but the fullness of his

love is reserved for those

who keep his commandments.

Watch.

The law that applies most

significantly to the issues

relating to those identifying as LGBT is

is God's law of marriage and

its companion law of chastity.

Okay, so by the law of marriage,

he's speaking specifically, again,

about a man and a woman

married and sealed in a temple.

And its companion law, the law of chastity,

is that no one can have any

sexual relations except to

their husband or wife,

to whom they are legally and

lawfully married.

That's the standard.

That's the law of chastity.

That's what it means.

So fidelity within marriage

and no relationships outside of marriage.

President Nelson taught,

many countries have

legalized same-sex marriage.

As members of the church,

we respect the laws of the land,

including civil marriage.

The truth is, however,

that in the beginning,

marriage was ordained by God.

And to this day,

it is defined by him as

being between a man and a woman.

Okay, that's your opinion, though.

That's conjecture.

Because in the Bible,

there isn't any mention of marriage.

homosexual relationships whatsoever.

So therefore there's no

mention of homosexual

marriage whatsoever.

that one, I guess.

God has not changed his

definition of marriage.

President Nelson continued,

God has also not changed

the law of chastity.

Requirements to enter the

temple have not changed, end of quote.

Once again,

Dallin Oaks has not directly

said that if you're in a

homosexual marriage that you're sinning.

He hasn't specifically said that.

Again, he's talking around this issue.

He doesn't want there to be

a soundbite out there that

says that you're sinning if

you're in a legal gay marriage.

What he's saying is he's

wanting you to connect the dots.

He's not going to do it for you.

He's very sneaky.

He's an attorney,

so he knows what to say and

what not to say,

and he knows how to say it

in order to not be caught out.

He says,

God originally instituted marriage

between a man and a woman.

That's in the Bible.

Number two, he says,

some countries and some states,

I should add, he didn't say that,

but some states have

legalized same-sex marriage.

Your state too, by the way, Dallin Oaks.

Number three,

he says God's laws have not changed.

Marriage between a man and a woman,

still the standard.

The law of chastity hasn't changed.

So what he's implying here

is that if you are in a

homosexual relationship and

you're not married,

you're breaking the law of

chastity because the law of

chastity says that you will

only have relations with

your husband or wife to

whom you are legally and lawfully wedded.

period so the implication

here is that if you're in a

legal marriage that doesn't

mean that god accepts it

because god's law about

marriage hasn't changed and

if you're not in a marriage

but you're in a

relationship we still

expect you to keep the law

of chastity which means no

relations before marriage

and then total fidelity

within marriage that's the

standard that they're that

they're teaching

Again, it's an implication.

It's one of those in-speak

things that high demand

groups do where they just

expect you to know because

you've heard this before, right?

You know how I feel about this.

By the way,

this is something that

manipulative people do as well.

They will say something like,

you know how I feel about

this without actually

saying how they feel about

it because they're

expecting you to number one,

read their mind or number two,

recall some past experience

where they said how they

actually did feel.

very manipulative, very controlling,

very narcissistic.

Commission as apostles is to

teach nothing but truth.

That commission does not

give apostles the authority

to modify divine law.

I want you to,

I'm going to play that sentence again,

and I want you to notice his posture,

notice his tone of voice,

and what I notice

underneath is actually seething anger.

I didn't notice this until I

started watching conference

talks again just in the last year or so.

These men who lead the church

underneath everything that

they say there is a layer

of anger and hatred there

and If you don't see it,

I would love to be able to

point it out to you It's

something that I had to

learn how to do in my

childhood home growing up I

had to learn to read facial

expressions and lead read

body language and listen to

intonation inflection in

people's tone of voice to

protect myself from being harmed and

And so I have sort of a,

I have a skill for it.

And once you see those things,

you can't unsee it.

So I'm going to play this

twice more once so that you

can listen to his body

language or watch his body language,

listen to his tone of voice.

And then I'm going to play

it again with no sound so

you can really see it

without any words behind it.

And I want you to see what you notice.

Ah, shit.

It's nothing but truth.

That commission does not

give apostles the authority

to modify divine law.

And now without sound.

It is subtle,

but when Dallin Oaks looks at the camera,

that's when I see the anger.

Let's see if you can spot it as well,

or if I'm just making it up.

President Nelson reminded

all of us that our

commission as apostles is

to teach nothing but truth.

That commission does not

give apostles... When I

look into that face and into those eyes,

when I look into those eyes,

I do not see loving kindness.

I don't see guidance.

I don't see shepherding.

I see contempt.

...the authority

The work of The Church of

Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints is ultimately concerned

with preparing the children

of God for the celestial kingdom,

and most particularly for

its highest glory, exaltation,

or eternal life.

That highest destiny is only

possible through marriage for eternity.

Eternal life includes the

creative powers inherent in

the combination of male and female.

He means S-E-X, you guys,

just in case you missed it.

They can't even bring

themselves to say the word,

so they talk about the

procreative powers.

So again,

he's talking about people who are

exalted after this life,

that they're going to get

to continue to create spirit children,

literally what Mormons believe.

Modern revelation describes

as the continuation of the

seeds forever and ever.

Okay.

Now this is where I started

to go down a little bit of

a rabbit hole because I

wanted to remind myself of

the scriptural reference of

the incidents where it talks

about seeds forever and ever.

So these are my old Mormon scriptures.

I used to lug these things

around until I was about

thirty years old and I got a smaller set,

but it's got my name

embossed on it right here.

This is the quadruple combination.

It is the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon,

the Doctrine and Covenants,

and the Pearl of Great Price.

And in the Doctrine and Covenants,

section one thirty two, our favorite

This is where it talks about

seeds continuing forever and ever.

So there are a couple of

things that you should know

about section one,

thirty-two of the Doctrine and Covenants.

This is the section that

talks about polygamy, plural marriage.

Section one,

thirty-one is the one that

actually talks about

marriage being a divine commandment.

So going back just a little

bit to section one thirty one,

because that's actually the

section that talks about

marriage being a divine law

and that you can only get

into the highest degree of

Mormon heaven if you are

married with the proper authority.

What's interesting about the

doctrine and covenants is

that before each section in the heading,

it tells us where the

prophet was when these

revelations were given.

And what's interesting to me

is that during this time,

Joseph Smith was living in Nauvoo,

Illinois,

which is the city that he created.

He was the mayor,

he was the authority in that town.

He even had his own bank at one point.

So starting with section one, twenty four,

this was when the saints

moved to Nauvoo and started

establishing their city there.

So section one,

twenty four through section one, thirty,

that's six sections of the

Doctrine and Covenants were

recorded in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Between January of eighteen forty one.

And April of eighteen forty three.

Then we have this strange

phenomenon of section one

thirty-one and one thirty-two,

which were recorded in Ramus, Illinois,

not Nauvoo.

And also, by the way,

the sections of the

Doctrine and Covenants are not in order.

They're not in chronological order.

And one of the first

examples that we see of

things going out of order

is when we went to section

one thirty-one and one thirty-two,

which were revealed, published, whatever,

in eighteen forty-three.

And then the next section

right after that goes back

to eighteen thirty five.

So there is a little bit of

trickery with the arranging

of these sections.

Now,

what's what's interesting to note is

that Ramus, Illinois,

was not where Joseph Smith lived.

What was he doing in Ramus, you might ask?

Well,

he had two sisters that lived in Ramus,

Illinois, but also a family friend.

Joseph Smith had close friends in Ramus.

He often stayed with Benjamin F. Johnson.

Benjamin F. Johnson happened

to have a daughter whose

name was Elmira Johnson.

her on May

fifteenth of eighteen forty-three.

Section one thirty one of

the Doctrine and Covenants

was recorded on May

sixteenth and seventeenth

of eighteen forty three.

And the infamous section one thirty two,

which talks about polygamy,

was recorded on July twelfth

of eighteen forty three now

the other thing that I find

really interesting so just

just to put that together

for you guys Joseph Smith

recorded the sections that

talk about marriage and

plural marriage in the same

month that he married

Elmira

Johnson whom he was

visiting when he recorded those sections

He married her in May.

He recorded these sections in May.

It's all a little too coincidental.

One thing that some people

don't put together, though,

is that Elmira Johnson was

his twenty-second wife.

So by the time he recorded

these sections about plural

marriage that were revelations from God,

he had already been married

twenty-two times.

So again, I apologize for the rabbit hole,

but I wanted to go to that

scripture that talked about

seed continuing forever and ever.

And it is the longest verse

in section one thirty two

of the Doctrine and Covenants.

It is verse nineteen.

I will read it for you.

And again, verily I say unto you,

if a man marry a wife by my word,

which is my law,

and by the new and everlasting covenant,

and it is sealed unto them

by the Holy Spirit of promise,

that's that temple sealing

I was telling you about,

by him who is appointed

unto whom I have appointed

this power and the keys of the priesthood,

that means somebody who has

the priesthood authority.

Stay with me, guys.

It's a long one.

And it shall be said unto them,

You shall come forth in the

first resurrection.

And if it be after the first

resurrection and the next resurrection,

and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms,

principalities, powers, dominions,

all heights and depths,

then shall it be written in

the Lamb's book of life,

And if you abide in my

covenant and commit no

whereby to shed innocent blood,

it shall be done unto them

in all things whatsoever.

My servant hath put upon

them in time and through all,

through all eternity and

shall be full of full force

when they're out of the world.

Basically that just means

that if you get married in the temple,

as long as you don't commit mock duck,

then you're going to

inherit all of these things

and your marriage is going

to last forever.

And they shall pass by the

angels and the gods,

which are set there to

their exaltation and glory in all things,

as hath been sealed upon their heads,

which glory shall be a

fullness and a continuation

of the seeds forever and ever.

That's basically scriptural

confirmation that whoever

goes through this ceremony

gets to continue to make

babies forever and ever.

That is to become like God

with the exalted life and

divine potential of our heavenly parents.

That is the destiny we

desire for all we love.

Because of that love,

we cannot let our love

supersede the commandments

and the plan and work of God,

which we know will bring

those we love their greatest happiness.

Okay.

So again, this is an assumption that

What he's implying here is

that we know what's going

to bring people their greatest happiness.

It is this exaltation.

And therefore,

we can't let our love for

them get in the way of the

fact that we know what's best for them.

We know that they can only

get to heaven or the

highest level of heaven

through adhering to these

commandments as they are.

But there are many we love,

including some who have the

restored gospel,

who do not believe in or

choose not to follow God's

commandments about marriage

and the law of chastity.

What about them?

God's doctrine shows that

all of us are His children

and that He has created us to have joy.

Modern revelation teaches

that God has provided a

plan for a mortal

experience in which all can

choose obedience to seek

His highest blessings or

make choices that lead to

one of the less glorious kingdoms.

quote.

I've spoken of the first commandment,

but what of the second?

How do we keep the

commandment to love our neighbors

We seek to persuade our

members that those who follow lesbian,

gay, bisexual,

or transgender teachings

and actions should be

treated with the love our

Savior commands us to show

toward all our neighbors.

Oh, really?

Thus,

when same-sex marriage was declared legal,

the First Presidency and

Quorum of the Twelve declared, quote,

The gospel of Jesus Christ

teaches us to love and

treat all people with

kindness and civility,

even when we disagree.

We affirm that those who

avail themselves of laws or

court rulings authorizing

same-sex marriage should

not be treated disrespectfully."

Further,

we must never persecute those who

do not share our beliefs and commitments.

Regretfully,

some persons facing these

issues continue to feel

marginalized and rejected

by some members and leaders

in our families, wards, and stakes.

Now,

I wonder why people would continue to

feel marginalized and

disrespected by leaders.

He said kinder and more civil,

but he didn't say kinder

and more accepting.

Important distinction.

commandments.

For the women of the Church,

President Spencer W.

Kimball described that duty

in this great prophecy, quote,

Much of the major growth

that is coming to the

Church in the last days

will come because many of

the good women of the world

will be drawn to the Church

in large numbers.

End of quote.

except the women of the

world are not being drawn

to the church in large numbers.

In fact,

the members of the church are

being drawn away from the

church in large numbers.

Of that prophecy,

President Russell M. Nelson

declared that the day that

President Kimball foresaw is today.

You are the women he foresaw.

Little did we who heard that

prophecy forty years ago

realize that among those

the women of this church

may save will be their own

dear friends and family who

are currently influenced by

worldly priorities and

devilish distortions.

OK,

so this is another point at which I

lost my temper because, again,

it's all implication.

He's not going to come out

and directly say it.

But what he's talking about

are people who are in the LGBTQ community,

people who have engaged in

same-sex marriage and

same-sex relationships.

And he's calling those

things devilish distortions.

And he's saying that if we

women are righteous,

that we can save our own

family members who are

already engaged in these things.

This is inflammatory language.

This is shaming.

This is belittling.

This is not accepting of LGBTQ people.

You cannot say that you love

people out of one side of

your mouth and then call

them devilish distortions

out of the other side of your mouth.

That is just not the way that it works.

This is classic coercive

control and manipulation.

When someone says one thing,

but they mean another thing.

Because it leaves it open for debate.

It leaves it open for

faithful members to say,

that's not what he meant

when he said that.

It's infuriating because

having lived with

narcissism my entire life,

having healed from narcissistic abuse,

having healed from coercive

control situations,

and in controlling and

manipulative relationships.

I can't unsee it.

I have a hair trigger for it.

I recognize it everywhere.

people's words and

actions don't match,

it is a huge red flag.

The words of this church

leader do not match the

actions that he has taken,

along with the other church leaders,

to marginalize the LGBTQ community.

The next episode that I'm

doing is to talk about the

new transgender policy.

So if you don't see it yet

or you don't quite know

what I'm talking about,

you're welcome to go look

it up on the church website

in the church newsroom.

It's a little confusing to understand,

so I'm going to try to help

decipher it for you.

But this is one of the

places where the leadership

of this church have made a

deliberate decision to be

vague in their commentary about

And to use attorneys to

create policies to avoid

them getting into legal trouble.

Because they're a religion,

so they get to claim

religious belief anytime

that their policies come up against,

let's say,

laws against discrimination and

things like that.

So they are very careful

about the way that they word things.

It's insidious.

It's harmful.

And what comes from an

institution that is largely

well-respected,

certainly among its own people,

but also in the global community,

a lot of people see the LDS

Church as a good organization,

as a beneficial organization.

They're not seeing these

manipulative behaviors.

And this is what I want to

help people understand.

I am committed to teaching

people how to recognize

manipulative behaviors and

how to develop the skills

to protect against those behaviors.

I was in this church for over forty years.

I bought every single word

that was said from the pulpit.

even though I disagreed with

some of the things

sometimes always in the

back of my mind was that indoctrination,

that these men are prophets

of God and that I can trust

them and that they're not

going to lead me astray.

And so any doubts that I had,

I explained away by saying

that God is never going to

let his prophet lead his people astray.

I never once stopped to

consider that the possibility of,

that these men were imposing

their own agenda on the

policies of the church.

The thought never entered my mind.

But now that I'm out of the church,

and I can finally accept

the reality that these men are just that,

men who have their own ideas,

their own thoughts and opinions,

their own biases, their own prejudices,

they're going to impose all

of those things whenever

they make rules about the church.

the Mormon church teaches us

that anytime we have a good feeling,

it comes from God.

And anytime we have a bad feeling,

it comes from the devil.

So these men,

when they think about

imposing restrictions on LGBTQ membership,

and when they say that

they're okay with denying

blessings to people who are

legally married and keeping

the law of chastity, like,

A gay couple who is legally

married and they're

faithful in their marriage

should be able to

experience all of the other

blessings that other members experience.

But when these men put these

policies into place,

it just shows us that it's

their own confirmation bias.

And this is one of the

rabbit holes that sent me

finding out information

about the church that was so harmful.

I believed that the brethren

got it wrong about denying

priesthood blessings and

temple blessings to black people.

They changed their mind in .

I believe that now they're

getting it wrong about the

LGBTQ community.

And I believe that they will

change their minds at some point,

but how many years,

how many more people have to suffer?

How many more people will

take their lives?

How many more people will be

estranged from family

members and lose family

relationships forever?

because of these kinds of policies.

Make no mistake,

the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints is not

about families.

They are not about keeping

families together.

They are about keeping LGBTQ

family members away from

faithful family members.

They are about dividing

families when those

families don't agree with

the policies of the church

or when one of those family

members is not adhering to

the commandments as they set them forth.

This church has made it

clear that they don't want LGBTQ members.

They want people who are

going to conform to what

they consider to be the

standard because it's

what's comfortable for them.

They are making the policies

that are going to continue

to keep them in power.

And I promise you,

that's the only thing they care about.