Just sayin. How do I know?

Because it reversed the official policy of blacks not being able to hold the priesthood following the Cultural Revolution. The church at that time was bleeding members right and left over its discriminatory racial policies. That was one of the chief reasons it had an "epiphany" when it did in 1978 that blacks could finally be able to hold the priesthood (black men that is.) Its young members were leaving in droves over its official anti-Negro policy, that was part of the reasoning provided to news broadcasts at the time.

The church *will* rescind its current official anti-Gay policy it set in stone last fall. The writing is on the wall. It has bled so many members since passing that piece of carefully crafted "revelation" BS, that it must surely now realize the grave and dire mistake it has made, but must be delicate about these things.

...So in a matter of months, more likely years the GA will reveal yet a new revelation, that God has spoken. And this time with a softening of the heart where gays will be fully received into church membership, and their children... because God said so.

Wait and see. It will happen. That's how they work. Reactive instead of responsive to their dwindling church coffers er numbers.

I do not remember the church bleeding members at all during the 60's and 70's. I was never aware of even one person leaving over this. I do remember BYU taken to task over the policy, with at least a couple of teams threatening not to play BYU.

Do you have any stats about this? Maybe my memory is faulty.

I do think they will soften their stance on the anti-gay thing, but I am not interested in anything they do at this point. A cult is still a cult.

I remember.

1978 when the news hit the fan. That was one of the primary reasons it cited.

The youth were leaving then over the discriminatory racial practices of the church. They reversed the century old ban on blacks holding the priesthood only to stop the revolt from within, by young impressionable white youth.

Giving the priesthood to blacks was secondary to this at that time. It was really a political ploy, disguised as a religious revelation.

They'll do the same with the gay policy. Watch and see.

Do not agree. Absolutely no change in policy re: gays, etc.
They drew a big fat line in the sand in 1995 with the Proclamation on the Family
https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng&_r=1

The LDS history re: blacks was not a matter of changing policy so much as fulfilling prophecy. The general belief was that all worthy men (blacks) would receive the priesthood after the rest of the world has been taught the gospel.
My view is that it came because of outside influences, probably the BYU football teams problems.. etc. Someone else can cover what was going on at the time...politics!

They have actually already changed policy. It used to be that you could get exed for being gay. They changed that to 'acting' gay. You can now be gay, you just can't act gay.

I do hope you are right. But wasn't there also talk, at the time, that they were in danger of losing their precious tax-exempt status due to the ban on blacks holding the priesthood? I don't see it happening anytime soon, maybe in a couple more years?

There were rumors, but they were struck down. My guess there was more truth to those rumors as well, than the church echelon would admit to.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_racial_issues/Blacks_and_the_priesthood/Social_pressure

Bottom line is this: non-gay people have left the church in droves since the anti-gay policy came out last year.

The same type of mindset occurred with those in the late 1960's-1970's who were not racist, but LDS, and were opposed to the church policy forbidding blacks into the priesthood and full church membership positions based on the color of their skin.

The first time I left was during my teens. The racial issue was one of my primary reasons for staying away when I did. It was commentary in the news at that time, even if it wasn't official church policy as to why it passed other than it was "God's timing."

I just feel the same exact procedures will happen again with this anti-gay policy. It won't be overnight (the church doesn't want to lose face over its recent decision.) But it will happen. It cannot afford to lose its members who are not gay. That was its catastrophic blind spot when it made its subjective decision to practice outright bigotry. It only succeeded in making itself look far worse than those it sought to denigrate.

Sorry, I don't remember it that way either. I was paying particularly close attention, too. That was just after I left myself (BoA finally did me in in late 1975) and I had been a missionary in northern Brazil, a part of Brazil with a substantial percentage of African ancestry in the population.

If you can find a link to any newspaper article that cites youth "leaving in droves", I will stand corrected. There were some that left, but not nearly as many, in my estimation as left over Prop 8, and Prop 8 was small potatoes compared to the number that left over The Policy. So, if LDS Inc is going to change The Policy to keep people from leaving droves, they should already have changed it.

Here's what I remember about 1978. There was increasing push-back from universities refusing to participate in athletics with BYU because of the priesthood policy. None of the major sports were affected as I recall, but schools like Stanford were boycotting BYU athletics. So, lots of negative press in the US.

Rumors that LDS Inc or BYU were about to lose their tax exemption are not true. Churches can be as racist, sexist, or homophobic as they want without endangering their US income tax exemption. Westboro Baptist is still tax-exempt. That should give you a clue about how hard it is for a church to lose its tax exemption in the US. I could go into a lot more detail on that, but it is tangential to my point.

Here's what I think was the straw that broke the camel's back on the priesthood ban. LDS Inc announced a temple for São Paulo, Brazil around 1976. There were many church members in Brazil who discovered after baptism that they had some African ancestry, or knew in advance, and wanted to join Mormonism anyway.

When the temple was announced, I knew something was going to have to be done, because if it came down to "you can go, you can't" in individual wards, it would rip the wards apart. The Church was doing very well in Brazil, and still is. Brazil is #2 for total number of Mormons, after only the USA. It surpassed Mexico a few years ago.

I don't remember if James Faust was in the 1st Pres at the time, but I think he was. I know he was the supervising GA over South American missions. He was the major proponent among the Q15 for the change. The announcement of the policy change came four months before the dedication of the São Paulo temple, and just a matter of weeks before they were going to start training temple workers.

I think change was in the air on the priesthood ban, but the Brazil temple put a hard deadline on making a decision, and they chose not to seriously damage the church in a country makes up half of South America.


As for The Policy, I agree with you. I doubt it will last a decade, and I'd bet the farm that it won't last two decades. It is already causing many members to leave. I think it is pure arrogant hubris on the Q15's part that they think they can get away with their imperious attitude.

I've been looking for the newspaper link. It was 1978, and I found a cite with tons of references to news links, without the actual articles.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V12N04_115.pdf

I was living in Idaho Falls when the news broke. My cousin and I were leaving the Idaho Falls temple that day (she had done baptisms for the dead,) and we were driving down Memorial Parkway when we heard it announced on the radio. As strange as it sounds, and Idaho Falls was/is racially challenged then and now (not as much today as it was back then.) There was a black man standing on the sidewalk/promenade between us and the Snake River. He stared straight at me as we drove past him, and looked like he was standing in some sort of a mist. (It was otherwise a clear, sunny day.) The timing could not have been more apropos. I was in the process of returning to church activity from a couple years out, and the racial ban on blacks was one of the chief reasons why I abstained for as long as I had.

Our news source in the Falls was the Post Register. It was also of course featured in like Times magazine, Newsweek, and the other major news sources of the day.

Mentioning the youth leaving because of the ban may have been from one of the apostles who was interviewed at that time. Or the president of the church. I don't remember which. But it was newsworthy. And it was mentioned. I was one of the people who left when I did as a teenager in part because of that ban when I came of age in the mid 1970's.

Doing a search of the cite linked above is the Post Register article. You cannot even locate it on archives from the Post Register, it has been so long ago. This was the article in my hometown newspaper:

Briscoe, David. "LDS Accept Revelation Giving Blacks Priesthood." Idaho Falls PostRegister.
2 October 1978.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2016 07:20PM by Amyjo.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the church reverse the policy against the children of gay couples in the next few years. However, as far as extending full "blessings" of membership and temple sealings, etc., to "practicing" gays and gay couples, that probably won't happen for decades, even generations. I think the Mormon church will be the LAST mainstream Christian denomination to drop its anti-gay policies.

I searched for ANY reference to an explanation supporting the OP's belief that "... youth falling away..." was a spur. I couldn't find any.

All the references, plus my memory, say it was a combination of three items, growing the church in Surrey America, and Africa, dealing with the looming (Fall, 1968 football and then basketball) NCAA difficulty, and the threat by Pres. Carter to erase tax exemptions for any church activities that supported segregation, most of which were Southern churches and their Christian schools. TSCC was small potatoes compared to that Southern situation.

We have a lot of collective memories on this board that are contrarion in nature with regard to the OP's memory. Time to school us or correct yourself.

I stand by my own recollection of events and observations as they unfolded in 1978.

The church official stance at the time was it was pretty much tight lipped as to the process or the decision making that went into their groupthink "revelation."

It was mentioned in the news commentary at the time in my hometown and some national press.

As for myself, I was one such youth and mindset that had distanced myself from the church because of that particular doctrine. Lifting the ban became a deal breaker for me at the time I was returning to church activity.

Here is one of the few articles still around from 1978 online, NY Times on the policy breakthrough, pretty much indicative of how tightlipped the church officials were/are regarding any policy decisions they effect.

"Official spokesmen at Mormon headquarters told newsmen that no further comment on today's announcement would be made....

As with other major changes, such as the reversal in 1890 of the church's advocacy of polygamy, the decision was the product of a series of interactions among the highest authorities of the church. The process is concealed from the public."

http://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/10/archives/mormon-church-strikes-down-ban-against-blacks-in-priesthood-change.html

From the original post:

>
> Its young members were leaving in droves
> over its official anti-Negro policy, that
> was part of the reasoning provided to news
> broadcasts at the time.
>

The NYT article cited does not mention anything about "...kids leaving in droves..." So far it's only in your memory. The Web is good at supporting points of view. Just not your point of view, so far.

Any chance you are simply 'mis-remembering'?

My memory is crystal clear.

There were more than a handful of commentaries at that time being written about it. I wonder where you were? Your memory is selective it seems, or you weren't paying attention to the issues affecting LDS youth of that era.

Here is one such comment extracted from the Time magazine archives vault, "Church young people were mortified," says University of Utah Historian Brigham Madsen. "They would not put up with it any longer." It was one of the significant factors Kimball took into account when he fomented the policy change.

(Religion: Mormonism Enters a New Era from Times article Monday August 7, 1978)

Your position at the time: "As for myself, I was one such youth and mindset that had distanced myself from the church because of that particular doctrine. Lifting the ban became a deal breaker for me at the time I was returning to church activity." For the record, how old were you in June of 1978?

The above contrasts with a 3/16/2015 comment you made here on RfM: "But leaving Mormonism began for me as a teenager. When my parents divorced (temple marriage,) I was 16. Very disillusioned, I became agnostic during my late teens. Only to return to Mormonism at age 19. I decided belief in God was better for me than Agnosticism. Being Agnostic didn't work for me, and I felt like my life had no meaning. Returning to the LDS church helped me at that time escape a cigarette habit and a drinking problem."

It is a pleasant, uplifting story and I suppose you can weave the priesthood ban into it, and undoubtedly you will.

The historian you cite, Brigham Madsen, I'm very glad you introduced me to him! He is deceased now. But he wasn't what one would call a good mormon. And for sure he was not a church historian. He was a history teacher and researcher. He was the one who researched and proved what the Bear Lake Massacre really was! He knew the church wasn't true.

Plus, having done his higher degree work at Cal Berkeley, I'm sure he was highly sensitized to the civil rights dilemma. And finally, he was asked for a quote about the 1978 revelation for the Times article; he was speaking after the fact when he said that the CHURCH youth wouldn't put up with it any longer.

But there was no 'leaving in droves.'

You suggest that your point of view was good on this issue and that perhaps with my increasing senility, I might not remember, or perhaps wasn't in any position to know anything about the situation. To the senility, hey, who knows... But as to my position with regard to observations: I was 22 when I was released from the mission in 1967. I was then at the Y for three years. During that time I was an EQP at a 'civilian' ward, Lakeview Ward, at the west end of Provo. I was active in weekly basketball with the 'youth' and with the youth programs in general. During those three years, I never heard anyone complain about the priesthood ban.

Following graduation my loyalty to the church waned, but three years attending sporadically in New Jersey, first in the Edison ward and then the Scotch Plains ward, I was never presented with any drama, or even interest, in the priesthood ban.

After 1975 I was done with the church, so yes, then my interest and attention waned and then ended. But I noted in a Civil Rights timeline, http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html, it jumps from 1971 to 1988. The church, and the overturn of the priesthood ban, didn't rate any notice. Which I concede doesn't mean that youth in the church weren't upset with it.

But I simply stated, and it's been supported by others, that in my mind the priesthood ban was not the cause of "...young members ... leaving in droves over (the church's) official anti-Negro policy...", to quote you.

Leaving in droves is the stuff of Marvin Jensen and the Swedish Rescue, and the internet and all it reveals. It was the stuff of the Kirtland Anti-Banking Society that its fall out.

Basically, you wanted to expound on how the church's anti-gay position is really hurting it, and you wanted to opine that it's your opinion that a current disaffection on the part of members caused by the anti-gay church position is similar to, and will cause the same result, as the priesthood ban. And it's simply a flawed analogy.

The leaving in droves has been going on since the Swedish Rescue and Marvin Jensen brought news of it to our attention. And not only has the church not backed down, they doubled down, with the gay parents revelation.

The church has made a stand. Sure, they may abandon it, but there is no certainty, mainly because the other elements that forced the 1978 revelation are not present. Not to mention that there is a lot of anti-gay sentiment in the world, and most of the dummies think it's a choice, whereas the circumstances of one's birth is not the choice of the new born.

I wrote this about you recently on another post said something that not only myself but others found objectionable: "I wish we could have discussions with you. But when you don't like the results, you lash out, cry foul and the posts get taken down.

"You don't want to discuss, you want to discourse, like BY used to do, over the pulpit. You brook no rebuttals. You ask questions, assuming that only you have the correct answers. You seem to be an impenetrable fortress; things come out, but nothing seems to go in.

"That's how it seems to me."


It's been removed now, but in this thread you said I was an old geezer with cotton between my ears. You meant that as a put down... That's the real Amyjo!

There were a lot of youth who left when I did growing up in the Morridor.

Yes I had various reasons for leaving as a teenager. I haven't discussed all of them at the same time on this board, nor should I have to. You're referring to my biographical introduction of myself, when I was a first time poster here.

The racial divide was a primary factor for my staying away when I was trying to decide what to do after choosing a belief in God over agnosticism.

The decision in 1978 was a key factor for me at that time to be a deal breaker as I've already shared on this thread.

There were others disaffected youth of my era I grew up with who left for that and other reasons. It was a deciding factor for some of my era, regardless of how you see it. And for sociologists and historians, and those general authorities who were deciding they needed to do something to stop the tide of disaffected youth leaving at that time. It was one of their factors, certainly, that went into their decision making as well, as noted by the news accounts of that day.

As for a hemorrhage versus a slow bleed, I addressed that in a different post. The racial card was spread out over a longer period of time as intellectuals, academics, civil rights activists and disaffected youth like myself coming of age in the 70's voted with our feet.

Compare that to today with the anti-gay legislation, it seems more like a blood letting.

If you have a question about posts the moderators removed, you will need to ask them. As I recall my remark to you about cotton between your ears was in response to your putdown. Yours was removed before mine was.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2016 09:56PM by Amyjo.

I doubt they'll reverse their policy. But if they do, they'll likely engage in the same revisionism as they do with every other issue that backfires--e.g., scrub every source they can control of evidence of their prior bigotry, obfuscate about enhanced revelation or some such tripe.

I believe that is what they will do as well. Obfuscation is the key.

If this ever happens, the "gospel" will still be "perfect" even if the leaders had "the imperfections of men."

Perfected tongue-in-cheek. ;)

I love when you talk dirty. Don't worry, I won't send your hubby on a mission and move in on his family.

As for the topic, TSCC is in checkmate. Game over.

Interesting that in 1978 there were fewer than 1,000 black people listed as members in the CoJCoLDS. In 1978 the church total membership was app 4,000,000 large.

As of December 2013, Time Magazine cites LDS church sources saying those of African descent number in the hundreds of thousands.

What a difference a revelation makes, no?! ;-)

why if you are gay would you be happy to join LD$/stay in LD$ if they did reverse the policy? All of this speculation makes no sense to me if the fundamental issue is that LD$ is a fraud.....

I quite agree. It's for the non-gays who are fence straddlers this might be a deal breaker for. By now with the Internet Highway, I doubt there's going to be a return to the 1970's mentality when we trusted our leadership not to lead us astray.

Now we have the ability to make informed decisions moreso than when the priesthood ban was lifted. Still there may be those who would base their decision to leave or stay based on outdated bigoted practices of bygone days that have no place in religion or modern day churches (if they expect to survive longterm.)

Some people stay who are cultural Mormons. There are those. There are some gays in the church, but the church has made it abundantly clear they are not welcome to partake at the table. And what about the closet gays who are afraid to come out openly because of the shunning? They may still participate and attend, but keep their sexuality under wraps.

It's the church leadership that's reactive. Now it sees the watershed it helped to create, it's just a matter of time before it reverses its own decision. They are running a corporation that's loosing precious money, with every gay and non-gay member who continues to leave over its denouncing and subsequent banning of gays and their children.

Not gonna happen.

Oh, they will undoubtedly make repeated mealy-mouthed attempts to assure everyone that they still love their members who suffer from "same sex attraction." But to do a full reversal, they would have to actually change hard doctrine.

TSM would have to get up in the morning, put on his finest polyester white suit, climb the steps to the Upper Room, kneel down on the satin altar, and have a talk with God (provided he can still dress himself these days). Then he'd come back down the stairs where folks like Oaks, Holland, and Bednar would be waiting to eat him alive, and then he'd announce a new plan of salvation whereby ministering-angel-same-sex couples would be fully accepted into eternity. Or something like that.

That would be followed by another, different kind of membership crisis--another bleed.

The only way they're going to change their "same sex attraction" policy is if it gets to be politically untenable and their tax-exempt status gets threatened. For that to happen you might as well stir the Southern Baptists and all the evangelicals into the same pot.

Not gonna happen.

Exactly.

There is absolutely no way in hell that they will change anything with regards to "teh gheys".

They will continue to pay lip service on and off again to appease dumb non gays who wear rainbow ribbons to sacrament to show support for gay family members, but they will never change official policy.

If they changed anything with recognizing gay marriage they would have to abandon all temple rituals, which is the hallmark and culmination of all their grand cultness. They would have to literally change every aspect of the temple rituals. That would take centuries if they followed the current time-line of temple changes.

If, (in opposite world) they ever change policy, I could see them allowing secular gay marriage but denying them temple access. Thus relegating gays to permanent secondary citizen status in the celestial glory. Like the poster above stated "administering Angels" who are servants in the upper kingdoms, just not ruling any kingdoms. And certainly not getting to keep their man parts. That would just not be kosher.

Gay marriage in mormondum! Hahaha. I would love to see two gay men in the endowment.

"A couple will now be presented at the alter as Adam and Steve...uh I mean wait...uh... Bow your heads and say yes. It is well."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2016 02:04AM by johnnyboy.

The Proclamation on the Family will be like the Book of Abraham.
It was never a revelation. It was an opinion conceived by the bigots of the day. Just like how hey throw Bruce R under the buss. They will throw Hinckley under the buss. Accusing him of being weak minded. Packer will be known as a factory worker who only cared about one thing. His factory. Members don' have to criticize the GA's, the GA's will do it for you.

I see comparing the gay ban today on the black ban of yesteryear as the difference between a slow bleed versus a hemorrhage.

Over the course of the Civil Rights Movement, leading up to it, and post 60's, those who protested the racial bias in the church voted by walking, one at a time over the space of many years.

With the bill last fall, it was a stampede to the door.

So a marked difference in how fast people voted their objections by leaving rather than becoming more entrenched in dogma that has led the church astray by its own volition.

Otherwise, both policies very similar in how they've disenfranchised whole segments of church membership. They're actually helping advance the church's undoing particularly with its youth, who will refuse to accept the bigotry of those before them as gospel doctrine just like many of my generation did with the race card.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2016 01:06PM by Amyjo.

While it's never going to be easy to be gay, much has changed in the last ten years. By 2030 the anti gay bias will perceived as outmoded and backward as the ban on blacks was in 1970. Demographics are changing. I agree with Amyjo. Watch and see.

When hell freezes over they might.

Yeah, and someday my prince will come!