YouTube Video: The Complete Address Of LDS Apostle Boyd K. Packer, "Cleansing The Inner Vessel"; Human Rights Campaign Demands "Correction"

Update October 8th, 2010: Post title changed to reflect the fact that Boyd Packer's talk is now officially titled "Cleansing The Inner Vessel".

Fallout continues as a result of the talk initially entitled "Cleansing The Inner Temple", delivered by Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve during the Sunday morning session of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' 180th Semiannual General Conference on October 3rd, 2010. In this talk, President Packer challenged the popular notion that any persuasion to enter into any relationship not in harmony with the principles of the gospel might be "pre-set", saying that our Heavenly Father would not do that to anyone. President Packer also criticized those who not only tolerate, but advocate voting to change laws that would legalize immorality, as if a vote would somehow alter the designs of God's laws and nature. A complete written transcript is now available from the LDS website, but an excerpt of what is considered the most inflammatory part is posted on MainStreetPlaza.

Since then, President Packer has taken increasingly strident criticism from gay rights groups and their allies. Even within certain segments of the LDS community, such as Feminist Mormon Housewives, the criticism has been savage at times. And on October 4th, the disingenuously-named Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which is actually concerned only with gay rights, has weighed in, issuing a statement characterizing Packer's remarks as "inaccurate and dangerous", and demanding that he "correct" them.

Thanks to the Provo Daily Herald, we have the complete version of President Packer's talk, in two videos:

Part 1:




Part 2:



By demanding that President Packer "correct" his statements, Human Rights Campaign is in fact implicitly demanding that the LDS Church change its doctrine. This flies in the face of many gay rights apologists, who claim that national legalization of gay marriage would not require ministers to perform gay marriages. It's obvious there are elements in society who want to force the LDS Church to become just another nondescript "rainbow" church with a smiley-face pot-smoking hippie Jesus serving up "drive-by salvation". HRC presumes to know more about the mind of the Lord than one of His apostles. President Packer needs to continue to stand tall in his defense of the gospel and not allow himself to be politically blackmailed by "activists".

Human Rights Campaign grades different corporations on their gay-friendliness and computes a Corporate Equality Index in which the maximum grade is 100. You can download the full 100-page 2011 report HERE. Their judgment criteria consists of a complex and Byzantine system of "soft" and "hard" benefits and policies. On page 43, you'll note that BP gets a perfect score of 100, meaning they're absolutely gay-friendly. Of course, it took BP three months to plug a leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, causing massive pollution, but HRC doesn't care as long as BP panders to gays. This can lead to human resources directors promoting preference towards gays in hiring decisions in order to preclude litigation.

This is just another controversy that will determine whether we, as Latter-day Saints, continue to grasp the iron rod, or instead migrate to that great and spacious building to join the scoffers who walk after their own lusts.