A disfellowshipped gay member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is launching a new website that not only will allow gay Mormons to link up with other gays and allies, but also to hook up for sex. On January 8th, 2013, WBEZ 91.5 reports that Andrew Markle will be launching the "Origins" website sometime during the second quarter of the 2013 calendar year.
One of the purposes of the website is fine. One of the missions of Origins will be to connect gay Mormons with allies and help them reconcile their religious beliefs with their orientation. This can be quite useful and therapeutic, because sometimes a gay person needs to cry on the shoulder of another gay person in order to deal with the challenges of homosexuality. But it's the other mission that's disturbing -- to give gay Mormons an online social network to meet others like them for marriage or long-term commitment. That means hooking up for sex -- and that's a big NO-NO!
Further eroding Markle's credibility is the fact that he is currently disfellowshipped for getting involved in a relationship, although he still attends services weekly and his fellow ward members behave supportively towards him in accordance with the "love the sinner but not the sin" routine. Markle recognizes that launching this website, with its intended mission, incurs a risk of excommunication, since advocating homosexual relationships by Mormons may be considered grounds for expulsion from the church, depending upon how his stake president decides to interpret his actions. This could happen notwithstanding his obvious loyalty towards the Church in other matters. And it would be a shame if someone who is basically supportive of the Church would get excommunicated over this.
But how could the LDS Church allow a member who wants to openly hook up gay Mormons for sex to remain a member? We didn't allow David Twede to remain a member when he transformed MormonThink into an openly anti-Mormon website, so to be consistent, we would have to excommunicate Markle. We cannot allow apostates to remain enrolled members of the LDS Church.
Markle has a personal website, a Twitter page, and an Instagram page. On December 12th, 2012, he published a post on Doves and Serprents entitled "The Church and Homosexuality" in which plainly states that he expects the LDS Church to support LGBT members with every ounce of its being and it will stop requiring members to seek counseling for their same-sex attractions. Specifically, he also states "I hope that one day, we will all be able to set ourselves in temple and seal our children and our marriages before God". This, of course, will not happen except by a revelation given to the Church through the priesthood chain of command, which starts at the First Presidency, and not through some ordinary Hoosier from Indiana. We don't need some self-endowed "One Mighty And Strong" calling the leadership to repentance, particularly when it is the leadership that is still in harmony with Gospel principles.
No comments:
Post a Comment