In the church, it is easy to equate a feeling with a status of worthiness. In reality, I believe feelings are signals. It’s very difficult to figure out what signal the feeling is sending to you, but with bravery, honesty and dialogue, it can be done.

It is helpful to find someone you trust to talk to about difficult feelings and thoughts. That person should be able to separate feelings from actions and be sincerely interested in your experiences and how they have affected you.

Sometimes church leaders are able to do this, but sometimes they are not. It is often very difficult that bishops, parents and other people we look to for help and support are flawed human beings, just like us, and sometimes fall short of what we need.

If you turn to someone for help and guidance and they tell you that your feelings are wrong, harmful, unworthy or a sign that you are not righteous enough, I would recommend that you find someone else that you trust to talk to. Our feelings can lead us to DO things that are wrong, harmful and unrighteous, but we are much less likely to act out our feelings if they can be discussed and examined in an accepting and thoughtful manner.

I wish more people understood this. Instead, we are often too uncomfortable with difficult feelings to deal with things in a more helpful and healthy manner.

I am a nondescript (not homosexual) member of the church. On August 14th, I attempted suicide. I think isolation was my undoing. We do a lot of talking TO and ABOUT people – often out of obligation instead of sincere interest – when it’s the talking WITH that is perhaps more helpful. I can’t honestly blame anyone for my decision, but I’m rather confident that if I had found an outlet for sharing my distress, I would have made a more healthy choice. May the teacher learn.

I brushed it off, since I had multiple cousins in interracial marriages, and they were fine.

I have a hard time believing that would still be in any lesson manuals today.

Along the lines of what Adam said- if we can accept that the racist things BY said were based on the views commonly held during his life, it doesn’t mean he was a prophet, it just means he was also human. As we all are. I think that is why it is so important to seek for personal revelation.

Also, I think just because we disagree over a political issue with the prophet, doesn’t mean he isn’t a prophet. He is, and we should support him. The trick is to balancing supporting him, and doing what we believe is right. It’s not an emotionally comfortable thing to deal with, but difficult things help us grow, which is why we are here, right?

What a huge shame that the church is mixing politics and religion. What are they thinking? All that will happen is we will discriminate against people and the church will look bad. We have very unusual sexual practices in our past, and in our present with D&C 132, so we should not be telling others what is morally acceptable.

I hate to say it, but Monson’s wrong on this issue. Admittedly I’m a homophob just like the prophet, but we should keep in mind that our job is to respect others, love one another and not make them feel bad, discriminate or hate them.

Geez I wish I could publicly talk about this in church, but honestly I feel I’d be ex’d. Those at church just say “you mean the prophet’s wrong?”. Yes that’s what I mean. I’d encourage you to not give you your money and time to this cause. It too will pass.

Just thought I’d pass that on.

It has been a concern since the late 50s or so.

Try re-reading everything through that set of lens.

OK, it appears we are more in agreement than disagreement. I would hope that quote would be removed from the manual at the next revision. I, for one, would never tell my AP YM that quote.

Green Man, there are more races than just the African race, so it must apply more universally than your one-trick pony. But it’s old news anyway.

I wouldn’t be so quick to deny the church discourages interracial marriage. The fact that the Aaronic priesthood manual makes reference to race and marriage is not made in a vacuum. Look at the date: 1979, right after O.D. #2. I will have to rely on D.M. Quinn for a reference to the headline in the Church News announcing the O.D. #2 that “Church discourages interracial marriage.” The Senior member of the 12 was the editor. The teachings of the church before and during the prohibition on Priesthood holders of African decent is now re-iterated in a current priesthood manual, I don’t think this is an accident.

On another note, I like the idea of calling a marriage a civil union, if only to remind couples to always be civil.

Also, if we go to only civil unions, could we call divorce civil dissolutions, you know just to take away the stigma of the word divorce?

You’re misreading the tone of my comments. I just want to point out where the church is still discouraging (i.e. recommending against) interracial marriage. I don’t want to portray this as particularly ominous or evil. Allow me to quote myself from another thread:

To be fair, I think these factors should be taken into consideration when deciding to get married. Marriage is hard enough without having such socioeconomic differences. In this case, race is mostly a placeholder for different cultures. An interracial couple still faces external bigotry in many communities, but if I had to guess, the big difficulty is usually in the cultural differences that those different races imply.

However, I obviously don’t think it’s wrong to marry someone significantly different than yourself, it’s just riskier. Marriages would be more stable if people didn’t believe that love could conquer all.

You can draw your own conclusions from the fact that the SWK quote is included in official church material. Are you denying that this quote discourages (i.e. dissuades from) interracial marriage? Or denying that it is included in current official church materials?

I guess you wish to read it as a commandment or some evil design on behalf of the leaders of the Church and Pres. Kimball in particular. I just don’t see it that way and I doubt that it was as ominous as you want it to be.

Anymore than the ecomonic or education portion of the quote, which you ignore.

It seems that the word “discourage” has different connotations for each of us. For me, the word means something like recommend against, dissuade from. You seem to define it as forbid. The church is at the very least recommending that certain couples exercise caution when getting married because of their dissimilar background. In this case, it is at least recommending that interracial couples not marry.

If you’ll allow me to parse SWK’s quote a little:

We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background …

Conversely, he doesn’t recommend that people of dissimilar racial backgrounds marry.

… and of somewhat the same economic and social and educational background (some of those are not an absolute necessity, but preferred) …

It follows that some of those aspects are an absolute necessity. Given the date of the quote, if I had to guess, I would think SWK meant that marrying within your racial background is of absolute necessity. It’s pretty clear to me that the church has a history of discouraging interracial marriage, and this quote is part of that history.

The question is why is the church still using this quote in its official materials if it has put that history behind it?

I think you are reaching on this one.

Well, this year’s Aaronic Priesthood manual (can someone verify that this is the one indeed being used this year?) is still discouraging interracial marriage:

“We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally, and of somewhat the same economic and social and educational background (some of those are not an absolute necessity, but preferred), and above all, the same religious background, without question” (“Marriage and Divorce,” in 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year [Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1977], p. 144).

The quotation is pre-1978, but it is still quoted in a current manual.

Perhaps that was said and inter-racial marriage was discouraged. There were other reasons for discouraging it at that time other than just prejudice of the church leaders as you claim. I’ve known several inter-racial couples who suffered a great deal at the hands of society (not in the Church) for their choice of who they loved and married.

But, holy cow man, that WAS 30 years ago. Why can’t you just drop it and move on? And your Mark E. Peterson statement, over 50 years old! What’s the point? We all still feel the same way? I doubt it.