Apparently the Momon Powers That Be went a bit too far to the left four years ago and are now (far) righting the ship.
“The policies, released Monday, include rules barring trans people from working with children, becoming priests and serving as teachers. The church also expanded on an existing rule that barred trans people from being baptized.
Trans members will also face possible annotation on their membership records, grouping them with churchgoers who have committed incest, sexual predatory behavior, sexual violence against children and embezzlement of church funds.”
[I’m desperately trying to restrain myself from making a sardonic comment about the company that would put them in vis-à-vis many of the Church Elders.]
Nice how embezzlement is lumped in the same category as sexual violence against children and sexual predators. Or vice-versa. Either way, it’s either kind of materialistic, or it’s not sufficiently condemnatory against the sex crimes people.
But it is nice that they made it clear that enough
churchgoers have committed; incest, sexual predatory behavior, and sexual violence against children that they needed to have a policy of annotating membership records to ‘’‘’‘deal with it’‘’‘’.
I think it would be a self-limiting rule, because I can’t imagine why any transgendered person would ever want to stay in a church that hates them.
Ye, I know they are raised from birth to accept everything, but people do have free will. What is the worst that happens - you lose friends and family. Well, bub, as a transgendered Mormom, you’ve already lost them.
It depends if you consider religion like a social club or that it’s the truth. If you think of it like a social club, then it’s about finding a particular social club you enjoy. If you don’t like the Kiwanis, join the Shriners. But if you think it’s real and is the meaning of life, then leaving the religion means being cast away from god. That has implications for your day-to-day life, as well as what happens in your afterlife. If you truly believe the Mormon religion is true, then you need to stick with it in order to have a prosperous afterlife. If you leave, then you will suffer whatever penalty the Mormons believe happens to those who turn their backs on the religion.
While I agree that people who are prosecuted in a religion should leave that religion, I also understand that those people may think the religion is real. They may be dealing with the feelings of knowing that they are acting in sinful ways and will have to deal with the penalties of those sins. They may feel that the penalties for leaving the religion will be worse than staying in the religion.
There are a number of more liberal/progressive Christian denominations which are welcoming to LGBTQ+ members (and even clergy).
The ongoing schism in the United Methodist Church is over this very topic; the more conservative faction of the UMC, which has been bitterly opposed to revise church laws to be accepting of homosexuality, is largely leaving the denomination over it, most of them departing to join a new, more conservative denomination, the Global Methodist Church. (I proudly belong to a liberal UMC congregation, which has been very open about welcoming all sexual orientations and gender identities for a number of years.)
Bu then, if you really believe that, then you should also believe what they say about who you are. If being gay is sinful, then they should strive to avoid gayness, and stop complaining about not being allowed to be priests and whatnot. Maybe become a monk, and just withdraw from the world and all temptations, or something.
The Episcopal Church where I sing in the choir on Sunday is extremely welcoming and liberal. In fact, the recently retired rector was a lesbian married to a woman.