Such young men may best be helped through a period of maturation and growth, and clarification about their feelings until they settle on solid, heterosexual orientation, marriage, etc.
This approach is, in my view and in the Church's view, better than ostracizing and rejecting such people automatically when they first acknowledge feelings of same gender attraction and confusion.
I personally know people who have been helped through this process and have achieved this happy outcome. I also know others who have failed to school their feelings, have rejected God's teachings on morality, and have followed the path into the homosexual lifestyle. Those who were helped by the Church's approach were worth the patience and effort.
Let's say there's a rural area where there's just not enough scouts for a critical mass. And so a "mixed-sex" scouts is proposed. [This occurs, btw, in rural areas all over the country when it comes to school athletic teams]
And some are in favor of such a special BSA new "rural" policy, and others aren't. And then, even many open to the idea of not wanting to "ostracize" females...still raise some concerns: After all, they say, mixed scouts is great for local meetings...but what about sleepover outings? Especially since the "let's don't ostracize" crowd doesn't want to separate the females at night time or shower time lest they FEEL ostracized (there we go to the critical center of Mormonism -- Sentimentalism).
And so during these discussions, we hear the following rationalization:
There are, unfortunately, some who, in their youth experience compulsion in their FEELINGS about attraction/other gender attraction, but who remain chaste and do not act on their confused feelings, acting instead on faith in Christ.
Such young men -- and women -- may best be helped through a period of maturation and growth, and clarification about their FEELINGS until they settle on solid, heterosexual marital focus, etc.
This approach is, in my view and in the Church's view, better than ostracizing and rejecting such people automatically when they first acknowledge feelings of other gender attraction and compulsion.
I personally know people who have been helped through this process and have achieved this happy outcome. I also know others who have failed to school their FEELINGS, have rejected God's teachings on morality, and have followed the path into the promiscuous lifestyle. Those who were helped by the Church's approach were worth the patience and effort.
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There ya go, JTT...all the italicized words above are your own. I simply changed "same" to "other" -- "confusion" to "compulsion" and "homosexual" to "promiscuous"...and the rest is your rationalizations based upon the almighty arbiter of truth in Mormonism -- FEELINGS (burning bosoms, etc.)
Well, ya better believe burning bosoms are gonna be operative on mixed-sex scouting outings where they are sleeping in the same quarters and/or tents and showering together!
You see, we're not only talking about local meetings. We're talking about sleepover events where the sleeping accommodations can be rather tight at times. We're talking about accommodations where there's group showers.
And, so, would you use the above rationalizations to excuse boys & girls taking showers together on mixed-sex scouting weekends?