Thoughts on Compassion and Change

(Image source here.)

I interrupt your regularly-scheduled gratitude blogging for a post I’ve wanted to write for some time now but haven’t gotten around to.  Yesterday, though, I read something that brought it to the forefront of my mind — and I figured now was as good a time to address it as any.

First, a bit of background on what inspired this post now.  The church recently updated its handbook of instructions — the official guidebook that outlines all its procedures and policies — and among the more interesting changes were revisions to the way it speaks about homosexuality.  No longer are homosexual thoughts and feelings considered “sinful” (homosexual behavior still is),  and advice to send gay people to reparative therapy is gone.  They’ve also removed language that refers to homosexuality as a “distortion of loving relationships.”  In other words, this reflects and solidifies the shift we’ve seen in the church over the past 5-10 years — acknowledgment that homosexuality isn’t necessarily chosen or changeable and that gay people aren’t inherently vile in the eyes of God.

I am glad for the official change.  As a people, I believe that if we can truly internalize this message, it will lead to greater love and acceptance of our LGBT brothers and sisters.  And that will reduce the suffering they experience as they grow up Mormon and gay, torn between two worlds that, at the moment anyway, are pretty much irreconcilable.

But my post today isn’t about homosexuality.

It’s about the nature of change and the value of accepting people exactly the way they are.