Today On Radio Free Mormon, RFM and Bill Reel dissect Elder Oaks October 2018 General Conference talk from Saturday Morning. In this talk Elder Oaks uses logical fallacy after logical fallacy and bad argument after bad argument in defending his Anti-Science prejudice and his Anti-LGBT bigotry. This 15 minute minute talk was a brilliant attempt to entrench the Church in stances that simply don’t hold up to the data and facts. Elder Oaks arguments are full of holes and unlike Ensign Blair’s ship, this vessel of a talk sinks faster by the minute.
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Yes a “brilliant ” legal brief. Too bad it will be totally wasted on, and uncomprended by, the sheeple. Mormons are brainwashed to accept anything , no matter how ridiculous, as fact if it’s presented by a leader. This talk was totally unnecessary except for Dallin’s hubris and ego. And in the future when they do change their doctrine-again- this talk will get pushed down the memory hole just like everything in the Journal of Discourses. Really facts don’t mean anything to Mormons . They just love going to church to get an echo chamber for their bigoted views.
Throughout its history, the Church has gotten it wrong about “The Gays” EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Why should this time be any different?
Here is a link to a 2014 article about the Liahona Children’s Foundation Bill brought up. https://ldsmag.com/article-1-14590-2/
It unintentionally exposes the deep hypocrisy of the church in my opinion. More “do as we say and not as we do” type of stuff. God bless the good Christian men and women who run the foundation.
First of all, I love your podcasts!! I have listened to every one. I love your logic, your thought process, and your humor. Thanks so much for your work.
My only suggestion on this topic is that it would be good to have someone who is gay in on the conversation on gay topics. I think there are many nuances that you miss as straight men that would add value for your listeners.
One of the most glaring things from Oak’s talk is the smearing of lines between what he says and what he alleged God said. I also detest the use of “we” (not royal we) in his comments. It all connotes “stay in the boat”, and it does it in a way to persuade more on an emotional level than anything else.
Yeh, there is a move happening to enthrone the Proclamation as doctrine, circumventing the scripturally prescribed canonization formula.
Bill and RFM…you both mentioned that Oak’s intent is to NOT follow scripture, but to follow him. I remember something pushed REALLY hard by Joseph Fielding Smith years ago to the effect that if it wasn’t in the scriptures, it wasn’t of God.
Its a 180 degree TURN what is happening now!
RFM…your podcast “Making Doctrine out of Nothing at All” was priceless. I even think I am starting to like Air Supply now. 🙂
Excellent! I love it when both of you co-host a podcast and look forward to more like this in the future. As who has gone through the gay LDS “Gauntlet” (born into 7th generation ultra orthodox family, served faithfully in every position, served honorable mission, married in the temple had children, came out in late 80’s, got exed, went through counseling, eventually divorced wife etc.) nothing gave me greater satisfaction than when my adult son and I got together over Skype a few years back (my husband and I live over seas) and torched Oaks’ beloved legal brief, “A Proclamation” given to me by my parents. It was truly liberating!
Keep up the good fight gentlemen.
This discussion is very interesting. Many insightful comments. I agree that Pr. Oaks comments about the church not using its humanitarian efforts for missionary purposes was less than candid. I also contribute to Liahona Foundation and know that it attempted to persuade the church to have the rich stakes in the US sponsor poor stakes in Central and South America whose children are malnourished. The church declined. I suppose the church is concerned about free-loaders in poor countries. It is one of the great shames of our church, as Bill pointed out, that the church is willing to give assistance to pay mortgages for North Americans but unwilling to provide the basis food necessities of poor Mormons in Latin America. That in my opinion is of greater concern than the church’s ambivalence toward homosexuality. The church could solve that problem by simply endorsing gay marriage and holding gays to the same standard of chastity as heterosexuals.
On this point, Bill, who loves to tout his data, got his evidence wrong when he cited Jordan Peterson to support his view that the church’s positions are not consistent with the science of gender differences. Peterson is known for his insistence on fundamental gender and sex differences. He calls morphological differences very rare. He asserts that the biological differences are pronounced with very little middle spectrum confusion. He also asserts constantly that there are very significant personality differences between men and women, including the fact that women are much more inclined to anxiety than men. Men are much more inclined to aggression. This difference is most pronounced on the extremes of the scale. The most aggressive sociopaths are all men and the most neurotic are women. He loves to talk about how men and women left to their innate desires self-select in different types of occupations. Finally, Peterson made his name opposing the demand that transgender people can demand a new pronoun. He thinks it is perfectly reasonable that society should use he and she pronouns. I think I remember him agreeing with the considerable research to the effect that teens should not be encourage by adults to entertain transgender changes. Jordan Peterson is very conservative on gender issues and supports the church’s positions for the most part.
Peterson, btw, also would dispute Bill’s emphasis on rationality as opposed to emotion in moral decision-making. Peterson notes that this emphasis is part of the Enlightenment and has been disproved by brain research which shows that both the reason and the emotions are integrally related in all matters moral.