However, I think there is a darker side to it, as well. I fear that the church’s image of a family is too narrow and too exclusive. I believe that there is more than one way to have a good family, but the church doesn’t seem to think so. It seems to have that ideal family as the goal for every single member, even if it doesn’t work for everyone or it’s not attainable. I think this causes a lot of hurt for those that can’t have that family.

I believe that same-sex couples can make loving, caring, responsible parents. I see absolutely no reason why that cannot be a successful, loving family.

I think my church membership really helped me to see my family as the most important thing in my life and to cherish it and take care of it. But, I also experienced a lot of guilt for not having FHE weekly, for yelling occasionally, for not always being worthy to give blessings, etc. Basically, for being human. I think I’m a pretty darn good dad. I know I can be a lot better, but I’m pretty good, even if I don’t quite fit that Mormon ideal anymore.

I remember having a conversation with the wife of the president they chose after Jon. The family had only recently moved in the ward, as in they had been there about two weeks, and the comment was how no one wanted to accept the calling as Elder’s Quorum President. They too were a very motivated family to do what the church asked of them. He was also a very good president.

I think Jon would have made a fine president, but it would have been very hard on us and we were both unsure whether the blessings would outweigh the sacrifices, not that it should matter as a latter-day saint, but it did.
We also went through a lot of under employment at this time, so we had many stresses on us at this point of our lives.

Somehow the LDS church went from experimenting with other forms of marriage (i.e. polygyny and polyandry) to idealizing the nuclear family of the fifties. I would be interesting to learn the exact causes, but it seems to me like David O. McKay has cast a long shadow on the LDS idea of family.

We discussed how central the idea of marriage between a man and a woman is to LDS doctrine. There has been a dramatic shift from polygamy to monogamy. D&C 132 was understood to refer exclusively to polygamy for much of early church history. The current application of the New and Everlasting Covenant to monogamous marriage represents historical revisionism. The New and Everlasting Covenant meant polygyny.

A change as dramatic as coming to accept same-sex couples would be surprising but not unprecedented.

For the time being, I agree, the LDS church struggles to serve people who don’t live in its idealized family: singles, divorcés, homosexuals, polygamists, etc.

My Hot Wife,

I don’t remember intending to turn the Stake President down. I saw it more like telling him our situation and letting him decide what to do. Perhaps his response wasn’t as unexpected as I remember it, just the shock of actually receiving that response. Memory is tricky.

So when you expressed you concerns I was so expecting the assuaging and comforting and problem-solving approach of a man who knew damn well the realities of human ways. Instead you got the treatment I’ve so often experienced at the end of a job interview for which I was clearly not the best choice.

I’m sorry but that savant of the lord seems to have been in full-on corporate mode. Sad.