The "why" of Mormons and gay marriage

Rainbows.  Rainbows everywhere.

That was my Facebook feed yesterday after SCOTUS' ruling on the subject of gay marriage.  Tons of my friends changed their profile pictures to accompany tints of the rainbow gay pride flag and I can't tell you how many times I saw #lovewins.  I think to say a lot of people are stoked about this is an understatement.

Then the Christian backlash--everything from mild irritation to the claim that Obama is shooting for an American holocaust.  According to my knowledge, Christians who have nailed down the whole acting-like-a-true-Christian thing are typically very tolerant and caring toward everyone, but not necessarily permissive.  They still feel bound to what the Lord has taught in the Bible and have a desire to obey, regardless of if they fully understand the reason.

Among all these things, I feel it's important to ask why.  Why is gay marriage opposed in the Bible?  Because it is.  Yeah, it may only be a handful of verses, but the Ten Commandments are only a handful of verses, too.  The point is, it's still in there.  Anyway, I don't know how "mainstream" Christians would answer that question, but as for me and my Mormon self, let me explain.  I've seriously done some pondering and scripture study toward this topic and I think I might be able to enlighten some people who might be confused.  So don't take what I'm about to say as full-blown Mormon doctrine, but just one dude's opinion.

First and foremost, we lived with God before we were born.  We lived as spirits in His presence and we learned from Him and prepared ourselves for the time that we would be born on earth.  After all, that's why He created the earth--for us.  We have this thing called "eternal progression," meaning that we're constantly learning and growing throughout eternity.  Yup.  Forever.

I think we were all anxious to be born into mortality.  There are things that we can only experience with a body of flesh and bones that we, of course, as spirits, wouldn't have otherwise.  If you didn't have a body, how could you feel hot or cold, pleasure or pain, excitement or exhaustion, or the taste of an expertly-crafted club sandwich??  I'm particularly a fan of that last one.

These things we could only experience with a body includes the sacred power to create children and express love through sexual intimacy.  Isn't it nuts that we have that power within us?  To create a human being through two people that unite themselves in love and unity.  We're basically inviting one of those spirits waiting for the blessed experience of mortality to come hang out with us on earth as part of a loving family.  Definitely not something to be treated lightly.  That's why sexual sin of any kind--not just homosexual sex--is condemned in scripture.

And I think that's why.  Do I think that two women or two men can be happy in a marriage relationship?  Yeah, I do.  But the children part is kind of a big deal to God.  He created the earth so spirits could be born here and have the experience of mortality.  When two men or two women get married... they can't do that.  They don't have that power.  It halts the plan that God has made for children to be born within the bonds of marriage as part of that loving family.  Essentially, tons of our spirit friends are still waiting to be born, but they can't, so their eternal progression is halted.  Gay or lesbian couples can adopt, which I think is a noble thing, but they don't have the procreative power in a marriage relationship that a man and a woman would have.  They're simply raising a child that two other people had to create.

But anyway, that's just me.  Maybe I'm just another Christian bigot that's stuck in non-progressive traditional values.  That's fine.  I'm happy with where I'm at and what I believe, and I'd like to be your friend anyway.  People are always going to disagree with people.  Folks are always going to get their feelings hurt or feel belittled.  I think a lot of people on both sides have been feeling that way.

But amidst all of it, can't we still be friends?  I sure hope we can.

Just saying.


-Aaron

Service is Kind of Awesome.

In my church, we have a children's song that goes something like, "When we're helping we're happy and we sing as we go."  It's a cute/dumb little song, but I think it teaches a great message, and how great is it that we're knocking that into little kid's heads before they grow into selfish, always-too-busy adults?

I'll be honest, I was never exactly singing as I went when I got roped into service activities throughout my teen years.  Some teenagers are notorious for beings self-centered know-it-alls and I definitely was no exception.  It always seemed inconvenient to me to take time out of my important schedule of video games and guitar playing for the sake of chopping wood or pulling weeds for someone else.  Why couldn't they get someone else to do it?  After all, I lead a busy life.  There's got to be someone out there with nothing to do that would be willing to devote their time to helping someone else.

I didn't realize until later that service actually enriches the life of the person doing the serving.

I served a two-year LDS mission in Boston Massachusetts and the surrounding area.  I was about to go home in the winter of 2012, and in October, Superstorm Sandy crashed into the east coast.  During the time, I was in New Haven, Connecticut, which wasn't too far from some areas like Fairfield Beach that saw a lot of destruction.

As a mission--which was over 200 Mormon missionaries, mind you--we coordinated a massive service effort to storm the neighborhoods of coastal Connecticut and offer our cleanup services for absolutely free.  We did it over the course of a weekend.  And guess what I found out?

Service is awesome.

It was incredible to see the happy faces of people who would typically be so irritated with our message of Jesus Christ.  We didn't preach to them unless they wanted to hear it.  Our mission for the weekend was simply to serve, whether it meant demolition, cleaning out water-damaged materials from homes, shoveling out basements and driveways, or whatever.

Cute little palm tree salt shaker, right?  I don't even remember the lady's name that gave it to me.  We were hauling out a bunch of water damaged materials from her house and putting them on the street.  I think I just said in passing that I liked that salt shaker... so she gave it to me!  Totally insisted on it--a small token of her thanks.  I keep it where I can see it every day as a reminder of how good I felt that day.  Sunup to sundown we just helped people.  Seriously.  I don't think I've ever felt more tired or more satisfied on a single day of my life.

You can totally feel that too, so go help someone!  It doesn't have to be big, just go do something nice for someone else!  Especially if you're struggling with life.  Yes, you. The best remedy for a weary soul is some spirited service, in my humble opinion.  After all, the world could always use some more good, and a little bit on our part can go a long way for someone else.

Just saying.


-Aaron

The Unrecognized Good: Akon and Caitlyn Jenner

Oh my gosh... can you say "controversy?"  It seems like everybody on the internet is sharing their favorite blog post or posting their opinion about Bruce Jenner's transition to Caitlyn Jenner.  I don't know too much about her because I've never seen an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians,  but I guess she has a lot of money and won some Olympic medals once upon a time.  And in terms of controversy, that photo shoot for Vanity Fair has been the hottest topic of the year, bar none.

With all this attention focused on Caitlyn, it seems a lot of contention is breaking out online and in the media.  On my own Facebook, I've seen friends mention that they had deleted other friends based on the posts that they've made about Caitlyn.  But why is our attention focused on her?  I don't know about you, but she has no impact on my personal life.  Like I said, I've never seen an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and I surely don't know her personally.  So why do we take such a personal interest in her story?

Okay.  Switching gears.  Another monumental thing has happened recently in the world of celebrities.

Akon.  The singer.  Another guy that doesn't influence me hardly at all--I'm not particularly into his style of music.  Just the mention of his name brings back the memories of hearing "Smack That" on the radio all the time when I was in middle school.  But I want to point out something that Akon has recently done.  According to Paste Magazine, Akon has plans to launch a new "Solar Academy" in Africa that will harness solar power and convert it into electricity to be used by approximately 600 million Africans.

SIX. HUNDRED. MILLION.

Does anyone else realize that's nearly double the population of the United States??  Akon is using his power, wealth and influence to bring life-changing advantages to the equivalent of two major countries.  That's phenomenal!  Stupendous!  Fantastic!  Really, I don't care about what kind of music Akon is putting out because I'm not terribly into it, but Akon is doing excellent things in the world right now.  The tragedy is that we're so focused on another rich celebrity changing her gender, and so consumed in the controversy of it all, that this wonderful effort on Akon's part getting pushed onto the back burner.

How is this manifest in our own personal lives?  Are we so easily distracted by the hot button topics and the debates and the stress that we neglect the good that's happening around us?  There are quiet heroes in all of our lives that go completely unnoticed because we're too focused on other things.  Maybe it's time we take a look around and thank those heroes that go unthanked each and every day.  And while we're at it, why don't we each try to be that kind of hero in some small way?  It's really not that hard, it can be as simple as a smile.  But to someone, a simple smile may be everything.

Just saying.


-Aaron

Hello world!

Well, isn't this exciting?  I've teased the idea of starting a blog for a long time now, but kind of discarded the thought because I'd be thrust into the ranks of hundreds of other college bloggers across the nation.  Everybody seems to have something to say, and some say things more vehemently than others.  I don't consider myself one of those to lividly thrust my opinion onto the world wide web, but hey, I've got two cents and I'm happy to donate occasionally.

Anyway, this will be a fun little experiment for me.  I like to think that I'm a fairly well-rounded individual.  For the past two and a half years, I studied motion picture production at Dixie State University, and freaking loved it.  Filmmakers are an interesting bunch of homo sapiens.  I've never met a species of nerd that is so extroverted, opinionated and flat-out fun.  I learned a lot from each of them, and I'm grateful for the knowledge of filmmaking I absorbed from all of them.  Will I post things like movie reviews here as time goes on?  You better believe it, bucko.

Photography kind of goes along with filmmaking, but I definitely consider myself an amateur, so I'll probably just post takes from the occasional shoot.  However, once I get more proficient, I'll post things like tips and cool locations to shoot at.  It'll be a hoot.

I've also written a novel!  Kinda crazy for a twenty-three year old, right? It's called Foreordained, and it got published in February of last year.  It's about a kid named Jason who finds out that he's been foreordained by a dragon diety to serve as the next king of a kingdom that's fallen to discord.  It follows the point in his life when he's being tested for the throne and he's trying to decided whether or not he has the courage to rise up to his sacred responsibility.  I'll be honest, if I didn't write the book, I would think it's pretty freakin' awesome.  Heck, I still do!  It's got an average rating of 4.7 stars, and if you're interested in a copy, I sell exclusively through Amazon.  Just click that thing.  The word Amazon.  There ya go.

I also like style.  Good style, and cheap style.  I'm actually sponsored by a Utah-based tie company called Tie One On, so expect to see some posts of cool ties about once a week.  I won't endorse a company I don't like, and I find Tie One On's ties to be fresh and affordable.  I really do mean that.  Pay them a visit if they've got a location nearby you.

Aside from all of that, I'm your typical Mormon Utah college student.  I love M&Ms, In-n-Out Burger, Chick-fil-A, cool hats, Star Wars, Harry Potter, laughing with friends, Mario Kart, clearance racks, sunny weather, strawberry lemonade, good times, and Emma Watson.

Stay posted!  Good stuff to come. :)

-Aaron