So, as I listened to the explanation of the "policy" from the Sept. 17 BYU Devotional, I hear that, in 2015, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were so concerned about the church not negatively impacting same-sex families that they excluded them from membership and excommunicated their legally married parents. The logic was about how the church might negatively affect the lives and beliefs of these families, and not the other way around.
Hmmmm.....
God later saw how hurtful that was to these families, trying to protect them from the church's teachings, and changed his mind. Not about the teachings, but about the exclusion and excommunication policies.
Or maybe God was just moved by all the weeping and concerns of the leadership over the pain the policy caused these families, their friends and frustrated members who questioned the hearts of their leaders — a point the speaker addressed with the image of a room full of old, white men in expensive woolen suits, weeping over people's pain, while still committed to unchanging doctrine.
Fortunately, God found a loophole. He called it a policy and not doctrine. They're not the same thing. Doctrine is fixed. Everything else is policy that can be changed when necessary. Easy fix.
During that same time, 2015-2019, were Sunday School and other church teachers directed not to mention other sensitive matters like, smoking, drinking, church attendance, etc., so as not to inflict unnecessary pain on children whose parents, straight or same-sex, were not active, not members, beer drinkers, smokers, etc?
Jim Birrell, American Fork