Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Testimony Sunday and twelve year olds

A 12 year old girl recently announced her sexuality during a "testimony Sunday" (more on that in a minute) meeting. Apparently, her mic was cut off when she started talking about how her views were not in line with those of the church.

You can find the "Fair Mormon" synopsis of it here. It has some links to other sites that tell more of the story.

Testimony Sunday is where the church allows it's members to come up and discuss their testimony, or belief in the restored gospel. Unlike other Sundays where the bishop asks people to speak, this time the mic is open to all members.

I am sympathetic to everyone here in the situation. The girl, her family, the parishioners, and the leadership of the church. You can't blame the church for cutting off her mic-if I walk up there and start dropping F-bombs while talking about my love of scotch and cocaine-they're going to cut off my mic as well-and they should. You don't have "free speech" in a church building. The bishop could throw you out for saying you prefer Burger King to McDonalds. So no, her "free speech" rights were not violated.

I feel sorry for anyone, in the church or not, who grows up homosexual. Even though it is 2017 and views are rapidly changing on how Americans see homosexuality, it still must be very hard to feel so isolated and alone. Childhood can be isolating and miserable in many circumstances, gay or not. So I feel sorry for her as well.

She didn't do the right thing-testimony Sunday isn't the time or the place to do this -but she's only 12. She and the church will quickly get over this and move on.

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