Being Aware Of My Biases

From "Single Saints and the New Gay Family Policy: My Thought Experiment", Ardis E. Parshall - 11 Nov 2015)

I heard one woman describe her first temple baptismal trip as a teenager. She saw a painting of the hosts of heaven greeting the triumphant Savior – a painting that ought to inspire nothing but positive feelings – but it took her breath away for the wrong reason: Every face in that heavenly host was white. She realized, for the first time in her life, that her fellow Latter-day Saints didn’t even see her, didn’t think of her and people like her as having a place in heaven – oh, we would have denied it if she had challenged us about it, but the evidence would be that we did not see her.

I am becoming more and more aware of how the church and the rest my life might occur to people who are not white, male, Mormon, heterosexual, married to a woman, in the temple, with children, and in the middle class of the USA.

Bruce R. McConkie and the 1978 Revelation

Elder McConkie's role in the 1978 revelation

- A year before the revelation was given, he had written a long memo to President Kimball concluding that there was no scriptural reason the policy could not be lifted.

- Before the revelation was received, he spoke up in favor of the change, reiterating that there was no scriptural impediment.

- And he defended that view under searching questions from President Tanner.

- Then after the confirming revelation was received, he wrote one of the three drafts that were later merged into the final announcement.

- He advocated for immediate announcement instead of waiting.

- And when the announcement was presented to the General Authorities he was one of the first to voluntarily stand and declare his support, giving an impassioned extemporaneous discourse on the related scriptures.

From "In Defense of Elder Bruce R. McConkie – A True Apostle of Jesus Christ", J. Max Wilson, Apr 21, 2015.