The Danger of Homosexuality, 20 years later

Elder Packer and the Danger of Homosexuality, 20 Years Later, WithoutEnd.org Twenty years ago this week, Elder Boyd K. Packer gave a talk to the All-Church Coordinating Counsel opening with some advice he received about which direction church administrators should face.  "Either you represent the teachers and students and champion their causes or you represent the Brethren who appointed you. You need to decide now which way you face." Then he added, "some of your predecessors faced the wrong way." Elder Packer said this advice was difficult to follow at first, but "in time, I did understand, and my resolve to face the right way became irreversible." He gave several anecdotes about blessings of unquestioning obedience to file leaders saying he knew "how easy it is to get turned around."  He warned of three dangers influencing church members to "face the wrong way" which "have made major invasion[s]" into the church because of "social and political unrest." Members of the church were succumbing to these "temptations" because they seem "so reasonable and right." "The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals." To illustrate his points, Elder Packer quoted from three letters, each representing one of the three dangers and provided specific responses to each.  By the time Elder Packer gave this talk in 1993 church leaders had firmly established a stance regarding homosexuality – that it was an unnatural condition one was not born with, a "disease" possibly brought on by parental failure, masturbation or satanic influences.

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