Tolerance and Acceptance

Tolerance and acceptance.

For a while I have been contemplating the question of ‘When does tolerance become outright acceptance?’ I feel that this is especially pertinent to issues going on currently with regards to same-sex rights. Members of the LDS Church have often used the adage “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” I wonder if this is even possible. When does the sin overcome the purported sinner? Some say that being attracted to a member of your same gender is wrong—be it a choice, be it biological—it is still wrong. Be kind to that person, but try to help them learn the error of their sexual orientation. While some agree that being a homosexual is wrong, the same argument has been used over time with regards to race.

In Nazi Germany, Jews facial characteristics were used to portray them in a negative light; in the United States of America, a nation founded on equality, women were denied the right to vote, Blacks were denied equal rights, Native American Indians were moved onto reservations—land which was supposedly of no worth, yet when gold or natural resources were discovered, land was taken from them once again—and the list goes on and on. Seemingly every minority, be it based on religious affiliation, race, class, or gender has had some discrimination imposed upon it by the dominant group.

Back to my question, and I may be grasping at straws in drawing a comparison, but at one point, both race and gender were looked upon as being a “sin.” One may argue “But someone cannot choose their race or gender, and homosexuals can choose their sexual orientation.” I wonder if this is the case, is it merely a mental illness, something that can be treated akin to alcoholism? (This was, by the way, the stance the LDS Church held for years).

Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles stated that, “The Church does not have a position on the causes of any of these susceptibilities or inclinations, including those related to same-gender attraction. Those are scientific questions — whether nature or nurture — those are things the Church doesn’t have a position on.” (see http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=27f71f1dd189f010VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRD&vgnextchannel=726511154963d010VgnVCM1000004e94610aRCRD&vgnextfmt=tab1)

So, why does the Church feel it can get involved with political proposals, such as Prop 8, regardless of if it is a moral issue or not, and want non-LDS American citizens to join the cause? When it was a situation of polygamy, the Church wanted the American citizens, and the American government, to basically leave them alone. So should a church which has had, historically, a history of being oppressed, and acts of violence incurred upon it, seek to put down another oppressed group? Is this action tolerance? And if your answer is to “follow the prophet,” what do you say when a fellow co-worker, friend, or family member doesn’t even believe in the prophet?

Is it tolerance when men, Black men, such as Elijah Abel, are conferred the priesthood by Joseph Smith, only to be told later they cannot practice it? Regardless of the reason you feel it was implemented—personally, I feel it was a practice of policy and not prophecy, the revelation which President Spencer W. Kimball received came because someone who was in a position of authority high enough finally decided to address the issue, after all, the revelation on harmful substances came after men had been using them, showing that either it wasn’t that big of a deal to the Lord, OR the Lord feels that men really must learn for themselves, line upon line—be it policy or prophecy, some still did hold the priesthood, and then had it revoked, not due to worthiness, but do to their race? Is this restriction tolerance?

In my ward, I have a friend who we shall call Spence. Spence has a brother named Brian, and Brian served his mission in an eastern states Black populated inner-city. (Both Spence and his brother Brian are White.) When Spence and Brian’s new roommate’s father came down to help him move in, upon finding out about where Brian served his mission, asked, “So are you a fan of Obama? Is he one of your people?” For a Western states LDS member to posit the question opens up a myriad of questions…namely, asking a White person if a mixed-race person who is regarded as a symbol of Black America is one of his people? Does Brian even understand, or can he understand, what it is like to be Black in America? Does the question “Is he one of your people?” hold within it some kind of tolerance of the race, or does it show acceptance of equality? Could this statement be regarded as racist? Can we fully understand what it is like to be a member of another race or gender without actually being that race or gender? Sure, with economic conditions, you could take upon yourself a vow of poverty, or work to achieve wealth, but other conditions you cannot change…even if one was to do as, say, Eddie Murphy did on an old Saturday Night Live sketch in which he “painted” himself White through makeup, and then lived as a White man, is it still only a White man’s life as perceived through a Black man? Can an Asian really understand what it is like to be of European descent? Can a Native American Indian really comprehend what it is like to be of African descent? And so on…

I digress, the original question I posited was “When does tolerance become acceptance?” I do not know the answer. I do, however, think that we all need to begin to use our reason, coupled with our faith, and delve into deeper issues, such as, When do I follow my church leaders? When my local priesthood leaders say there is a train of emigrants passing through Southern Utah, and it is our responsibility to go wipe them out, do we participate in the massacre of 120 men and women? When we hear baptized Jews sitting outside a church building weeping, do we take the church’s typewriter and distribute anti-Nazi paperwork, even though it is against the counsel of local church leaders? When do we stand up and say, join me at the front of the bus, regardless of the color of your skin, even though we might end up in a worse position than before?

Do we tolerate people, or do we accept them? When do we believe a sin is really a sin—when our priesthood leader tells us so? When the dominate culture tells us so? When have we merely tolerated someone? When have we actually accepted them as one of our own? And will this ever occur in regards in those with same-gender attraction?

I would be interested in hearing any comments regarding this.