GA's past double standards
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:42 pm
I was reading a 1976 "Dialogue" on Mormon sexuality, and it made me think that GA's often say things they don't really mean.
When I was a married student at Ricks College, and BYU in the 70's and early 80's any discussion in class (Church or Campus) about birth control would revert to GA statements saying essentially birth control was wrong. Yet there were whispers that some couples had gone to some bishops and/or faculty for advice and were told that birth control was OK, at least while they were going to school. In my 1970's RM/TBM mindset I was inclined to think that these married students and/or their advisors were making up stories and/or policies that went against Church doctrine as stated in General conference and other places.
My years from 22 to 30 (My first 7 years of marriage) were a learning experience and around age of thirty my former wife and I decided I should get a vasectomy.
This was awkward for me, especially since my doctor was my Stake Patriarch. I thought he might even discourage me from getting the vasectomy because of the Church's position on birth control. He didn't. The Church position on birth control never came up.
Then today I turn to the 1976 "Dialogue Article" and read of some students going to GA's for private counsel in the 1970s were told that it WAS OK to use birth control while getting an education. These were individual students who in at least one situation were related to the (unnamed) GA. (granddaughter)
So, while the general authorities were discouraging birth control in the 1970s in public, at least a few of them were telling people in private that it was OK.
I'm not as confused about all this now as I would have been back in the 1970s, if I had known then what I know now. Currently, it should not surprise well informed people that the GA's send out mixed messages, but they hid it better in the 1970s.
Oh well, live and learn. Anyone else notice stuff like this?
When I was a married student at Ricks College, and BYU in the 70's and early 80's any discussion in class (Church or Campus) about birth control would revert to GA statements saying essentially birth control was wrong. Yet there were whispers that some couples had gone to some bishops and/or faculty for advice and were told that birth control was OK, at least while they were going to school. In my 1970's RM/TBM mindset I was inclined to think that these married students and/or their advisors were making up stories and/or policies that went against Church doctrine as stated in General conference and other places.
My years from 22 to 30 (My first 7 years of marriage) were a learning experience and around age of thirty my former wife and I decided I should get a vasectomy.
This was awkward for me, especially since my doctor was my Stake Patriarch. I thought he might even discourage me from getting the vasectomy because of the Church's position on birth control. He didn't. The Church position on birth control never came up.
Then today I turn to the 1976 "Dialogue Article" and read of some students going to GA's for private counsel in the 1970s were told that it WAS OK to use birth control while getting an education. These were individual students who in at least one situation were related to the (unnamed) GA. (granddaughter)
So, while the general authorities were discouraging birth control in the 1970s in public, at least a few of them were telling people in private that it was OK.
I'm not as confused about all this now as I would have been back in the 1970s, if I had known then what I know now. Currently, it should not surprise well informed people that the GA's send out mixed messages, but they hid it better in the 1970s.
Oh well, live and learn. Anyone else notice stuff like this?