Who Will Stand?

Editor’s Note: This is a letter from a BYU student who read The Family: A Proclamation to the World on campus during a protest rally after the Honor Code clarification from CES was announced. English is his second language and editing was kept to a minimum to preserve the voice of this primary source. The full video is available here.

Update: Listen to his appearance on the Fair Mormon Podcast.

When the clarification letter came through after the BYU Honor Code Change fiasco, we knew the battle wasn’t ending there. It had been a long two weeks of investigations, recordings, and transcripts trying to piece together how such a PR nightmare could have happened all of a sudden – polarizing the entire campus overnight.

We knew quite confidently that the explicit authorization of homosexual behavior had not been authorized by the Brethren and was likely the action of a rogue movement within BYU determined to pass these policies from their personal inclinations. It felt like The Family Proclamation guys were the only ones to know the full story, aside from some Twitter folks following the story as nervously as a teenage homeboy waiting for a text back from his EFY crush.

Most of the common folks of BYU were living their lives during these two weeks as they always do, not looking for trouble and heaven forbid, the dreaded smell of potential confrontation. The classic and tragic unawareness of the modern man, willing to defend his principles and beliefs only as long as they don’t offend anybody.

“Contention is of the devil,” Jesus taught. Yet, it seems that the low-testosterone men of our days have interpreted contention as any situation that requires more energy, passion, or dedication than choosing between the regular chicken sandwich, or the edgy spicy chicken sandwich for their daily Chick-Fil-A ration. They praise Nephi, Abinadi, and Captain Moroni of our beloved scriptures as men of courage and Godliness, yet fail to recognize their own cognitive dissonance when they disavow the men of the Church willing to go in the Arena to defend the good name of God.

“This is not what Jesus would have done, Jesus loved everyone.” Yes, He did, and because He loved everyone, He occasionally called them the sons of the Devil for betraying the doctrine he had set for them. He used righteous indignation and violence to cleanse the temple of the pest that had infested it. Isn’t that the same Jesus you profess, Latter-day man? Or is that the inconvenient Jesus that would reveal the weakness of your own heart? Was cleansing the temple contention? No, it was righteous indignation. Christ’s love language is repentance because He wants you back in Heaven with him forever, and persistence in error will not get you there. He ate with the sinners not to comfort them in their lifestyles, but because they needed Him the most to get back on the right track. Using Jesus’ injunction to love everyone as a justification for sin is blasphemy.

Now, let me make a clear distinction. I can see that being gay in the Church is not a straightforward path. To be slightly caricatural, they are basically asked to live like monks in order to stay in good standing. I have no solution for this; I get that it is very very difficult and I truly admire the folks that decide to stay with these terms. I understand the ones who leave and I think the Lord will figure it out with them. I am not condemning the folks trying to express compassion for an already tough situation. I have many gay friends that I love dearly independent of what goes down in their bedroom. I am condemning the leaders of these activist groups utilizing their pain to achieve their own Satanic agenda to destroy the family as the central social unit of our societies.

Many evil intended apostates are using kindness and compassion as a gateway to subvert the Church to their own philosophies of modernity. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. During my many interviews over the last weeks, the leaders of these LGBT protests have openly called for the redaction and abolition of the Family Proclamation. They believe that through social action and societal pressure, they will bend the will of the Brethren, whom they believe are not directed by God but rather old men out of touch with the Brave New World they are trying to bring to pass. They cite the reversals of the Priesthood Ban and Polygamy as examples where outside societal pressure led to changes in the Church. From their point of view, these protests make all the sense in the world. If they are correct, then the path they’re taking is absolutely coherent.

To the fellas I confronted on Wednesday, I do not believe that you are correct on that point. I believe that the Proclamation will be the last stand on which many well-intended but at times naïve members will fall. In the name of kindness and compassion, they will abandon the guidance of the Brethren and of the Holy Spirit because the price to pay to stand against the global LGBT agenda (which I consider extremely different than individual homosexuals just doing their thing) will become greater and greater. People lose their job if they’re not fully on board with the program, putting the livelihood of their wives and kids on the line if they do not bow to the Brave New World of progress, they are guilty of Wrong-think. I’m not even talking about somebody hurting a gay guy physically, that’s reprehensible. I’m talking about even thinking, in the secrecy of your mind, that maybe, just maybe, something isn’t quite right with the way the social mores of our civilization are headed. They cannot tolerate that, and everyone, even the insignificant town of Provo, Utah in the middle of the western desert must bow to the new god of Diversity.

I do not hate these people. I honestly do not. In many ways, I feel for them. I spoke up at that protest at BYU because no one was saying anything to push back against that agenda. I did not insult them, I read the words of the Prophets, the one document that I pray will stand against the illusions and deceit of the Brave New World: The Family: A Proclamation to the World. If there is a hill to die on, it will be this one: The defense and sanctity of the God-given nuclear family.

Come what may, sociologists proving that small tribes in Botswana actually raise their kids in communal settings instead of with their parents to prove that this whole family gig is a sham and a patriarchal oppressive system to put down minorities. False preachers, claiming to love the Church but determined to destroy it and the faith of its members from the inside. The news media defaming the good name of our Church and of our God because we do not bow to the philosophies of men. The enlightened employer who believes that being pro-life is reason enough to fire you from your job. The Brave New World of Progress does not convert and persuade, it conquers. And it conquers only because no one is pushing back. We are afraid of the consequences. We have sold our birthright for a pottage of lentils.

When I walked up to the edge of the stairs, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen or what I would say, but I knew my intent was pure. I felt a calm serenity that things would be fine, and that truth must be defended. I believe it was one of those times where I could let the Lord fulfill his part of a promise, like when Enoch was called to preach repentance in his days: “Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance.” I ain’t no prophet, but these promises don’t only apply to prophets, they apply to men who fear God more than they fear the World. When I walked to the edge of the stairs, I stopped fearing the World. Wouldn’t you want to feel that the Lord is right by your side when you fight? Well, my friend, that can only happen if you fight for His side. The apostates are left to kick against the pricks.

We need the men and women of the Church to be strong in this, you cannot have your main residence in Zion and your summer cottage in Babylon. Understand that I am not targeting the naively mislead folks that do not see the bigger picture of the end goals of these protests, but I am addressing its leaders; those who know perfectly what they are doing, leading the sheep carefully down to their spiritual slaughter.

Men, take control of your lives: be strong, exercise, read about the Cultural Marxist theories that have led us here and want to destroy your world so you know how to fight them. I used to be afraid to debate because I was not prepared. The spiritual lives of your families are at stake – will you decide to sit back because you’re afraid of being called names or getting punched?

Revelation isn’t the most glamorous book, and the way it describes what happens to the lukewarm at the Judgement definitely doesn’t help with that. If we, the aware Latter-day saints, guided by the Holy Spirit are not willing to fight back, against the whole world if need be, for the defense of the doctrines that would bring people back to their God, and for His Church that administers the ordinances that we need to get back there, can we still call ourselves the salt of the Earth? Which way will you choose, modern man?

Supplemental Reading:

• “Stand Up Inside and Be All In” -Elder Gary B. Sabin, April 2017
• “True Disciples of the Savior” -Elder Terence M. Vinson, October 2019
• “Hearing His Voice’” -Elder David P. Homer, April 2019