New FSY Guide clarifies doctrine regarding Same-Sex Attraction & Dating.
A new edition of For the Strength of Youth pamphlet was just released this past General Conference, 2022, in which the topic of SSA (same-sex attraction) is more clearly addressed under the section titled Your body is sacred. The subsection reads as follows:
“I am attracted to people of my same sex. How do these standards apply to me? Feeling same-sex attraction is not a sin. If you have these feelings and do not pursue or act on them, you are living Heavenly Father’s sacred law of chastity. You are a beloved child of God and a disciple of Jesus Christ. Remember that the Savior understands everything you experience. Through your covenant connection with Him, you will find strength to obey God’s commandments and receive the blessings He promises. Trust Him and His gospel.”
This has immense implications, especially regarding same-sex dating, or courting. I know members experiencing SSA who have told me either that they received “revelation” permitting them to start same-sex dating or that their priesthood leader has counselled them that as long as they’re not acting out sexually, then it’s not a violation of the law of chastity, and it’s permissible for them to be dating the same gender. This just hasn’t sat well with me.
The clarified direction in this subsection doesn’t leave anything to ambiguity, and simply reiterates what we’ve already known all along since Jehovah’s direction given to Moses in Leviticus. It states clearly that, “If you have these feelings and do not pursue or act on them, you are living Heavenly Father’s sacred law of chastity.” So, not only is pursuing or acting on SSA sinful, but it is also a violation of the law of chastity. Yes, this would by inference include same-sex dating.
Dating or courting is a means to an end; marriage. If it can’t lead to a marriage between a man and woman, as God ordains it, why engage in it? For simply temporal pleasure and companionship? If simply for our own pleasure, to fulfil our own carnal desires for companionship and romance, then we are not living the Lord’s law of chastity.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t express same-gender signs of brotherly or sisterly affection, such as the tender affection shown between David and Jonathan or Jesus and John—this brotherly and sisterly platonic affection and intimacy is beautiful and direly needed. It’s the distortion of this, in the form of same-sex dating, romance, and sexual relations that is unchaste.
I have come to see for myself—and I’ve seen the same for many other SSA men that I know—that instead of focusing my energies on same-sex romance and/or sexual relations, which only produce a hallow counterfeit happiness, as I’ve focused my time and efforts into developing platonic intimacy with brothers, my love I express and the fulfilment I feel is deeper and lasting than anything I felt before. I pray that every same-sex-attracted person, who has been deceived into believing that same-sex dating is righteous, may recognise the the gross incongruence of this belief with God’s Plan and be reconciled unto God. May they find the joy of true, fulfilling intimacy. God willing, we can all receive the higher blessings that our Heavenly Father intends for us.
