My Neg cases are always better than my Aff cases, and this is no exception. It’s not awful, but it’s not my best work. If anybody has a Neg case to throw against this, I’d really love to see it. Obviously, I think I’m right, but I admit the possibility that I’m wrong.
And as a side note, unless I’m reading it wrong, going on dates doesn’t seem to be against the new revised honor code. Any thoughts on that?
Definitions:
This house => The Provo Moho Blogosphere
Hold => Cause… to occur
MoHo FHE => Special interest group FHE aimed at the MoHo community to emphasize the Mo in MoHo.
- By holding our own FHE, we grant ourselves the ability to regulate the activities that take place at it.
- It has been proposed that, were we to hold this FHE, people would be “hooking up left and right.” But what is to stop another body from creating an FHE group where such activity is encouraged? By having our own group, where such activity is not encouraged, we discourage the formation of other groups with lower standards.
- Creating our own group gives us absolute control over what takes place there. We can encourage high standards, and can even specifically discourage any activity we choose, in a loving, caring manner, helping us to keep each other on a good, righteous path.
- By holding our own FHE, we can use this as a tool to find others who are in the area and think they are alone, bringing them into a caring support system where they can have friends who really, truly understand what they’re feeling.
- I cannot speak for all of you, but I myself was in a not so great spot until I found you. I wasn’t thinking about suicide or anything like that, but I wanted to get as far away from this place as quickly as possible, and never return. I was going to never tell my parents, I was probably going to end up leaving the church, and it was just going to be that way. But then one of you found me, and I met more of you, and if you read my other posts, you can see the good that’s been done. I want that for every good LDS male who happens to like other guys, and this is just one way we can give it to them.
- While our main goal would not be outreach, every soul is of invaluable worth. If we can fine and keep just one on the straight and narrow as a result of this action, I would say that it was worth it. If we can give just one person hope, then it’s worth it. If we can prevent just one suicide, or even just one person from cutting, it’s worth it.
- Often, a regular FHE situation can become extremely uncomfortable, because at least in my experience, there is never a shortage of people who seem to think that “God hates fags!” or some other such nonsense. It also sometimes feels like the lessons don’t really apply to us, or that they even sometimes seem targeted against us.
- In holding our own FHE, would could avoid this kind of uncomfortable situation because we would never have any kinds of lessons or opinions voiced that may cause us to feel alone, unloved, and unwanted.
- Although we wouldn’t want every lesson to be about it, we could focus on things that we could never focus on in a regular FHE, like living a gospel centered life in light of our homosexuality. That said, we would not want to focus on it.
For these reasons, I strongly encourage you to vote with the affirmation
4 comments:
I have a few key issues with holding an FHE. First, we have very few people grounded in Provo that would be able to perpetuate it - this is a weak complaint, because with enough momentum it would feasibly perpetuate itself, given enough persons with adequate leadership qualities and enough caring. Second, the BYU structure for FHE is based in the wards - many bishops do not support FHEs held outside the 'ward family'. As such if we were to make this a 'legitimate' FHE, we'd probably want to approve it through BYU or get the support of multiple ecclesiastical leaders - and to get enough blanket 'protection' or support or whatever, we'd likely have to do that on a stake level, with multiple stake leaderships.
With regards to saving even one soul, it's true, and yet it is not our responsibility with regards to the FHE institution. Which is why I would want to clear it with church leaders if we decided to do it. Regarding uncomfortable situations in 'normal' FHEs, it is in large part up to us to put a stop to those situations - bailing out on the 'normal' populace won't help them understand us or stop the bigotry. I mean, I dislike BYU ward FHEs with a fiery passion, and hold FHE with my cousins instead, typically. Eh.
I will agree that it would be fun, that it has potential, and that it could feasibly work given the right conditions. I will agree that addressing our unique situation occasionally would be good, that it would be another way for us to reach out to people who don't have anyone to turn to, and that with the correct people in charge we could probably clamp down on most of the hooking up (though not all, because it would likely be a natural and undesirable byproduct). And I think that as we hold activities and such over the summer, we'll be able to see the direct feasibility, the dynamic, and ask for other opinions.
As for your question about dating, I would say be extremely careful, because "Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings." I don't think they would smile on dating much, but if dating included holding hands or anything more than that, I would say you'd be breaking the Honor Code.
That was like a blog in a comment! Cool! Umn, you kind of hit all of your contentions already, so I can't hit them back. Other than the, "it's not our responsibility" comment. I mean, is it not our responsibility to love our neighbors as our selves, and to look out for our own? If people with this in common don't count as neighbors, I don't know who does...
It's agreed that we wouldn't be able to prevent "hooking up", but then that term has a slightly different meaning where I'm from. to "hook up" is to have sex. Ultimately though, the fact is that any situation in which people who are attracted to each other are in the same room, the chance of a relationship forming is there. We can, however, enforce basic rules of decency at an FHE that would limit that.
Umn, as for bailing out on everybody else, I don't know if you've ever met a real bigot, but there's no talking to them. On that note, I think that we can take a lesson from the history of the church on this one. To avoid the initial persecution, all members were urged to join the main body of the church in Utah for the longest time, until eventually we were accepted enough to be able to establish the church where we lived. I think that we are the same way. Right now, our best bet is to draw strength from each other, and to join together, and then, maybe someday when the bigotry has died down a little, and we can discuss these issues with most everyone this won't be necessary any more. But then, a lot of Mormons still move to Utah anyway.
So, who would we need to talk to about doing something like this? Would we have to go through an administrator, or could we feasibly do it through bishops and stake presidents and stuff? But you're right, over the summer will be the best time to determine whether it has any real potential or not.
I could construct creative arguments for holding hands, cuddling, and maybe even to a smaller extent kissing, but it's more effort than it's worth. It's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.
The church is famous for it's red tape and all but should we seek to create even more of it?
If anyone is concerned that this gathering would violate the sanctity of Ward FHE we could simply do it on Wednesday. That way we could just assume the group is under BYU surveillance rather than inviting cops to the party.
There's a value to having interaction with those that understand you, but at the same time, I can only think of Robbie the Robot screaming in my mind, "DANGER!" It's like the group therapy through Evergreen that just turn into dating services. You don't want that, and sadly, the only way to avoid that is not have the situation exist.
I would vote against it, if only to protect your souls. I guess I could be more stringent, but I'll end with this:
As a general rule I only meet MoHos in public, and often as feasible with Miki. It's to make sure we both stay on our best behavior.
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