Quote Originally Posted by Rocker Ute View Post
I agree on #1, although I'll note that is his opinion and not something that the Q12 brethren were saying to him. We've all sat in meeting with kooks before and the normal Mormon reaction is to put your head down and let the goof push through.

I watched the video that has people in a supposed uproar over the 'gay agenda' remark by Oaks. After an 8 minute presentation about Wikileaks and Pvt Manning Oaks says something like, "Did you say he was gay? That's the first time I've heard that..." presumably because he was familiar with the story of Manning leaking info to Wikileaks already. He then speculates that maybe the media suppressed that part of the story as part of the 'Gay Agenda'. Then someone off camera, not sure what he is talking about, asks if Assange is gay. Entire discussion on that was about 1 minute in length, so hardly something that you could conclude was an obsession. We already know the church is concerned about that and I think he was just ruminating off the cuff, not that that was the actual big takeaway from the meeting. People are also critical that is all they seem to focus on, but we also don't even know what else they talked about that day. I know my Mormon meetings and there is no such thing as a 10 minute Mormon meeting.

I remember when Elder Perry talked about 'counterfeit lifestyles' and thinking, "That is probably the nicest thing a 92yo man has ever said about homosexuality." Much of the same with all of this, I don't think a new thing was even revealed about the Q12 and people are getting up in arms over reports of what was said versus watching it themselves, because if they did I doubt they'd see much of a story.

I was also thinking of the context of these discussions, etc. in relation to a meeting I sat in about two weeks ago. I was sitting in on a meeting of a client of mine, all people I know very well. They were covering some recruiting efforts (something that had nothing to do with me) and one of the male recruiters talked about how he had taken a male potential recruiting target to a movie. Another guys joked, "Ross is resorting to dating his recruits now..." and everyone laughed. He then joked back, "I'm willing to switch sides for you boss..." to more laughter, and then his boss said, "For me? I'm a little curious..." to even more laughter. I'm thinking if that snippet of conversation was recorded and released you'd have a lot of people upset at this company and me sitting there being complicit in the joke or something. Yet all of us here have sat in on a meeting like that with no big deal.

So I just can't get wound up by a bunch of people very familiar with each other sitting in a non-policy binding meeting asking different questions or making different jokes. I've sat in enough meetings like that to know better. Plus you get familiar enough with people you almost know the questions they are going to ask. Other than Oaks asking what he did, nobody seemed remotely rousted about that issue.

In short, even taking off my Mormon goggles I'm having a hard time seeing this as a story at all.
It's not up to me whether it's scandalous or not, but I found it fascinating to see leadership in non-General-Conference speaking situations.
Not that we needed any reminders, but it really brought home to me how corporate the church is.
While I don't really fault the church for that, that board room is a loooong ways from a group of ex-fishermen huddling in a house in 1st century Capernaum.