What matters most is recognition that 'I have my own will. I have my own agency. I have the power within myself to control what I do.'

There's no denial that one's gender orientation is certainly a core characteristic of any person, but it's not the only one.

One way to read the Book of Mormon is as a book of encounters between fathers and sons. Some of those encounters were very positive and reinforcing on the part of the father of a son. Some were occasions where a father had to tell his son or his sons that the path that they were following was incorrect before the Lord.

It really is true the Lord's way is to love the sinner while condemning the sin. That is to say we continue to open our homes and our hearts and our arms to our children, but that need not be with approval of their lifestyle. Neither does it mean we need to be constantly telling them that their lifestyle is inappropriate. An even bigger error is now to become defensive of the child, because that neither helps the child nor helps the parent. That course of action, which experience teaches, is almost certainly to lead both away from the Lord's way.

This notion that 'what happens in your house doesn't affect what happens in my house' on the subject of the institution of marriage may be the ultimate sophistry of those advocating same-gender marriage.

Some people promote the idea that there can be two marriages, co-existing side by side, one heterosexual and one homosexual, without any adverse consequences. The hard reality is that, as an institution, marriage like all other institutions can only have one definition without changing the very character of the institution. Hence there can be no coexistence of two marriages.

Children deserve to be reared in a home with a father and a mother.