From the Church News, February 16, 2021:

Elder Holland explained that the Church does not make judgment about feelings or attraction but rather on behavior and what one actually does. “We don’t make an ecclesiastical judgment or a disciplinary decision on the basis of what someone feels or attractions that they have. What we ask is, please do not act contrary to the commandments or contrary to covenants or contrary to the teachings of the Lord and the prophets. Please don’t act on attractions that would alienate you from the Spirit and from the body of the Church.”

Those who are willing to behave consistent with the commandments of the Lord will be able to hold a temple recommend, receive temple covenants, hold a calling and enjoy all the blessings of the gospel. “But it does take effort on the behavior side,” Elder Holland said. “Through that effort we will wait with you, cry with you and be patient together as we bless each other with true brotherhood and sisterhood.”

A comment from a gay member on Facebook:

“The GA’s claim ‘commandments’, but have yet to cite to any correctly translated chapter and verse of scripture, particularly directly from God’s mouth, that prohibits gay marriage. They can’t, because it doesn’t exist. It’s not ‘commandments’, it’s ‘philosophies of men mingled with scripture.'”

The apostles don’t back up their commandments with scripture, unless they want to. They don’t see it as necessary, because, well, they’re apostles, and see themselves superior to Jesus and all of God’s previous teachings.

This highlights a much bigger problem in the Church. The apostles claim that what a current prophet teaches has more authority than scripture, more authority than canonized scripture that has been accepted by the common consent of the whole Church. They universally disregard the “commandment” in the D&C that “all things must be done in order, and by the common consent of the church” (D&C 28:13).

After Monson died, Nelson stepped in quickly to get himself set apart as the president of the Church without any sustaining vote from the members as required in the D&C. It was basically a coup. It was three months after the fact before a sustaining vote was even permitted by the members, and then we were expected to just go along with it, after the deed had already been done.

Oaks is notorious for disregarding the common consent of the Church and canonized scripture. He is notorious for twisting and reinterpreting Jesus’s teachings on love and the greatest commandments to promote his own anti-gay agenda. It’s no secret that as the champion of the homophobic and sexist Family Proclamation, Oaks has wanted to see it canonized and added to the D&C. Apparently (and thankfully), there has been opposition to this from the other apostles for the last 20 years since it was first announced, or it would have been canonized already. Yet Oaks continues to quote from it and promote it over the pulpit as if it were already scripture. He is obviously on a campaign to get it canonized, and when he becomes the next president of the Church (if not sooner), you can bet it is going to be added to the D&C, and probably without any common consent vote of the members.

The apostles don’t even take common consent seriously, because they think they are superior to the members. They have had their Second Anointing, so they are basically gods already, in their minds. All heart surgeons basically already have a god-complex, but make a heart surgeon a prophet, and oh my god! They are already walking on water or six feet above all the lowly peasant members of the Church. It’s elitism and arrogance at its worst. Reminds me of the Pharisees of Jesus’s day.

And to top it all off, the apostles even teach that what the current prophet says has more authority than what a previous prophet says. Nelson has been particularly notorious and spiteful about this. Nelson and Hinckley were at odds about the name “Mormon” for decades — even publicly in General Conference, a battle of words over the pulpit.

Nelson had to wait for Hinckley and Monson to die first, then he rolls in and basically throws them under the bus. No longer are we to support the highly successful “I Am A Mormon” campaign that Hinckley and Monson promoted. Now Nelson tells us all that Hinckley and Monson were on Satan’s side and gave Satan a major victory by embracing the name Mormon. Did you all catch that? He actually said that Hinckley and Monson were on Satan’s side!

What ever happened to the teaching the apostles love to remind everyone about, that the Lord would never let the prophet lead the Church astray? Yet that is exactly what Nelson says about Hinckley and Monson, while at the same time gaslighting the members.

The self-superiority and Pharisaical elitism of the apostles needs to stop. It is their hypocrisy that is destroying the Church, and forcing members out. Not only are we gay members being persecuted by these Pharisees, but women, people of color, and the youth. 7 out of 10 youth active in the Church right now will be inactive by age 30.

It may be too late already, but if the apostles don’t make major reforms immediately, there may not be much of a Church left for them to preside over. Let’s start with restoring Common Consent.

When the members of the Church have an actual voice in the policies and practices of the Church, as God intended, and as was canonized in the authoritative standard works of the Church, then the Pharisaical layering of commandments that no one can live up to will cease. Discrimination of gay members will stop. Women will not be treated as second class citizens in a patriarchal society. People of color will finally get the respect they deserve, and finally get an apology for the institutional racism promoted in Church since it’s beginning. With Common Consent, the power and money hoarding of the Church will have to stop.

Common Consent will save the Church if it is allowed once again as it was in the early days of the Church. Then it will be our responsibility as members of the Church to use our voice to bring about lasting change and reform that will save the Church from destruction.