QUOTE: “When we consider the dangers from which children should be protected, we should also include psychological abuse. Parents or other caregivers or teachers or peers who demean, bully, or humiliate children or youth can inflict harm more permanent than physical injury. Making a child or youth feel worthless, unloved, or unwanted can inflict serious and long-lasting injury on his or her emotional well-being and development. Young people struggling with any exceptional condition, including same-gender attraction, are particularly vulnerable and need loving understanding—not bullying or ostracism. With the help of the Lord, we can repent and change and be more loving and helpful to children—our own and those around us.” –Dallin H. Oaks, Protect the Children, in General Conference, October 2012. [source]
COMMENTARY: When God placed Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden, he gave them two mutually exclusive commandments: don’t eat the fruit of that tree, and multiply and replenish the earth. They had to use their moral agency to decide which was the more important commandment. Today God is continuing that tradition of making us think for ourselves by offering two ways to protect children: either by ostracizing them or by not ostracizing them. Which one we choose will say a lot about us, and I personally believe that not ostracizing them is the more moral choice. But what do I know? I’m just another apostate.
