No Mo-Mo LDS General Conference Reductio

The following is my best attempt to put my core experience of this past weekend's LDS General Conference (and really, all such conferences past) into words, followed by a bit of commentary:

A beautiful, sunny spring afternoon. Puttering about doing Sunday afternoon things. From the other room, the drone of an anglo-male, blue-suited voice. Unintelligible. Gray-noise to whatever object fascinates the moment. Only "the adults" in the house are watching television today.

And then from the gray, a topic that catches my attention: "...choosing not to have children is selfish."

I've heard this before. The idea did not bother me when I was a kid, reaping then the benefits of parental guilt. Of course, God wants us to have children. Having children is hard work; emotionally, socially, and economically draining. Selfless, god-fearing people have children anyway. "The day will come when only the faithful will be willing to have children." A prophetic voice that seemed as rational and certain as the selfish and loathsome aloneness of the outside world.

But now I am a man. I have my own children ... and memories of my own childhood. There are friends and respected associates in the world outside the church, some of whom want children, some of whom do not. I am now intimately acquainted with tragic tales of saints who had more children than they should have ... who had children when they shouldn't have ... who would have been happy to have had fewer or no children at all, but for the guilt. I've learned that, for those who are prepared for and desire such, marriage and children are their own incomprehensibly rich reward. Also the worst nightmare for those who are not prepared and do not want children. We simple beings tend to know this about ourselves and do not need a god to tell us what is best for us. We do not need lessons in guilt and fear to goad us and bully us into making the choice.

Yet this is the church, which has no greater bondage on us than where it holds us by our sexual relationships and fruits: by our children. Without such the church would have the most tentative of holds on our minds. The church knows this.

And so selfishly of its own needs, the church plants the seeds of fear in our minds. Telling us that if we do not bind our sexuality in marriage by the authority and dictates of the church, if we fail to sacrifice self to produce children for the lord of the church, that we are then operating counter to the will of divine goodness. We, being human, desire what is right and good and so are trapped in the church's deceitful snare. For a lifetime. For generations. We perpetuate the lie that the church's needs are greater, more profound, more virtuous, and more accurate than our own.

We all recognize the fear. We may tune it out, like children captured by the moment before us. So that the fear becomes but a droning gray noise coming from the other room on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

I'm pretty sure "the voice out of the gray" was Elder Dallin Oaks. He also said something about dogs being an unacceptable alternative to children. I almost blew milk through my nose when I heard that one. Overstepping a bit there Elder Oaks? Oh, right. Once you've entered the world of manipulating human sexuality, nitpicking about our doggie friends is really quite obvious.

More to the point: Since when do we need god to tell us to have children, particularly out of some sense of obligation? Out of service? Out of all perspective for our mental, emotional, financial and **gasp** sexual resources?

Honestly folks, having children is one of the most selfish things I've ever done. I have very little time or money for anything else. I rely deeply on society to support me. The net result is that my seed goes forward one more generation and my most primal purpose for living is fulfilled.

But they turn it all around and make as if we're all a bunch of selfish ingrates if we fail to have at least one Mormon Assault Vehicle full of babies for Jesus. And having babies for the church is what it's really about. Look at the numbers.

And why does the church seek to control human sexuality, human family, and women in particular? I think, because human sexuality, it's environs, and consequences are where you place the bit if you want to control the beast from birth to death. And woman is the wild and swirling center. Our children are the prize.