The ease of celibacy

The following is a conversation I had with a man on facebook:

MAN: It's very easy to not do something that you've never done. If you are a homosexual in the church, who has been following the counsel of the church leaders, and not having pre-marital, even w/ same sex attraction, you won't miss what you've never had. It's very easy for me to not do heroine, never tried it never will. But alcohol on the other hand is different, I've tried it. Do I miss it? Sometimes, but I don't miss its ill effects. And I'm thankful to the Church & its teachings for helping me see the benefits of avoiding & overcoming it & other things. As far as gay people being able to be in a healthy relationship, that's entirely possible in the Church as well. They just choose to be in a relationship w/ someone of the opposite sex. They are happy, blessed & thankful people. One shouldn't disregard what they've overcome by assuming they don't exist. When one always has had the Church & its teachings in their life, they don't always appreciate what they have. When you have to struggle w/ something & overcome it you become grateful for what you have.

ME: I would submit that living a celibate life *is* a very difficult thing we are asking of our homosexual brothers and sisters and church leaders have conceded as much. Marlin K Jensen of the seventy puts it this way:

"And yes, some people argue sometimes, well, for the gay person or the lesbian person, we're not asking more of them than we're asking of the single woman who never marries. But I long ago found in talking to them that we do ask for something different: In the case of the gay person, they really have no hope. A single woman, a single man who is heterosexual in their thinking always has the hope, always has the expectation that tomorrow they're going to meet someone and fall in love and that it can be sanctioned by the church. But a gay person who truly is committed to that way of life in his heart and mind doesn't have that hope. And to live life without hope on such a core issue, I think, is a very difficult thing."

In seeking to understand the challenges of others, I find it best to listen to those who are actually passing through a foreign experience rather than assume that I know what it is they are going through. We can draw analogies with heroin addiction and other things, but those comparisons have limitations. And I would never tell a heroin addict what it is like to be in their shoes having never experienced that. In the end, we are all wired for human intimacy, and the best analogy in this case is imagining what it would be like to give up the prospect of a heterosexual relationship indefinitely given that there is a strong, persistent desire to be intimate with someone of the opposite sex. And that desire, that need to be intimate in a heterosexual relationship is something that is present no matter if the person has acted on those attractions or not. Given that the Atonement was a vicarious experience in which he sought to experience the suffering of all mankind, the least I can do is ASK a person who is homosexual what it is like to be them and believe them when the tell me about their experiences.