Denying the Image and Likeness of God

The Law

When “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:26–27). In other words, God didn’t leave wiggle room for gender affirmations deviating from his children’s biological makeup: “In the likeness of God made he him: male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day they were created” (Genesis 5:1–2). As God’s design is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39), and as “men are that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25), it is within the male–female paradigm that these are realized.

Knowing, therefore, that with Adam and Eve’s fall from grace humanity would become subject to every form of temptation, God expressly forbade sodomy: “If a man lie with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 20:13); “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22); “The woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to Jehovah your God” (Deuteronomy 22:5).

Because that kind of depravity had the propensity to overspread an entire nation and cause a civilization’s downfall, capital punishment was equal to the gravity of the offense. Sodomy was the sin that caused God to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grievous” (Genesis 18:20). So “Jehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven” (Genesis 19:24). And yet, Isaiah predicts that sodomy will be a major sin among God’s end-time people: “They flaunt their sin like Sodom” (Isaiah 3:9; cf. 1:9–10; 13:19).

The Sequel

Those who assume God misgenders his children, therefore, don’t believe in the true God but in a false god. They mock the being of their Creator by distorting his immutable nature. Setting at naught God’s heavenly order, they align with the forces of chaos—with Isaiah’s end-time “Babylon” category, which God destroys—not with a covenant people of God. Their perverted lifestyles hardly qualify for what is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy.” Having wandered into forbidden paths and lost sight of their eternal objective, their claims to legitimacy are a fraud comparable to the emperor’s new clothes.

Has the devil succeeded in convincing them that “there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears” (2 Nephi 28:22)? Those who engage in sexual aberrations are followers of Satan, who himself was gay, his “desire” for Cain mimicking Eve’s “desire” for Adam: “To you shall be his desire and you will rule over him” (Genesis 3:16; 4:7). Was possession by devils and evil spirits only an ancient occurrence, so that today we feel no obligation to cast them out? Or does possession by evil spirits only occur by those of the same sex, not by ones of the opposite sex?

With souls feeling an absence of peace from the guilt of their depravity, they target others as scapegoats. Asserting their own validity, they protest others’ “lack of respect,” “unchristian attitude,” and “hatred.” But Isaiah says, “Mankind is brought low when men debase themselves. Forbear them not!” (Isaiah 2:9). We, however, are all about forbearing them. Do those who “murder” God’s children spiritually by their corrupting influence (cf. Alma 36:14) deserve the respect they demand any more than we should show respect to a serial killer? Does love of neighbor mean tolerating evil and assenting to its spread?

The Healing

Of the time before his second coming, Jesus said, “The same day Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17:29–30). Knowing beforehand that many prophecies concerning God’s end-time people predict their falling under the same condemnation, shouldn’t we “preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart; teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil, with their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Alma 37:33)?

If loving friends can persuade compromised persons they are living contrary to God’s laws of joy and happiness, and that same-sex attraction need not be permanent, then there is hope for many to be healed of gender and morality issues. Should people believe what Satan “whispers in their ears”—that once gay always gay? Shouldn’t they believe in God—that he fully and completely heals a soul who repents? Didn’t Isaiah say of Christ, “He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the price of our peace he incurred, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4–5)? Healed only by half?

Although it is the Lord who heals, he stipulates conditions. Repenting and receiving forgiveness of sins in order to attain a “saved” or terrestrial state, for example, isn’t the same as repenting of iniquities—the long-term effects of sin—in order to attain an “exalted” or celestial state. Indeed, there is a chance a sinner might not seek purification and sanctification to the level of “just men made perfect” if not in the course of overcoming the effects of serious transgressions. As with all spiritual healing, which is by God’s grace, a person who repents to that degree wakes up one day and realizes the temptation is gone.