Condone is a loaded word. It just doesn’t mean to “put up with something”, but is means that the “something” that is put up with is behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive.

Now look at how Elder Holland used the word “condone” in his talk at the Annual Training Broadcast for seminary and institute teachers a few weeks ago. The below is from thechurchnews.com web site. The full video can be found here

“Generation Z” students — ages 7 to 22 — are often defined by characteristics that might pose challenges to teachers, he said. Broadly speaking, Zs are always “wired” to some sort of device. They have perhaps been exposed to “flagrant, destructive pornography” at early ages. They tend to support gay marriage and transgender rights as part of everyday life. “Because of this sociability, the thin line between friendship and condoning behavior begins to blur.”

He used the word condone with respect to gay marriage AND transgender rights. Now it is obvious that the LDS church thinks that gay marriage is ” considered morally wrong or offensive”. But lets talk about transgender rights. Elder Holland thinks these rights are also morally wrong or offensive.

What part of these rights are morally wrong? The right to be able to rent an apartment? The right to be able to walk down the street and feel safe? Maybe he doesn’t like the right of equal employment opportunities?

In the audio, he also talks about how for the Generation Z kids “it would be rare for them to not have a friend from the LGBT community” and it is because of this that they are “condoning” gay marriage and transsexual rights. I think they are scared to death of this. Gays and transsexuals are not scary people like they were in his generation, but are the youth’s classmates, next door neighbors, sisters and brothers. They are regular people. They are being normalized as they should, and there is no going back.

Brigham Young would not condone interracial marriage, and yet the church lost its battle on that, and today I have a black bishop in my ward, married to a white woman. But it took 150 years. How long will it take before we have married gay couples as full members of the church? Another 150 years?