Answer

How Do I Explain the Family Proclamation to Someone Who Disagrees?

A friend, a classmate or a family member has told you the Proclamation is outdated or unkind, and you froze. Perhaps you tried to explain it and it came out worse than you meant. It is uncomfortable to hold something you believe was revealed while the person opposite you hears it as a list of people being excluded.

Lead with what it claims rather than what it forbids. Most explanations go wrong in the first sentence by starting at a restriction, and the listener reasonably concludes that the whole document is a set of rules about who may not do what. Start where the document starts, and they will at least have heard the actual claim before deciding about it.

Eternal Truths

The Proclamation opens with identity, not regulation. The Family: A Proclamation to the World begins by saying that every person is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and that gender is an essential characteristic of eternal identity and purpose. Everything else in it follows from that. Someone can disagree with the claim, but the claim is where it starts.

It is a restatement of the plan of salvation, not a policy. President Dallin H. Oaks explained in “The Plan and the Proclamation” that the proclamation is the Lord’s reemphasis of the gospel truths we need to sustain us through current challenges to the family. That reframes the disagreement. You are reporting something you did not author.

Standing for it is meant to cost something and still be kind. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland traced in “The Cost-and Blessings-of Discipleship” a long history of rejection and a painfully high price paid by prophets, apostles, missionaries and members in every generation, and still counselled us to live the gospel faithfully even if others around us do not. Holding a position firmly and holding it pleasantly are unrelated skills.

What Can Make This Confusing?

Very often the disagreement in front of you is not really about doctrine. It is about a specific person the other person loves, or is. If their child, sibling or friend is in this position, they already know what the Church teaches. What they are actually asking is whether you holding it costs them you. Answering the doctrinal question when that is the real one leaves them feeling handled.

Questions to Think About

• Do I know why this matters to the person in front of me, or am I guessing?
• Am I trying to explain something, or trying to win?
• What would it look like to say less and stay longer?

What You Can Do

Read the Proclamation’s first two paragraphs this week and write down, in your own words, the claim it is making before any of the counsel arrives. Practise saying that much and stopping. Then the next time it comes up, ask one question first and actually listen to the answer. The essay behind this Answer works through the harder objections at length.

Jesus Christ can give you the words for a conversation you are dreading, and He can keep you close to a person who does not agree with you.