Your latest editorial shows a disturbing lack of integrity.

Immediately after lambasting gay rights advocates for “tak[ing] a statement out of context, embellish[ing] it with selective interpretation, presum[ing] hostile intent, and then us[ing] the distortion to isolate an entire group, in this case a church,” you write this:

“We encourage all to read President Packer’s talk rather than simply rely on the media interpretations and selective quotations.”

You do not mention anywhere in this editorial that reading President Packer’s talk means reading a redacted version—not the version that so incensed gay rights advocates. This editorial deliberately misleads the reader into thinking that the outcry was a response to the redacted talk when, in fact, the outcry was a response to the talk as delivered in General Conference. Perhaps it is true that there would have been a response had President Packer delivered the redacted version in the first place, but that is not relevant. What is relevant is that this editorial is guilty of, ironically, the sins it attributes to gay rights advocates: taking a statement (i.e., the hostile response to President Packer) completely out of context and then “using the distortion to isolate an entire group.”

I agree that some of the response to the original talk was excessive, completely inappropriate, and uncivil. But it is hard to fathom how this editorial, with its own distortions, could possibly contribute to a civil conversation on the issue of same-sex attraction.