My thoughts on the dissenting votes

There’s been a buzz among my LDS friends about the dissenting votes at conference over the weekend, so I’d like to chime in: It doesn’t bother me that those people dissented. The opportunity to express a dissenting vote shouldn’t be a mere formality; people should feel free to take the brethren up on the chance to show “by the same sign” that they oppose.

Those people should still feel welcome at church and they should feel no hesitation to be frank about their grievances. So harsh words, jumping to the conclusion that they're apostates bent on destroying the Church (maybe they are, but we don’t know that), etc. is inappropriate.

If there’s one good thing that came of it, it was the opportunity to reflect on the fact that I myself do sustain the prophet, and I feel more motivated to sustain him and the apostles. "Sustain" is synonymous with "support." It's possible to support a person while acknowledging their imperfections. There's no need to pretend that he knows everything or that he can do no wrong.

To the credit of the dissenters, they didn’t do any rabble-rousing or instigate a violent protest (although I can see why some people would think it’s obnoxious that they yelled).

To the Church’s credit, security didn’t kick those people out (showing that merely not sustaining the prophet isn’t grounds for getting kicked out of conference). Also, Uchtdorf took it in stride with “the vote has been noted” and proceeded with the meeting.

Final thought: don’t let that moment define this conference. So many ideas were shared that were meant to increase our faith and motivate us to be better people. Let’s spend more time focusing on those messages than on the debate of whether the dissenting votes were good or bad. With all the thought and preparation that goes into each conference talk, it would be a shame to neglect what the leaders had to say.

With so many good messages worth thinking about, let's not make a mountain out of a molehill.