Elder Boyd K. Packer directed his Sunday afternoon message to those "who are tempted to enter, to promote or to remain in a lifestyle which violates your covenants and will one day bring sorrow to you and to those who love you."

Elder Packer of the Council of the Twelve referred specifically to abortion, the gay-lesbian movement and drug addiction."The point I make is simply this: there is a moral and spiritual side to these issues which is universally ignored," he said. "For Latter-day Saints, morality is one component which must not be missing when these issues are considered - otherwise sacred covenants are at risk! Keep your covenants and you will be safe. Break them and you will not."

When destructive lifestyles are debated, "individual right of choice" is invoked as though it were the one sovereign virtue, Elder Packer observed. "That could only be true if there were but one of us. The rights of any individual bump up against the rights of another. And the simple truth is that we cannot be happy, nor saved, nor exalted, without one another."

Regarding abortion, he said: "Except where the wicked crime of incest or rape was involved, or where competent medical authorities certify that the life of the mother is in jeopardy, or that a severely defective fetus cannot survive birth, abortion is clearly a `thou shalt not.' Even in these very exceptional cases much sober prayer is required to make a right choice."

He observed that several publications are being circulated about the Church which defend and promote gay or lesbian conduct. "They wrest the scriptures attempting to prove that these impulses are inborn, cannot be overcome and should not be resisted; therefore such conduct has a morality of its own. They quote scriptures to justify perverted acts between consenting adults. That same logic would justify incest or the molesting of little children of either gender. Neither the letter nor the spirit of moral law condones any such conduct."

Elder Packer said Church leaders receive letters asking why some should be tormented by desires that lead toward addiction or perversion.

"We are sometimes told that leaders in the Church do not really understand these problems. Perhaps we don't. There are many `whys' for which we just do not have simple answers. But we do understand temptation, each of us from personal experience. Nobody is free from temptations of one kind or another. That is the test of life."

He said a bishop likely will not be able to tell why people are afflicted with temptations nor erase them, but he can tell what is right and what is wrong.

"If you know right from wrong, you have a place to begin. That is the point at which individual choice becomes operative. That is the point at which repentance and forgiveness can exert great spiritual power."