I Don't Care How the Interviewer Understands the Temple Recommend Questions

I couldn't care less what the person asking the temple recommend questions thinks they mean - or how that person would answer the questions if required to write essays about them.  All I care about is the actual question being asked. I'm not being asked to agree with the questioner as to the details of the answers; I'm being asked to answer specific questions with a "Yes" or "No".

I have heard some people say that answering "Yes" or "No" to a question knowing the interviewer wouldn't understand a fuller, essay version is dishonest or disingenuous, and I couldn't disagree more strongly or passionately with that view.  Those same people have said that viewing the questions differently than other members is engaging in mental gymnastics - that there is something wrong with people reaching differing conclusions about why they can answer "Yes" or "No" when their essay answers would be different than the person asking the questions.

My response is simple and direct:

Why do you feel it is necessary to change the actual questions?  Why do feel like you have that authority? Why would you make it more complicated than it has to be? How in the world is answering the question as asked dishonest or disingenuous in any way, shape or form? 

To me, not answering the actual question as I understand it and instead answering a different question I think the other person would have asked if that person had written the question . . . That, in my opinion, is mental gymnastics, and I seriously don't get that stance at all. I wouldn't call it dishonest or disingenuous, but I certainly would call it unnecessary and, for some people, emotionally unhealthy.