The LDS Church gets a lot of grief over its stance on homosexuality. The criticisms are often well-deserved, but rarely constructive.
In the wake of several gay Mormon suicides, concerned Mormons are asking what their church could do to better minister to gay members. Here are what I hope to be a few constructive suggestions:
1. Work out a consistent theology regarding sex. Let me explain. If you’re going to oppose homosexuality on the grounds that it perverts the procreative end of sex, then treat homosexuality as you would other non-procreative acts—like masturbation, heterosexual sodomy, and contraceptive use. In other words, don’t treat homosexuality as a special, excommunicable sin.
(I of course don’t think homosexuality is a sin, but I cannot realistically expect the LDS Church to share my view any time soon).
2. Stop anti-gay marriage politicking. I’m not asking that the church embrace civil gay marriage, but to tolerate it. Gay marriage will be an inevitable reality in a decade or two, so the church will need to adapt (as it did with polygamy, interracial marriage, and black priesthood). Why not adapt sooner rather than later?
And if the church cannot abstain from anti-gay marriage politics, then it should at least support other gay rights measures like it did with the Salt Lake City non-discrimination ordinance.
3. Repudiate ignorant teachings about homosexuality. For many years, church leaders taught that homosexuality was caused by sin and cured through repentance and marriage. This teaching had profoundly hurtful implications. At BYU and elsewhere, for example, gay Mormons underwent traumatizing reparative therapies in a futile effort to change their sexual orientation.
The LDS Church has made progress since those days, to be sure. LDS leaders today are more careful when addressing homosexuality. In a recent press conference, Elders Oaks and Wickman said that the church has no opinion about the causes of homosexuality and that some people cannot change their sexual orientation. That’s a pretty tepid repudiation of past teachings, though—if it’s even a repudiation at all.
I’d like to see church leaders say in no uncertain terms that homosexuality is not a choice and that homosexuals deserve our love and understanding. General conference in October would be the ideal opportunity for this message.
4. Dialogue with LGBT groups. Back in 2008, the LDS Church entertained the possibility of meeting with Affirmation, an LDS gay support and advocacy group. That meeting never happened, unfortunately, in part because the LDS Church wanted it to be private and Affirmation wanted it to be public. Despite that disagreement, the LDS Church should try to re-engage Affirmation and related groups in open dialogue.
5. Love. LDS leaders and members say they love homosexuals, and I don’t doubt them. But they need to show that love. Acting upon the above suggestions would go a long way in doing just that, in my opinion.
My list is by no means comprehensive. These were just a few ideas I had. What do you think the LDS Church could do to improve their relations with their gay members and the larger LGBT community without totally sacrificing its teachings?
Sorry, but I’d like to follow up your constructive criticism with one of those famous less-constructive remarks.
The thing is that (as your list itself illustrates), discriminating against gay people (and promoting the view that they’re inherently inferior) is priority #1. Coming up with a rationalization for it is a secondary priority (in service of priority #1).
There were a couple of comments that were accidentally deleted from this thread (Craig’s and Steve’s, I believe). The site has been undergoing some repairs and updates, and it appears that your comments were somehow casualties in that process ha ha. Would you mind re-posting your comments?
I would if I could remember what I said.
I agree with you Jon. I’ve talked about this with members of my family and we some of us foresee a day when homosexuals will be given full fellowship – and civilly married couples might even be recognized in the Church meetings eventually. But, temple marriages are always gonna be exclusively hetero – this seems too deeply ingrained in the doctrine to ever change.
I like the list, Jon and I don’t want to be pessimistic BUT I don’t think the church will ever teach that homosexuality is not a choice. I think that many of the more open-minded members are coming to that conclusion, but I just don’t see it happening in the upper ranks.
The doctrine behind homosexuality (in terms of action) is wrong, regardless of whether or not we are born with it. Those who experience same-sex attractions were given a special “challenge” that others do not have to face and they are expected to live a life of celebacy, being heterosexual in all actions. I was not taught that marriage is the cure, but that it is still an option because marriage is about committment and companionship.
Also, in response to point 1, homosexual acts (to my knowledge) are supposed to be on the same level “sin-wise” as premarital sex, living together, etc. Because of this idea, a life of celebacy is considered plausible and (mistakenly) not miserable or lonely.
For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m just regurgitating what I grew up learning. I have no particularly positive feelings for those teachings now.
Courtney-
Just wanted to jump in and add my thoughts. The church makes claims that homosexual acts on the same playing field as hetersexual sins, but they treat them much differently. This is purely anecdotal, but it is rare for any of my friends who have had sex outside of marriage to be excommunicated, but since joining the gay community, coming out makes you basically a sitting duck for excommunication (in my experience, anyway). Also, in the Strength of Youth pamphlet, premarital sex and general sex acts are listed in one paragraph as unacceptable, and homosexual acts are listed as exceptionally perverse, akin to rape and incest.
I have a particular problem with the expectation of celibacy. Perhaps many in this community will disagree with me, but the celibacy call seems less hypocritical from other churches that expect that life from others (ie being a nun in the Catholic tradition) for other reasons that homosexuality. I can’t recall how many times I have heard the church leaders say, “We expect from our gay members what we expect from our single heterosexual members,” but that’s not true. A single straight member is expected to be chaste, it is true, but they can still have feelings and thoughts about the opposite sex, go on dates, kiss and hold hands. A gay member is expected to entirely suppress that part of himself… and as we all know, that kind of mentality wreaks havoc on your psyche.
I’m LDS and I have several gay friends. I support leaving behind typical LDS behaviors and stereotypes that are not doctrinally sound, but I also support Boyde K. Packer 100%. Hearing about the suicides of gays who were mistreated, in part, because of his speech in conference makes me really sad and disappointed in the unchristian-like behavior of those Latter-day Saints and others Saints like them. I’ve faced both the question of my sexuality and the possibility of suicide before.
Courtney,
Addressing your last few statements… The church has taught that feelings and thoughts are okay to have, because they usually can’t be controlled, but that it is wrong to dwell or act on immoral ones. Addressing the physical aspect, kissing, dating, and holding hands, I believe, is a symbol that those involved are getting ready to marry. So, if their marriage is wrong, shouldn’t also those actions which lead to it be wrong?
Thanks for the comment, Justin. Out of curiosity, how’d you find the blog?
Also, I would just like to quickly add that I do not think it is enough to say that one considers homosexuality like any other sin. My belief is that love is one of the greatest, most beautiful things on this earth, and to compare the most beautiful thing a person has to give to any other bad thing, it still belittles the person who loves.
I agree.
Baby steps, my friends. Baby steps.
Hey Jon,
Your comments are well-meaning but I’m sorry to say they are extremely naïve. I have been out of the Mor[m]on cult for almost thirty years, and out of the closet for the same amount of time. I assure you that the way to deal with a violently abusive organization such as the Mor[m]on cult is not to seek to find ways to have a dialogue, nor is it constructive in any way to attempt to negotiate with them. Any organization that still believes (and make no mistake that the body of Mor[m]ons blindly follow their cult leaders in believing) that gay people are “better off dead at the bottom of the Salt Lake with a millstone around their necks” (their words, not mine), that electroshock torture can “cure” lesbians or gay men, and that the threat of shunning can intimidate LGBT people into “behaving” the way cult leaders want them to, is not worth the waste of breath, time and energy necessary to even begin to open a dialogue with. Your ideals, though worthy, are doomed to be smashed against the unyielding closed minds of that cult. There are no baby steps here: this is all-out war. I would know: I have been fighting it for my entire life (50 years). My advice? Leave the cult, leave Utah, leave all the Mor[m]ons you know behind, and live an authentic life. No believing Mor[m]on in the world wishes that for any LGBT person. If they did, they would walk away from the cult. If they don’t, then that means they support the bigotry, hatred, and violence the cult promotes and advocates. Singing Kumbaya and wearing rose-colored glasses doesn’t change the spots of the leopard, nor the stripes of the tiger. Good luck, best wishes.
“Hey Jon,
Your comments are well-meaning but I’m sorry to say they are extremely naïve. I have been out of the Mor[m]on cult for almost thirty years, and out of the closet for the same amount of time. I assure you that the way to deal with a violently abusive organization such as the Mor[m]on cult is not to seek to find ways to have a dialogue, nor is it constructive in any way to attempt to negotiate with them. Any organization that still believes (and make no mistake that the body of Mor[m]ons blindly follow their cult leaders in believing) that gay people are “better off dead at the bottom of the Salt Lake with a millstone around their necks” (their words, not mine), that electroshock torture can “cure” lesbians or gay men, and that the threat of shunning can intimidate LGBT people into “behaving” the way cult leaders want them to, is not worth the waste of breath, time and energy necessary to even begin to open a dialogue with. Your ideals, though worthy, are doomed to be smashed against the unyielding closed minds of that cult. There are no baby steps here: this is all-out war. I would know: I have been fighting it for my entire life (50 years). My advice? Leave the cult, leave Utah, leave all the Mor[m]ons you know behind, and live an authentic life. No believing Mor[m]on in the world wishes that for any LGBT person. If they did, they would walk away from the cult. If they don’t, then that means they support the bigotry, hatred, and violence the cult promotes and advocates. Singing Kumbaya and wearing rose-colored glasses doesn’t change the spots of the leopard, nor the stripes of the tiger. Good luck, best wishes.”
flattopSF, sorry, but that kind of rhetoric won’t do the Gay Rights movement any good. It just inflames the opposition and vilifies gays. Feel free to be angry over past abuses, but if you have any desire to see young gays and lesbians accepted more openly by their Mormon communities, you should probably keep it to yourself.
Many Mormon families have at least one family member who is openly gay. For those of us who maintain such relationships, we develop an interesting perspective on Church doctrine and homosexuality. I think more and more members are developing a greater tolerance towards gays and lesbians, especially when they know them personally. While you may disagree, I feel that many Mormons struggle to know how to treat the issue… and are not simply haters.
Jon, I really appreciate “Love” and “Dialogue,” as I think they are linked closely together. I really want to see a greater understanding between the Gay Community and the Mormon Church. While I don’t expect to see homosexual relationships receive the same status in the Church as their heterosexual counterparts, I sincerely believe that gays and lesbians will be treated more equitably with time by the Church itself and its members.
Sorry, tried to quote flattopSF’s comments and didn’t. Apologize for the confusion.
This was very interesting and well-written. As a young homosexual Mormon I just thought I’d throw my two cents in for another perspective on each peace of advice.
1. So right! This is critical. I think the Church is in the process of trying to do this. You see it happening so slowly as you see changes in wording in this or that document, parts of talks, etc. Of course, from the outside it seems as if nothing’s happening. But, I really think that the time will come when the Church finally really comes down on this and emphasizes that it be treated “…as you would other non-procreative acts.” I think everyone here seems to understand that this is a big change, sadly, for a core of membership in the Church, so it is happening (agonizingly) slowly.
As a faithful member, I appreciate your toleranceof the Church’s moral stance even though you don’t agree with it.
2. I think even churchmembers see the inevitability of gay marriage, but not the inevitability of any sort of change. I think kleiner explained the purpose of the Church’s stance very well in his comment on your 21 July post.
You’re absolutely right about the Church supporting other gay rights measures, though.
3. You’re right here again, both in the need for a repudiation of “ignorant teachings” as well as about the progress being made. Again, I think they will “say in no uncertain terms that homosexuality is not a choice and that homosexuals deserve our love and understanding.” I and I’m sure lots of other members gay and straight look forward to when this is finally brought up in Conference. Again, they’re laying the foundation for this. The leadership has distanced itself from many former “ignorant teachings” and these are slowly coming to exist as “official” doctrine only in the discourse and thought of the general membership. In other words, there’s a growing disconnect between popular attitudes and the stance of “the Church”, and the leadership is preparing to bridge it when they have laid a more solid official doctrinal foundation for it.
4. Agreed!
5. I really do appreciate your appreciation of the Church’s good intentions on this issue. I also agree that they could show their love better. Not showing that love as you describe, I think, is a direct result of the disconnect I talk about in point 3. Many members are, as I’ll talk about below, but a large core of membership will have trouble accepting the reality of homosexuality having been brought up as they have been.
Oops, 2. should say “…but not the inevitability of any change *in basic Church doctrine.*
So for some background (split into separate comment to avoid burnout), I am 25 and recently graduated from BYU. I am pretty much in the closet, which is annoying, but I figure I will be more open about my orientation in the next year or so as I begin graduate school and start figuring out what I want to do with my life. As an anecdote to illustrate what I mean by that, I struggled quite a bit trying to decide whether to self-identify as LGBT on my (centralized) law school application, but after watching the Law School Admission Council (the organization behind the centralized application for all–or most–accredited law schools) videos made for LGBT students I decided it wouldn’t help my chances for admission at all because as a faithful Latter-day Saint it might seem like I hadn’t been through any particular challenges because of my orientation and like I was just trying to play an “underrepresented minority card.”
At any rate, I think the environment for many young homosexuals in the Church is a world away from that of fifty years ago–or even much more recently. At BYU, we get a most interesting mix of the most conservative, hard-core stereotypical Mormons as well as the most forward-thinking, open-minded, and intelligent membes of the Church. Guess what the ratio is? I don’t know either, but I can tell you one group is much larger than the other. I think this is representative of the US membership (still the core) of the Church overall. There are definitely currents of change in thought and those who truly do espouse the values that the Church professes.
So, Jon Adams, I think most of the advice you give will be followed. I think it will be frustrating to a lot of people outside the Church, though, if it happens that the mood and attitude of the overall membership clearly changes (which it will) yet the Church still does not stop the “politicking” or making its moral judgments of homosexuality (as described so well by kleiner in the context of Catholocism in the 20 July post). Of course, on the other hand, it may very well “adapt” as you say. I wouldn’t be one to speculate either way, there.
Thanks for your insights, Bryson!
I am an active LDS member. I am a 17 year old female and I have many LGBT friends. While these actions are not something I practice, I believe it is 100% their right to practice such things. Just as we cannot choose who we fall in love with, neither can they choose the sex of the person they love. I hope to soon see a greater acceptance of these loving and generally amazing people. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, and have been greatly judged. I want all the LGBT people to know that it is ok to be who you are. And that I love you for having the courage to stand up for who you are and what you believe in. And that if you lose family and friends over your sexual orientation, then they are probably people who wernt worth having in your life in the first place. Keep your heads up, and never let anyone tell you that tour are not special.