Mormon and gay: church says you n be both, but activists say isn't enough | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• MORMON AND GAY: CHURCH SAYS YOU N BE BOTH
• CAN YOU BE BOTH MORMON AND GAY?
• “MORMONS N BE GAY, THEY JT N’T DO GAY”: DENSTCTG SEXUALY AND INTY OM AN LDS PERSPECTIVE
• THE MORMON CHURCH ANNOUNC PRO-HOMOSEXUALY POLICY — BUT GAY PARISHNERS SLAM AS NOT ENOUGH
• RISG NUMBERS OF YOUNG ADULT MORMONS THE US ARE GAY, LBIAN OR BISEXUAL
• MORMON AND GAY: CHURCH SAYS YOU N BE BOTH, BUT ACTIVISTS SAY ISN'T ENOUGH
• CAN MORMONS BE GAY
• CAN YOU BE A GAY MORMON?

MORMON AND GAY: CHURCH SAYS YOU N BE BOTH

Now he and his wife Elizabeth are featured promently on “Mormon and Gay, ” discsg how they have grown together as the new materials gave them the tools for “a healthy dialogue. As public opn – and scientific unrstandg – on sexualy has shifted wh remarkable speed, many nomatns, cludg Mormon lears, have had to grapple wh a difficult qutn: How do they mata tradnal doctre that homosexual acts are sful, while acceptg and misterg to gay and lbian Mormons who scerely wish to rema part of their church? “Church Teachgs” is loted on a separate page; roughly 1, 700 words and five vios on “lovg one another” prece the first direct statement that “homosexual activy is a s.

CAN YOU BE BOTH MORMON AND GAY?

Fulmer, who self-intifi as a gay Mormon and is featured on the new webse, said the new materials “give a steppg stone to have more open munitn about this and to te others on how to help and how to rpond to somebody who is gay.

Trevor Johnson, a gay man who was raised Mormon but rigned his membership after gettg engaged, said, “When I first me out, the most damagg thg was feelg like people didn’t believe me that I was attracted to men.

“MORMONS N BE GAY, THEY JT N’T DO GAY”: DENSTCTG SEXUALY AND INTY OM AN LDS PERSPECTIVE

Keetch both say they have bee more ted on homosexualy through their volvement producg the materials — a two-year procs which volved the church learship, LGBT advocy groups and mental health profsnals. In a church found on the ncept of ntual revelatn, many members qutn what those “future updat” uld be — cludg whether the church will revoke s ntroversial policy on the children of gay parents. Prr to 1950Homosexualy regard by church as “s that dare not speak s name” 1952“Homosexualy” is ed publicly by a senr church lear for the first time, lled an “abomatn” parable to masturbatn and btialy1969Homosexualy regard as “curable” by a senr church lear; beg “forced” to heterosexual relatnships is enuraged 1976Church-sponsored Brigham Young Universy nducts electroshock therapy for 14 gay Mormons1978-81Church fac public backlash for opposg Equal Rights Amendment, argug uld extend legal protectn to “lbian and homosexual marriag” 1990sLears beg referrg to homosexualy as same-genr attractn, acknowledgg the realy of sexual attractn while nmng the s of actg on those feelgs 2008-09Church attempts to balance “relig liberty and nondiscrimatn” polil advocy, mpaigng agast legalizatn of gay marriage California and supportg a nondiscrimatn ordance Salt Lake Cy2012Church “gay” for the first time public munitns.

THE MORMON CHURCH ANNOUNC PRO-HOMOSEXUALY POLICY — BUT GAY PARISHNERS SLAM AS NOT ENOUGH

In a seri of vios on “Mormons and Gays, ” lears ask members to “fd mon ground” while “beg te to relig beliefs”2015“Handbook of Instctn” for church lears is updated wh a new policy barrg children of same-sex upl om church baby blsgs and baptism.

RISG NUMBERS OF YOUNG ADULT MORMONS THE US ARE GAY, LBIAN OR BISEXUAL

Same-sex marriage is regard as apostasy and grounds for exmunitn2016Church lnch new “Mormon and Gay” sectn on s official webse, which Mormon lears ll for creased dialogue about homosexualy, and gay Mormons share their experienc as active, celibate church members. But none of the top church lears ordaed to the hight level of the prithood have mented on the new materials, somethg Mayne said is ditive of a wars towards a perceived “gay agenda” at the hight levels of the church.

He hop the church’s top learship will speak wh homosexual married upl to unrstand that “a gay uple is really two Mormon people hopg to e as close as possible to everythg that we value and hold ar as a relign: fai, mted relatnships, lovg one another. This exchange reveals the pable tensn faced by a church attemptg to both nmn same-sex marriage and clu gay members — all while navigatg a ti of creasgly antagonistic public opn. Dpe his homosexualy they have all agreed wh his cisn to stay te to the doctr of Mormonism, cludg temple marriage, which n only be “between a man and a woman” and is “ordaed of God” as one of the relign’s most sacred venants.

Sce he published his 6, 000-word g-out post last week, Weed’s announcement has gone viral— even got a vote of support om fluential blogger Andrew Sullivan, who is himself both openly gay and Catholic. Others, however, like Andrew Sullivan, see differently: If “some gays really want to marry women, ” Sullivan wr, “and they are not ceivg anyone, ’s totally their choice—and their right not to be mocked for .

MORMON AND GAY: CHURCH SAYS YOU N BE BOTH, BUT ACTIVISTS SAY ISN'T ENOUGH

In the years sce California’s Proposn 8, some members of the relign, upset that their church had bee so closely associated wh tolerance, have taken steps to advance what they nsir a more “Christ-like” attu toward gay men and women, Mormon and otherwise.

CAN MORMONS BE GAY

Connell O’Donovan, a scholar of Mormonism’s history wh homosexualy, argu that Joseph Smh, the founr of the Mormon Church, “ified heterosexualy when he troduced the doctre of a Father and Mother Heaven—a dive, actively heterosexual uple paradigmatic of earthly sexual relatnships.

” Those words are om the church’s quasi-nonil pamphlet “The Fay: A Proclamatn to the World, ” first published the mid-1990s—a perd when publicly g out as gay was not a viable optn the Mormon Church, acrdg to Kendall Wilx, an Emmy-award-wng filmmaker and former executive producer Brigham Young Universy’s broadstg partment. The theraptic regim often volved not only psychoanalysis, but “aversn ndng, ” which patients snapped themselv wh a bber band or received an electric shock when shown sexually explic homosexual imag, wh the goal of replacg aroal wh anxiety.

Many gay men and women left the church, of urse: Wilx scrib a great “exod” durg the 1980s and 1990s stemmg om the relign’s rigid stance on homosexualy and the sometim abive therapi LGBT people endured on the advice of lol lears.

CAN YOU BE A GAY MORMON?

And the Mormons did not always leave on their own acrd: Countls were shunned by their muni, by people who believed that homosexualy was a choice, and an immoral one.