Mormon church backs gay law
The Church of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormons, has put its support behind laws granting protections to GLBT people.
The Salt Lake City ordinances make it illegal for a person to be fired from their job or evicted from their home for reasons of sexuality or transgender identity.
“The issues before you tonight are the right of people to have a roof over their heads and the right to work without being discriminated against,” a spokesman for the church, Michael Otterson, told Salt Lake City Council.
“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage.”
GLBT rights group Equality Utah praised the decision, as did Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black who grew up in a Mormon home.
“I’m thrilled. To a lot of people it seems like a little thing because it’s not full acceptance,” Black told CNN.
“But if you’re in the church, if you know that church, you can see that it’s a signal … to the entire population saying that it’s not OK to discriminate any more.”
The Mormons still maintain gays and lesbians must be celibate in order to remain faithful members of the church.
Groups including the Foundation for Reconciliation, representing heterosexual Mormons who support GLBT rights, lobbied the church and lawmakers after the church’s involvement in the campaign to ban same-sex marriage in California, donating considerable funds to the campaign.
The Foundation met with Utah’s Mormon Governor, Gary Herbert, last year and hopes to see similar anti-discrimination laws throughout the state.
American GLBT rights group the Human Rights Campaign welcomed the change.
“This has happened in the LDS Church because people are telling their clergy leaders they believe the church should be about lifting people up, not pushing them down,” HRC religious programs director Harry Knox said.
“This decision is the result of vocal and consistent advocacy by LGBT people, their family and friends, inside and outside the LDS Church.
“Employment and housing protections for LGBT people are fully embraced by mainstream America and the LDS Church is simply coming into the fold. We hope the LDS Church will commit the same level of resources to ensuring full employment protection to everyone as it did to deny marriage equality to loving same-sex couples in California.”
I thought it was a good neutral article. I think it’s very unfortunate that some people have homophobic tendencies. I know there are many people of heterosexual tendency who live their entire lives in celibacy for the sole reason that they didn’t have someone of the same faith who they could fall in love with and marry. I would have been one of them, and be proud of it, except that I recently found someone suitable to marry. Whether a person is homosexual or heterosexual, the practice of sex is not an essential part of human existence. There are many wonderful people who live great lives and do great things who live their entire lives chaste, whether their tendency is heterosexual or homosexual it doesn’t matter. As a Mormon I believe that sex between a man and a woman outside of marriage is wrong, and no less so than masturbation or same-gender sexual acts. However, many of my friends who are not of my church don’t believe the same, and I don’t impose my beliefs on them, whichever sex they are attracted to.
I think that if the Mormon church is making any effort, it is at least something positive. I believe that what resulted, was the awareness of the church for the needs of about 50% of it’s members, including people of wealth and fame, who have openly supported their gay and lesbian family member’s rights to marriage.
The members, until Prop 8, never seemed to really make an outward stand about their gay and lesbian children, or the members themselves that are gay. I feel it was a needed wake up call for the church leaders and something that can be adapted to as the needs of the members force a solution.
I looked and looked and have never found anything from Joseph Smith, the founder, that spoke against same sex attractions or unions, nor did Jesus Christ.
I do not put too much weight as to the writing of Paul, as he himself was a self proclaimed apostle, who prior was trying to find ways to hunt down and kill Jesus followers and even after proclaiming himself an apostle, he opposed many teachings of the main church that Jesus established in Jerusalem.
The doctrine, to my observation, regarding marriage only being for a man and a woman, is once again an adaptation to what the majority of members and politics demanded when polygamy was outlawed, and for the church to survive and Utah to become a state, adaptation to the times was forced and necessary.
So, I personally am observing and hoping for new revelation that it will be in the best interest of the church to adapt to the times and allow equal rights and freedoms for all.
The Mormon church has a colourful genesis. One afternoon a hophead named Joseph Smith chased the dragon a bit too far and imagined that an Angel Moroni appeared and gave him a special message from God. Probably it was Mrs. Smith berating for lazing about and not doing his chores on the farm.
Very interesting Jason. Thanks for that.
Daniel, Your wrong. Below are some quotations from the Mormon church in regards to homosexuality:
Quotations:
“Physical orientation and sexual orientation are not moral issues, and majority / minority phenomena in nature do not involve natural versus unnatural categories. The exceptional in nature is still natural, whether the exception is left-handedness or the homosexual orientation of erotic desire.” D. Michael Quinn, ex-Mormon and former professor at Brigham Young University.
“Being gay in … [the Mormon] culture is beyond hell … I wanted to be cured so badly. The family is the center of Mormonism — it is the sacred, potent unit. … It is a great failure that family can only be the family almost by the Ozzie and Harriet definition, and anything outside that is not family at all.” Trevor Southey, artist
“The only marriage sanctioned by God is of a man to a woman. In the case of a gay person, they really have no hope. … And to live life without hope on such a core issue I think is a very difficult thing.” Marlin Jensen, official LDS historian.
“Homosexuality Is Sin: Next to the crime of murder comes the sin of sexual impurity.” Excerpt from a 2002 Mormon pamphlet.
“We do not intend to admit to our campus any homosexuals. If any of you have this tendency and have not completely abandoned it, may I suggest that you leave the university immediately after this assembly…. We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence.” Ernest Wilkinson, president of Brigham Young University, in a 1965 lecture to the BYU student body, titled: “Make Honor your Standard.”
Copied from: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_lds.htm
Daniel said,
“It is completely consistent for the LDS church to be in favor of equal rights, while still disapproving with gay marriage. Think about it. Don’t let pathos rape logos”
It is completely consistent for the LDS church to be in favour of equal rights for heterosexuals while still disapproving of equal rights for homosexuals.
Your conception of logic is in fact dogma Daniel.
The dogmas you practice were conceived by homophobic Rabbis six thousand years ago and you have made a personal choice to follow those traditions.
You do not care about the adverse effects those traditions have on homosexuals. Those effects include discrimination, the denial of human rights such as marriage and violence at all levels up to and including murder.
The doctrines and policies of the LDS church maintain inequality between heterosexuals and homosexuals because those doctrines and policies deny homosexuals the right to marry.
Whoever supports policies, doctrines and traditions that maintain inequality based on sexual orientation must take responsibility for the adverse consequences those policies, doctrines and traditions have on the victims of the people who practice those policies, doctrines and traditions.
Our forums are being taken over by closeted Mormons! I hope they are cuties! Fancy going to gay websites and lecturing us about what is natural.
Sadly Daniel Gay Marriage is a natural human right. The Mormon faith is not so natural with a very short history of persecution. Gay history and marriage is thousands of years old. It was taken away by Evangelical fruit loops all claiming they know God better then anyone else. The early Christian Church welcomed people who were gay. The Evangelical movement also rewrote the Bible changing the translations to condemn us. Go look at http://www.whywouldwe.net
I think Mormons giving electric shock treatment to a gay guys penis, while showing heterosexual porn, says a lot about what is so unnatural and perverted about the Mormon Faith. It still has such a long way to go when it comes to acceptance of people who happen to be gay. Not exactly a tolerant lot are they!
I agree with Daniel concerning the church not changing its doctrine for this support. If there are Mormons calling upon the local leadership to change the doctrines, then they don’t understand the system any more than the Gay Rights community. Call upon God. That’s where the change comes from. But based on Old Testament history I don’t see any change coming in the near future.
“The LDS church has always advocated for equal human rights.”
Women are humans too, you sanctimonious putz.
No, don’t fucking bother posting all the “good” and “chivalrous” reasons the LDS Church fought tooth and nail to defeat the ERA. It’s all patronizing horseshit in defense of orthodoxy and I’ve heard it all before.
Don’t be fooled. Do a google search for the memo to M. Russel Ballard from Loren C. Dunn about making gays think they are getting something.
http://www.calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7396
This is just like 1978 when the Mormon church folded under pressure and started allowing blacks to hold their version of the Priesthood.
I was raised Mormon and I left because I do not agree with their teachings on race, gender, or homosexuality.
Woops, I meant “disapproving of,” not “disapproving with”.
You’re wrong. The LDS church isn’t just recently “coming into the fold” on equality and rights. The LDS church has always advocated for equal human rights. The complexity arises when you erroneously think that marriage is a human right. It’s not. It is completely consistent for the LDS church to be in favor of equal rights, while still disapproving with gay marriage. Think about it. Don’t let pathos rape logos.
Don’t be fooled, The USA federal anti-discrimination law is likely going to be expaned to protect people in regards to sexuality and gender identity as Obama as signaled his support for it. The Mormons know this and realise that one way or another GLBT people in Salt Lake City are soon going to be protected, so bascially because the Mormon church has recieved bad publiciy in terms on there acceptance of gay rights they have decided to jump in first so it “looks” like they are GLBT friendly. You only have to look back a few months at the proposed Utah state laws which did not pass because the Mormon church lobbied against the laws which were inclusive of GLBT people.