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Did this Mormon leader just say that gay sex is worse than raping your wife?

Did this Mormon leader just say that gay sex is worse than raping your wife?
Quentin L. Cook speaking at Brigham Young University. Photo: Wikipedia

A Mormon leader’s comments have come under fire for a strange euphemism he used to describe rape.

Quentin Cook, who is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the eighth most senior apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), was speaking at the LDS General Conference this past weekend when he discussed #metoo.

Cook said that it is “commendable that nonconsensual immorality has been exposed and denounced.”

“Such nonconsensual immorality is against the laws of God and of society,” he added. “However, those who understand God’s plan must also oppose consensual immorality, which is also a sin.”

Emily Jensen of the Salt Lake City Tribune said that Cook’s language echoed something that was taught in the LDS church’s Young Women program until 2016: that women who are raped have lost their “virtue.”

“So for many of those who were victims of sexual assault, the church’s teachings seemed to suggest they were garbage and were no longer worthy,” Jensen wrote.

She also took issue with the comparison between “nonconsensual immorality” and “consensual immorality” – a phrase that includes homosexuality and sex outside of marriage – saying that this implied that what’s wrong with rape is the sex, not the lack of consent

Last, if rape is “nonconsensual immorality,” then doesn’t that mean that there’s a “nonconsensual morality” that wasn’t worth mentioning? Would “nonconsensual morality” be marital rape?

And in Cook’s point of view, would it be better for a man to rape his wife than to have consensual sex with another man?

If the LDS church had a better history when it came to opposing violence against women and supporting equality, then there wouldn’t be so many questions about why Cook didn’t just use the word “rape.”

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