The Mormon Church is at a crossroads over LGBTQ+ folks. There’s only one right way to go.

Despite assertions of immutability and consistency, the positions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) on sexuality and gender have proven fragile and changeable across time.

Throughout much of the 19^th century, for example, plural marriage between a man and multiple women was taught as an “everlasting covenant” that would never be abolished. Under intense scrutiny and pressure from the US government, the Church officially abandoned the practice in 1890 and currently teaches that only marriage between one man and one woman is ordained by God.

Related:

A lot of people are leaving their religions. Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is a driving force.

Sexual misconduct and a lack of belief are other major reasons for leaving religion behind.

Another fundamental shift in LDS sex and gender teachings is its discourse around homosexuality. Since the 1950s, LDS elites consistently framed homosexuality as an evil and viral contagion that would destroy individual, familial, and societal well-being. They demonized and condemned homosexuals, implementing policies that promoted conversion therapy and made identifying as homosexual, gay, or lesbian an excommunicable offense. Today, the Church allows people to identify as gay or lesbian and engages in far more accepting and inclusive rhetoric. 

Dive deeper every day

Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Teachings condemning oral sex, birth control, and interracial marriage have also undergone massive changes, even full reversals, within the past half-century. Simply put, doctrines and policies around sexuality and gender are moving targets that have been clumsily and contradictorily managed throughout its two-hundred-year history.

As a result, the modern Church anxiously finds itself at a crossroads concerning its LGBTQ+ stances. Its leaders simultaneously cling to anachronistic theology that asserts the sinfulness of same-sex relationships and gender transitions, while at the same time striving to stay culturally relevant in an increasingly social-justice-oriented world.

In navigating this untenable position, church leaders have propagated mixed and paradoxical messages. On the one hand, LDS President Russell Nelson and his first counselor Dallin Oaks have continued to spread anti-LGBTQ+ teachings, declaring that marriage between a man and woman is “irrevocable doctrine.” On the other hand, the Church has made a series of moves that show greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals and allies than ever before, including supporting the political legitimacy and civil rights of same-sex marriages.

The recent hiring of head spokesperson, Aaron Sherinian, is a powerful example of this tension. His social media accounts are saturated with bold LGBTQ+ activism, including his personal use and support of pronouns, unequivocal affirmations of trans individuals, and celebration of the country’s legalization of same-sex marriage. In June of 2015, he tweeted: “Way to go #SCOTUS. Gay marriage now legal across all 50 states! #LoveisLove #MarriageEquality.” He also fearlessly promotes pride events, symbols, and slogans, which directly contradict the directives of church leaders.

In a remarkably controversial address delivered at BYU-Provo in 2021, LDS Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland called for “musket fire” directed at those who oppose the faith’s teachings on marriage and sexuality. He spoke derisively of “flag-waving and parade-holding,” and warned “that love and empathy [should] not get interpreted as condoning and advocacy.” If its leaders continue to denounce same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ activism, why then would the Church hire such an outspoken LGBTQ+ advocate as its head spokesperson?

First, it is likely that top leaders do not act as a monolith and have significant disagreements about LGBTQ+ teachings and policies. While several high-profile leaders refuse to abandon their anti-LGBTQ+ worldview, others have far more nuanced and compassionate perspectives. Local leaders also demonstrate this ideological diversity and treat LGBTQ+ members with tremendous variability.

Second, this mixed messaging represents a gradual, yet successful, struggle toward equality within the Church – a decades-long battle that courageous LGBTQ+ individuals and activists have been fighting and even dying for. There are numerous recent examples of same-sex couples receiving callings and taking the sacrament in their congregations, privileges that gay and lesbian members once only dreamt of. Furthermore, transgender individuals have been given permission in recent years to be baptized with their preferred name and pronouns acknowledged on the official rolls of the Church.

While these strides toward greater inclusivity are noteworthy, LDS must individually and collectively take specific steps toward eliminating harmful and contradictory messaging around LGBTQ+ issues.

On a rhetorical level, it’s time leaders and members everywhere stop associating LGBTQ+ identities and relationships with disease and addiction, a tactic that LDS authorities have been employing for decades. Equally degrading is the frequent association of same-sex relationships and gender transitions with the Devil. If you hear this or any kind of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment expressed in LDS circles or your own communities of worship, I challenge you to speak up and promote a more inclusive and equitable view. 

Systemically, top LDS leaders should implement a blanket policy prohibiting the punishing and/or excommunicating of same-sex couples and individuals who have undergone gender transitions.

The fact that some LGBT members face the possibility of excommunication in their congregations and others are allowed to hold callings and take the sacrament in their congregations is grossly unjust. The Church should also devote significant resources toward LGBTQ+ support groups and organizations, especially considering that its current net worth exceeds $250 billion. 

Ultimately, LDS leaders must stop pairing cisgender heterosexuality with faithfulness and morality in the same way they untethered race from their theological models in 1978, the year the 126-year priesthood and temple ban on people of African descent was lifted.

This massive institutional pivot provides an effective framework for the Church to adjust its current teachings on sexuality and gender and allow all individuals, regardless of sexual or gender identity, equal access to its rituals and privileges.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” While it is not inevitable that LDS will ever fully embrace LGBTQ+ relationships and identities, mounting sociocultural and political pressures are at least causing the Church to see the damage caused by clinging to its anti-LGBTQ+ teachings. 

I sincerely hope that their mixed messaging represents a gradual dying of old homophobic and transphobic teachings in favor of steady evolution toward full acceptance of LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints.