LDS Church Faces Gays

Over 27,000 letters were delivered to the LDS Church Headquarters this week, all protesting the LDS Church's support of the ban on gay marriages in California.

As a former Mormon and more-than-disinterested observer, I am watching this process closely. In the past, the LDS Church bowed to political pressures to outlaw its own “commanded” polygamy, chucked the teachings of several of its own  prophets to allow blacks to hold its priesthood, and most recently even changed its own scripture to depict Native Americans as other than Jewish. 

Is this a pattern?  Will it bow to political pressures on its traditional teaching that homosexual practices are sinful?

I don't think the LDS Church will capitulate, at least not right away.  For one thing, its former teachings on polygamy, blacks and Native Americans were never shared by even a percentage-sliver of  fellow Americans.  Thus when they abandoned those “strange” doctrines, even those within the LDS Church were relieved.  But polls I've read indicate that a majority of Americans do share at least in part the LDS stance that homosexuality is aberrant.

Secondly, the US political world is very different today than in the 20th century.  The LA Times recently reported that Catholics, Jews and Mormons are “over-represented” in Congress and the House.  Even at local and state levels Mormons are methodically and purposefully seeking political office with a view to one of Brigham Young's most famous prophecies that only Mormons would be able to save the US Constitution in a coming time of political chaos.

So — I believe the LDS Church will stand pat on its teachings on homosexual practices, while ramping up its already-active efforts to help those with homosexual inclinations.

Finally, the LDS Church will find “back door” ways to finance the fight against such issues as California's Proposition 8 — but they won't do it publicly.

For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition:  A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.