“Church handbooks are policy and procedural guides for lay leaders who must administer the church in many varied circumstances throughout the world”, church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement Thursday confirming the change. The group was protesting the LDS Church’s new policies regarding same-sex couples and their children.
Advertisement
The church also says that those who support same-sex marriage can still “remain in good standing”.
The Mormon Church has barred all children of same-sex couples from joining its ranks – at least until they disavow their parents, the New York Times reported Friday. With the new rules, the church has added same-sex marriage to its list of actions considered apostasy, meaning that Mormons found in same-sex marriages could be subject to disciplinary hearings and excommunication.
After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints changed its policy to no longer bless or baptize children of same-sex couples, people on both sides of the issue started speaking out. Mormon children are normally blessed as infants and entered into the LDS Church records.
In one section of the handbook, the church stated that “natural or adopted” children of parents with same-sex relationships, irrespective of being married or mere cohabiting, would not receive any blessings as babies or be eligible for the naming ceremony and would also be excluded from baptism which is usually done around the age of 8.
A few find the new rules contradictory to these recent church messages, including guidance from a church website created in 2012 to urge more compassion for LGBT people.
“There was the need for a distinction to be made between what may be legal and what may be the law of the church and the law of the Lord”, said Christofferson, a member of the religion’s governing Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. And while disavowing the marriage of one’s parents is technically different from disavowing one’s parents, it is a distinction that may be lost in the implementation.
Many see the guideline as placing a scarlet letter on gay-parent children, effectively ostracizing them from church participation.
Utah, the western state where the church’s headquarters are located, in May amended anti-discrimination law to bar employment and housing discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) residents, after years of dialogue LGBT rights advocates and church leaders, which play a powerful role in local politics.
He says when he first heard the news of the policy change he and a few friends were shocked but they more they thought about it he says the Church is just trying to protect these children.
The church is walking a fine line between on the one hand recognizing the reality of changing mores in American society externally, but internally holding the line on its own doctrinal rigor – its own beliefs and teachings.
Advertisement
The church finally waved the white flag on the black issue in the ’70s, and I wonder how long it will take them to end their hateful aggression against the LGBTQ+ community.
