Despite Claims The Morman Church Loves LGBTQ Persons, Russell M. Nelson Confirms They Oppose Gay Marriage
What year have we time warped too? Living in the very liberal, progressive state of California has sometimes given me the power to forget being a member of the LGBTQ community is something still considered taboo. For years, I believe we as a community have been warned about who to shy away from, who actually has our back, that sometimes our own eat themselves… you know, just a casual walk of life in our shoes. Growing up gay, I quickly was told Evangelicals and Mormons are religious groups who are notoriously anti-LGBTQ. In recent years, the Mormon church has made progressive efforts towards accepting their LGBTQ brothers and sisters, especially with the inclusion of repealing a ban on baptisms for child of same-sex couples and banning members for simply being gay. Great! I’ll take an inch instead of a mile… but recently I’m led roll my eyes at the religion once again.
According to Time Magazine, yesterday, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Russell M. Nelson, gave at speech to nineteen thousand students at Brigham Young University in Utah. Nelson claimed Mormon leaders have the ability to adjust church policy (like baptizing same-sex couple’s children and refusing to expel church members for being LGBTQ), but they cannot change God’s laws. One of those laws: Marriage should be between a man and a woman. The church is still able to kick out members if they are in a same-sex relationship, but not for simply being gay themselves. Nelson proclaimed he and other leaders of the Mormon church must continue to abide by God’s law. Basically, you won’t see any gay-Mormon weddings anytime soon.
While this is obviously disheartening and cruel, I have a smidge of hope for the Mormon church. I mean, we can’t say the leaders of this church haven’t done anything to at least make their LGBTQ members feel a little better, but they are certainly still second class citizens – even though gay marriage is not God’s law, but the Law of the Land! It’s so much easier to protest and scream “Recognize it – this is America!” But, I’m convinced those words would fall on deaf ears. What is a little more terrifying is that Nelson, who is ninety-five-years-old, is speaking to nineteen thousand college students who will seemingly fall in line with his words… and the man has almost half a million Instagram followers. That’s a heck of a lot of dedicated supporters of his… jeez!
We can only work and progress from our past and that’s a little hard to do when leadership is telling otherwise and basically gaslighting to continue their trend. Oy vey.
Writer’s Note: This is the opinion of one Instinct Magazine contributor and does not reflect the views of Instinct Magazine itself or fellow contributors.
H/T: Time Magazine
