The last time the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published a website on the church’s relationship with homosexuality, the church titled the Web page “Mormons and Gays.”
This time, they’re calling it “Mormon and Gay.” Not two separate groups. One and the same.
You can be gay while being Mormon, the new website says – as long as you don’t have gay sex.
“They’re loved. They’re supported. They’re part of the church,” said L. Whitney Clayton, who serves on the Presidency of the Seventy, making him one of the most powerful leaders in the Mormon Church. “We want them to feel happy and included in the kingdom of God.”
To that end, the church released its glossy new website Tuesday, filled with high-production-value videos of gay and lesbian people explaining how they manage to stay Mormon and find fulfillment without entering same-sex relationships.
But to advocates for LGBT inclusion, the new website’s words of welcome fall far short of sufficient. Welcoming gay people without welcoming gay relationships, they say, is no true welcome at all. And this website does not introduce any change to the strict position of the church, which last year declared that anyone in a same-sex relationship is an apostate, and their children cannot be baptized unless they are over 18 and have renounced their parents’ relationship and moved out of their house.
“It’s highly problematic,” said John Dehlin, founder of the popular podcast Mormon Stories. “They’re acting like the most homophobic church in all of Christianity. And yet they’re trying to send this double message that gays are welcome.”
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