Will Nobody Think of the Children! Hypocrisy and the November Policy

80 comments for “Will Nobody Think of the Children! Hypocrisy and the November Policy”

1. “If it really was about the children’s own agency and the sins of the parents, consistency would demand that the polygamy policy was also criticized. That didn’t happen at all, …” Source?

   From the LDS newsroom: “Speaking not only as an Apostle, but also as a husband, father, and grandfather, Elder Christofferson said the new policy originates out of compassion. “It originates from a desire to protect children in their innocence and in their minority years. … We don’t want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different.””

   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent drinks coffee or tea?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent doesn’t pay tithing?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent doesn’t wear their temple garments?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent is convicted for committing a civil or criminal act?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent doesn’t attend Sunday services?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the father didn’t serve a mission, something the father covenanted to do when he was baptized?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent doesn’t accept a church calling?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent doesn’t have a testimony of the historicity of the Book or Mormon?
   Does the church prohibit a child from being baptized if the parent has not followed through on a ministering assignment?

   These are all examples where the parent may feel one way and the expectation of the church is different, to quote Elder Christofferson.

   I could do this all day. – Steve Rogers

2. “That didn’t happen at all, and there was seemingly no self-awareness about the double standard.”

   I disagree. In my memory of the time period, The polygamy connection came up regularly on blog discussions including people making the arguments you present here about it being a double standard. It really made me think, personally, about what was just and kind.

   More than anything though, no one knew about the polygamy rule until the arrival of the pox. And even then (and now) most people don’t actually know any polygamist or have them in their wards and families. The polygamy policy didn’t actually impact all that many people. The pox, however, did. That to me is/ was the difference.

3. I can’t believe I was swayed at all by the church’s accusers and detractors during that time. Won’t happen again.

   https://nauvooneighbor.org/clarity-on-the-family-proclamation/

4. Chadwick,

   I think those fall a bit short of the church considering the child’s parents to be in a state apostasy. On the part of the child–she has to be willing (at some point) to accept the Law of Chastity as it is presently understood. And that places her at odds with her parents vis-a-vis bedrock foundational beliefs. Children of polygamous parents who come into the church (at 18+ years old) are required to renounce — at least tacitly — the practice of polygamy. And the same is required of all members–that is, to understand the boundaries of the Law Chastity.

   I believe that the apostles were truly concerned about the welfare of children when they expanded the policy. They didn’t want children to be placed in the position of having to choose the church over their parents–or at the very least, to bear the burden of intuiting that something was not right at home (according to the church’s on marriage and family).

5. “…according to the church’s *teachings* on marriage and family.”

6. ReTx,
   I knew about the polygamy rule long before the November policy came out and readily recognized it as an extension of the same logic. But then again, I am older than dirt and have had to interact with families affected by the plural marriage policy. And yes, there were/are significant numbers of them.

   Now that does not mean I think either policy is 100% correct. Each situation I encountered seemed different and the policy didn’t always fit. It was/is painful for some children of polygamists I know and it was painful for extended families I know who had gay couples in them. Regardless, I appreciate latitude and a nuanced, compassionate approach by local leaders. Always take care of the kids.

7. “she has to be willing (at some point) to accept the Law of Chastity as it is presently understood”

   Why? All kinds of kids with lgbt family members (siblings, cousins, aunts/uncles etc) don’t. I’ve never heard of it being an issue for them. Including one of my own kids who was baptized during the pox years. The topic never came up.

   Old Man – fair enough. Geography likely makes a difference and I’ve never lived in Utah. I still imagine most members of the church have zero experiences with polygamy.

8. @Chadwick:

   The question is: would you include being polygamously married in that category and, if so, were you as vociferous about the policy directed towards them as you were when it was aimed at same-sex couples?

   @ReTx:

   It might have been brought up, but the fact is that it wasn’t a huge issue until it happened to same-sex couples, and it completely died as an issue once it was retracted for same-sex couples.

   In terms of knowing people, it was interesting to me that there was never a human interest story about anybody in particular, and I suspect that at the end of the day there just weren’t that many people affected (although it was hedged so quickly when it came out that I wouldn’t be surprised if there was literally nobody who was actually denied, but I might be wrong). When asked what proportion of people they think are gay, people tend to overestimate significantly.

   According to the Census Bureau, about half as many same-sex marrieds have children in the household as mixed-sex marrieds (38% vs 18%), https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/ssc-house-characteristics/Figure1a1b.pdf

   And about 1.2% of married households are same-sex, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/13/in-places-where-same-sex-marriages-are-legal-how-many-married-same-sex-couples-are-there/#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20Census%20Bureau%20estimates,involved%20same%2Dsex%20married%20couples.

   And then we layer on the fact that same-sex marrieds are presumably much, much less likely to have a child who is attending Church.

   So sure, children that this would potentially affect exist, but not on the scale that one would think by basing it off of popular depictions of suburbia where every block has a mixed-race same-sex couple with two kids and a dog. (And, for what little my anecdotal experience is worth, I do know an active child of a polygamous relationship that couldn’t be baptized until they were 18, but yes, you’re right that that’s probably just a thing in Utah).

9. ReTx,

   We have to be willing to live by it. And in some situations that will create a bright line–and in other situations it won’t.

10. “We have to be willing to live by it. And in some situations that will create a bright line–and in other situations it won’t.”

    I guess I’m still not seeing it. For actual LGBT people, I’d say there is a giant hazy area that depends a lot on local leadership and what one is looking for in a religious experience. For non-LGBT people, I don’t think you do have to be willing to believe/say SSM is a sin. If you had to, a decent percentage of members would lose their temple recommends and/or membership. Including me!

    (I’ll stop with that though. I’ve had my say. :) )

11. Stephen, other issues aside, I think you’re probably correct that the symbolic effect outweighed the practical effect by quite a lot. There was one case I know of in my extended family where approval had to be sought for a child’s baptism, which was granted. (And I wouldn’t say that the policy was retracted as much as it was pushed down to the local level and softened a bit, but I’m not current on all the details.)

    I agree that one of the major reasons for the outsized reaction was that for years, some people had accepted or promoted the idea that the Church was coming around to accepting gay marriage. It wasn’t, and after November 2015 it wasn’t possible to continue insisting that things were about to change. There’s a cost to living in unreality for too long, but the people who got it wrong and built up false hopes shifted directly to collective outrage without any introspection about their own mistakes.

12. Thank you for writing this Stephen. I roll my eyes out of my head when I hear this policy referred to as the “Policy of Exclusion”. Can one be more dramatic? I was a missionary in Utah a long time ago and I had an investigator with polygamous family ties who had to be interviewed by Elder Holland before he was baptized IIRC.

    Also, my mission president had to approve baptisms for those who had had or paid for an abortion, had a same-sex relationship, committed a felony, etc. I don’t think that has changed since the last 20-30 years.

13. The November 2015 policy upset many members of the church because it hurt people they knew personally. There’s nothing strange about that. It’s an example of people feeling compassion.

    To cast this situation as basically an argument over political or moral principles, as Stephen C. is trying to do, is to miss what happened. It was not political or moral arguments that led church leaders to reverse the policy. It was the overwhelming compassion of members of the church who expressed their concern and prayed for change that caused the reversal.

14. Loursat,

    I think you’re right that there were genuine concerns on the part of some folks. Even so, the fact that so few people would’ve been touched by the policy tends to place the argument more on ideological grounds than on the outcome of real events–IMO. Honestly, it seemed (to me) like a lot of folks were more concerned about what kind of message the policy would send than they were over who might be “excluded.”

15. My objection to the policy and most of the internet bloggers objection was that polygamy is taught by the parents to the children, while being gay is inborn, so not something that can be taught. Children are unlikely to follow in their parents footsteps and marry gay, while with polygamy, they are likely to follow in their parents footsteps and many were. It wasn’t at all about the children understanding that the church disapproves. Which believe me, children do understand. It was about children doing as their parents had for polygamy, which is very unlikely with gays. So, children in a gay household could be taught that the church disapproves, but mom and mom do it anyway, just like coffee. I grew up with parents who did not follow all the church teachings, my mom drank coffee and my father said some things that were absolutely blasphemous, but that didn’t destroy me as a kid. I grew up believing in the church and knowing my parents had made other choices. Big deal. It didn’t destroy my testimony.

    But my daughter coming out gave me a choice. I could love and support my child or I could love and support the church. I chose the church over my parents, but chose my child over the church.

    Tell me my parents are evil and as a child I believe you. But tell me my kid is evil and I will fight you.

16. @Loursat: Ditto what Jack said.
    @Mama Dragon: So it sounds like you’re making the argument that the same-sex policy was bad but the polygamy one is fine because the church should change its position on same-sex relations but keep its position on polygamy, which is fine. That’s an internally coherent argument and I can respect that. I will push back a little on the “tell me my kid is evil…” Literally nobody is doing that.

17. Your argument is, from what I can tell, that members who objected to the 2015 policy that prevented baptism of children with gay parents but didn’t or don’t object to similar policies regarding polygamous members did so in “bad faith” because they also don’t criticize polygamous policy that seems similar. And that the hand wringing about “the children” was also not sincere because progressive Mormons didn’t raise up to defend children of polygamous fundamentalists. The latter part of your argument seems to be that it was especially hard to take because this policy change in 2015 killed hope that the church would reform and progress or change on this makes sense to me. I felt this way.

    You may not care why progressive Mormons would differentiate between morality of gay marriage and homosexual relationships and polygamous ones, but I do. So did other progressive mormons in 2015. iWhy would those things have to be equivalent for someone to object to one of them in good faith? They are not the same risk to children even. Fundamentalist mormons have plenty of evidence that they force underage marriages and relationships that I find entirely immoral. I don’t see the same risk to children or immorality in commited gay marriages and relationships. If the church cared about children’s welfare they needed to change this policy, which they did in 2019. This is not a bad faith argument, just one you disagree with.

    What the policy did to me was very clearly send the message that the church did not want gay families in its congregations. There were wards with gay couples attending with their children and either one parent was a member or both parents and it worked. Very few gay families stayed after this. This is what progressive Mormons were upset about. They did not and do not feel that children of gay parents should have to denounce their parents lifestyle choices to be members of the church. Yes they wanted the church to change and there was a glimmer of hope about this that was dashed at this time.

18. I will second Mama dragon’s comment and take it one step further: the heightened requirements for people from polygamous communities is pretty understandable boundary maintenance for the church. There are scriptural and cultural legacies in our faith that make Mormon polygamy a viable path for a “true believer” as has been shown time and time again from the post-Manifesto schisms to the French Mission apostasy to Sister Wives reality tv. It is not an irrational fear that someone from that tradition could turn out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing amongst the flock from the perspective of the CoJCoLDS.

    So to use that same rationale to exclude children of gay couples implies the same type of fear. Most egregiously, that could mean that the church endorses the canard of the “gay disease”, that being around gay and gay-friendly people will lead impressionable people, particularly youth, to somehow become gay. This type of boundary maintenance will keep the Pied Piper away and protect the children. I hope everyone can agree that this view of the nature of homosexuality is extremely harmful and has been disproven scientifically.

    More charitably, but still problematic, is the rationale that allowing in children from gay families who haven’t renounced gay relationships has the effect of normalizing acceptance of said relationships amongst the flock even if it won’t turn anybody gay. If the kid is happy and healthy growing up in a loving environment, that undercuts the church position that such relationships are a threat to the institution of the family. Even if the environment is not ideal there are all kinds of reasons for that which have nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the parents, as with all families. “Gays, they’re just as dysfunctional as us!” The exclusion policy’s unstated purpose was to try to limit exposure to this reality.

    So, are the threats to the flock from polygamy and gay marriage the same, justifying the same defensive approach? I don’t think so. For polygamy, the church is defending against discarded doctrine that still has resonance for some. For gay marriage, the church is defending against the evolving values of an entire society. One is an “attack” from the past, one is an “attack” from the future. The church tried using the same blunt instrument to fend off both. Even if you agree with the OP position that complaints about the POX were, essentially, liberal Mormon tears, I hope everyone recognizes that ham-fisted way it was instituted, explained and championed had, and will continue to have, negative effects on many individuals, families and the church as a whole.

19. LDS Church makes it easier for children of polygamists to convert

    Salt Lake Tribune, Nate Carlisle, Dec 18, 2019

    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints quietly has removed a policy that said children of polygamists could not join the Utah-based faith without disavowing their parents’ beliefs and moving out of the family home.

    The policy on polygamists’ kids was cited by the church as the precedent for the November 2015 edict excluding children of same-sex couples unless they similarly distanced themselves from their parents. Top church leaders removed the LGBTQ policy in April of this year.

    The guidelines on offspring from polygamous households received far less public criticism but did get some attention that the LGBTQ policy did not — discussion on reality television. In a 2015 episode of “Sister Wives,” about a polygamous family, then-19-year-old Maddie Brown sought to convert to the LDS Church but refused to repudiate her parents beliefs to do so.

20. LDS Footnotes:
    That’s good news, a blunt instrument put away in place of a hopefully more compassionate approach towards everyone.

21. @LDS Footnotes: Interesting, I had no idea, thanks!
    @Brian G: You can argue that there are fundamental differences, but the point of the post wasn’t so much to engage that discussion but rather to point out that those differences are complete non-sequiturs in regards to the “sins of the parents visited on the children” argument. Either way, if you have a practicing, believing teen who happens to come from a polygamous/same-sex family, why deny them baptism? We can talk about how the parents’ situation might be different, but that has no relevance to the children’s situation.

    That specific argument was the one being made in bad faith, not necessarily the others. And anecdotally, it seemed like the “sins of the parents” argument was more effective for the moderate Latter-day Saints that may have supported the Church’s position on same-sex issues, so that was the one that got the air time when in the background it was really about the heteronormativity issues that you raise.

    @Warnol: I get that argument if we’re talking about people who were in polygamous relationships (I heard there has been a problem with them feigning conversion to be able to access temples, but I don’t have a citation), but again that’s less relevant for the children. You can argue that there’s a risk that the polygamous children are planted by their parents for nefarious reasons, but frankly the risk there is probably no more higher (if not lower) than the risk that the same-sex couple’s child is attending the Church primarily to change the Church from within. Again you can argue that one is legitimate and the other one isn’t, but that just brings us back to the questions about heteronormativity that I am arguing is the real issue behind all this, not “suffer the little children.”

22. My point is that you are fundamentally misunderstanding why progressive members objected to this policy and why they didn’t talk about polygamous parents and their kids. You say it was made in bad faith which is assuming bad intent and dishonest intentions that were not there.

23. I do see the hypocrisy. Polygamous people are not cool or fashionable. Gay people are cool and fashionable. That is why there was this double standard for progressive Mormons. If any segment of society was embracing polyg families there would have been an outcry

    It was an attempt at boundary maintenance.. It failed….. Since 2019 in my ward 15-20 girls have decided they are LGBTQ. It seems to me that the condition is infectious to teenage girls. Older LGBTQ girls groom the 12-14 year olds and boom! I really doubt that this is inborn. I think its cool and fashionable and girls do it for social reasons. You can even predict who is next.

24. @ Brian G: The main argument against the policy was that the children were being punished for the sins of their parents, and no amount of revisionism can change that.

    @bbell: I definitely think there’s something to the idea that people are increasingly choosing to identify as queer or bisexual because it’s becoming fashionable, but I’d avoid using the term “groom” since it has all sorts of nasty connotations for back in the day when people connected male homosexuality to child abuse.

25. I used the word groom intentionally because that is what I am observing from older LGBTQ girls towards younger teens. The older girls are teaching the younger girls. I am even seeing older sisters evangelizing LGBTQ to younger siblings

26. I am not trying to be revisionist. Here for example is an article from Nov 2015 from Wheat and Tares blog about this issue:

    https://wheatandtares.org/2015/11/09/suffer-little-children-and-forbid-them-not/

    Plenty of arguments back and forth between commenters about this issue and they specifically address the effects of this policy for polygamous parents and children.

    My point is that the argument is that you say that the argument made was in “bad faith” which assumes that the members at the time making those arguments were being hypocritical and dishonest. I am not saying that people didn’t make an argument about the children, but it is slightly different and more nuanced than you are saying and that it was not hypocritical and dishonest. There is a good faith way to understand the arguments made at the time and now.

27. The main argument I see made in 2015 is not that children are being punished for sins of the parents, but that policy towards children baptism isn’t treated the same for different sins. That gay marriage and homosexual parents may be considered sinners by the church, but so are parents that commit adultery or drink coffee or commit crimes and none of those parental sins result in children of those parents not being allowed to be baptized.

28. Steven C. No, nobody came out and used the word “evil” but that was 100% the message that I and my siblings got. See, one thing, as a young wiper snapper that you won’t remember is that after polygamy the church really wanted a way to point out to member how different we were than other Christian’s, so, about the time of prohibition they got serious about the WoW. They worried about how members were so lax about WoW. They made it a temple recommend question, but bishops were still shrugging their shoulders about a beer now and then or a cup of Joe in the mornings. They decided to get stricter and started pushing the WoW—-hard. So hard that about 1970 a survey was taken at BYU. Rate these sins in order of seriousness. Well the students did think that murder was worst. But next came breaking the word of wisdom. Yikes. Drinking coffee was worse than adultery.

    Well, I grew up during that really hard push in the 50. We were lectured in primary about how bad smoking and coffee were. And drinking, well horrors you would become alcoholic in a week.

    Well, after that survey at BYU, the church realized it was pushing WoW a bit too much, if 18-26 year olds thought breaking the WoW was worse than adultery. So, once again they switched gears and started pushing women to stay home, and they started really pushing temple marriage. By the time I was in YW, every other lesson was somehow about temple marriage. Yeah, 12 year olds need to be pushed towards marriage, excuse me temple marriage.

    So, yes, 100% the church taught me that my mother was evil for drinking coffee. They don’t have to use the word.

    Your argument is saying that polygamy and same sex marriage are practically the same thing, so hypocrisy on the part of progressives. We are saying your argument has a major flaw in that they are not practically the same. Polygamy harms children in so many ways I can’t count. I am friends with a man who grew up in polygamy and he is in his 60 and still believes it is correct, but his wife objects and so he “caved” to her pressure. But he freely admitted that his father sexually abused his sisters, see 30+ wives wasn’t enough and he wanted his pretty 10 year old daughters.

    SS marriage is different. While studies show the kids of polygamy as behind intellectually because they get too little attention from dad and mom has 6 other kids. And abuse of all kinds is high in polygamy. On the other hand, studies have shown that children raised by two committed SS parents are just as normal as kids raised by two heterosexual parents. And as argued above, polygamy is in the church’s history and the church can’t quite get rid of it. And children are taught to believe polygamy. You cannot teach anyone to be gay. More children are coming out now because it is safer to come out. It is not contagious and bbell is totally wrong about girls being recruited. You cannot talk someone who is straight into being gay. All you can do is make it safe for them to be gay. Bbell is just plain fear mongering. Think about what it would take to talk you into preferring the same sex if you are straight. There isn’t really anything that would talk you into being attracted to your same gender. Unless you are naturally bi, then you were already attracted. But it isn’t as “you are one or the other” as most people think. It is a spectrum with many people at one end, a minority at the other and a lot of us spread out in between.

29. Many people were hurt by the November 2015 policy. It was not just the children who were hurt. It was also gay couples themselves, other gay people in the church and adjacent to the church, and their family, loved ones and friends. Compassion for all of these people is what motivated the opposition to the policy. And the opposition was correct. The church leaders who reversed the policy felt this compassion too. Ultimately, this even led to the reversal of the policy on baptism of children from polygamist families. All in all, that’s one step back and two steps forward. Progress.

    Stephen C., your obsession with owning the libs hardens your heart. There is so little in your writing of what James called pure religion. You seem unable to recognize the love that is the foundation of much of what you criticize. That blind spot, or crust on your heart, leads to things like this weird game of historical gotcha that contributes nothing but noise to a conversation about where the church is today.

30. @ Brian: That Wheat and Tares post was one of the few that explicitly tied the two together and called out the polygamy policy as well. I don’t agree with their own accusations of bad faith against the brethren, but I actually found myself agreeing with much of what it said. However, that doesn’t change the fact that 1) nobody cared about it until it hit same-sex couples, and 2) people stopped caring about it about the same-sex component was retracted (and the retraction of the polygamy version was evidently so under the publicity radar that some of us here hadn’t heard about it), so it’s clear that there was something about the same-sex part of it in particular, and not the principle in general, that was at play.

    @ Dragon Mamma:
    “Your argument is saying that polygamy and same sex marriage are practically the same thing” That’s not the argument I’m making. I’m sidestepping that argument completely because I’m saying it’s irrelevant to the argument that it’s about punishing the children.

    @Loursat: You’re not actually engaging the argument I’m making, you’re just engaging in ad hominem by saying I lack compassion.

    @Bbell: Sure, some people might make it seem cooler to other people, but the term grooming is specifically used for abuse. Also, it’s clear there’s some inborn component even if it’s not the whole story like some people think it is. Lisa Diamond at U of U has done some great work on this, especially in regard to lesbians.

31. Tell me where I’m misinterpreting the OP here: The Church is not at fault for having one, then two hurtful policies in their handbook. The liberal members are at fault for only focusing on one of the policies.

    Stephen C, your post says that discussions about polygamous children didn’t happen at all. Those are your words. It’s now been shown to you that is not correct. You may consider editing your post based on the kind and patient education given to you in the comments. Or take down the post if this was your critical argument that has now been debunked. People did care about both. You were wrong on this point.

    The church did not publish their handbook online until Feb 2020. Previous to that time, most members had no access to the handbook, including myself. So it’s possible that none of us knew about the exclusion policy for children of polygamous parents until the policy for children of queer parents was leaked in November 2015. That’s certainly the case for me. Please explain how we were to advocate for a marginalized group if we weren’t aware of the marginalization.

    As to comments that this didn’t affect that many people, so what? Help me understand how the call to leave the 99 and minister to the 1 did not apply in this case.

32. I almost left the church when this policy came out, I was so hurt by it. Luckily, my wife acted in faith and I received personal revelation the policy would be repealed, and it was. You are right, that as a non-right wing extremist, I had thought the church was loosening up and would revoke it’s prohibition on gay people like it had on black people. I still hope that and pray for that. That said, as the person targeted by your ad hominem attack here, I can say before this time I was not aware of the polygamy policy. I am a convert to the church and have never really met a polygamist. At the time, I was unhappy with the policy, I thought the church’s justification that “we’ve had this secret policy you didn’t know about, so see we are being consistent” was just more salt on the wound. It’s a weird argument to say to someone who says “I don’t like this policy” to try and argue they should be ok with it because they haven’t not liked other policy they were unaware of.

    That said, I do see polygamy and Homosexual Marriage as different in several ways, and find they argument that if you are ok with homosexual marriage, you should be ok with polygamy to be vapid. This may come from the right wing extremist perspective that any sort of permissiveness in marriage is a slippery slope that leads to people marrying trees, etc.

    An other argument here raised is LGBTQness being taught by older YW to young YW. This is not my perception. What I see if that YW are ahead on this, showing more love and acceptance which is making more youth comfortable with experimenting in this space. In the studies I’ve read on sexuality, younger girls have long been seen as having fluctuating sexuality (think of sexuality as a metronome with same and other on either end of the arc, with the indicator constantly bouncing between the two). Couple this with the YM in wards having a weird fixation with Andrew Tate and perpetually berating YW as lesser than, and the YW in the ward are not really attracted to the boys.

33. “You are right, that as a non-right wing extremist, I had thought the church was loosening up and would revoke it’s prohibition on gay people like it had on black people.”

    I stopped reading your comment at that sentence.

34. @Chadwick:

    Tell me where I’m misinterpreting the OP here: The Church is not at fault for having one, then two hurtful policies in their handbook. The liberal members are at fault for only focusing on one of the policies.

    The OP didn’t address the first sentence.

    “Stephen C, your post says that discussions about polygamous children didn’t happen at all.”

    Sure, I should have probably removed “at all,” in the universe of chatter that happened you could find an argument for that, but the point is that it functionally wasn’t part of the dialogue that wasn’t going on. Inasmuch as it was invoked it was invoked related to the same-sex policy, in and of itself the backlash against that was minute compared to the backlash against the same-sex policy.

    “Please explain how we were to advocate for a marginalized group if we weren’t aware of the marginalization.” You were aware of the same-sex policy because it was leaked and the media and blogosphere picked up on it. That did not happen with the polygamy policy, which is more evidence to my point that it was about the heteronormativity more than the general principle of the sins of the parents being visited on the children.

35. When the November 2015 policy came out, I looked to two friends who were Latter-day Saints with parents in gay relationships. As people who would’ve been affected by this policy in their teens (in 2015 they were in their 30s), they saw no love or compassion in this policy from the Brethren. In spite of the Church’s teachings over the years, they had never before felt that the Church required them to “disavow” their parents’ relationships until this policy was announced. I always thought the ostracism I witnessed them experience from other ward members was a mistake on the part of those wardmembers, but now the Church was implicitly endorsing that behavior. Yes, this was indeed a policy of exclusion. I can’t say that I was ever aware of former roommates or fellow wardmembers who were affected by the polygamy policy, and I was not aware of its existence until 2015.

36. Stephen C.

    I’m sorry, did I hurt your feelings?

37. Let me try my comment again, trying to remove what I think offended you.

    I almost left the church when this policy came out, I was so hurt by it. Luckily, my wife acted in faith and I received personal revelation the policy would be repealed, and it was. You are right, that as a person many consider left of the norm in my congregation, I had thought the church was loosening up and would revoke it’s prohibition on gay people like it had on black people. I still hope that and pray for that. That said, as the person targeted by your ad hominem attack here, I can say before this time I was not aware of the polygamy policy. I am a convert to the church and have never really met a polygamist. At the time, I was unhappy with the policy, I thought the church’s justification that “we’ve had this secret policy you didn’t know about, so see we are being consistent” was just more salt on the wound. It’s a weird argument to say to someone who says “I don’t like this policy” to try and argue they should be ok with it because they haven’t not liked other policy they were unaware of.

    That said, I do see polygamy and Homosexual Marriage as different in several ways, and find they argument that if you are ok with homosexual marriage, you should be ok with polygamy to be vapid. This may come from the right wing extremist perspective that any sort of permissiveness in marriage is a slippery slope that leads to people marrying trees, etc.

    An other argument here raised is LGBTQness being taught by older YW to young YW. This is not my perception. What I see if that YW are ahead on this, showing more love and acceptance which is making more youth comfortable with experimenting in this space. In the studies I’ve read on sexuality, younger girls have long been seen as having fluctuating sexuality (think of sexuality as a metronome with same and other on either end of the arc, with the indicator constantly bouncing between the two). Couple this with the YM in wards having a weird fixation with Andrew Tate and perpetually berating YW as lesser than, and the YW in the ward are not really attracted to the boys.

    Better?

38. To your point Stephen, if you had written an article discussing only members from polygamous families who had to get permission before being baptized, before, during or after November 2015, I doubt very much it would get 30+ comments.

39. Stephen C I don’t think you could be more mistaken when you attribute bad faith to the many, many church members who were shocked and upset by the November policy. I can understand your perspective (and I also believe those responsible for the policy had the same perspective) that it was similar to the policy in place for children of polygamists. To me the fact that they would view it as similar is a testament to how profoundly they did not understand LGBTQ people and issues. I don’t think you do either.

40. Stephen C. wrote, “@Loursat: You’re not actually engaging the argument I’m making, you’re just engaging in ad hominem by saying I lack compassion.”

    I’m saying that the argument you’re making here is detached from the reality of what actually happened. You’re selecting a slice of the discourse around the November 2015 policy and treating it as if it’s the thing that mattered most, when it’s quite obviously not. You’re distorting the history. Why would I want to engage with the details of such a nutty argument? The sensible response to a nutty argument is to point out why it’s nutty.

    I mention your lack of compassion primarily because I think you’re capable of so much better than this. Don’t waste your gifts by trying to be some Latter-day Saint version of Ben Shapiro.

41. Matt: “we’ve had this secret policy you didn’t know about, so see we are being consistent”

    The November Policy was also supposed to not be shouted from the rooftops. So both policies were in the same bucket in that sense. The issue of why it wasn’t deals with broader issues of how public to make Church policy, and I too am glad that the Handbook is now public.

    “ find they argument that if you are ok with homosexual marriage, you should be ok with polygamy to be vapid.”

    That’s not the argument being made in the OP. That’s a whole other kettle of fish, so I’m being purposefully limited in the claims being made here.

    And I don’t know who Andrew Tate is, but I suspect that was more directed towards bbell.

    E: If it’s about the children and not the parents, then the distinctions between LGBT issues and polygamy issues shouldn’t matter.

    Loursat: If you’re arguing that the “sins of the parents on the heads of the children” argument was incidental or a minor part of the discourse then you’re the one detaching from the reality of what happened. That was the main argument, and the one most effective for the rank and file of the Church.

    And I’m Ben Shapiro because…I’m socially conservative?

42. “I stopped reading your comment at that sentence.”

    Echo chamber, party of one.

    Look dude, believe what you will. Clearly the pushback in the comment section means you have some work to do to better educate yourself on the actual lived experience of all sorts of diverse members of our faith community.

    You essentially have three choices here: (1) re-read the comments and learn that your initial positions may not be correct; (2) keep defending your position in spite of the fact that actual members of your faith community are trying to help you see things differently; (3) simply turn off the comment section.

    Your move.

43. You keep trying to narrow the argument to your one tiny point, which we are saying just does not fit what happened. And you refuse to read someone’s full post if they ever dared hope the church might change. That says you made up your mind and just refuse to actually listen to people tell you that what you say happened wasn’t what happened.

    I never hoped the church would change. I told my daughter and her wife to get out. They didn’t because they still had good memories and didn’t want to hurt the parents who wanted them in the church and pretending to be straight.

    The first time I heard about the restriction on polygamous children was when the restriction of the children of gays came out. But when I thought about it, I realized why that policy was in place. They had experienced children in polygamous families being baptized, then sealed to their first wife, and claiming that that sealing applied to the second and third wife. In other words, polygamists were abusing the main church by pretending to be members and not polygamists when all along they planned on being polygamists.

    That never happened with gays and actually can’t happen because being gay just is not taught.

    And claiming that it can be, or that girls can be so disgusted with the boys that they choose girls instead is just not how being gay works. Educate yourself.

    So, there is a reason for the ban on children of polygamists that does not exist with gays.

    Now I hear you saying that it is still unfair to the children, and I will give you that. But is it fair to the church to have believing polygamists endowed and sealed and then pretending to be in good standing while they marry the second and third wife?

    Well, my opinion on that is the church can just excommunicate said polygamists when they show their true colors. I am for abolishing that policy too and glad to hear it is gone. But you claiming it was not talked about is false. How do you think I learned about it. Because people were talking about whether it was different or unfair or justified or whatever.

    You obviously do not read the feminist blogs because there were discussions.

    But I was trying to give the church the benefit of having a reason for that policy, which you are closing your ears to. OK, so have it your way, the church has had stupid wrong policy after stupid wrong policy. But don’t blame the progressives for not knowing about the policy on polygamist families. As soon as we did know, there were discussions as to whether or not that policy was unfair too.

44. @ Dragon Mama: It isn’t one tiny point, the sins of the fathers on the head of the children was THE main point in the surface-level November Policy reaction rhetoric, even though in reality in the background it was the issues that you are bringing up; as (again) evidenced by the fact that it all disappeared once it was retraced for the gays, but not the polygamists, even if there may have been some discussions about it here and there in the aftermath.

    I’m having a hard time following the hypothetical you’re positing with the polygamists and it sounds like a post-hoc attempt to justify why there wasn’t a similar gnashing of teeth for the polygamy policy of exclusion. As long as they themselves are not polygamists and they can answer all the questions all the same logic of the children of a same-sex couple applies.

    @Chadwick:
    We at T&S are happy to engage a wide variety of perspectives, but I don’t have the energy once it devolves into name calling.

45. The most common argument is still not what you are saying it was. It was not gnashing of teeth just because the sins of the parents passed onto the children, but that there were a few parental sins – including polygamy and homosexuality that the church considered dangerous enough that they required children to renounce their parents lifestyles and wait to be baptized. It was frustrating because it was such clear evidence of how negatively church leadership viewed homosexuality. It made people angry because it singled out these particular parent’s sins and effectively cut the whole family out of the church. It was a touchstone for progressive Mormons because it was such a clear policy against families with homosexual parents that leaders then said was inspired revelation and then later said was inspired to be revoked.

46. As Stephen has already pointed out: the policy against baptizing children of polygamous families had been in place for a long time–and no one sought to bring that information to the surface. But no sooner was the policy vis-a-vis children of gay parents issued that it was “leaked” and then followed by a painful outcry.

    I can’t help but believe that some of the reason for the dichotomy between the two has to do with an ideology wherein polygamous marriages are bad and gay marriages are good–as already mentioned by BBell. While I’m certain that some well meaning folks have thought carefully about the differences between the two, my sense is that in 2015 the outcry was far more reactive than proactive–based in a progressive morality of sorts more than in real charity (though there is certainly some overlap).

    As has also been mentioned: the policy is still pretty much in place. The main difference is that it is now up to local leaders to determine the course of action they feel is necessary in those situations. Even so, while the church perhaps didn’t intend to have the procedures involved in such situations known by the world–its doctrine on marriage is clear. And those who would be loyal to the Kingdom may have some reckoning to do — as painful as it maybe — in righting themselves with the doctrines of the Kingdom.

    Re: people getting hurt: there’s no question in my mind that many people were hurt by the announcement of the policy. But by the same token there’s no question in my mind that many people are hurt by the church’s on going teachings on marriage and family. And so, we have to keep in mind, that while the church may find ways to soften its message, it can’t refrain from preaching the doctrine for the sake of causing zero hurt.

    With that said, I’m of the opinion that, while some of the hurt caused by the policy might’ve been avoidable, a lot of the outcry was an expression of the momentum that had already been building against the church’s basic doctrines on marriage & family and chastity.

47. Stephen, I normally enjoy your posts wherever they show up, because you put a lot of thought, scholarship and even literary art into your commentaries, but you missed the mark on this one. Whether the detractors believe a same sex couple is living in sin does not make a difference for the validity of the argument. Moreover, the original intent of the Church leaders in issuing the proclamation likewise does not strengthen the validity of the argument. I sincerely doubt there are many (if any) people who believe the Church leaders want anything less than the best for children. The proclamation implicitly placed same sex couples, and their children, outside the bounds of Church membership. Regardless of original intent, the practical result of the policy was to exclude children who were innocent of any (Church-perceived) sins of their fathers. Had this policy remained a (for the most part) unstated policy similar to the polygamy standards, the response would likely have been more muted, or even non-existent.

    I think where you missed the mark is where you stated that you did not care about any arguments that might invalidate the conclusion you built your commentary around. While the Church disavows polygamy, at least in this life, polygamists are perceived as heretics or lost sheep, while same sex couples are perceived more as sinners and lost sheep. Polygamists are uneasily held at arm’s length by the Church, while LGBTQ persons are clearly on the outside, and only marginally tolerated by the Church. Many faithful LGBTQ members stay active only because of the love and acceptance shown by members of their wards and families, rather than being welcomed in by the Church as an institution.

48. Stephen, I agree with you that both policies were punishing children for their parents behavior. Thus both are wrong, but the application is different between gays and polygamists. Gays were attending our church, with children in primary to feel left out when they were the only kids who could not be baptized. The polygamist groups attend their own wards, so not there to feel left out.

    What I was trying to explain is what I see as historical reasons that the polygamy policy was put in place to begin with. The church felt that the children of polygamists were not “real” members because so many of them got endowed and sealed and then married polygamously. The church felt this was cheating…or something. I live in an area of Utah where polygamy is visible and have even had friendships with some who have left. So, I have heard some of both sides about all this. Not having their own temple, the polygamists were using the mainline church’s temples to be endowed and sealed, up until they got caught practicing polygamy. This was some of the polygamist groups official policy so they could be endowed. Officially join the main church, deny polygamy, get endowed. The polygamists do not really consider us as a separate religion like we consider them. We consider them apostates, and they consider us forced to discontinue a true principle, while they are a select group called upon to continue so because the practice has to continue until the second coming. The mainline church wanted to put a stop to this use of our temples. Now at least the Jeff’s branch of polygamist groups has its own temple, I believe.

    I feel, along with a whole bunch of other gay adjacent progressives that the policy on children of gays is that the policy was put in place precisely to drive them out of the church, so that people don’t start to see how normal they really are. So, really a different reason for putting it in place. It wasn’t to protect children from thinking their parents are bad, as I explained with my mother and coffee, the church wanted us children to see her as bad. I just no longer assign kind motives to the church because my experience has taught me it is not kind. You may continue to prophet worship if you like. I won’t hold it against you. Just know that I no longer give them the benefit of the doubt.

49. The LDS church’s exceptions to the 2nd article of faith never sat well with me. I suppose though we focus on those breaches that hit closer to home. In my case it was the temple teaching the suffering of women in childbirth and being subject to husbands because Eve “hearkened to the voice of Satan.” It was very troubling to my wife who would ruefully joke “The 2nd article of faith didn’t apply to women.”

    When the Pox was announced, my elderly home teaching companion told me he had two cousins sent home from the Language Training Mission (old MTC of sorts) because their father was caught up with a polygamous sect. My companion told me he didn’t think that was right. Of course it isn’t when the church holds the 2nd Article of Faith as doctrine.

    But in addition to the PoX and its linked predecessor exclusion for children born to a parent caught up with polygamy, other 2nd article of faith breaches include the permanent pass bestowed on select members given the second anointing and the odd item, that ultimately led me to believe Joseph Smith was acting on his own and not for God, was his promise to Newell Whitney in Smith’s blessing to Sarah Ann Whitney that if “She remain in the Everlasting covenant (i.e. marriage to Joseph) “all her Father’s house shall be saved” including “if any of them shall wander from the fold of the Lord… they shall not perish but shall return saith the Lord and be save.”

    So the bigger issue to me isn’t the perceived “bad faith” regarding one of those 2nd Article breaches, it’s the church’s deviation from such a core doctrine in any of those instances.

50. Dragon mama,

    I believe the apostles are very concerned about the welfare of children in both of those situations. Some folks don’t seem to understand that the church not accepting gay marriage as a true sacrament makes it impossible for gay married people to participate as full members of the Latter-day Saint community. Yes, they may participate in the community as friends–but not in the sacraments of the community; not in the covenant making process that is part and parcel of our core identity. Now that may not be a problem for some children. But for others–it will most definitely affect them adversely. And it will affect them in ways that are deeper and more damaging than the insecurities that come from feeling out of place among their peers.

    LDS Footnotes,

    The policy was meant as a protection–not a punishment. And folks being sealed up to eternal life do not get a free pass from punishment. They still have to repent like everyone else and accept the sufferings of the Savior.

51. A child who is growing up within a same sex marriage household, is growing up in a household whose very existence and formation is contrary to church doctrine, in order for that family to be in alignment with the gospel, the household would have to break apart.

    With that in mind, it makes sense to me that the church would want to protect the child from making covenants too early, covenants that may put them at direct odds with their parents.

    The child isn’t being punished for his parents sin. The child remains in a state of relative unaccountability.

52. Stephen, I don’t think people were arguing hypocritically or in bad faith. I think nearly everyone sees themselves as logically consistent, no matter how solid their arguments may or may not be. So it’s unfortunate that your post is focused on people’s motives and lack of good faith. That seems like it’s impossible to prove.

    But it was the case then, and continues to be the cases here and now, that people read far more into the policy than it actually meant, and misunderstand or misrepresent its meaning. Children who can’t yet get baptized are not in fact uncommon or limited to gay or polygamous families. The far more common situation – which, interestingly, no one seems to bring up – are children of part-member families or divorced parents where one parent does not give permission for their baptism. The “meaning” of their delayed baptism isn’t that the Church wants to exclude them – on the contrary, everyone is happy to see them and is glad when they come – but that their situation is complicated and requires some care and patience. In 2015, so soon after the Obergefell decision, no one knew exactly where things were headed, and it seems like Church leaders had some concerns that were ultimately not warranted, but it was prudent to proceed cautiously and keep a close eye on things at the highest level for a while.

    Since delaying baptism isn’t that uncommon and can be successfully negotiated, I do agree that the “think of the children” arguments were really about something else – in this case, disappointment and consternation that the Church was not actually heading where some progressives had thought it was heading, and the deflation of arguments that the prophet must have never truly sought revelation on the matter, or similar. A displaced argument isn’t necessarily made in bad faith or hypocritically, but it’s reasonable to point out that the stakes aren’t what people say they are, and that it’s ultimately more productive to deal with the real argument rather than stand-ins.

53. @Loursat et al,

    I have seen several comments about the hurt that the 2015 caused people. Yet the policy itself directly affected a vanishingly small amount of people. I have yet to read the story of someone who had to wait or ask for permission to be baptized because of the policy (and I’m sure that there were, just saying this to emphasize has small the group that it actually affected really is)

    So what was the hurt? Having church leaders re-affirm that same-sex relationships are incompatible with the Gospel, and engaging in such relationship is a violation comparable with unauthorized polygamous relationships?

    That seems like that is exactly what church leadership is supposed to do!

    It isn’t hateful to preach that same-sex relationships are sinful.

    What was the hurt that you an others are claiming occurred?

54. I continue to dislike mind-reading/sincerity-policing/I-found-some-wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing posts. We all feel what we feel, think what we think, and argue what we argue for a variety of reasons, some of which we’re not even conscious of. So what? It’s insightful to recognize that for many members, the policy announcement felt like a gut punch because they had hoped the Church would eventually follow society’s lead after Obergefell and the policy signaled it would not. That could be an occasion for charity rather than an excuse to dismiss their arguments.

    It strikes me that what polygamy in 1915 and same-sex marriage in 2015 have in common, is that in both cases attributes that make someone a strong member of the Church and a faithful disciple of Christ make them more susceptible to taking a position contrary to the Church’s. In the case of polygamy, it was having a strong desire to do the Lord’s will (keeping in mind that at that point there were a lot more prophetic teachings in favor of polygamy than against) and a willingness to sacrifice to do so (one could debate whether polygamy was a sacrifice for a man at that point, but most polygamists are women by definition). In the case of same-sex marriage, it’s compassion for the marginalized (“the least of these”), and believing in the importance of both marriage and agency. (We have some answers to the question “Why are people who experience same-sex attraction denied the blessings of marriage for something they cannot control?” but I can’t blame people too much for not being persuaded by them.)

    Of course some will argue (not me) that that’s why the Church needs to change its position on same-sex marriage. But even if our response is “Yep, the very elect are being deceived” that’s very different from “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, progressives.” I know Stephen C doesn’t actually feel that way, but I’m less confident about others. Recognizing the real reasons this is so difficult for so many members is the first step towards responding effectively to what has become an ongoing tragedy for the Church.

    I do think this has some relevance to children, in that once they decide they’re in favor of same-sex marriage it’s very hard to convince them otherwise. And then for many members this issue poisons their relationship with the Church. I’m not judging, but Dragon mama saying “I just no longer assign kind motives to the church because my experience has taught me it is not kind” is a pretty typical example. So I can see why Church leaders feel like baptizing children of same-sex couples is fraught–but I’m very glad they changed course and left it up to local leaders to figure out how to deal with the actual individuals and families in their congregations.

55. Ultimately, I don’t understand the point of this post. Is it just to say when people say they don’t like the PoX, they are wrong?

    Personally, I have always felt like the polygamy exclusion policy should be done away with, even though I recognize some of the issues with polygamists leaching off of the Church.

    As a side note to RLDs comment, at least one other group that has a Temple of their own. I ran into a missionary from Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who was excited to tell me about how they have have their own so they can do the pre-1920s endowment (i.e., the 8 hour version). Tangentially, I’ve wondered if some of the more recent changes to the endowment to make it more friendly to women has had an added effect of making it less attractive to fundamentalists.

56. @RLD,

    >So what? It’s insightful to recognize that for many members, the policy announcement felt like a gut punch because they had hoped the Church would eventually follow society’s lead after Obergefell and the policy signaled it would not. That could be an occasion for charity rather than an excuse to dismiss their arguments.

    You make a good point. Unfortunately, they way that I often read such people’s reactions is something along the lines of “The church is wrong about same-sex relationships, are hateful for saying such are a sin, and where wrong to make it clear that doctrine wasn’t going to change.”

    Maybe it really is just me reading things in that aren’t really there, but that seems to be the sentiment that they want to communicate.

    We can talk about feelings. We can empathize. But when normative propositions are made, those are open to rebuttal. When garbage arguments are made, that can be pointed out.

    Going back to OP. Bringing up that the 2015 policy is an extension of the policy of children of polygamous parents is eminently germane. It rebutes the idea that church leaders were uniquely hateful to same-sex people, and instead simply extended the existing policy of interaction with apostate forms of marriage to new innovations in apostacy.

    It is a bit of motte and bailey. Of course, church leaders can speak about and define sin. Trying to claim otherwise would be ridiculous. So instead of making that indefensible argument, people couch their arguments in terms of supposed harms and hurt feeling caused by policy decisions. Maybe I’m guilty of attempted mind-reading here, but I feel like the true objection is to the teaching that it is a sin at all.

57. Chad: It’s more narrow than that. I’m not addressing the November Policy in general, but rather the “what about the children?” argument when it was ignored for polygamous families, used for same-sex families, then put away when it wasn’t relevant to same-sex families anymore but still relevant to polygamous families.

    In regards to some of the other comments: those of us who could see both sides of this, even if we came down more on the other side, were often accused of some pretty nasty things during that time such as being beyond feeling and wanting to turn children away from Jesus.

    That’s a pretty serious accusation, including against very gentle, loving people I sustain as prophets (who themselves were accused of bad faith so often it was taken as a given that their stated reasons were fabrications), and it was made on the basis of that particular argument, which made it all the more raw once it was clear that it wasn’t “about the children” as evidenced by them not caring about those policies once the same-sex policy version of it was revoked.

58. So the reason you are accusing progressives of being hypocrites, “clutching their pearls”, and “arguing in bad faith” is because of a very, very, very narrow argument of how you felt like people used children and fairness in their arguments about gay marriage in the 2015 policy but mostly ignored polygamous families and that some people accused you of nasty things 8 years ago and didn’t believe the prophets or accused them of “acting in bad faith”.

    Stephen, it is time to let this one go. Sometimes people just disagree with you and they have different reasons for why they care. You are the one that started this whole post by calling people you disagree with hypocrites and then refusing to listen or acknowledge even charitable arguments or discussions about this topic.

    I don’t know what this is about for you. Someone hurt your feelings or made you mad, I guess, but it is time to stop making these narrow and polemic arguments to criticize progressive or liberal mormons or exmormons. If there is a specific actual event you need to talk about to get off your chest, please do so.

    So frustrating.

59. @Mike Sanders,

    >Unfortunately, they way that I often read such people’s reactions is something along the lines of “The church is wrong about same-sex relationships, are hateful for saying such are a sin, and were wrong to make it clear that doctrine wasn’t going to change.”

    >Maybe it really is just me reading things in that aren’t really there, but that seems to be the sentiment that they want to communicate.

    Some people absolutely mean that! But those people generally aren’t persuadable–and they’re probably not going to show up in your ward. If someone in your ward says something similar, the fact that they’re there suggests you shouldn’t assume the worst. And helping them to remain faithful may not (probably does not) require that you win an argument with them on the topic. I feel the urge to join the combat too, but in reality a lot less talking and a lot more listening will probably do them more good.

    @Stephen C

    Yes, I think that’s a critical line. I know plenty of faithful members who disagree with Church leaders on various topics, including same-sex marriage. But those who start attacking their character and motives are generally on a path that takes them out of the Church in short order. I was struck reading the Gospels this year that Jesus told the Seventy “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me” (Luke 10:16).

60. Brian: It’s a narrow argument in the sense that I’m clearly defining it, but it was the main argument.

    Oh, I very much want to “let this one go” in terms of not spending as much time in the comments, but as the OP writer I feel under some obligation to respond and engage in the discussion, although at some point the arguments start repeating or there’s otherwise not much to be gained in continuing.

    I brought up the vitriol to make a point about why that argument is so relevant: because it was weaponized and angrily (ironic that I’m being accused of that) used to attack the orthodox and leadership, so I don’t see any problem in parrying it.

61. Your argument makes me and other people angry. It is name calling. Can I be clearer? You refuse to actually listen when someone tries to respond to your narrow argument and so then the rest of the debate circles back to what you seem to be really doing – criticizing liberal members.

    Please just say what you mean and don’t call people hypocrites

62. We all have our acts of hypocrisy, whether you have enough to be a hypocrite as a person I have no idea. But what is an act of hypocrisy, for the umpteenth time, is ostensibly relying on an argument (and using it to attack others) when it’s clear from actions before and after that that wasn’t the real argument. That is what I mean, and not finding the post-facto justifications compelling is not the same as not considering them.

63. So in that very, very narrow way. 8 years ago people were hypocrites that used this very argument exactly as you have interpreted it 8 years later. Fine.

    I disagree that this was the main argument and have tried to explain why and why it was a sincere argument to make and why people who reacted negatively to this disclosure were not hypocrites.

    Why write about it now? You have an agenda and insisting it is just this narrow argument is not really what you are doing or why people are reacting negatively to your writing. You don’t care why people made this argument or why they felt like gay families were different than polygamous families. So what do you care about?

    On a personal level. Eight years ago this made policy made me terribly sad and frustrated because that was the year my daughter came out to us and this policy was such a slap in the face. It meant so clearly that the church didn’t want gay members to belong and to stay and I remember very well those blog and internet discussions as I was very active then and trying to figure out what our future was with the church and how we felt about it.

64. @RLD

    >Some people absolutely mean that! But those people generally aren’t persuadable–and they’re probably not going to show up in your ward. If someone in your ward says something similar, the fact that they’re there suggests you shouldn’t assume the worst. And helping them to remain faithful may not (probably does not) require that you win an argument with them on the topic. I feel the urge to join the combat too, but in reality a lot less talking and a lot more listening will probably do them more good.

    I’ll try take this words to heart.

65. @ Brian G: I’m doing this now because I have a list of Church-related things in the Church universe (it’s a big list), and this was next in the spreadsheet. The argument is still floating around, too, so it’s not like it’s a completely pase issue.

    Whatever the case, I wish you the best in you and your family’s spiritual journey, and if you have decided to disassociate from the Church I sincerely hope you have found a religious home that provides spiritual nourishment and purpose. There are a lot of good options out there.

66. Brian G,

    I know I’m walking on sensitive ground here–but let me ask a sincere question or two if I may: what if someone in your family came out as a polygamist? Would you feel that the church’s policies vis-a-vis polygamy were unfair or insensitive? What if that person were a sovereign citizen and didn’t believe that legal marriage was necessary? Would you feel that the church’s position on cohabitation was unreasonable?

    Now it certainly can be argued in the most sincere terms that we’re talking about apples and oranges when comparing the above situations to gay marriage. Even so, the Law of Chastity is no respecter of persons or situations. And this is at the crux of the argument–IMO. A person can believe that polygamy is the correct order of the things–they have that freedom of conscience–but they cannot practice it. Otherwise, they’re in violation of the commandments. And it’s the same with gay marriage or cohabitation. One’s personal philosophy on marriage may allow room for those particular arrangements within the scope of one’s personal sense of morality. But the Law of Chastity declares that putting such arrangements in *practice* is outside the boundaries that God has established for his people.

    And so, again–if you’ll permit me–your sweet daughter (and I have five daughters of my own–I know how precious they are) is entitled to all of the blessings of the Kingdom if she keeps the commandments–as is incumbent upon all of the saints. She doesn’t have to stop being gay–but she must abide by the Law of Chastity. I know that’s a very difficult challenge–and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone–but it’s doable.

    And so the long and short of it is: even though the policy may have felt like a gut punch to many people–and I’m sorry for those whose hearts were broken by it–it was really about boundary maintenance. While the church may be flexible vis-a-vis how it maintains the boundaries of chastity–it must be clear in how it delineates them.

    I wish you’d come back, brother. So far as I can tell–by reading your comments over the last while–you have a great heart.

67. I for one think the Brethren had good intent when they created the policy and the same good intent when they changed it back. It created a mess they didn’t intend and pretty much had to change it back.

    Since there are some here that appear to be members with LGBT children posting, I would like to ask a sincere question to you (or whoever has an opinion on the subject) about the struggle to support the church and your children. Why not support both? Why does it seem that parents in the church with LGBT kids must “pick” a side between the child/church? I am trying to understand what you are feeling. Why cant you love/support/accept both? Full transparency so you know where my views are coming from. I dont believe that every person that is gay was born that way and had no choice. I believe the majority are but many, many of our youth are being drawn into it just like kids are being drawn into being dogs/cats. Again, that’s my opinion based on my life’s bias and experiences. We did have a married woman (to a man) in our ward that got several of the YW aged girls (she was their trusted advisor) to have sexual relations with her that had no prior experiences or gay desires and I believe all those girls left the church and pronounced themselves gay. Which I think is what the world would tell you that you must be since you had sex with your own. Couldn’t possibly be any other reason. “I kissed a girl and I liked it” so I must be gay, no other explanation.

    I have a confession for you all. I was born an adulterer. I (male) have always since my youth wanted to have sex with every girl I was attracted to. I have been married (was a virgin for that) for 35 years and still want to do that. I have to be very aware of myself and my situations so I dont commit adultery and I have not. (except for the Jesus version of “in the heart”) Don’t throw stones, church would frown on me for being an adulterer and probably ask me to officially find another church to be a member of, so I understand what the LGBT are going through. (a little at least) If the church changes what chastity means and this change allows the LGBT and cats/dogs/fury’s members full fellowship and takes the “sin” out if it then you better believe I will want adulterer added to that LGBT list!

    Having said all that, I thought the real questionable part of the Nov 15 policy was the fact that they deemed same sex couples in the church as apostates…. huh? The quickest door out of the church is stealing $ from them. The 2nd is being pronounced an apostate. I think that has changed now (apostate part)

    Stephen C. I am sorry I went off on a tangent but I think the audience here can teach/help me understand some things from their perspective.

68. Jack – you mean well. I appreciate that.

    My daughter and her partner are doing very well outside of the church. They have a good life together and are happy. I couldn’t ask for more for her. When she came out, I mourned the future life I thought she should have in the church – mission, BYU, temple marriage, etc – what the church told me would make her and us happy, but I was wrong to do so. She has a great life.

    The church is on the wrong side of this issue. It should never have made this policy if it wanted gay families to stay. The church made it because they don’t. The changed it because it did more harm.

    Regarding polygamy vs gay marriage. It is a false equivalency. The OP doesn’t care about the differences and I am sure by now would label me apostate and a hypocrite.

    I don’t know how I would handle it if my children wanted to be fundamentalist Mormons, but I don’t think it is the same thing. I do think it shows how llmuch the church both fears and rejects gay families that it and this post are trying to force the equivalence in morality. It would be hard for everyone because if your children embraced that form of Mormonism they would reject me because I am apostate. And their sister and her partner. And I would worry about them so much more than if they told me they were gay.

69. My little brother left the church largely because of POX, how it devastated a faithful LGBT friend of his in the ward, and how local leadership reacted to it all.

    A few points that haven’t been mentioned here:

    1. The church should have been prepared for the leak. They published something big in a handbook sent to thousands and thousands of people and were surprised when the POX language leaked. They were entirely unprepared for the backlash. They claim to be “in touch” but it was pretty obvious from their failure to plan for the backlash that they were not, in fact, in touch.

    2. Initial reaction to the leak from several of my Facebook friends who are faithful members was that the POX language was a fabrication–that someone was making stuff up in order to hurt the church. They felt the language conflicted with their understanding of the New Testament, so of course it was fake. Of course once the church admitted to the language, these same Facebook friends rationalized a way to be okay with it.

    3. The initial language in the handbook excluded children with just one gay parent from being baptized. For example, an active LDS 8-year-old with a single mom who has full custody would still not be permitted to be baptized if the non-custodial father was living with another man. Either the church changed it’s mind on this or else it was just sloppy writing (I suspect the latter). The church “clarified” (changed) this language after about ten days following the leak. The first time I read the initial language, my very first thought was how it would affect people in this situation. It’s frankly shocking that no one who approved it caught on to that issue. It adds support to my suspicions that only one or two people in leadership approved it before its publication (and I have suspicions about who those individuals are). President Monson at the time was quite ill and I don’t believe he was involved except perhaps to okay it–which someone in that state of health should never have been asked to do.

    4. Elder Steven E. Snow retired from the 70s in 2019, and around the time he was released as emeritus he was interviewed and he had some choice words to say about the policy–essentially, “I don’t know what in the world they were thinking.” I echo his sentiments.

70. @Tim

    You are incorrect about the timeline. The leak happened even before the language was added to the handbook and promulgated to leaders. It originated from the COB and as you noted was draft language.

71. Someone above asked about why can’t members with gay children support both their child and the church? My reasons are not the most common because I had personal reasons that the church was hurtful to me as a woman and child abuse survivor. So, I was pushed further away from the church when our daughter came out and I saw how hateful the church was being toward gays. So, my leaving the church was compounded by my support of my daughter and her wife.

    But sometimes you have to choose sides because there is no neutral without harming the less powerful. An example is when a battered woman seeks help from her bishop and he refuses to help her leave because he doesn’t want to take her side over her husband who is saying he is so sorry. After ten or so “oh I am so sorry” and then next month another abusive episode, his being sorry doesn’t work because he isn’t doing anything to really change. So, the bishop refusing to “take sides” is really taking the abuser’s side against the wife. By remaining neutral when there is abuse, one enables more abuse.

    I see this as exactly why as the parent of a gay child I should not continue to support the church. The church is actively doing and saying things that tell my child she was born defective. That hurts. But the church refuses to see that it hurts. Well, OK, after years of hateful “you need to change who you are” speech the church is slowly softening the hate speech. But to my daughter, the damage was already done as she was growing up. My daughter in law was disowned by her parents for 15 years. They refused to even meet my daughter, even after they had been married for years. This hurts. Those same parents have a transgender child who is transitioning without letting the parents know because they are terrified of being treated like they saw their sister treated, so they are just staying far away from the parents and the poor religious Mormon parents don’t know why one child refuses to see them. And it is all because those parents are trying to do as Elder Oaks told the to. And the church can’t see that it is hurting both the LGBT children or the parents. I have a niece who cut her parents out of her life for 10 years, because the mother refused to accept her as gay. You just can’t continue to support a church that hurts people you love.

    So, why can’t gay parents support both their child and the church? Because they decide at some point that that kind of hurt doesn’t come from Jesus Christ, so the church isn’t really following Him.

72. I should add, that some parents can sort of support by still saying I love my child but she is sinning. And I love the church. So, it is kind of a love the sinner approach. Or better put, my rules are not hers. So a live and let live approach.

    Others of us maybe don’t love the church enough, or love our child too much to stand by and watch them be hurt.

73. I have a hard time Calling you Dragon Mama…. ;)

    Thanks for sharing with me, I really appreciate it. Just like me, your views/perspective are from your life in the church and since I did not have the same experiences, I appreciate you sharing them.

    Form my view, your examples seem like a bad bishop, and the culture of judgy members that we all have experienced. It is awful how member parents treat their children the way you have shared. Awful! This is not the “church” doing that to the kids IMO its the idiot members IN the church. Again, anyone in the church long enough who had a child not go on a mission, come home early, get pregnant, heck I was given crap by members for not going to mutual and working instead back in the day if you can imagine. God forbid if you have a smoking problem and come to church! The members are ridiculously judgy! Not all members but I dare say every ward has these same type you describe above. Coffee drinkers are “defective” in this church! If you dont read the BoM every day you are defective. Can you tell I hate the culture of the church? :) I am not aware of what Oaks said members should do so let me know what that is about.

    I love the gospel, but the members I try to tolerate. I look forward to the day that your daughter and her wife, if they want, can feel comfortable and accepted in the pews of the church. They will not get to participate fully, just as the coffee drinkers, non tithers, smokers, and less active members, dont get to but for sure there is room on the pew for all.

    And yes I think the leaders need to do a better job with the culture and I think they are trying but it will take a generation or two to see change IMO.

74. Dragon Mama, you did not grow up during the time when following the Word of Wisdom became mandatory. That was decades earlier than the 1950’s. It was well underway during the 1920’s. And if you grew up in the 1950’s, your children are decades past the age where they need their mama to protect them. Their adults now and maybe even retirement age, so step back and let them figure out their own spiritual lives. Your child isn’t evil and no one every said they were evil, but the idea that teenage sexual instincts are 100% righteous and we should just let them do whatever they want is just nuts.

75. @ Mike Sanders, 8-19 8:30 AM

    “The leak happened even before the language was added to the handbook and promulgated to leaders. It originated from the COB and as you noted was draft language.”

    I’m going to push back on this statement, since some clarification on that makes a big difference, particularly since if it was actually “draft language” then it provides additional evidence of Tim’s argument about the terrible way the policy was announced.

    While some individuals likely knew of the upcoming policy in June of 2015 (per the dates on Reddit discussions) and those individuals could certainly have been discussing “draft language”, the initial ‘leak’ that caused the largest member/media/public response occurred on November 5th in an email from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to thousands of church leaders. The language that people posted in publicly available spaces was directly copied from the included pdf from the church. This was the language that caused a significant reaction.

    https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/11/05/who-leaked-the-policy/

    From the source above:
    “Despite all this, let me be very, very clear: The identity of “the leaker” should’ve been obvious to everyone from Day One. The “leaker” was …. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the internet age, when you send an email to thousands of recipients, YOU’VE LEAKED YOUR OWN DOCUMENT…..”

    If the Church indeed included “draft language” in an email to thousands of church leaders, including Bishops in this case, with the explicit language that the policies were “‘effective immediately’, per the Church’s own declaration in its PDF-document” then this is significant evidence that the rollout was sloppy.

    There were several “clarifications” shortly afterwards. SOMETHING sparked the interview with E Christofferson, and then the letter clarification, and other further clarifications afterwards. In any case, the language included in an email to thousands of church leaders should not include “draft language” for a rollout if it is actually well-planned.

    Regarding the OP, the level of reaction of many individuals is even more understandable with Tim’s #3:
    “The initial language in the handbook excluded children with just one gay parent from being baptized. For example, an active LDS 8-year-old with a single mom who has full custody would still not be permitted to be baptized if the non-custodial father was living with another man. ”

    There are enough initial member reactions that echo Tim’s #2 to show that many faithful members found the language preventing baptism of children in general to be unconscionable, and particularly in this example. I do believe that most people did not know of the preceding polygamy policy until Nov 5th. Members across the US and World are more likely to know gay members of the church than polygamists and combined with the fact that it’s easier to have an emotional response to something that affects someone you know/care about than a group that is consistently categorized as an “other” and the different initial emotional reactions questioned by the OP become a little more understandable.

76. https://bycommonconsent.com/2015/10/11/polygamy-and-baptism-policy/

    Interestingly enough, this discussion occurred in October of 2015. Many commenters did not know of the explicit policy on the baptism of children in polygamist families, attributing the denial of baptism to the public nature of the polygamist family in question. And plenty of commenters find this policy to be unacceptable.

77. JD,

    I think Stephen’s post–at least in part–is asking why the policy on children of polygamous parents was not leaked–and then followed by a similar firestorm of criticism?

    Some arguments have been put forth to answer that question–and I think they have some degree of merit. But none of them seem to go the complete distance–IMO–because in spite of the differences between the two scenarios they just have too much in common. And it’s for that reason that I believe the main driver behind the leak and the subsequent outcry was ideology–as sincere as much of the reaction to the leak might’ve been.

78. I believed then and still believe today that the POX was a petty and childish temper tantrum thrown by our church authorities. They lost a battle; they lost control over the definition of marriage, as they saw it. Even in Utah they would be living in a place where marriage, with all of the attendant state-supported advantages, became more inclusive.

    They were angry and wanted to be clear that THEY WOULD NOT BEND OR CHANGE. They released a petty new policy, poorly thought-through and poorly rolled-out. They had to correct and fine tune it almost immediately after the silliness and stupidity of the first iteration landed. Their anger and frustration was seen as taken out on young children. They quickly saw that they said and did stupid things and they made corrections within a few days. Years later after they settled down even more they reversed much of the policy. Unprofessional, childish, and full of animosity towards sexual minorities.

79. @stephen hardy

    Thank you for your great example of OP’s observation.

80. Happy to be helpful

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