More than 100,000 Mormons will pour into Salt Lake City this weekend to worship and exchange new (very old) ideas, as the Quorum of the Twelve meets for an annual conference at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ world headquarters.
There’s obviously a lot going on amid the spiritual gathering, both inside the church and out, but don’t worry — church leaders managed to find time to reassure everyone that they still intensely hate homosexuality. You should too.
“While many governments and well-meaning individuals have redefined marriage, the Lord has not,” said Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve (FYI the Quorum of the Twelve is a group of dudes that rank second-highest in the governing body of the LDS Church). “He designated the purpose of marriage to go far beyond the personal satisfaction and fulfillment of adults, to more importantly, advancing the ideal setting for children to be born, reared and nurtured.”
It seemed as though the LDS Church had softened its position on gays last year, when it showed support for the Boy Scouts lifting an archaic ban on gay scout leaders. Not the case, apparently. Sorry, Neon Trees guy.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Along with believing that Jesus once visited America, the Church still firmly asserts that marriage is between one man and one woman. Or one man and several women, depending on the circumstances.
Seattle Pi breaks down their soft aversion to gays:
The church teaches that while same-sex attraction itself isn’t a sin, succumbing to it is.
The church’s message on homosexuality has evolved since it was one of the leading forces behind California’s Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage. A website launched last year encouraged more compassion toward gays, implored them to stay in the faith and clarified that church leaders no longer “necessarily advise” gays to marry people of the opposite sex in what used to be a widely practiced Mormon workaround for homosexuality.
Oh, okay! Wonder how they feel about gay slut converts?
Kieran
The Mormons. Isn’t that the sect that many of us remember refused church membership to black people? But then, around 1978, one of the church elders got a new “revelation”. Guess what? Blacks weren’t “cursed” by God after all. It was all a big misunderstanding.
And yet Mormons will tell you with a straight face that Mormon religious doctrine can never change.
thomwatson
Just today we saw yet another amicus brief from the Mormons, this time in Virginia, urging courts to deny ALL Americans, even those who aren’t Mormons, civil marriage equality; they’ve submitted such a brief in every single marriage equality case to date. I’m not sure how this is a “soft” aversion, when they’re sticking their religious beliefs into civil marriage and Constitutional guarantees of equality.
gaym50ish
It’s ironic that a church that gave up polygamy only to allow Utah to become a state would preach “traditional” marriage.
Admitting that the doctrine on homosexuality has been wrong for more than 150 years would be a profound change for the Mormons, and there may be some fear of the church splitting as it did over the polygamy issue. Still, there is hope that some future Mormon “prophet” will have a revelation and the church’s official gay-bashing will end.
Another hopeful sign is that Marie Osmond and some other high-profile Mormons are more gay-friendly (Marie supports her lesbian daughter). And 57 percent of gay Mormons report that they’ve attempted suicide, so as a practical matter you would think they might want to soften their stance just to save lives.
If nothing else, they could at least stop excommunicating gays. It’s a big deal in their church, because they believe excommunication means they won’t see their loved ones in the afterlife.
gaym50ish
There is so much hypocrisy in the LDS Church. A gay ex-Mormon wrote on a blog site that he has never had a boyfriend, but when he was a young man there were several married Mormon men who would visit him for sex about once a month.
“They would go home to their wives and kids feeling guilty,” he wrote, “until they couldn’t stand not being with a man and would come to visit again.”
Ben Dover
Is there a porn video about two young Mormon missionaries – like the boys in the picture – knocking on a gay dude’s door and he invites them in and gets them (secretly) a little drunk and then he f*cks them? (Separate condoms, of course.) If there is I’d like to see it!
Dave in Northridge
There sure is, Ben, and more than one. It’s one of the sequences in Buckleroos 2, but these missionaries decide to give up their mission. I’ve seen another in which two missionaries go to a mechanic to get a bike fixed, but they don’t have any money, so the mechanic tells them to play with each other while he watches. I’m sure I’ve just scratched the surface too.
Billy Budd
These guys are all insane.
Ruhlmann
@Ben Dover: Years ago in Vancouver B.C. I was in the backyard sanding down some wood and two missionaries came around back. They had tried the front door and heard the sander. One guy was older, about 37 or so and good looking the other guy was this really cute 19-20 year old with a real farm boy kinda look.
Well the older guy talked a bit about the bible, jesus and god and after about fifteen minutes I interrupted him and told him that I just didn’t believe in god and although I was not a believer I did not begrudge his belief. I also told him that his faith was at odds with my lifestyle. He understood my meaning completely but farm fresh seemed confused. Well older guy pondered this a moment and farm fresh looked concerned and older guy asked if we could all go inside to discuss this. I politely declined and when he persisted in telling me that my immortal soul was at risk I had enough. I looked older guy square in the eye and said “I’ll tell you what, we can all go inside and I’ll give you an hour to explain to me what good is all about, but then I get to show you both what bad is all about. Does that sound like a deal?”, and I looked to farm fresh and smiled. I still chuckle when I recall farm fresh very amiably saying “okay” and heading to the back door completely oblivious to my meaning. Well older guy calls him by name and hooks him by the arm and says good day to me while leading farm fresh out of the backyard while mumbling to him something which made him look back at me in shock and double his pace.
I felt something akin to evil and I got a boner imagining defiling farm fresh while looking at older guy square in the eye.
litper
Deport them ALL to Uganda!
tookietookie
I was raised Mormon. I was patient, and civilly waited for rationality from their quarter. The most well-meaning of them simply threw their hands on the air and admitted they didn’t have the answers I sought.
Even after a childhood of alienation, hatred, and bigotry from adults only in name (I was the adult, although only a child), I gave these pea brains chance after chance.
What became clear was that declarations like this to the church membership came from a mix of homophobic straights (men and women) who had no clue what they were talking about (except self-referencing their own miserable paradigm they brought upon themselves, and quite a few gay men in denial.
This “informs” their narratives and worldview, which are built out of straw.
They abdicated real experience of humanity for cold, irrational, and heartless dogma. They are snake-oil salesmen to this day (Romney), just like their founder Joseph Smith.
That being said, there are lots of otherwise good people in their ranks who are compromised by their cultist mindset, which is sad.
But – bottom line – nothing they say can be taken seriously.
thomwatson
@tookietookie: “That being said, there are lots of otherwise good people in their ranks who are compromised by their cultist mindset, which is sad.”
Frankly, that’s how I feel about pretty much any adherent of any religion.
AxelDC
They just announced their lowest growth rate since 1947. Coincidence?
NateOcean
Mormons hate Jews, Gays, Blacks, Latinos, Catholics, and Women*. Did I miss anyone?
——————
*Don’t get me wrong, they love to _fuck_ women, they just don’t treat them particularly well otherwise.
SpaceInvader
Well that’ll be a revealing confab. What with all of those deeply closeted gay men in & around SLC… Oh the guilt and shame they’ll be trying to pray away AFTER they have man on man sex !!! All religion is a bunch of bs anyway. A total patriarchal system all about control,money & power. And the “leaders” of religions wonder why people are defecting in droves.. One reason:telling people they’re bad/evil because they’re gay/lesbian,etc. Well here’s a newsflash : God made them that way, you closed minded dumb ass moronic Neanderthals !!!
EGO
I get tired of them saying that the lord says this and the lord says that, all of which is a bunch of hockey puck. People say this and people say that and pass it on as though the lord said it. The people that wrote the religious books use to believe the world was flat. I was brought up as a Mormon in Boise, Idaho and in 1955 gays were prosecuted and sent to prison. Guess what? Nine out of ten of the gays were Mormon. What a bunch of hypocrites, just like the Catholic priests who molest boys and the church hides them and sends them to other parishes.
Bobby Christina Crawford
Mormon’s have the whitest asses on the planet. The sort of ass that just begs to be spanked with Daddy’s belt…….HELLLLLLL…………OH!
Cam
Queerty Said…. “The church’s message on homosexuality has evolved since it was one of the leading forces behind California’s Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage. A website launched last year encouraged more compassion toward gays
____________________
And once again, Queerty can’t run an article on the Mormons without trying to push forward the lie that the church has evolved.
No it hasn’t, they are still filing friend of the court briefs in gay marriage cases fighting against marriage, they are still funding anti-gay activities through NOM. And that website that Queerty LOVES to mention basically said, the church hasn’t changed it’s opinion, but please stay anyway because we still want your tithing money.
Matthew Tharrett
@Cam: Are you completely or just partially blind?
Queerty did not “say” any of the quotes you’ve misidentified as being written by Queerty. I’m not sure how you’ve taken “Seattle Pi breaks down their soft aversion to gays,” a colon, a link to an offsite article, and an indented block quote as something Queerty wrote — and I’m not sure how much more obvious I can make it that this paragraph is being reprinted from a different source without saying “Hey everyone, the next paragraph is being pulled and reprinted from a different site. Queerty did not write it.” Are you new to the Internet?
Furthermore, it’s an incredible stretch to believe this article in any way suggests that the “church has evolved.” The entire purpose of this post was to show just how much it has NOT evolved, despite masquerading as an evolving organization last year.
Perhaps you read an article elsewhere and commented on the wrong page? Or maybe you didn’t read the article at all?
Do not come here and shove words in my mouth.
Cam
@Matthew Tharrett:
Nice Try Matthew, but your attept to deflect is sad.
Did Queerty or did Queerty not RUN THOSE QUOTES. They did. You posted them. Whether or not you wrote them is a sad deflection attempt. My point stands, that whenever an article about Mormons is written Queerty will go out of it’s way to insert sentences about it’s phony evolution or it’s false website that is supposed to reach out to gays.
If you have to come on here and defend what your article actually said it would seem to indicate that either your point was not put across well, or that we did indeed see what Queerty was trying to do and you did not like being exposed.
I’ve also noticed that you have jumped on your own posts multiple times to accuse people of “Putting words in your mouth”
If you have been “Misunderstood” so many times by so many people that would seem to indicate an issue with your writing now wouldn’t it?
Cam
@Matthew Tharrett:
Oh, and starting your repsonse out with a bitchy little insult? Thank you for showing us the level of the Queerty editors.
You may not go and delete my post now, as we’ve seen that this is what Queerty has begun doing.
tricky ricky
they’re still wiring boys up with electrodes and showing dirty pictures and then shocking them. is there a Mormon on the queerty staff? this isn’t a church this is a cult with a doctrine some guy pulled out of his *ss so he could have power and multiple wives. while all religions are false because there is no supernatural, Mormonism is particularly false because we know who the dude was that made all this sh*t up! Mormons are trying to mainstream themselves without actually changing their real views. they’re lying deceivers of the worst sort.
Stefano
@Cam : maybe It is time to boycott Queerty?
anti-liberal
What do you expect them to hold an ugly gay pride exhibition and be proud of decadence?
Cam
@anti-liberal:
Oh of course not, they are FAR too busy trying not to talk about how they didn’t allow blacks full membership until around 1980 after the PR got so bad that major schools were going to boycott playing BYU, then suddenly they had a “REVELATION”.
Oh, and let’s not forget the LDS church trumpeting it’s victory when the ERA amendment for women’s rights was shut down.
So basically the Mormons have been on the wrong side of bigotry and history for pretty much every single issue in the last 50 years. Why should they change now?
anti-liberal
I ask what is the right side of history? Making an exhibition of decadence by evaluating how much liberal women, blacks and other “communities” do contribute so much for the economy and the strength of the nation by paying so much taxes while the hateful white guys take advantage of it and live on the dole. Yeah in a fantasy world…(liberal world).
Throbert McGee
@Cam:
The issue, Cam, is with your own reading ability, which in many ways is below that of many people who speak English as a Second Language.
I suspect, also, that TV and texting and Twitter have all combined to give you the attention-span of a hyperactive toddler, and that you tend to shoot off your mouth without thinking even when you’re typing a comment on a website thread, and that when someone calls you out for your mistake, you have a habit of trying to shift the blame to THEM.
However, I feel free to say this with candor because I’m not an editor here; I’m just another poster like you. And I agree that it was not very professional for Matthew Tharrett, Queerty Editor to be so condescending to a user. I fully sympathize with Mr. Tharrett, believe me I do, but maintaining professional decorum is still important.
fragman
Thank you for sharing this fine article. Keep up the good works.