The Church of Latter-day Saints launched a new website today dedicated to improving its relationship with homosexuals, which, shall we say, has been a bit rocky.
The website, conveniently called Mormons and Gays (.org!), is aimed at providing “greater sensitivity and better understanding” to Mormons regarding said gays.
In a video introduction to the Mormons and Gays (.org!)’s website, Elder D. Todd Christofferson wants people who have same-sex desires and attractions to know that the Church’s attitude is, “stay with us.”
“I think that’s what God is saying: stay with me,” Christofferson says. “And I think that’s what we want to say in the church: stay with us, and let’s work together in friendship and commonality and brotherhood and sisterhood.”
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.
To further illustrate this mission, Mormons and gays (org!), features personal stories from church eladers, gay Mormons and Mormons with gay relatives to “show the human face of a sensitive matter,” LDS church spokeman Michael Purdy told Desert News.
According to the new site, the Church of Latter-day Saints believes it’s okay to be gay…just don’t be so gay about it:
The experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them. With love and understanding, the Church reaches out to all God’s children, including our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks reaffirmed that the church’s view — that sex should only occur between a married man and woman — “has not changed and is not changing,” but the way the church deals with homosexuality is changing…slightly.
“What is changing, and what needs to change, is to help our own members and families understand how to deal with same-gender attraction,” Oaks says in another introductory video.
Valerie Larabee, Executive Director of the Utah Pride Center, applauded the Churc of Latter-Day Saints praised the website as “a huge step in the right direction” by providing “a resource whose purpose is to help Mormon families and leadership recognize the ways they can reduce the isolation and rejection often felt by LGBTQ or questioning Mormons.”
Well, it’s at least a baby step in the right direction.
MikeE
I’m sorry but “sex should only occur between married people” and “gays shouldn’t be allowed to get married”, is just the grossest perversion of logic ever invented.
What you do is a sin before God, because we have decided that the one thing we say would make it “ok” should not be granted you.
That’s basic gist of it.
the other Greg
That exclamation point in “org!” is pretty gay.
Fidelio
Soooo, we can have gay thoughts, but we ought not have gay sex? Well, it may work for Brandon Flowers, but I’ll be damned if I havr to live a life of celibacy or *gasp* be vagina-friendly.
Katbox
Whenever I see the term “mormon” I always read it as “moron.” So odd
MK Ultra
This piece of nasty propaganda is offensive on so many levels.
Even if they had said ” change you dirty faggots”, it would not even come close to how disgusting this is.
The obnoxious passive agressiveness. How they can possibly say “we will degrade you, humiliate you, and dehumanize you, but… now we will be much more friendly about it because we still want your money”
That’s what ex gay torture and forced celibacy are(re: the mormon plan for gays) – degradation, humiliation, dehumanization…this is necessary in brainwashing to mentally, physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually break someone.
Idon’t seee this as a big or baby step.Its propaganda, plain and simple.
Its like Guitmo saying “we still torture people but we do it in a friendlier way now”
Nikkidane
How is this progress? Basically, they are still saying you are an abomination but we still want you to support our church. It’s outrageous!
Cam
This is no change from the same bigoted opinions they have always had.
There is only ONE difference.
They still hate gays, but they have realized that they have taken a massive PR hit from being such public bigots, AND they are losing a lot of members by kicking out the gay Mormons because a lot of their friends and family went with them.
So now they are staying “We still hate you, but please don’t leave because we don’t want to lose your families tithes and we don’t want people to know we’re bigots.
Cam
It’s like Saudi Arabia asking women not to move to other countries…but not changing any of the laws that discriminate against women.
moho.guy
I’m a gay Mormon who no longer participates in the church because of the church’s position on non-heterosexuals. In my opinion, the new website is nothing more than a PR maneuver. It is an attempt to stop the loss of members who are gay, support gay rights, and/or have gay family members. These people are leaving the church in large numbers. I grew up in the Mormon church and loved it for a long time. But I could not live any longer being continually shamed an abused by church leaders who said their mean and demeaning actions were for my own good. I felt very much like an abused spouse who finally realizes that the only way to stop the abuse is to escape. I think eventually the Church may change it’s position but I doubt it will be in my lifetime.
Charlie in Charge
Agree that this is an attempt to look to the public as if they are trying to extend a hand in friendship. Ultimately they have nothing real to offer GLBT Mormons.
Dawster
are they still using conversion/aversion therapy? Are they still sending their gay boys to Evergreen International?
because more than just not giving up dock, I refuse to give up the companionship God granted Adam just because I biologically evolved to same sex attraction.
1EqualityUSA
Misleading millions with this spurious cult with no historical nor archeological basis is what they should be apologizing for. Creepy outfit that buys its way into peoples lives. Go away! Prop H8 will never be forgotten. Go proselytize in 3rd world countries where handouts replace the true Saviour. Joe Smith is a joke and this sect is nefarious. The fact that strap-the-dog-to-the-roof-of-the-car- until-he-vomits-and-blows-diarrhea-Romney is a Bishop in this God forsaken nut farm just tells me how scary a young Nation can be. Don’t you have a gay kid to pin down with the help of cruel friends. How did you feel, Mittens, when you looked at your hack job on this kid’s hair? Do you remember the expression in his eyes? I bet you had the same expression in your eyes as you did during the Presidential debates, when Obama very eloquently instructed you to, Please proceed, Governor.” Mean bastard. Romney sucks and Mormons bite.
Charles175
@MK Ultra: The policy is entitled “Lying for the Lord”. Google it and you will see the details.
Lyceius
How is this a change? Haven’t all churches said its ok to be gay just don’t act on it? IMO religion is both the best and worst thing that ever happened to mankind.
Having faith and showing love and compassion to your fellow men is an amazing thing. Yet more death and wars have come out of religious differences..
Daniel-Reader
People are escaping the Mormon cult every single day and realizing their lives are all the better for it. http://exmormon.org/
Guillermo3
@Katbox: Not odd at all,Katbox:
Descriptive!But I prefer the ancient hippie sect of the cult:
The Church of J.C. of the LSD Saints.
Cam
@Charles175: said…
”
The policy is entitled “Lying for the Lord”. Google it and you will see the details.”
____________________
You’re absolutly right, I have always understood it to be, that lying wasn’t wrong if you did it to shelter the chruch from looking bad.
Pedro1989
When I was 7 years old 2 white boys came to our door in Boston MA, they convinced my parents that some guy named Jo Smith had written another testament of Jesus Christ (aka the bullshit Book of Mormon) and all the other B.S…Needless to say a few freaking weeks later my parents baptized into this cult. My life has never been the same ever sine. My brother is completely die-hard. Moved to Utah to attend BYU after going on a mission to Argentina to convince more people to join the cult. HE Is now a fully brainwashed, tithe paying, Utah Mormon. He goes to the temple once a week. Married a 4th generation Mormon gringa (in the temple of course! I couldn’t attend sodomite that I am), who’s now pregnant with their 3rd child. She’s only 29!
When I came out of the closet my mother called the bishop, who tried to get me to go into freaking counselling, I wouldn’t do it. Wanted me to go to BYU, I said no. Said if I went on a mission Heavenly Father would cure me of my affliction. Am now at CUNY…Mi abuela catolica is paying all my expenses out of the money she got when mi abuelo died. If not for her I don’t know what I would have done. Probably taken out a whole bunch of loans and gone into great amounts of debt. It is such an obvious lie, I don’t understand how my very intelligent father and mother can believe this crap. Joseph was a sexual pervert and conman. The current “prophet” Thomas Monson has yet to make one freaking prophecy. I still am a little socially awkward because of my upbringing in this shit of a cult.
BJ McFrisky
Apparently the Mormons haven’t yet learned that when you reach out to the gay community, you draw back a bloody stump. The intolerance of my gay brothers and sisters is second only to the KKK or the Black Panthers. You guys seriously need to work at lowering your hatred of others, especially when they’re extending an olive branch.
The real irony is that you guys mock any form of Christianity while embracing Islam, which really DOES want us dead or jailed. But then again, common sense doesn’t seem to be too, um, common around here.
Guillermo3
@BJ McFrisky: Incredible!,BJ
[meaning about you,not that you give good head_I wouldn’t know
about that]that you,of all people should complain about
others’ comments!
Cam
@BJ McFrisky:
BJ, you should know by now that you can’t make your little phony digs in here because you will be called out for not putting down any facts.
Fact, the Mormon church has NOT reached out to gays, they haven’t altered their doctrine, they haven’t stopped saying that being gay is sinful and that gay behavior is evil.
All they are saying is please don’t leave. THey are doing this because their membership numbers have taken a dive since the Prop 8 debacle.
You of course know this, but you are so self hating that you have to say something.
Guillermo3
@Cam: Actually,Cam,I think it was
Brigham Young who called his flock “God’s Own liars”. They were
known in the 2nd half of the 19th century for dressing as Indians
and attacking/raiding wagon trains heading for California.
Doing the Lord’s Work.
Guillermo3
@Cam: Damn,Cam!:You’re good!!
kah2007
I am a faithful latter-day saint and I have a best friend that I room with at college who experiences same-sex attraction and he has taught me more than I can ever remember a person teaching me about understanding who I am and thinking deeply about meaning in life.
I am going to speak boldly because nobody here seems afraid to do so. You all have gifts that very few people in the world have. You have had experiences thinking deeply about who you are and how others around you act and react when they learn about your lives. This has put you in a unique position to interpret human interaction at a level, that frankly, nobody else really has. Having been given that, knowing that is not something that I have been given, I can’t understand why you are prone to attack and belittle other people who may not be able to see things as deeply as yourselves. We are all imperfect, and I cannot claim that I have always had a decent idea of the experiences my friend has with same-sex attraction. My knowledge is increasing a lot, but one thing I have always had, is I have always thought kindly toward my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, even though their experiences are so foreign to me.
If you know the experience of being attacked on so many fronts because of somebody else’s misunderstanding, why would you attack individuals or organizations when there is so much that you may be misunderstanding. I do not know your lives nor your situations, therefore I cannot say with absolute certainty that all of your sentiments are unjust, but I want understanding, I want knowledge that leads to community, and you are the only ones that can help give it. You all have a mission in the world to teach others how to respect one other. Why won’t you show me that you’re learning something about that since you have been treated so poorly by so many people. I know only some of your challenges, but they are real, now please help us understand them so that attacks can stop on both sides.
Pedro1989
@Kah2007: Please go f**K yourself! You nor any other member of your cult are victims. I am so sick of bigots trying to twist things to present their bigotry as compassion! You are a f**king bigot and I really have no interest in all this faux love bs! You don’t believe that gay people are worthy of equal treatment (either in this world, or the world to come) and that is that. There is no need for all the BS that you wrote. Just state your bigoted beliefs and move along.
Dawster
@kah2007: because we are tired of being looked at as second class citizens.
because we are tired of religions holding a double standard… acting on gay feelings is an abomination yet fornication between straight adults is a lesser, easier understood sin.
because it is annoying to have good intentions and pleasant smiles hiding an inevitable superiority complex that comes when people of any closed- knit religion feel that they have the one true answer and everyone else is wrong.
yes, we bitch and peck because we don’t want understanding with conditions. human sexuality is one of the most beautiful spiritual experiences the world has to offer and yet we are told not to experience it because of whatever doctrine created.
I apologize on behalf of many of my community if it seems pointlessly attacking, but we have been attacked physically before and the result was Stonewall. now we are being attacked again mentally and emotionally and the results are teen suicide and lack of equal rights.
MK Ultra
@kah2007:
I know you’re mormon PR. I have you pegged from a million miles away buddy.
We don’t “have same sex attractions” you idiot. We are gay. Homosexuals.
You have the mormon mental disoder.
Your disorder has caused the death of our children, our parents, our friends, our lovers…
and you have the nerve to come here and and tell us “tsk, tsk”?
I hope I’ve been incredibly disrespectful with you, because you deserve no respect.
Everything you just wrote, I recognize as worthless propaganda, which means anything you write here is garbage.
Talk is cheap you PR hack. Get back to us when you’ve written a huge cheque to The Trevor project.
Guillermo3
@Pedro1989: Please try to calm down,
Pedro1989!I certainly own up to having made some pretty nasty
comments here,especially to self-hating closet cases who try to
find respite by projecting that hatred on the rest of us,BUT:I
believe that Kah2007 is sincere.
1EqualityUSA
Dear Kah2007,
The thing about the internet. Words are never forgotten, no matter how much they shake the etch-a-sketch, their past is a button away. Let me refresh your memory:
LDS Actions Against Marriage Equality
Mormons in the House of Representatives Vote for Discrimination
Despite LDS Crusade, Senate Rejects Ban on Gay Marriage
Anti-Gay Actions Carried Out by the LDS Church
Prelude to the National “Defense of Marriage” Campaign
Despite LDS Crusade, Senate Rejects Ban on Gay Marriage
“The Church got sucked into the jets of cynical GOP political strategy”
The Mormon Vote in the Senate
Orrin Hatch: Yea
Bob Bennett: Yea
Gordon Smith: Yea
Mike Crapo: Yea
Harry Reid: Nay
See Full Senate Voteby Matt Christensen
June 2006
The U.S. Senate rejected on June 7 a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, despite a carefully orchestrated political campaign in which the LDS Church joined a right-wing religious coalition and urged Mormon congregations to help pass the bill. If passed, the measure would have started the process of writing discrimination against gay and lesbian couples into the Constitution.
Mormon senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Bob Bennett, R-Utah, Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, voted for the so called “Marriage Protection Act,” while Mormon Senator and minority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., voted against it.
“For me it is clear the reason for this debate is to divide our society, to pit one against another,” Reid wrote on his website. “This is another one of the President’s efforts to frighten, to distort, to distract, and to confuse America. It is this Administration’s way of avoiding the tough, real problems that American citizens are confronted with each and every day.”
Columnist Holly Mullen critiqued the role of the LDS Church in the stunt. “On the amendment matter — whether intentional or not — the [LDS] church got sucked into the jets of cynical GOP political strategy,” Mullen wrote June 8 in The Salt Lake Tribune. “Bush took a desperate dive to shore up his lagging approval and his party by pushing a plan destined to fail from the first. For LDS leaders to align themselves personally with this transparent political ploy seems beneath its public reputation for repudiating hands-on political involvement, and frankly, for trying to do good.”
“The president failed this time,” Mullen added. “As did the church.”
Kah2007, Prop H8 is far from being healed and smooth speech will not win you anything. Your elders are creepy and counterfeit. Dare I say, your deceptive cult will likely incur more wrath than those of us with…”Same sex attractions.” At least we are honest about our true selves. Your cult is a disaster. Go away!
GayBacon
AHHH shit they almost had me. So basically “hate the sin, not the sinner” supposed attitude the Roman Catholics have. Well we all know what that means, more funding to not only stop gay marriage but make gay and “sinful” activity illegal. Well I changed my attitude towards the LDS Cult as well. Many people don’t choose to be a Mormon but are born into a family that actively persuades you become a Mormon. Having thoughts of being a nonChristian isn’t a sin, but acting upon them and becoming a Mormon is….
Guillermo3
@GayBacon: PLEASE!.GayBacon,Get your
terminology right! It’s MORON.
1EqualityUSA
Some people strictly observe religious beliefs and attempt to force others to live under their personal beliefs. Americans, for whom God has not yet manifested, should be free of the beliefs of those for whom God has become essential. Christians were given the choice to accept or reject God’s presence so, should not Americans be afforded this same generosity from our government?
Freedom from religious incitement is imperative. Oppressed Americans will be funneled into the political machine. Equality, bartered, is oppression. Mormonism, a deceitful, counterfeit sect with no historical nor archeological basis, make this inauthentic brand of political oppression all the more caustic.
MK Ultra
My fellow LGBT remember, mormons like to blah blah blah talk alot. But actions speak louder than words.
Notice how mormon clowns always start out with “I have a gay roommate/cousin/friend whom I respect/love/appreciate”
In professional propaganda this is known as ” the foot in door” technique. Its meant to disarm you, so you don’t expect the BS they’re about to lay on you.
Then there is the fake snake oil salesman charm – “I think you’re so brave and special”.
I wonder if people like kah2007 show the same charm to the children they expirament on in ex gay concentration camps?
Then there is the insincire plea “I want to understand you!”
My fellow LGBT, do you believe that internment at ex gay concentration camps and coherced celibacy under threats are “understanding”!!!? Or is it the opposite of understanding? Is it supression?
The point I want you all to take away is the mormon cult knows they’re losing on the gay issue,thus they will increase their propaganda 10 fold.
They will send out mormon POS like kah2007 to use words like “LOVE! UNDERSTANDING! ACCEPTANCE!”
But remember, the words are hollow and meaningless if they arent backed up by actions.
The actions of the mormon cult are 100% of the time are hyper anti gay.
Mormon cult = ex gay torture chambers and ex gay concentration camps for young children.
Mormon cult = #1 terrorist of gays in the US.
BJ McFrisky
@MK Ultra: Not a religious man myself, but why in the hell would you care about a religious group in a different country? Why does this subject have you so up in arms and typing for a (obviously) very long time? Mayhaps you should clean your own house, Mr. Brit, before you castigate others on the condition of theirs.
Dirk Vanden
I grew up in Mormon Country, north-eastern Utah, Vernal, and Mormonism was all i knew for 16 years, from 1933 to 1949. I believed it totally for 16 years. Then i spent a summer at a Denver University Theatre Workshop in Denver and met several homosexual students who seemed like nicer people than the religious folks back home. But when i asked a Mormon Bishop about “Men who like other men,” he said “Run from those men as you would run from a snake. They are abominations in the sight of God.”
Then during my senior year of high school, we went on a Field Trip to the Dinosaur National Monument, in Craig, Colorado, 18 miles east of Vernal. The signs in the museum said that the exibited bones dug from the surrounding sandstone hills were from dinosaurs millions of years old. Mormons believed that the earth was between 6000-8000 years old. When i asked my teacher to explain it, she said, and I quote “God made those bones and put them there to test our faith.” That, as it turned out, was the last straw for me. God tested my faith all right, and turned me into an agnostic, then an athiest. I’m now a famous & prize-winning Gay Author who have written 7 anti-Mormon novels plus my autobiography IT WAS TOO SOON BEFORE… which deals in detail with my battles with Moronism–which just last week won a Rainbow Award for Best Biography. The minute i stepped back and started studying Mormonism from the outside, i realized it was simply Christianity with a before & after added by Joe Smith, boy prophet He was a teenager when he invented Mormonism. Joseph invented a pre-existance in which Jesus and Satan were brothers, God’s sons, who had a War In Heaven to see who could bring the most souls to God. Satan lost. Jesus won and got to be The Savior in this life. “Negroes” were believed to be “The Sons of Cain,” the world’s first murderer, and their dark skin was a badge of shame for being fence-sitters in the War in Heaven. Brigham Young taught that they were filthy and lazy and not fit to hold the Mormon Priesthood, or even membership in the church. That, of course had changed. The Mormon Prophet had a chat with God–on a planet named Kolob, in the exact center of the Universe–who said that Black People could now be Morons and pay their 10% tithing. In Joseph’s Afterlife, if you are a Good MOrmon and have raised lots and lots of Good Mormon children, then God will give you a planet of your own to play God on,you & the missus, of course; you are joined together for Time and All Eternity (how much like Hell would that be?) and see if you can do better than Jehovah, or whatever the MOrmon God’s name is. I can’t remember if he had a name. I remember he has lots and lots of wives and many many children, on Kolob, but no name.
There have been signs working up to this–they started an outreach program in San Francisco a year ago. I assumed they were doing the same thing in cities with significant Gay populations. I am convinced that they are preparing to do the same thing with Gays, as with Negroes, and that the current Prophet Monson will have a vision that says its all right with God to be Gay if you join the Mormon Church, get married in the Temple, go on missions to save other lost Gays, and to adopt unwanted children and raise them as Mormons–and pay 10% of their tithing. The moving finger has writ “Gay Marriage” in big huge letters on the wall of Life, and Mormon Prophets can read. If it’s inevitable, they will try to incorporate it. Their Article of Faith #9 allows God to change his mind: “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” That lets Pres Monson have a vision making it Ok to be Gay IF!
I also predict that their outreach will be rejected like Christians rejecting vampires, with crossed fingers. GAYS & OTHER QUEERS: Resist the Morons, they only want your money & your number, to say they are the richest, per capita, and the fastest growing church on earth. If you take one letter from “Mormon,” Joe’s wandering Jew, or “Moroni,” Joe’s revealing Angel, what you have left are Morons. I’ll bet it was Joe’s little joke. Reject Moronism!It is not good for your soul. Any bets on how long it will take for Pres Monson to have that vision and make the announcement????
Dirk Vanden
BTW my “Legal” name is Richard Fullmer
Dirk Vanden
http://www.amazon.com/Before-unlikely-untimely-unexpected-rebirth/dp/1590213548/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335626216&sr=1-5
1EqualityUSA
Dirk Vanden, Thanks for adding your insight to this counterfeit cult that just won’t go away. The thought that a nut-job such as this was seriously considered for the highest office in the land sends cortisol rushing through my circulatory system.
ginger5010
as Adam implied I’m shocked that you able to earn $7328 in one month on the internet. did you look at this page cloud68dotcom
Guillermo3
CENSORED AGAIN,WITHOUT NOTICE:That’s 3 times in less than an hour.
FUCK QUEERTY.
Guillermo3
@ginger5010: ginger5010:cloud68dotcom
is a Bull Shit Pie in the Sky sales pitch,and their ownership of
the domain name has expired.
I resent[unfortunately,you are not the first person to do it]
your using these comments pages to shill a product,especially
one bearing NO relevance to the topics at hand.