From contradictions to compassion, the LDS Church struggles with LGBTQ+ inclusion

Author: Keith Burns

Despite assertions of immutability and consistency, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’s positions on sexuality and gender have proven fragile and changeable across time. Throughout much of the 19th century, for example, plural marriage between a man and multiple women was taught as an “everlasting covenant” that would never be abolished. Under intense scrutiny and pressure from the US government, the Church officially abandoned the practice in 1890 and currently teaches that only marriage between one is a Sarah Lawrence College graduate, specializing in Mormonism and sexuality.