What was official Church LGBTQ policy from 1830-1968?
Actual unretouched photo of Marci’s scriptures
(post updated 8/27/2021)
According to Gregory Prince, nothing. No official policy, no mention, from Joseph through Brigham and onward to Wilford, Lorenzo and Heber. Not until President David O. McKay. “The first time homosexual appeared in the Church Handbook of Instructions —the Mormon embodiment of canonical law that was first published in 1899 — was 1968, and then it was part of a lengthy list of transgressions that might result in church disciplinary action,” stated Prince in his book, Gay Rights and the Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019, 10).
Prince continued, “No explanations or guidelines accompanied its mention, and thus a single word inserted into an earlier list was all that defined official policy on LGBT issues after 138 years of the church’s existence.”
A year later in 1969, then-apostle Spencer W. Kimball published his book, Miracle of Forgiveness. “Prior to Miracle, homosexual was a word rarely used within Mormonism,” Prince pointed out. (For Marci’s thoughts on that book, see previous blog post, “To burn or not to burn? S.W.Kimball’s “The Miracle of Forgiveness.”)
While there may have been no OFFICIAL written LGBTQ policy, Kyle Ashworth at Latter Gay Stories points out that there were many LGBTQ statements and actions, dating back to Joseph Smith’s time. These included exile, physical punishment, and other horrific actions (download On the Record, an interactive PDF document, for details).
Some folks like Derek Knox of BeyondtheBlock point out that the Church’s LGBTQ policy has never been sustained by the general Church membership, and is therefore cultural, not doctrinal. Michael R. Ash explained, “The Prophet can add to the scriptures, but such new additions are presented by the First Presidency to the body of the Church and are accepted by common consent (by sustaining vote) as binding doctrine of the Church (see D&C 26:2; 107:27-31) (“What is ‘Official’ LDS Doctrine?” FairLatterdaySaints.org, 2).
“Until such doctrines or opinions are sustained by vote in conference, however, they are ‘neither binding nor the official doctrine of the Church’” (Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christian?, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992, 15, quoted in the same FAIR article).
Future LDS LGBTQ policy? Stay tuned.
-Marci