The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) teaches that homosexual sexual activity is sinful under its law of chastity and that God does not approve of same-sex marriage. Adherents who participate in same-sex sexual behavior may face church discipline. Members of the church who experience homosexual attractions, including those who self-identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual remain in good standing in the church if they abstain from same-sex marriage and any homosexual sexual activity or sexual relationships outside an opposite-sex marriage. However, all people, including those in same-sex relationships and marriages, are permitted to attend the weekly Sunday meetings.

In order to receive church ordinances such as baptism, and to enter church temples, adherents are required to practice sexual abstinence outside a legal marriage between one man and one woman. Additionally, in the church's plan of salvation noncelibate gay and lesbian individuals will not be allowed in the top tier of heaven to receive exaltation unless they repent during mortality, and a heterosexual marriage is a requirement for exaltation. The church's policies and treatment of LGBTQ people have long been a source of controversy both within and outside the church, and a notable cause of disagreement and disaffection among members.

The LDS Church has campaigned against government recognition of same-sex marriage, and the topic of same-sex marriage has been one of the church's foremost public concerns since 1993. It has also supported legislation protecting members of the LGBTQ community against discrimination in employment, that also exempt religious institutions from honoring these protections. As of 2018, penalties from church leaders are stiffer for same-sex sexual sins than for heterosexual ones in matters of general church discipline, missionary requirements, and code of conduct enforcement at church-run universities.

The church's statements and actions throughout its history have overwhelmingly focused on male homosexuality, and only rarely on female homosexuality (lesbianism) or bisexuality. Church leaders previously taught that homosexuality was a curable condition. They counseled members that they could and should change their attractions, and provided conversion therapy and programs with that goal. From 1976 until 1989, the church handbook of policies called for church discipline for members attracted to the same sex, punishing merely being homosexual with sanctions similar to those for acts of adultery and child molestation. Even celibate gay people were subject to excommunication.

More recent church publications state that individuals do not choose same-sex attractions, and the church opposes conversion therapy. Church-run therapy services no longer provide sexual orientation change efforts. and the church has no official stance on the causes of homosexuality. Current teachings indicate that members who experience same-sex attraction may either pursue a mixed-orientation marriage with an opposite-sex partner or remain celibate

Overview

Summarized changes in teachings through the decades

Since the first recorded mentions of homosexuality by top church leaders, teachings and policies around the nature, etiology, mutability, and identity around same-sex romantic and physical attractions have seen many changes through the decades. Church teachings and rhetoric regarding homosexuality have shifted over time. In earlier decades, some global church leaders (called general authorities) suggested various possible causes of homosexuality—including addiction, environmental influences, family dynamics, and selfishness —while generally dismissing biological explanation The church has since reversed many of its stances around homosexuality, including moving to a stance of neutrality on the origins of homosexuality, and acknowledging by implication that past leaders' encouragement of mixed-orientation marriages may have been erroneous. A table summarizing some of the major shifts in official dialogue is shown below.

+ Summary of changes in teachings on homosexuality Topic Earlier teachings Transitional teachings Current teachingsInborn No Maybe No position See also The Salt Lake Tribune's archived transcript here.Causes Addiction, Video also available at churchofjesuschrist.org masturbation, pornography, Also linked here. family dysfunction, smothering mother, distant or weak father, sexual abuse, selfishness, speaking about it, gender non-conforming dress or behavior Biological and environmental factors No positionIdentity and labels Wrong to use gay labels Identifying as gay is acceptableSexual orientation change efforts Electroshock aversion therapy recommended, reparative therapy encouraged, curable disease, should be overcome Conversion therapy may be appropriate, denounces any abusive practices Church opposed to it, and church therapists no longer practice itHeterosexual dating and marriage As a therapeutic step Not to be seen as a therapy or solutionDescriptors used by leaders Filthy, obscene, monstrous, devilish, degenerate, abominable, gross, evil, deviant, vicious, perverted, wicked, malady, contaminating Unnatural, burden, impure, gender disorientation, weakness, tendency, selfish, distortion and perversion, addictive behavior Trial, struggle, challenge, mortal test, difficult, hopeless, powerful inclination, immoral

Though the church's position of homosexual behavior as sinful has remained the same, the tone in rhetoric from top leaders has transitioned to sympathetic concern for those "afflicted" with same-sex attraction. Some researchers from the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion argue that this shift is ultimately just reproducing the same anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, but disguising it "in a kinder package" with a "gentler façade" to deflect criticism of overt homophobia, and that this rhetoric serves to strengthen institutional church power and the heterosexual subordination of LGBTQ people despite their growing societal acceptance. In reference to the harsh rhetoric on homosexuality of the past, the apostle D. Todd Christofferson stated in 2015, "I think we can express things better." The same year the apostle Dallin H. Oaks spoke on the topic saying, "I know that the history of the church is not to seek apologies or to give them. We sometimes look back on issues and say, 'Maybe that was counterproductive for what we wish to achieve,' but we look forward and not backward."

Previous teachings that have changed include the belief that homosexual attractions themselves were not inborn, Also quoted in Newsweek here. and a curable illness. In 1959, in response to a rash of arrests of gay men in Utah and Idaho, church president David O. McKay appointed the apostles Spencer W. Kimball and Mark E. Petersen to focus on "curing" gay members. That same year the church's largest school Brigham Young University (BYU) began its on-campus electroshock aversion therapy program attempting to eliminate or diminish homosexual attractions which lasted over three decades into the mid-1990s. At the time, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) classified homosexuality as a mental illness in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and Kimball adamantly stated on multiple occasions that it could and should be cured. Transcript reprint with permission by the Mental Health Resource Foundation at mentalhealthlibrary.info. Note: References to homosexuality were removed in the reprinted version of the speech in the 1972 book compilation of Kimball's speeches "Faith Precedes the Miracle." Kimball also taught that local church leaders could influence gay members by quoting scripture to them, appealing to their reason, encouraging them to abandon gay lovers and associates, praying with them, and encouraging them to replace any sexual expression of homosexual feelings with heterosexual dating. In 1973 the APA removed homosexuality from the DSM, and in 1990 the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its list of disorders in the International Classification of Diseases.

Later, the church softened its stance on gay feelings, instead shifting to a focus on homosexuality as a behavior that should be overcome. This change was reflected in a 1992 guidebook update removing all previous references to homosexuality as a disease. Top leaders also taught on several occasions from the 1970s to the early 2000s that homosexual feeling may stem from a confusion over one's gender identity or gender roles. Since then the church has acknowledged the differences between gender identity and sexual orientation.

Some changes in teachings have seemed abrupt and contradictory as was the case in 1995 when a First Presidency leader affirmed in the church's Ensign magazine that the idea of an inborn homosexual orientation was a false belief with no scientific evidence, reasoning that if homosexuality were inborn it would frustrate God's plan. In the next month's edition, however the apostle Oaks refuted those statements (though without referring to them directly) by asserting that inheritance may have a complex relationship with a person's homosexual orientation.

In canonized scripture

The entire body of canonized LDS scriptures (i.e. the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants) is silent on same-sex sexual activity, except for the Bible. However, one man's heterosexual misconduct (coupled with forsaking a ministry) was described in the Book of Mormon as the "most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost." The church interprets certain Bible passages as forbidding same-sex erotic behavior.

Proposed historical tolerance

LDS historian Greg Prince wrote that prior to 1968 there was no standardized church response to homosexual attractions and intercourse, and that the most frequent response for over a century had been "benign neglect". Similarly, the LDS-raised historian D. Michael Quinn stated that early church leaders had a more tolerant view of homosexuality given that during the 19th century, the church (like American society as a whole) was relatively tolerant of same-sex intimate relationships. Quinn also stated that several prominent Utahns were not disciplined after stating they were living in romantic relationships with their same-sex domestic partners (though historic evidence often only hints at and does not prove sex between particular individuals). For example Mormon Tabernacle Choir director Evan Stephens never married a woman but had intimate relationships and shared a bed with a series of male domestic partners and traveling companions. These relationships were described with a euphemism in a church magazine.

Also notable was the relationship of Louise B. Felt and May Anderson, the church's first two general presidents of Primary, the church's organization for children. They lived together in the same bedroom for decades and were referred to by other top Primary leaders as the "David and Jonathan" of Primary. Additionally, LDS-raised sociologist Kimball Young cited the early church's practice of sealing men to each other as evidence of latent same-sex romantic desires.

Early instances