The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has connected a number of forms of oppression, most notably sexism, heterosexism, and racism.
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Sexism
“Men are called as high priests because of their exceeding faith and good works — They are to teach the commandments — Through righteousness they are sanctified and enter into the rest of the Lord — Melchizedek was one of these — Angels are declaring glad tidings throughout the land — They will declare the actual coming of Christ. About 82 B.C.”
Chapter 13, Book of Alma in The Book of Mormon
The Bishops Council of LDS (an all-male assembly) recently excommunicated life-long committed member in absentia, Kate Kelly, on the charge of “apostasy” for “conduct contrary to the laws and order of the church.” The “conduct” to which the Bishops refer amounts to Kelly’s lobbying efforts for the Church to change its policies and finally allow women’s ordination. Kelly serves as a lawyer and she cofounded the website OrdainWomen.org as a forum to raise issues and provide discussion on this crucial topic. According to the website:
“Ordain Women aspires to create a space for Mormons to articulate issues of gender inequality they may be hesitant to raise alone. As a group we intend to put ourselves in the public eye and call attention to the need for the ordination of Mormon women to the priesthood.”
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The Bishops told Kelly in an email message that she could gain reinstatement after one year if she exhibited “true repentance” and relinquished her activism for women’s ordination. Kelly, however, claiming she “did nothing wrong,” vowed not to give up her fight, and though she does not have hope for a reversal, she plans to appeal the decision.
Heterosexism
“Homosexual behavior violates the commandments of God, is contrary to the purposes of human sexuality, distorts loving relationships, and deprives people of the blessings that can be found in family life and in the saving ordinances of the gospel. Those who persist in such behavior or who influence others to do so are subject to Church discipline. Homosexual behavior can be forgiven through sincere repentance.” — The Handbook of Instructions, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
These words supposedly expressed God’s revelation to the leadership of LDS, and reaffirmed in 1995 when the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles entered the debate on the parameters of marriage by issuing “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” It stated in part,
“We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His Children” and claiming that the power to create children “is not an incidental part of the plan of happiness. It is the key – the very key … This commandment has never been rescinded.”
Leaders and members of the Church, therefore, justified contributing an estimated 20 million dollars to the 2008 California Ballot 8 initiative campaign, which succeeded in limiting the rights and benefits of marriage to one man and one woman.
If the Church’s position on same-sex attractions, expression, and marriage for same-sex couples was not clear enough, LDS President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, Boyd K. Packer, referred to homosexuality throughout a sharply worded sermon as “wrong,” or “basically wrong,” “wicked,” “impure,” “unnatural,” “immoral,” “against nature,” “evil,” and as a threat to civilization. Packer’s sermon, delivered to the more than 20,000 participants in the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City, and millions more watching on satellite television at the Church’s 180th Semiannual General Conference in October 2010, stated in part:
“We teach a standard of moral conduct that will protect us from Satan’s many substitutes or counterfeits for marriage. We must understand that any persuasion to enter into any relationship that is not in harmony with the principles of the gospel must be wrong. From the Book of Mormon we learn that ‘wickedness never was happiness’ … There are those today who not only tolerate but advocate voting to change laws that would legalize immorality, as if a vote would somehow alter the designs of God’s laws and nature. A law against nature would be impossible to enforce … To legalize that which is basically wrong or evil will not prevent the pain and penalties that will follow as surely as night follows day … If we do not protect and foster the family, civilization and our liberties must perish.”
Under this backdrop and literally across the street and one block from the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, I was invited to present a keynote address to the delegates at the Eighty-First Annual Convention of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association on April 16, 2011. I titled my address, “Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price,” based on the notion that homophobia — sometimes referred to as “heterosexism” (prejudice and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender [LGBT] people) is pervasive throughout society and each of us, irrespective of sexual or gender identity and expression, is at risk of its harmful effects.
Following my keynote address, a number of the convention delegates came to the podium to talk about how much they had gained from my remarks. In particular, I was enormously touched by the words of three delegates who literally moved me to tears.
A woman approached me with moistened eyes and tears running down her cheeks. Unable initially to speak, she hugged me and sobbed on my shoulder. She ultimately expressed how much my words had moved her, and through her sobs, told me the story of how her stepson, a young gay man, had killed himself three years earlier, and how members of her religious community, the LDS congregation of her small rural community, had shunned and scorned her when the young man’s sexual identity had become known.
Words failed me as we continued to hold and comfort each other.
Looking on was another woman who joined us.
“I have a nine-year-old son, whom I am quite certain is gay,” she told us, as tears also streamed from her eyes. “I am forced to make a decision,” she said with urgency in her voice. “I must leave my LDS church and save my son from a possibly tragic fate if I remain. My son is the most important thing in my life, and I refuse to lose him to the narrow views of the people around me.”
While sad, she also now felt somewhat empowered in her decision to separate from what she considered as abuse and misunderstanding from her church community.
As I was on my way out of the large conference hall, I noticed a man, red eyed, who beckoned me.
“I am a professor at Brigham Young University,” he explained. “Until your talk, I had never truly understood the hurt the LDS policy has on real people, but you personalized the issue for me.” With a tone of deep sincerity in his voice, he said: “I commit to you that I will bring this message to my campus when I go back to work on Monday.”
Racism
Yes, the LDS “revelation” on sexuality and gender expression has, indeed, hurt and damaged real people, but looking back historically, other LDS “revelations” have negatively affected real people while damaging the Church’s reputation.
Then LDS president, Brigham Young, instituted a policy on February 13, 1849, emanating from “divine revelation” and continuing until as recently as 1978 forbidding ordination of black men of African descent from the ranks of LDS priesthood. In addition, this policy prohibited black men and women of African descent from participating in the temple Endowment and Sealings, which the Church demands as essential for the highest degree of salvation. The policy likewise restricted black people from attending or participating in temple marriages.
Young attributed this restriction to the sin of Cain, Adam and Eve’s eldest son, who killed his brother Abel:
“What chance is there for the redemption of the Negro?,” stated Young in 1849 following declaration of his restrictive policy. “The Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood.”
While making a speech to the Utah Territorial Legislature in 1852, Young further asserted:
“Any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] … in him cannot hold the Priesthood, and if no other Prophet ever spoke it before, I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it.”
In another instance, Young continued:
“You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind … Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. That was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin…that they should be the ‘servant of servants’; and they will be, until that curse is removed….”
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Joseph Fielding Smith, Tenth Prophet and President of the LDS Church wrote in 1935 that,
“Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness, he became the father of an inferior race. A curse was placed upon him and that curse has been continued through his lineage and must do so while time endures….”
And in 1963 he asserted:
“Such a change [in our policy] can come about only through divine revelation, and no one can predict when a divine revelation will occur.”
It seems that the Twelfth LDS Church president, Spencer W. Kimball, who served from 1973 to his death in 1985, was touched with such a “vision” and, therefore, reversed the ban, referring to it as “the long-promised day.”
We can ask today whether “revelation” or mere pragmatism was the determining factor in permitting black people full membership rights in the Church at a time of ongoing and heightened civil rights activities in the United States and an increase in LDS missionary recruiting efforts throughout the African continent. We can also ask whether “revelation” or mere pragmatism was the motivating consideration for abandoning its promotion of polygamous marriages at a time when the United States Congress demanded this as a condition for the admission of Utah as a state within the United States.
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How many more times will the LDS hierarchy refuse ordination to women? How many more times will LDS members shun people and their families? How many more young people will injure and kill themselves due to LDS exclusionary and discriminatory policies? And how many more families will grieve the loss of loved ones before the LDS Church leadership receives its “divine revelation” to welcome and grant full membership rights, privileges, and responsibilities to people of all sexes, sexual identities, and gender identities and expressions?
Time has long since passed to finally let the healing begin.
Photo: Boston Public Library/Flickr
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn’t a racist church(.) That church is rapidly approaching 500,000 members in Africa where it has now become the fastest growing area for the church. They’re also spending millions of dollars there drilling village wells for water; providing vaccinations to children; and offering the Perpetual Educational Fund, which sponsors men and women in all number of trade schools and universities. Look too into any metropolitan area of the U.S. and Canada and you’ll find black congregants in every chapel. I also see it as lazy journalism on Mr. Blumenfeld’s part to make… Read more »
The full picture of the LDS church is far more complex than what Dr. Blumenfeld represents. I’m not surprised that he completely neglects to mention the fact that the Mormons were in New Orleans after Katrina faster than any other group. They put every other governmental and non governmental organization in their dust. There aren’t many Mormons in New Orleans but there sure are a large number of black people. Same thing happened in Haiti. But let’s call them all racists instead of seeing the complete picture. It’s interesting to read the constant refrain here on the GMP ripping up… Read more »
“Also bigotry and really tribalism is ingrained in humanity way before any organized religion.” So, I guess that makes it right? So, religion must be used to reinforce the oppression of the time? Not that I’m defending liberalism (as one who’s fed up with politics); but political conservatism doesn’t exactly have a morally unblemished record either, despite the denials of certain self-righteous individuals. “liberal(really libertine)” I’ve personally known politically conservative individuals who were libertines. While you’re at it, you’d better denounce all of the many right-wing libertarians who defend abortion and same-sex marriage. Sin is nonpartisan. I do agree emphatically… Read more »
YEs, the social liberalism that has led to the increased number of people with venereal diseases (free sex and all that), the over 50% divorce rate, the radical high number of out of wedlock births. A bloated wasteful government at both federal and state levels which are partially result from our new wonderful socially liberal(really libertine) morality. Unstable relationships, marriages, and families produce more dysfunctional people as a rule. Also bigotry and really tribalism is ingrained in humanity way before any organized religion. And atheists in the former Soviet Union and other actively atheistic societies committed genocide and other barbarities… Read more »
The prof knows the LDS is going to spend money–although its tax status might be in question if he’s accurate about how it’s spent–but not cut his head off. Nor find something hinky in his lease, nor cancel any licensing he might have if he were a small business person. After the Civil War, the southern power structure–dems–knew that if the poor whites and poor blacks got together, the power structure would be gone. So they exacerbated racism to keep them apart, with the KKK as their hit squad.. Seems reasonable to look at that, presuming the issue is who… Read more »
There is not one single human grouping whether religious, cultural, secular or other that if you research their history, you will find not misdeeds and questionable if not outright bad practices. You, Mr. Blumenfeld, are just attacking the LDS because they don’t support the radical redefining of marriage to pander to a powerful minor demographic in this country like the political left do . And as for LDS’s baptisimal beliefs, why do you care about the relatively secret inner, and nonviolent practices of a religion you don’t belong to. As a part of Christianity, the LDS is required by Jesus… Read more »
The other thing to remember about the Democrats of yesteryear is that there used to be Democrats who were fiscally liberal but socially conservative, just like there used to be Republicans who were socially liberal but fiscally conservative. And therein lies the issue ‘- it was the socially conservative aspect of such Democrats that made them racist.
Having read lots of articles by Prof. Blumenfeld, I can attest that he has called to task numerous institutions when it comes to bigotry, not just the LDS Church. While the Democratic Party has reformed itself greatly, the LDS Church continues to be one of the most conservative churches in existence today. And like he said, one thing does not justify the other. Finally, since when does one have to write about EVERY group that engages in a particular behavior in order for that piece of writing to contribute anything of value? It’s an article, not a doctoral thesis, for… Read more »
“LDS isn’t going to fight back.” What about the 20 MILLION dollars LDS spent and LDS volunteers who worked tirelessly to defeat marriage equality Proposition 8 in California? That’s fighting back! What about excommunication just last week of Kate Kelly? That’s fighting back! What about all the African Americans LDS prevented from full membership until it received “divine inspiration”? That fighting back! WHAT ABOUT LDS’s FORCED BAPTISMS OF MY RELATIVES AND OTHERS MURDERED IN THE HOLOCAUST? That’s fight back! You seemed not to have read Bill’s excellent comment above. Conservatism of any and all parties has committed the atrocities you… Read more »
Tu quoque is not an answer. When an article lambastes a church’s history–said church having little temporal power–the question of why ignore the history of the democrat party must arise, the dems having had, through government, considerably more power to do hurt. Presumably, you deplore the hurt, but choose to write about one of the least effective purveyors of it, ignoring those who did real, substantive hurt. Bull Conner was a dem party delegate, for example. As to what policies bother me, I was in MS two summers, 67 and 68, doing civil rights work when people like you were… Read more »
To Richard & H. P. I don’t see either of you disputing the history I presented in my article linking sexism, heterosexism, and racism in the LDS, which it justified by supposed precepts of God, and changed only by God through “revelation.” These policies have had negative consequences on real people. Are you justifying these policies since you don’t seem to dispute them? So, Richard, are you saying that since politicial parties — both the Democrates in the past and Republicans both in the past and TODAY — promoted these oppressive policies as well, then it was alright for the… Read more »
Mr. Blumenfeld needs to read and ponder on Isa. 5:20 and 2 Tim 4:3, both of which apply here.
If you like mining the old days’ remarks from some group or another, you’d be all over the democratic party, home to racism, slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK. Difference being the dem party had the power to do more than talk.
Jump right in, professor.
Or not.
Even by moderates, homosexuality is seen as something that is vile and unacceptable. For example, a Gallup survey carried out in early 2009 found zero tolerance for Homosexuality. Not even a single person interviewed believed that homosexual acts were morally acceptable.[10][11] Also according to a Zogby International taken in November and December of 2001, a massive 71 percent opposed “allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally.
BTW, what I stated above are Muslim views. I presume Mr Blomenfeld will be an equal opportunity writer and delve into another religious history.
Hey Tom. They are also Christian views as well, and to a lesser degree, Jewish views. You might want to check out my PowerPoint, “Religious Texts Used to Justify Persecution,” at:
http://www.slideshare.net/wblumen/religious-texts-used-to-justify-persecution
Oh, please exercise a little intellectual honesty yourself. Do you honestly believe that the Democratic Party of the 19th century and today’s party have anything in common? The fact of the matter is that when Grant left office, black Americans didn’t have a friend in the White House until Harry Truman became President. (President Garfield was an exception, but he didn’t live long enough to make a difference.) The Ku Klux Klan was a byproduct of political conservatism. They have never been connected with liberalism in any way. (By the way, I’m not a liberal. I gave up on politics… Read more »