Timelines: Mainstream and Mormon attitudes toward homosexuality
A few tidbits show Mormon attitudes have changed, albeit frustratingly slowly, over the decades.
Monya Baker, Staff Blogger
1970s:
The American Psychiatric Association declassifies homosexuality as a mental disorder
1970s:
BYU sponsors electroshock aversion therapy for gay male students (See http://www.affirmation.org/news/2011_043.shtml)
1986:
Active LDS member Carol Lynn Pearson publishes her memoir, Goodbye, I Love You, an account of her marriage to a gay man
1992:
Paul Monette publishes his memoir, Becoming a Man, chronicling how he learns to love another man in a society that believes it impossible. He calls it “my white-knuckle grip on happiness”. It wins the prestigious National Book Award.
2005:
Deseret Books publishes In Quiet Desperation. Some chapters feature diary excerpts from a man who committed suicide after struggling with same-sex attraction; his parents hope to humanize gay Church members. In other chapters, a gay LDS man concludes that his feelings are inborn, then pledges not to act on his attractions. Some Mormons condemn the book for implying people cannot change their sexual orientation; Others praise the living author’s commitment to lifelong celibacy, commending his decision to deny himself a loving, committed, sexual relationship with another man.
2004-2011:
Same-sex marriage becomes legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.
2008:
California voters approve legislation denying same-sex couples the right to marry. The campaign for Proposition 8 is largely bankrolled by the Mormon Church.
(The list above is far from definitive; it is simply a group of parallels that came to mind. Please feel free to add others in the comments section.)
Despite a frustrating record of intolerance and worse, mainstream Mormon attitudes have become more enlightened since the 1970s. Few bishops today are advising gay people that straight marriage will solve their “problems.” And some congregations welcome openly gay (though assumed celibate) members.
To be sure, the LDS Church is far from a safe space for GLBT people, but in January, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy said that the Church needed to be more inclusive. In light of past abuses, no one can deny this is progress.
I’d like to end with a positive spin. In late 2011 a letter to the editor in the BYU newspaper the Daily Universe compared GLBT parents to prostitutes and serial killers. But this was almost immediately met with a widely-circulated flyer protesting the letter. And shortly after that, a GLBT-related group, “Understanding Same-Gender Attraction,” was allowed to meet on campus, though not as an official university-affiliated group. According to their FaceBook page, their January 19 meeting this year drew over 70 people, forcing organizers to search for larger meeting rooms. Its FaceBook page boasts some 233 members, some of whom have posted links to marriage-equality and “It Gets Better” videos.
It comforts me to think that, in a few decades, some posters may be General Authorities.
Monya Baker
Staff Blogger