Mormons Prepare to March in Seven LGBT Parades

[Excerpts]

[On June 22] Mormons [were] preparing to march in seven LGBT Pride parades: New York City, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle, Cleveland, Twin Cities, and Santiago, Chile. More than 140 Mormons are expected to march in Santiago alone.

It is striking to think that it was four years ago that the LDS Church issued a letter to be read to California congregations urging members to full engagement in support of Proposition 8, setting into motion a headline-grabbing Mormon campaign to end civil same-sex marriage in California.

Since then, Mormons for Marriage founder Laura Compton writes, there have been a number of subtle but observable changes in Mormon positioning on same-sex marriage, including:

-The Church Handbook of Instructions no longer includes a request that church members should lobby governments to deny same-sex marriage rights (and rites) via legislative actions.

– LDS rhetoric about same-sex marriage rights is shifting to focus on the need to protect religious freedom, rather than the need to protect families.

– The LDS Public Affairs office actually used the term ‘gay’ to describe individuals, rather than-sex attracted or same-gender attracted in its response to HRC’s criticisms of Pres. Packer’s October 2010 conference talk.

– The LDS Church came out in support of non-discrimination ordinances in Salt Lake City which would protect homosexuals in housing and employment. While there are large carve-outs for church-related/owned businesses, the ordinances in SLC inspired a number of other Utah and Idaho towns and cities to follow suit and opened many conservative Mormon’s eyes to some problems they’d never before considered.

– There have been no church-sponsored efforts aimed at mobilizing Mormons to fight same-sex marriage at the polls the way Mormons were mobilized in California in 2008, despite efforts of other religions originally part of the ‘religious coalition’ that supported Prop 8. General church leaders have gone out of their way to make sure all overt same-sex marriage advocacy is being done by local leaders or individuals.

– Individual Mormons are coming out and telling their own stories – whether they are gay, lesbian, bi, in mixed-orientation marriages, or have family/friends that fit the bill. These discussions are happening on a daily basis in person, in the media, in churches and online as LGBTQ members and allies find one another and give each other strength to carry on, both in and out of the church.