LGBT Harm

“Just leave the Mormon church alone! It doesn’t cause anyone harm.” Said every Mormon apologist from their biased perspective. From my perspective the Mormon church does cause harm and this article will discuss one of those issues. I will be addressing one specific situation, but keep in mind that it is not a unique case by any means. I came across a Mormon Channel video on YouTube. It was intended as inspirational and uplifting, but I found it ignorant, close-minded, and heartbreaking. Please, take a few minutes to watch the attached video and form your own opinion.

The video shares a story of a young and attractive Mormon lesbian. She grew up living a very difficult and conflicted life of cognitive dissonance. Her contradicting beliefs include a god who created her perfectly as a natural-born lesbian unable to change and also believes the same god commanded her to struggle her entire life by trying to adhere to a suffocating law of extreme sexual abstinence or be counted as an evil sinner ineligible for heaven admittance. She admits having dealt with significant depression and contemplated suicide as a best solution. Thankfully she didn’t take her own life as many other gay Mormons have. One of her greatest conflicts was the thought of kissing someone she loved because she believed that would be a sin.

I want to explore the claim of homosexual sin a little further. Mormon leaders assert it’s ok to be gay, but it’s not ok to be intimately gay. What do they base this doctrine on? I had to do a bit of research including a visit to the apologetic website, mormonandgay.lds.org, but all I could find was that one line in the Old Testament about two men lying down together and also being sentenced to the death penalty for said crime. In other words, a few thousand years ago a supposed prophet of a supposed god wrote down one verse about two men in a contradicting and unverifiable book mixed with various mythical fairy tales. However, Mormons only believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. Is this one verse “translated correctly”? Is there anyway to verify it? Nope. Fortunately, leaders have decided to disregard the murdering of gay people part of that verse, but the other part is still possibly correct. Maybe? How difficult to commit one’s entire life on a maybe true scripture.

What about all the modern day revelation about the law of chastity provided by true Mormon prophets? To answer that question I would refer you to the church’s official stance that generally says Mormon prophets are legit true prophets except for when they are not and preach their own personal opinion as if it’s true revelation. Like during the 140 years when Mormon prophets said God can’t allow black people to have the priesthood, but it turns out that was actually only their own personal racist opinions and not true revelations. So, it could be that Mormon prophets are personally just a bit homophobic and it’s their own opinion that homosexuals shouldn’t kiss and not actual revelation from God. Given church history this is not only very plausible, but most likely the truth. Hopefully given enough social or legal pressure the church will officially disavow these non-revelation theories like they did with polygamy, black priesthood holders, and Masonic blood oaths.

When Mormons teach that skepticism is evil and we should blindly believe what they say as truth, then we are vulnerable to deceit and fraud. This unfortunate lesbian Mormon has abandoned her natural born instinct of physical intimacy to dedicate and worship an organization based on opinions because she only believes. Homosexuality is not immoral and religion only provides very little non-verifiable reasons why God might consider it a sin. A just god can’t hold us accountable to a set of expectations not clearly explained. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.