“In the beginning” was the assertion. The exclusionary stance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints against members of the LGBTQ+ community stands on the precedent of the law of chastity as established by God as claimed by both Dallin H Oaks and Russell M Nelson . A stance that I have been unable to substantiate nor reconcile through the very scriptures which begins with that exact phrase — In the beginning. In the beginning of what? I cannot say. What matters though, is the end. In the end, there are far too many lives and families that are harmed by this stance. In the end, living a lifetime of stigmatized solitude is a burden that no person should be expected to bear. In the end, there are far too many lives on the line for the church to be wrong about this. In the end, ultimately, it comes to Christ . During Christ's ministry, He never spoke about homosexuality or anything relevant to LGBTQ+. He did not call it out, He did not label it as a sin, He did not con...
After spending more than four decades in the Mormon church, I decided to write about it.