The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is facing a growing backlash from Mormons upset about a new policy that bars children living with same-sex couples from baby-naming ceremonies and baptisms and declares members in gay marriages to be apostates subject to excommunication.

The church, while standing by its new policy, issued a clarification on Friday, saying that the rules affected only children whose “primary residence” was with a same-sex couple — not those who might have a gay parent living elsewhere. The clarification also said it was not necessary to exclude children from further church activities or sacraments if they had already been baptized and were living with a same-sex couple.

But the clarification is unlikely to calm the furor. The policy has hit hard in a church that considers family bonds central in this life and eternal in the afterlife. While church members are pouring out their pain and confusion at family dinners and on Mormon blogs, critics are planning a “mass resignation” in a park adjacent to the church’s headquarters in Salt Lake City on Saturday.

Even some local church leaders have conveyed their objections up through the hierarchy, said Benjamin R. Hertzberg, who serves in his Atlanta congregation, or ward, as second counselor to the bishop in a three-person leadership team known as a bishopric.