WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 14, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) ─ Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has commented on the recently reported spate of suicides involving gay Mormons, saying he was “aware that those tragic things happen” and “those things have to be judged by a higher authority than exists on this earth.”

Oaks comments were first reported by Mormon Stories, an online publication produced by ex-communicated Mormon John Dehlin.

Oaks, a member of the LDS church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, made the comments during a symposium on the free exercise of religious freedom held last week at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, D.C.

Oaks was discussing the importance of religious freedom when he was asked a question by attendee Andrew Evans about LGBT-related suicides among LDS church members.

“Less than a year ago, right here in Washington, D.C., my friend killed himself,” Evans said. “He was Mormon and gay. You’ve gone on record that the Church does not give apologies. Does religious freedom absolve you from responsibility in the gay Mormon suicide crisis?”

“I think that’s a question that will be answered on judgment day,” Oaks replied. “I can’t answer that beyond what has already been said. I know that those tragic events happen.

“And it’s not unique simply to the question of sexual preference. There are other cases where people have taken their own lives and blamed a church – my church – or a government, or somebody else for their taking their own lives, and I think those things have to be judged by a higher authority than exists on this earth, and I am ready to be accountable to that authority,” Oakes said.

“But I think part of what my responsibility extends to, is trying to teach people to be loving and civil and sensitive to one another so that people will not feel driven, whatever the policy disagreements, whatever the rules of the church, or the practices of a church, or any other organization, if they are administered with kindness, at the highest level or at the level of the congregation or the ward, they won’t drive people to take those extreme measures. That’s part of my responsibility to teach that.

“And beyond that, I will be accountable to higher authority for that,” Oakes said. “That’s the way I look on that. Nobody is sadder about a case like that than I am. Maybe that’s a good note to end on.”

A recent spike in suicides by LGBT youths in the LDS Church was first reported in a Jan. 25 Facebook posting by Chrysteil Hunter Bird.

Bird, a therapist in Washington state, said she had personal knowledge of 34 young people, ages 14 though 20, who had committed suicide in the first 81 days since news broke that the LDS church amended its handbook regarding church membership and homosexuality.

The changes to the LDS handbook, which serves as a guide to Mormon bishops and other church leaders, reaffirmed the church’s non-acceptance of homosexual marriages or couples, and labeled people in such relationships as “apostates.”

The handbook also stated that children living with two homosexual parents would be banned from church rites, including baptism, until they reached age 18 and renounced their parents’ lifestyle.

A related blog by L.T. Downing, titled “Life Outside the The Book of Mormon Belt,” said 28 of the youth suicides since Nov. 5, 2015 took place in Utah, a state that averages 37 youth suicides per year, Downing wrote. The bottom of the page also lists suicide hotlines.

The number of youth suicides believed to be influenced by the Nov. 5, 2015 church announcement has not been undated by Hunter Bird since the January post.