The Mormon Church has backed laws that would outlaw anti-gay discrimination… as long as it is still allowed to discriminate against gays.

The notoriously homophobic Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made the claims in a press conference yesterday.

Trying to spin the Church’s new-found “acceptance” of LGBT rights, the Church said it would be support anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people – as long as the laws also safeguard religious freedom.

There have been concerns in the past that such safeguards hand anti-gay religious groups a ‘license to discriminate’ against gay people.

Church elder Dallin Oaks said that members were regularly ‘discriminated’ against due to their anti-gay beliefs.

He said: “It is one of today’s great ironies that some people who have fought so hard for LGBT rights now try to deny the rights of others to disagree with their public policy proposals, but we are suggesting a way forward in which those with different views on these complex issues can together seek solutions that will be fair to everyone.”

“When religious people are publicly intimidated, retaliated against, forced from employment or made to suffer personal loss because they have raised their voice in the public square, donated to a cause or participated in an election, our democracy is the loser,

“Such tactics are every bit as wrong as denying access to employment, housing or public services because of race or gender.

Despite the supposed change in tact, the Church has not changed any of its actively anti-gay doctrine, which often encourages gay Mormons to seek a ‘cure’.