On 15 November 2015, I wrote a letter to the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Thomas Monson, Dieter Uchtdorf, and Henry Eyring), with regard to the Church's recent policy change concerning children of gay parents. This policy harms people and has already claimed lives. I posted my letter on Facebook, Scribd, and Dropbox a couple months later (on 12 January 2016). Some people suggested I should put the letter on my blog, so here it is:

15 November 2015

Dear Thomas S. Monson,

Henry B. Eyring,

and Dieter F. Uchtdorf,

I’m a believing, active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I’m writing you to address concerns and questions I have about current LDS policies and doctrines concerning LGBTQ people. I’m not alone in these concerns; I’m writing on behalf of many peers and friends—both homosexual and heterosexual—who are struggling and suffering, for whom I feel a great deal of empathy and compassion. I’ve spoken with local ecclesiastical leaders to seek guidance about these concerns and questions, and I have decided I need to write to you as well. I feel constrained by the Spirit to send this letter.

Introduction

Before I say anything else I must stress how much I greatly appreciate all three of you, and the work that you’ve done. My soul has been enlarged by your examples and by your words. President Eyring, you in particular have touched my heart, though we’ve never met; whenever I read your book “To Draw Closer to God,” I can almost hear your voice, and see your tears. I thank you—all three of you—for your diligent, earnest, and emotionally vulnerable approach to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. You’ve helped me a lot over the years.

I’ve been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints since my baptism in August 1995, as a child. I was raised by compassionate, loving, and faithful parents whose lives were changed by the Gospel in the late 70s and early 80s when they investigated—and eventually converted to—the LDS faith. Their examples are inspiring. They’re still active in the Church, and they continue to be wonderful parents, and they continue to inspire me in their capacity to be patient, thoughtful, and compassionate—with each other, and with everyone around them. They are Good Samaritans.

As you know, being raised in the Church by loving, supportive parents is a blessing many children do not enjoy. I was fortunate. I was given a name and a blessing. I had home teachers. I had scriptures with my name on them, with caring and insightful teachers to help me understand them, to help me read them, even to help me highlight them. I was baptized at 8. I was a deacon at 12, and was able to grow up in the Aaronic Priesthood; thereby I learned a lot about responsibility, reverence, and ritual. My parents supported me spiritually, financially, and emotionally. I eventually was able to serve as a missionary in the California Roseville Mission and I was blessed with a lot of opportunities to serve and teach. Many children don’t have all or even some of these privileges.

Furthermore, I have demographic privileges: I’m male; I’m heterosexual; I’m not of African descent. Issues many Mormons have to wrestle with—e.g. sexist cultural norms, homophobic/transphobic bullying from peers, and problematic or troubling racial history—are easier for me than for others. I still wrestle with these issues, and I still worry about things, but from a distance. None of these things directly affect me in the way that they do my neighbors, friends, and family members who are female, LGBTQ, or black.

Despite these privileges, I sometimes feel like the Church doesn’t have a place for me. I’m unmarried with no kids, and I have somewhat liberal tendencies on some political, social, and even theological issues; because of these factors I sometimes struggle to find a “home” in Mormonism in the face of its strong culture of marriage, family, and conservatism. This struggle is good for me, I think. It’s healthy for me to have to engage my faith in a thoughtful—and even difficult—way. Through the struggle, I keep reminding myself that Jesus has a place for me in His heart, and that as I continue to call upon Him and trust in His Gospel, I can access the Atonement; I can transcend the problems and tribulations of mortality and of “see[ing] through a glass, darkly;” I can repent and I can have the Spirit of God with me at all times. It is beautiful to know that despite the ways in which Mormon culture can be rocky, Mormon doctrine is all about that connection, that transcendence. It’s all about Christ. The two Great Commandments—to love God and to love others—are the foundation, and everything else is an appendage. The Father and the Son approached the boy-prophet Joseph in a grove of trees in 1820 to bring a message of love. “We’re still here.” And they are: I have a testimony that they are. Because I’ve felt their presence in my life, too.

I’m writing you with some concerns and questions, because I feel like I must. The God I believe in, who appeared to Joseph Smith in a vision because Joseph asked questions, communicates with me, too. He listens to my prayers and I have a testimony that He gives me answers in my heart and in my mind. My experiences with Him (though those experiences are certainly not as dramatic or visible as Joseph’s) don’t line up with what I’ve seen in Church policy lately. I’ve seen many of my friends and neighbors hurt by the policies you’ve added to the Church Handbook of Instructions (regarding lesbian and gay members, and particularly the new restrictions placed on the ordinances their children may receive), which were released to the public on 5 November 2015. I want to express what I’ve seen, experienced, and pondered, even if—like I said earlier—my pain is more distant kind of pain than the pain my LGBTQ brothers and sisters are suffering through.

Policy Question 1: Baby Blessings

When the policy says that “a natural or adopted child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship” is not allowed to “receive a name and a blessing,” why is that? Why can’t they receive baby blessings?

I understand that, as D. Todd Christofferson explained in his video interview on 6 November 2015, the ordinance typically triggers a lot of other things besides just the blessing. Elder Christofferson said it triggers “a membership record,” and “the assignment of visiting and home teachers,” and “an expectation that they will be in Primary and the other Church organizations.” The implication is that this would be a bad thing—or at least, a problematic thing—because it could lead to conflicts between the Church’s teachings and the examples at home. In other words: it seems, because the children could be potentially confused, it’s better not to have them attend at all?

But then, in your clarification letter to Mormon leaders on 13 November 2015, you said that children are “welcome to attend Church meetings and participate in Church activities,” and that they “may receive Priesthood blessings of healing and spiritual guidance.” Elder Christofferson had similar remarks at the end of his interview, about children of gay parents being allowed to receive healing ordinances.

My question, then, is this: why are the infant children of gay parents prohibited from receiving baby blessings? The cited reason—that the conflict between Church and home may be too confusing if they were then expected to stay involved in Mormonism throughout their childhood and adolescence—doesn’t seem to line up for me. If the confusion between conflicting values were really too big, too difficult, then our manual would be full of similar restrictions for infant children of parents who commit other sins as well.

Alcoholic parents can have their children blessed. Parents who don’t pay tithing can have their children blessed. Parents who take the name of God in vain can have their children blessed. Blasphemers, backbiters, and sorcerers can have their children blessed. Parents who indulge in pornography, defile the Sabbath Day, or worship idols can have their children blessed. Even anti-Mormons, if they consent, have their children blessed.

But what about more “serious” sins? According to the new policy changes, same-gender marriage is analogous to other acts that may require ecclesiastical discipline—like murder, rape, abuse, adultery, fornication, and so forth. But even the children of murderers, rapists, abusers, and fornicators can be given names and blessings by this Church, while the children of gay parents cannot. I don’t understand the discrepancy.

You may say that same-gender marriage is more serious than those sins, as evidenced by its categorization as “apostate” in the Church Handbook of Instructions. Persons guilty of apostasy face “mandatory” Church discipline, while discipline for persons guilty of the sins listed above only “may be” necessary. Just taking that classification at face-value poses some problems that are confusing to me, doctrinal questions notwithstanding. For example: if being allowed the baby blessing (and subsequent ordinances like baptism, etc, which are typically implied with membership and fellowship) is a problem when your parents are apostate, why isn’t the prohibition uniform among all “kinds” of apostates?

Your policy doesn’t say that being in a same-gender marriage is any more apostate than the other “apostate” bullet points listed; different kinds of apostasy aren’t ranked or distinguished in any way. But if I were excommunicated for apostasy because of “deliberate public opposition,” or because I’d “persist[ed] in teaching [false] doctrine,” etc, and then I had a child, then that child could be blessed in the Church (with my consent).

I wonder why the line is drawn in that way. If same-gender marriage is wrong because it’s apostasy, and if letting kids grow up with Church structure (i.e. baby blessings, baptisms, and other subsequent rites) is wrong because their parents are apostates, then why are other children of apostate parents not facing similar restrictions?

Policy Question 2: Affiliation with Apostates

My next question is significantly simpler and more personal: am I worthy to enter the Temple if I support gay marriage?

Elder D. Todd Christofferson has gone on record a few times (in January, and in March, in interviews with the press, for example KUTV) to say that “a variety of different opinions, beliefs, and positions on [gay marriage] issues” are not a problem “unless someone is out attacking the Church.”

Is that still true?

It seems that with the new policy’s re-categorization of gay marriage as “apostate,” the Temple Recommend question about affiliation with apostates becomes much more complicated for me. Do I “support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” Absolutely, I do.

I absolutely support my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the Lord, who are faithful and good and who only want to marry someone they’re in love with, who don’t want to settle for alternative options (i.e. a life of emotional and sexual celibacy; a life of gay promiscuity; or a mixed-orientation marriage, which, as experience has shown, is generally disastrous, often ending in divorce or suicide). None of the alternative options are genuinely tenable. So they want to get married. And yes, I support, affiliate with, and agree with them.

I absolutely support my married gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the Lord, who love the Church and want to raise their kids in the Church. They cannot. They are weeping, and I am weeping with them. They are cut off, and their children are cut off, from the blessings God has offered them. Yes, I support, affiliate with, and agree with them.

Am I worthy to enter the Temple?

Personally, yes; I believe I am. But if I’m honest—and I’ve covenanted to be honest—I cannot give the “correct” answer to that Temple Recommend question. I will not say “no.” I will never say “no, I don’t support them; I don’t affiliate with them.” Jesus wouldn’t say “no” to that question.

My personal paradox here is that I honestly feel like God wants me to be in the Temple. When I’ve gone there, I’ve felt His Spirit enlightening and blessing me. I’ve attended recently, and it was beautiful and important to me. I also honestly feel like God wants me to support and affiliate with my gay brothers and sisters who are suffering. Even if they want to get married. Even if they’re “apostates.” Even if they are excommunicated for living in deliberate opposition to the LDS Church’s current positions.

This is a conflict because, according to the current wording of the policies in the Handbook, I’m technically “unworthy” to enter the Temple. Yet I know in my heart I am worthy. So, what do I do? Do I just refrain from attending until things are re-worded? Do I just forfeit those blessings for a season? Or do I wiggle around the question and explain my nuanced relationship to its intentions with each Bishop who interviews me?

And what if I advocate for gay marriage? Does such advocacy constitute “clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the Church?” Does the new categorization of gay marriage as “apostasy” mean that when I speak up for what I believe—for the beliefs that Elder Christofferson says Mormons are allowed to have–I’m an apostate, too?

Policy Question 3: Baptism and “Primary Residence”

In your letter to leaders from 13 November 2015, you said that the restrictions on baptism and other ordinances “apply only to those children whose primary residence is with” a gay couple, and you also said that active Mormon children of gay parents who have already been baptized can be allowed to participate in “further ordinances.” The policy’s original wording didn’t allow for this kind of leniency; it restricted any children of parents “who [have] lived or [who are] living” in a same-sex relationship. So I’m very grateful for the change, and I thank you for delivering it. I embrace this because fewer children will be excluded, and that’s definitely a good thing. After all, “suffer the little children to come unto me,” said the Savior.

Unfortunately, while I believe this change alleviates a lot of the problems the initial policy may have introduced, the change also brings in new problems of its own. Here’s an example of a moral hazard: if I’m a Bishop, and I know a child's heterosexual parent is abusive and neglectful (and in an unstable relationship), while the homosexual parent is loving, kind, and supportive (and in a stable relationship), and I need to advise the child on where to live, what would I do? Of course the responsible option is for the Bishop in that situation to advise the child to stay with the healthy parent, even if it means that child won’t be allowed to partake of baptism. But undoubtedly, not every Bishop will do that. Kids will almost certainly be placed in emotionally unsafe situations (or at least encouraged to suffer emotionally unsafe situations), to keep their membership intact, and the Church’s policy manual will be to blame.

I have so many questions. How can we prevent this problem? How can we keep this policy from hurting families (I know it’s intended to help families, and I trust your good intentions, but it seems like it has already done the opposite, and it will continue to do so)? What happens when a child spends half his time with one set of parents, and the other half with another set? If he or she is spending 50% of the week in each home, which residence will be considered the “primary” one? What happens when a 9-year-old child of a gay couple is allowed to continue in full membership in the Church, and his or her 7-year-old sibling is prohibited from receiving the same blessings? Wouldn’t that tear the family apart? And here’s perhaps a more fundamental question: what is the purpose of the emphasis on “primary residence” anyway? Why does it matter where the kid spends the majority of his week, if—as I’ve mentioned earlier—ideological conflicts between home life and Church teachings are sort of inevitable, in every home, regardless of the sexual orientation of children’s parents? If homosexual union is a sin, then for what reason is it an inherently more dangerous one [for children to be exposed to] as opposed to other sins, like violence or rape?

Doctrinal Question: To What Degree is Homosexuality Wrong?

Essays on LDS.org affirm that “feelings and inclinations toward the same sex are not inherently sinful,” or in other words, that it’s not a sin to be gay. But it is a sin to engage in “homosexual behavior.” What is the doctrinal definition of homosexual behavior? If gay Mormons date people of their same sex, hold hands, kiss, have long and emotionally intimate friendships, etc, are they sinning? Or is it only a sin when one engages in sexually intimate behavior with someone of the same gender?

This question leads me to another question: why is homosexual sex sinful? We used to say things like “because it’s outside of marriage, and any sex outside of marriage is sinful,” which seems to make sense—but now that gay marriage is legal in a lot of places, that definition doesn’t hold water anymore. So with the new policy changes, gay marriage been re-categorized as “apostasy.” But is it, really? As I search the scriptures for references to homosexuality being wrong or sinful, I don’t find much. It’s prohibited in Leviticus (but that prohibition is right alongside a multitude of other archaic and outdated prohibitions that Mormons readily dismiss because, as Paul told the Romans, “Christ is the end of the [Mosaic] law”). And it appears to be prohibited in some of Paul’s writings, but with some historical context, it seems Paul was not likely talking about consensual and monogamous same-sex relationships—he was talking about adult men taking advantage of adolescent boys (which of course is reprehensible). That’s not the same thing as gay marriage, nor is it compelling scriptural evidence that homosexuality in general is condemned by God.

I don’t need to instruct you on any of this; you know your scriptures. I’m just trying to understand, because our current doctrinal understanding of sexuality doesn’t seem to be in line with the scriptures I’ve been given and the revelations I’ve been told to study.

We learn from The Family: A Proclamation to the World—and again, I don’t need to instruct you on that document either; two of you signed it—that heterosexual marriage “is ordained of God” and is “central to the Creator’s plan.” But is that the same thing as saying that homosexual marriage is condemned of God, and has no place in the Creator’s plan?

Has there ever been a revelation—not an interpretation, or a policy document, or a published opinion, but an actual revelation from the mouth of God—that condemns homosexuality (or homosexual “relations,” or homosexual marriage) as sinful?

I worry that, in the absence of such a revelation, we in this Church are inventing and defending ideas that God Himself appears to have been silent about. What happens when He speaks up, and it turns out we’ve been wrong? Will the history books record Mormonism’s war on gay marriage in the same way that we now look back on the 1852-1978 Priesthood ban—that is, with shame and embarrassment?

Another thought about the supposed sinfulness of homosexuality. Most sins that I can think of have tenable alternatives. If alcoholism is a sin, there are other things to drink that will be better for you. If hatred is a sin, there are other ways to manage emotions about other people (e.g. forgiveness) that will be better for you. If lying is a sin, there are other ways to communicate that will be better for you. Et cetera. But with homosexuality, if we’re going to teach our members that there’s something wrong with it, there’s not much we can offer as an alternative. As I’ve noted earlier in this letter, many gay Mormons try mixed-orientation marriages and they’re typically disastrous (with, of course, some exceptions). And many others try to be Mormon and celibate, which is also typically unhealthy, especially since the mandatory nature of their celibacy is inherently different than that of a heterosexual member who is celibate incidentally. Many others try to live gay lifestyles without settling down, without ever being “married” (in other words, they choose to live their sexual lives in secret and with promiscuity, because of the social consequences for being openly gay and committed). This, of course, is dangerous, both physically and emotionally. The Church would never explicitly endorse this option on record, but the policies in the handbook seem to imply that it’s more sinful to be in a gay marriage than it is to be sexually promiscuous (by that I mean, cohabitation is marked as an “especially” serious sin, worse than just homosexual behavior, while actual gay marriage is more serious still, and merits more significant ecclesiastical consequences. Therefore, in a very real sense, if you’re a gay Mormon, the more committed you are to your sexual partners, the more grievous your sin).

I worry that, because we teach about homosexuality being “sinful,” without any revelation (accepted by the law of Common Consent as commanded in Doctrine & Covenants 26:2), helpful clarification, or viable options for our gay members to cling to, we are doing harm.

My Prayer

I know there may not be answers to all of my questions. And I know you’ve undoubtedly received a lot of other letters, just like mine, and it’s probably exhausting. I appreciate your patience. You have a very difficult job, and I don’t envy your responsibility.

I have prayed fervently about this Church, especially in the past couple weeks since the policy change. I have searched the revelations of God. I have counseled with family members, friends, and neighbors for hours. I have wept, several times. I have reached out to those who are personally affected by the devastating side-effects of this policy change. And I will be meeting with my Bishop to talk with him about this today. I’m not saying that I’ve done all the work I could do, but I assure you, I’ve done a lot of spiritual work wrestling with this, and I feel compelled—like I said before, I feel constrained by the Spirit—to send you my concerns and questions and to pray that you receive this letter.

“By their fruits ye shall know them,” and in my searchings and ponderings and interactions, it appears to me that this recent policy change has brought bad fruit. The Spirit whispers to me that it is wrong and harmful. I cannot deny that witness any more than I can deny the witness I’ve received of the reality of the Atonement, which witness came to me from the same Spirit. The Holy Ghost has spoken to my mind and to my heart and I have a testimony that this policy is harmful. This is why I’ve sent this letter, asking so many questions. I believe it’s important for me to do so. I sustain you as prophets, seers, and revelators, and I believe that to “sustain” includes a responsibility for me to speak up and voice concerns when I have them. If I did not care, I would stay silent. But I do care, because this Gospel is true, and this Church is divine, and your callings are important. Lives are at stake.

I am so grateful to you for all the work you’ve done and for all the ways in which you’ve touched lives. The LDS Church, this Divine Kingdom on Earth, over which you are stewards, has saved people. I know personally that this Church has brought me closer to my God. I am ever grateful for Mormonism, both as a theological construct and as a community of believers who are trying to do their best. It’s beautiful. But you know this already.

My prayer is that it will continue to be beautiful. My prayer is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will continue to progress, onward and upward, and that we can all help each other to draw nearer to the Savior, and that we can invite all men, women, and children to partake of the infinitely satisfying blessings of the Gospel.

My prayer is that you will read this letter—not because I’m trying to convince you of anything or argue with you, but because I need to know that the body of Christ is truly one body, and that we are all in this together, and that if one part of the body is in pain then the other parts will be aware. We need to take care of each other, and we need to stand up for each other. I am standing up for my friends who are affected, heartbroken, and cast out. I am standing up for their future children who will be excluded from blessings that Jesus Himself has promised them. I am standing up because I love this Church so, so much. So please, among the thousands of letters you must get each day, please take a moment to read mine.

I love God, and I love you, and I wish you the best.

Sincerely,

Christopher Michael Chi-Yuan Wei