The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day
Saints on Thursday launched a website aimed at reaching out to gay
Mormons.
LDS officials said the aim of the
website was to provide “greater sensitivity and better
understanding” of gay issues as they relate to the church.
“When
people have those [same-sex] desires and attractions, our attitude
is, 'stay with us,'” said Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the LDS
Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in a video posted on the
website. “I think that's what God is saying: stay with me. And I
think that's what we want to say in the church: stay with us, and
let's work together in friendship and commonality and brotherhood and
sisterhood.”
“Here [in the church] more than
anywhere, it's important that there be love, that there be hope. We
want to be with you and work together.”
LDS spokesman Michael Purdy told
Deseret
News that the site has been under development for more than
two years.
The LDS Church faced heavy criticism in
2008 when it organized and encouraged Mormons to support passage of
Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban.
That stance on marriage has not
changed, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of Twelve makes clear in
a brief video.
Elder Christofferson quietly suggested
celibacy for gay Mormons.
“[A]lthough we don't know everything,
we know enough to be able to say that same-sex attraction is not
itself sin,” he said. “The feeling, the desire is not classified
the same as homosexual behavior itself.” (The video produced by
the church is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)