Evergreen International, a nonprofit group organized in 1989 around Mormon principles, but not officially connected to the Church, offers a number of programs, including the invasive "reparative therapy," to help gay men and lesbians overcome their same-sex attraction, or at least to resist the urge to act upon it.

Sponsor Message.

Anti-Gay Political Activities

The Church's glorification of the patriarchally-defined heterosexual family unit has made it a powerful enemy of gay rights and feminism. It is not coincidental that the Mormon Church first flexed its political muscles nationally in their successful campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. The ERA, which would have guaranteed equal rights to women, was vigorously opposed by the Church. LDS President Spencer Kimball condemned the Amendment on the grounds that if it were approved, it would lead to laws that would extend equal rights to gay men and lesbians.

Though the LDS Church prefers to keep its political and financial activities undercover, it has participated in a number of anti-gay campaigns. One of the first occurred during the early 1990s in Hawaii, when the Church spent at least $600,000 in support of the referendum to amend the state constitution to forbid same-sex marriage. Later in the decade, hundreds of thousands of LDS dollars went to promote a similar amendment of the state constitution of Alaska as well.

More recently, the Church has supported both the attempt to amend the Constitution of the United States to forbid same-sex marriage and numerous state referenda and legislation that would outlaw same-sex marriage and limit gay rights.

The Church is also suspected of supporting individual candidates who oppose gay rights, fomenting opposition to gay-straight alliances in public schools, lobbying against hate crime legislation, and otherwise attacking the glbtq movement for equality.

Although most of its political positions are similar to those of the so-called religious right, Mormons occupy an ambiguous position in that coalition, since most Evangelical Christians regard them as suspect in various ways, some even declaring that Mormons are not really Christian at all.

Queer Mormons

In spite of all the religious, social, and political pressure that the Church exerts against them, queer Mormons do exist, though often in painful relation to the Church and their own families. The Church's elevation of the family unit and its emphasis on procreation frequently make glbtq members feel like pariahs. These policies often cause parents to reject their gay and lesbian children or to feel responsible for their "perversion."

In 2000, David Hardy, a Salt Lake City attorney and former LDS Bishop, and the father of a gay child, accused the Church of "engendering fear and loathing" toward gay men and lesbians and of "destroying real families" by driving "our gay children to self-loathing, despair and suicide."

In response to the rejection they feel, glbtq Mormons have come together in a variety of support groups. One of the largest, Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons, got its start during the 1970s in response to a perceived increase in the number of suicides among gay and lesbian Mormons. Originating from small groups of gay Mormons who had been meeting quietly since 1962 in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and at Brigham Young University, Affirmation was founded by activists such as Matthew Price and Paul Martenson, who began to challenge the notion that queerness is inherently sinful.

Affimation describes its mission as follows: "Its purpose is to provide a supportive environment for relieving the needless fear, guilt, self-oppression and isolation that LDS gays and lesbians can experience in an era where willful ignorance about human sexuality is too often a reality. We believe that a same-gender orientation and same-gender relationships can be consistent with and supported by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We affirm that we are children of Heavenly Parents who love us the way they created us and will judge us, as they do all, based on what we make of our lives here and how we have treated our sisters and brothers."

On its website, Affirmation declares that "We are an organization of people who believe in the worth of every soul regardless of their sexual or gender orientation. We rejoice in life. We reject the tyranny that would have us believe that who we are--gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender--is evil. We view our sexual and gender orientation as a blessing, not a curse. Although many of us are no longer members of the LDS Church we celebrate being part of the great Mormon tradition."