Mormon Church: Same-Sex Couples Considered Apostates, Their Kids Barred

The Mormon Church will now consider same-sex couples apostates under new church rules also barring their children from receiving blessings or baptism rituals without the permission of the highest leaders of the church.

Excommunicated Mormon blogger John Dehlin posted the new policies, part of Handbook 1 for lay leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Facebook, sparking some emotional responses, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.


"It's just totally surprising," Dehlin said, according to the newspaper. "This is a level of retrenchment that I don't think anybody could have envisioned."

According to Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library, the church believes that apostasy occurs when "an individual or community rejects the revelations and ordinances of God, changes the gospel of Jesus Christ, or rebels against the commandments of God, thereby losing the blessings of the Holy Ghost and of divine authority."

While church spokesman Eric Hawkins would not discuss the documents Dehlin posted beyond the fact that they are accurate, he added in a statement that the Mormon Church's policy has been against gay marriage for a long time.

"Church handbooks are policy and procedural guides for lay leaders who must administer the church in many varied circumstances throughout the world," Hawkins wrote in a statement to KUTV Thursday.

"The Church has long been on record as opposing same-sex marriages. While it respects the law of the land, and acknowledges the right of others to think and act differently, it does not perform or accept same-sex marriage within its membership," the statement continued.

According to Salt Lake City's Fox 13, children of same-sex parents will have to wait until they are moved out of their home and of legal age to be baptized in the church, be confirmed, or recommended for missionary service.

"The LDS Church says the concern is that the expectations of church attendance, baptism, priesthood ordination, and other ordinances would put the child in a very difficult position, considering the parents could not be church members," the news station reported.

Troy Williams, executive director of the LGBT-support group Equality Utah, told The Tribune that all churches have a right to decide who they want to be members of their church.

"We know that children of same-sex parents are treasures of infinite worth," Williams, who grew up Mormon, told the newspaper. "In our universe, all God's children have a place in the choir."

Related Stories:

• Mormon Call for Gay Rights: Church Leaders Urge LGBT Protections
• Sen. Mike Lee Defends Religious Freedom Through the Eyes of a Mormon