http://www.latimes.com/kstu-news-release-new-lds-church-policy-removes-same-sex,0,361434.story

SALT LAKE CITY —
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has responded to a news release from The Human Rights Campaign (HRC). The HRC claims the Mormon Church has removed same-sex attraction as a sin in church policy.

Scott Trotter, spokesperson for The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, released this statement today: "The HRC's representations of the changes in the new handbook are simply absurd."

The HRC says that the LDS Church Handbook of Instructions 2, an administrative instruction guide for their leaders, changed its wording from last revision, specifically concerning the morality section. The revised handbook does not guide church leaders to council members who experience same-sex attraction to seek "reparative" therapy in same-gender attraction.

The Human Rights Campaign interpreted that as the LDS Church saying homosexuality is normal and no longer recognized as a sin.

"This is a big deal, this is huge. This is a great step forward for the church and I recognize that. I just hope we can work with them to come even further," said HRC spokesperson, Scott Guequierre.

The new handbook also removes the statement regarding any of its members who have "homosexual thoughts or feelings," that they seek church leadership council and repent, but instead leave it only to those who "engage in homosexual behavior" to do so.

Gay rights organizations are taking credit for the new changes, but the LDS Church says these changes were printed several months ago.

Changes to LDS Church policy on homosexuality were formally presented to LDS leaders last Saturday, Nov. 13.

Below is the news release from HRC:

WASHINGTON - The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest civil rights organization dedicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality, today recognized that the Mormon Church removed same-sex attraction as a sin in church policy. The new policy, released by church leaders last Saturday, for the first time does not call for professional counseling for those who experience same-sex attraction. The American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association have both concluded that same-sex attraction is normal and that "reparative" therapy -- like the kind formerly advocated by the Mormon Church -- is unhealthy and harmful.

While still claiming that "homosexual behavior violates the commandments of God," the new policy differentiates between same-sex behavior, to which they continue to object, and attraction, which the church is able to rationalize. A summary of the policy changes can be found here.

"The new guidelines clearly show that advocacy efforts pay off with real change," said HRC President Joe Solmonese. "We spoke out against the harms of so-called 'reparative therapies' on LGBT young people. Church leaders heard us and responded by dropping their recommendation that such discredited interventions be forced on LGBT and questioning youth."

"We continue to disagree with the Mormon Church about fundamentally important issues like full respect for the marriages of same-sex couples, but we are encouraged that our advocacy has paid off with real movement that will help save young lives," said Rev. Harry Knox, director of HRC's Religion and Faith Program.

Last month Boyd K. Packer, the president of the Mormon Church's Quorum of Twelve Apostles, called same-sex attraction "impure and unnatural," and claimed that it can be corrected. Packer characterized same-sex marriage as immoral. Packer's inaccurate and dangerous rhetoric came on the heels of the suicides of a number of teenagers who were victims of anti-gay bullying or harassment. Packer, who is 86 and one of the church's most senior leaders, made his statements to a crowd of 20,000 -- with millions more watching via satellite transmission -- during the church's 180th Semi-annual General Conference in Salt Lake City.

HRC immediately called on Packer to correct his dangerous statements. Over 150,000 members and supporters signed an open letter to Packer and HRC President Joe Solmonese delivered the signatures to Church headquarters along with representatives from Equality Utah, the Utah Pride Center, Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons, and the Utah Psychological Association.

The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

... If you know what I mean.

Based on this news I am begining to wonder if BKP wasn't strong armed into a compromise with this change being the end of the deal that he didn't like and his reward for relenting was to get his turn at the mic to firmly establish his old dogma one last time before he expires. It semed to indicate that the change was made before GC so I don't see this as to large of an assumption. Is it?

maybe just a tiny very small deal. ???

Seemingly small changes can set in motion massive upheaval. It is like the small crack in the dam that causes the dam to eventually burst. Take, for example, June 28, 1969, a pivotal date for gays and gay rights but most people don't even know about it. On that day police raided a gay bar like they had done often before. But on that day something was slightly different and the patrons protested. From that, 3 days of riots broke out. A year later, events were held in 3 different cities to commemorate the raid and subsequent riots. The largest of these events attracted about 5,000 people. These events were the first ever gay pride events. From there gay pride events have popped up all over the place the largest being in Sao Paulo, Brazil attracting over 3 million people. http://www.gaypridebrazil.org/sao-paulo/events/index.asp even in states as concentrative as Utah there are now gay pride events. The Salt Lake City gay pride parade is the second largest parade in Utah. All this springing from a police raid that was little different from many others before.


This, to me, shows that TSCC does not at all feel secure in their battle against gays and on this issue they are vulnerable. They have cracked just a bit, they now allow gays to stay in the church. Yes, they have to remain celibate, but eventually those gays will want more and will have friends that will support them from within TSCC.

Unfortunately I think the HRC is taking credit for something that hasn't happened yet. The change in wording was probably researched before the protests and was probably put in by some legal beagle.

The medical community has come to agreement that "reparative therapy" to change sexual orientation is certainly useless, and quite probably harmful. Probably some legal drone at COB told them to put something in there so that nobody will come after them and accuse them of abuse.

TSCC's philosophy hasn't changed and will not change until somebody threatens their tax status over it. "There are none so blind as those who will not see." (I don't believe in the bible but like all works of fiction, it contains a few thoughtful passages.)

IMHO, if TSCC was not feeling pressure, they would not have made the change.

The LDS church's primary goal is to retain as much power as it can. Period. They went after gay marriage thinking not only could they get away with it, but it would make them look better to other church's. It backfired badly and now the church is in defense mode. The greedy monster took too big of a bite and it chocked.

I can't remember now if it was in the 1990s or the early 2000s, but it was essentially the same thing: the Catholic church doesn't concern itself much with the attraction itself, but continues to consider the behavior a sin. The statement the church made at the time also counseled parents of gays to love their children, blah-blah-blah.

It sounds nice, but I doubt that the attitudes of many Catholics were changed by it, and no fundamental teaching of the church actually changed. Homosexuality continues to be regarded as deviant and wrong. In fact, in one way, the situation is now worse. Many Catholic leaders are blaming child sexual abuse by priests on homosexuality, rather than recognizing pedophilia as a completely different thing.

So I think this terribly minor change in the CHI is meaningless. They probably never even intended the general public to be aware of it. I'm cynical, but I can't help thinking that what's really behind it is a desire to keep gays in the church and paying up . . . they're probably starting to realize that a policy of constant persecution and attempts to control the trivial details of members' lives is actually losing them money.

The next thing that will probably happen will not be a change in favor of gays, but a relaxation of standards for temple recommends for everyone. They're probably losing tithe-payers because people who lose their temple recommends for "worthiness" reasons are probably increasingly likely to give up on the whole thing. Many people are only paying tithes to keep their recommends . . . if they lose them for another reason, there's no point in continuing to pay. So what's likely to happen is that those temple recommend interviews will become less intrusive, less likely to uncover any kind of serious "sin" that would lead to a loss in revenues. The interview is probably going to end up amounting to something like, "So, have you paid a full tithe this year? And do you generally feel pretty good about the church? Okay, good enough. Keep those checks coming."