Mormons and Gay Rights: Shared Values

Typing the words “mormon and gay rights” into one popular Internet search engine brings up around 1,670, 000 results in less than a minute, actually in about 0.16 seconds to be exact. Yet like most Internet searches, some of the information called up is credible, some information lacks credibility, and some information really is incredible in the most skeptical, hard-to-believe definition of that word. Clearly with all of the data available for those with Internet capabilities, greater discernment is required in its consumption. Perhaps T.S. Eliot said it best when he wrote,

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Yet those who critically digest instead of naively imbibing from the Internet’s fountain of information will be able to form cogent, fact-based opinions from legitimate sources.

Thus while a number of sources deride The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a secretive, homophobic institution, this article is an attempt to publish the reality that the Church of Jesus Christ in certain instances can in fact be counted among the Gay Community’s greatest allies. The goal of this essay is to shed greater light on the common ground and shared goals of the Church of Jesus Christ and the collective Gay Rights Movement. In so doing, it is hoped that individuals on both sides of political debates will be more apt to view each other first and foremost as individual members of the great human race, each fully deserving of the others love, respect, and understanding. As the Chinese proverb explains, there can be “Harmony in spite of differences.”

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by Elijah Nielson