SALT LAKE CITY — Two sides of the same coin.
LDS Church leaders didn't begin to use that phrase to describe their position about religious liberty and the rights of LGBT people until later in 2015, but the concept was crystal clear when they began the year by making international news with a rare, major press conference.
Three Mormon apostles and a female leader stood at a podium in the faith's downtown Salt Lake Conference Center last January and laid out the fairness-for-all approach of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"We call on local, state and national governments to serve all of their people," said Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, "by striving to pass legislation that protects vital religious freedoms for individuals, families, churches and other faith groups while also protecting the rights of LGBT citizens in such areas as housing, employment and public accommodation in hotels, restaurants and transportation."
Church leaders consistently expressed the two-part theme throughout a newsmaking year for the faith — when in March Utah's Legislature passed a nondiscrimination law patterned after the LDS approach, when that approach drew the appreciation of President Barack Obama, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in June, when the church changed its policies regarding gay couples in November and as church leaders gave talks about religious freedom in forums around the world.
Other noteworthy events in 2015 included another major news conference that introduced three new apostles who took the place of iconic senior leaders who died during the year, a landmark decision to stick with the Boy Scouts of America, major developments for women in the church and a declaration using membership statistics that the church is stronger than ever.
One side
Many gay rights advocates initially balked at the church's January insistence that nondiscrimination laws protecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community must be paired with protections for religious liberty, but those concerns quickly dissipated and the sides joined arms.
In March, LGBT activists and Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stood side by side amid a cheering crowd that celebrated as Gov. Gary Herbert signed a historic antidiscrimination and religious rights bill that alternatively became known as the Utah Compromise, the Utah Miracle and an olive branch.
Utah's only openly gay legislator said the bill walked a "wonderful" fine line.
"All of these rights and protections go across the board," said Sen. Jim Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City. "They're protecting all of us."
After the bill signing, the church published a commentary on mormonnewsroom.org that said the church's aim was to untie the knot of a polarizing, winner-takes-all conversation.
"Doing so requires trust and goodwill from both sides," the commentary said. "These two goods — protecting the conscience of religious people and affirming the right of LGBT people to lead a dignified life — can be compatible. Security lies in reciprocity."
LDS Church leaders also consistently said it is important to secure religious freedom for all people, a position that gained added perspective in a national year-end poll for Associated Press news service. The survey found that 82 percent of Americans said it is important to protect religious liberty for Christians, compared to 67 percent who said it is important to do so for Mormons and 61 percent who said Muslims deserved protection.
When Obama visited Salt Lake City in April, he met with four church leaders, including Elder Perry. The president expressed appreciation for the church’s leadership role in seeking a balance between religious freedom and nondiscrimination.
Some religious conservatives and some gay activists maintained reservations about the fairness-for-all approach, but most inside the church and in the gay community embraced it. Gay Mormons and others praised the church's efforts, and many characterized them as healing and part of increased awareness and understanding that was leading to improved dialogue in and out of the church.
Coin's other side
At the World Congress of Families in October, Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve noted "how completely linked our theology is to the traditional family."
That followed talks given in April by Elder Perry and Elder D. Todd Christofferson at the church's general conference that plainly described how LDS doctrine on the family is inextricably linked to marriage between a man and a woman.
"The entire theology of our restored gospel centers on families and on the new and everlasting covenant of marriage," Elder Perry said, adding that families "are also the basic units of eternity and of the kingdom and government of God."
Elder Christofferson said: "God ordained that men and women should marry and give birth to children, thereby creating, in partnership with God, the physical bodies that are key to the test of mortality and essential to eternal glory with him. He also ordained that parents should establish families and rear their children in light and truth, leading them to a hope in Christ."
When the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in June, church leaders sounded the same two-part note, urging church members to accept the law of the land but restating the right to the free exercise of religion.
"The court's decision does not alter the Lord's doctrine that marriage is a union between a man and a woman ordained by God," a church statement said. "While showing respect for those who think differently, the church will continue to teach and promote marriage between a man and a woman as a central part of our doctrine and practice."
In early July, church leaders sent a letter to be read in North American congregations. The letter said leaders accepted the new law of the land but that church officers would not perform same-sex marriages and that church buildings would not be used for same-sex weddings or receptions.
The letter again sounded a respectful note.
"We affirm that those who avail themselves of laws or court rulings authorizing same‐sex marriage should not be treated disrespectfully," the letter said. "Indeed, the church has advocated for rights of same‐sex couples in matters of hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment, and probate, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches."
The terminology of another side of the coin still hadn't been used publicly, but the concept was present in the letter:
"The church insists on its leaders’ and members’ right to express and advocate religious convictions on marriage, family and morality free from retaliation or retribution."
Handbook changes
Church leaders continued to make bold statements against discrimination or intolerance toward gays. In October, Elder Oaks called for an end to the culture wars, which he defined as the collision of the very two values — freedom from discrimination and the free exercise of religion — that church leaders had spent the year showing could be protected side by side.
Meanwhile, LDS apostles spoke about religious freedom around the globe. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland called on Christians to unite to counter trends harming faith, family and religious liberty in a speech at Chapman University in California. Elder Quentin L. Cook went to Australia to call for a global effort to protect religious freedom. Elder Oaks told the Argentina Council for Foreign Relations that religious freedom is everyone's concern. Elder Christofferson spoke at a historic religious freedom event in Brazil. And Elder Ronald A. Rasband told BYU students that "Our society has become so blind by its quest to redress wrongful discrimination against one class of people that it is now in danger of creating another victimized class: people of faith like you and me."
He laid out the church's position in the Utah Compromise clearly.
"No doctrinal or religious principles were sacrificed," Elder Rasband said. "No changes were made to God’s moral law and our belief that sexual relations should only occur within marriage between a man and a woman. The outcome was fair to all and reflects a consistency in moral standards and teachings and in respect for others."
In early November, senior church leaders released new policies in an online update to Handbook 1, a private document of instructions to local priesthood leaders who run Mormon congregations. The update clarified that the church considers entering a same-sex marriage to be apostasy requiring a church disciplinary council. The update stated that homosexual relations, especially sexual cohabitation, are serious transgressions for which a disciplinary council may be necessary.
A new section in the handbook instructed local leaders that children of a parent living in a same-sex relationship cannot receive baby blessings or baptism.
The changes were leaked to news media and elicited emotional responses from gays and gay rights activists, some of whom said the policies were a step back from the church's efforts earlier in the year. More than 1,000 people, the vast majority of whom had been long inactive in the church, resigned their church memberships at a Salt Lake event.
Elder Christofferson explained the changes in a question-and-answer video and said they were consistent with the church's fairness-for-all approach.
"This is really two sides of the same coin," he said. "On the one hand, we have worked with others and will continue to do so to protect rights and employment and housing and that sort of thing for all. And on the other hand, there needs to be respect and acknowledgment of the rights of the religious community to set its standards and to live according to them and to teach and abide by its own doctrines, such as regards marriage in this case."
One gay former Mormon said the policy changes were painful but not a sign of a step back.
"I disagree with the idea this is a retrenchment," said John Gustav-Wrathall, a member of the board of directors of Affirmation, a support group for LGBT Mormons and former Mormons and their families, friends and church leaders. "I honestly believe the church has moved forward in terms of its engagement with us as human beings, as members of families, as members of wards. There is a deeper, more profound understanding. There has been more explicit talk from the highest levels of the church about love and about acceptance and about listening. My perception is that members of the church are taking that seriously."
Change and strength
Elder Perry died May 30 at 92 from a wildfire of a cancer. President Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of the Twelve and one of the longest-serving authorities in church history, died July 3 at 90. A third member of the quorum, Elder Richard G. Scott, died Sept. 22 at 86.
The losses were historic. Never before had death been the cause of three simultaneous vacancies in the quorum. Prior to their deaths, only three men among the church's 15 senior leaders had been called prior to 1984, beginning with church President Thomas S. Monson, who became an apostle in 1963. Now President Packer (1970) and Elder Perry (1974) were gone.
Also, three new apostles hadn't been called at the same time since 1906. On Oct. 3, church members sustained Elders Ronald A. Rasband, Gary E. Stevenson and Dale G. Renlund as apostles. They were ordained on Oct. 8.
At the April general conference, the church announced that membership had grown to a record 15,372,337.
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never been stronger," Elder Cook said during the same conference. He said assertions made by former Mormons and those supporting priesthood ordination for women that more members are leaving the church than in the past and that there is more doubt and unbelief "are simply untrue."
In fact, he said the number of members removing their names from church records has fallen "greatly" in recent years.
After a month of deliberation following a vote by the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America to allow openly gay Scout leaders, church leaders announced in August they had decided to go forward with the faith's 102-year association with Scouting. The decision came after the BSA said it would defend the right of religious chartered organizations to select Scout leaders in accordance with their religious beliefs.
In October, the church affirmed its longstanding doctrinal belief in a Heavenly Mother through an official essay on the church's website, lds.org. At the same time, the site published a complex, scholarly essay about women and the priesthood, titled "Joseph Smith's Teachings about Priesthood, Temple and Women."
The essays described the enormous contributions of women to LDS ministry since the earliest days of the church. Many LDS women and scholars were encouraged by their publication, calling them important contributions and a step forward.
The essays came two months after the leader of the church's worldwide Young Women organization announced that the church had added female leaders to three major, senior church committees, a historic development that gave women significant, permanent, official voices in church leadership.
Sister Linda K. Burton, the Relief Society general president, joined the Priesthood and Family Executive Council. Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, the general Young Women president, joined the Missionary Executive Council. The general Primary president, Sister Rosemary Wixom, joined the Temple and Family History Executive Council.
Email: twalch@deseretnews.com