Framing Eternal Sexual Identity in a Shifting Cultural Landscape

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides an especially interesting example of one denomination’s attempt to construct sexual identity and expression in theology, religious and secular policies, law, public relations, and the lives of its members in a changing cultural context. This chapter contextualizes the LDS response to sexual orientation and gender identity by examining the church’s shifting official construction of ideal sexuality. From at least the 1840s, Latter-day Saint leaders centered sexuality as a core element of Mormon thought, beginning with Joseph Smith, Jr.’s novel theological contributions providing justification for plural marriage. As the church abandoned polygamy in the twentieth century, it refocused its theology around monogamous heterosexual families—codified in teachings which it calls the plan of salvation—and concomitantly embraced the heterosexual dyad as God’s ideal for humans before, during, and after life. With the growth of the LGBT+ rights movement in the United States since the 1960s, LDS leaders used rhetoric and policy to identify homosexuality as a “perversion” and “grievous sin.” As of 2020, church leaders have begun to make oblique references to “LGBT” people, and some contemporary LDS leaders have supported limited legal protections for gay men and lesbians, but the LDS Church continues to play a key role opposing same-sex marriage in national battles, and continues to define same-sex relationships as violating God’s law of chastity.