Mormons and Gay Marriage

In late 2022, Congress passed the ill-named Respect for Marriage Act, and President Biden signed it into law. This legislation expressly prohibits any legal definition of marriage that limits the institution of marriage to the union of a man and a woman, and it establishes a mechanism for gays and lesbians to litigate in the event that they are denied marriage licenses or their unions are not recognized as marriages. The act also outlines exemptions for private parties who for religious reasons do not wish to endorse or participate in same-sex marriages.

The outcome was expected. The Dobbs decision was a bitter setback for the left. Before the dust had settled, progressive organizations that promote the sexual revolution gathered their forces to show that they run our country by passing this legislation. What surprised me was the public support given by the Church of Latter-­day Saints.

Mormon elder Jack N. Gerard explained that the governing authority of the LDS Church took this public stand because it wished to acknowledge the reality that same-sex marriage is law in all fifty states. This is contrary to Mormon doctrine, but it’s a fact. “So what we’re trying to do is go forward protecting our religious rights while at the same time respecting our LGBTQ brothers and sisters who have a different view.”

Perhaps I should not have been surprised. “Respecting our LGBTQ brothers and sisters” combined with a religious liberty carve-out characterizes the “Utah Compromise,” a 2015 agreement by the LDS Church to support a gay rights bill in Utah that included ­assurances that religious organizations would not be affected. Official Mormon support was decisive. The bill passed and is now law.

Support for gay rights in 2015 and gay marriage in 2022 reveal that Mormonism is not interested in contending for the future of American society. The fifteen Apostles who govern the LDS Church are satisfied to concede cultural leadership to proponents of the sexual revolution, as long as their flock remains unmolested.

Again, I should not be surprised. Mormonism is a fugitive religious movement, formed in its earliest decades in a crucible of relentless persecution. Founder Joseph Smith was killed in 1844 by an anti-Mormon mob. The arduous trek to Utah was undertaken for survival’s sake, and for decades the Territory, then State of Utah was a set-apart society. This is not to say that Mormons are not good citizens. It is to say that Mormonism functions as what Ernst Troeltsch called a “sect,” concerned to preserve itself against a hostile world.

Will the Mormon approach of supporting antipathetic trends that seem destined to dominate the public square while ring-fencing the LDS Church work? Count me skeptical. Elder Gerard describes the religious liberty protections added to the Respect for Marriage Act by amendment in this way: “Support of these amendments will ensure that all religious people and institutions are respected and protected, even though they have a doctrine or practice that’s inconsistent with the law of the land.” It is not impossible to sustain a right to do that which is contrary to the law of the land, but it’s very difficult, especially when the law in question has the support of cultural elites. The Utah Compromise works in large part because the LDS Church in Utah has a great deal of political power. Its power deters the Human Rights Campaign from pressing its causes in that state. As a matter of political fact, progressive challenges to the Mormon-negotiated status quo in Utah would be ­defeated.

Unfortunately, Lorie Smith, the owner of 303 ­Creative, whose refusal to design websites for gay weddings entangled her in the anti-discrimination litigation that has made its way to the Supreme Court, is a generic Christian in Colorado, not a Mormon living in Utah. I dare say that, on the national scene, Mormons will be in Lorie Smith’s position. Outside of Utah, Mormons have very little throw weight. In what direction will a federal judge in Massachusetts lean when the Human Rights Campaign gins up a case to challenge the right of this or that religious person or institution to follow through on “a doctrine or practice that’s inconsistent with the law of the land”? Perhaps, at the end of the day, the Supreme Court will vindicate the religious liberty protections encoded in the Respect for Marriage Act. But those protections are sure to be challenged, and defending them will be an arduous and expensive undertaking.

In my estimation, LDS support for the Respect for Marriage Act was a mistake. In matters of public significance, one has options other than opposition or support. One can remain silent. This is often the best response to what is politically repugnant but inevitable. The Mormon decision to offer public support for a bill that uses today’s sacred language of anti-discrimination to establish a right that the 2015 Obergefell decision had already entrenched into our constitutional regime contributes to the growing moral and cultural legitimacy of same-sex marriage. Settled norms for male and female relations and a strong culture of marriage are important common goods. Without them, male-female relations become disordered. It is among the stated aims of the LGBTQ movement to unsettle those norms and redefine marriage, aims that have bad consequences for society as a whole, as we see today. For these reasons, public support for the Respect for Marriage Act makes the LDS Church complicit in the perversion of public morality in the United States. This complicity is inconsistent with responsible citizenship.