FIRST PRESIDENCY LETTER: “Our concern with respect to children is their current and future well-being and the harmony of their home environment. The provisions of Handbook 1, Section 16.13, that restrict priesthood ordinances for minors, apply only to those children whose primary residence is with a couple living in a same-gender marriage or similar relationship.” -excerpt from a letter from the First Presidency, 13 November 2015. [source]
QUOTE: “this policy originates out of that compassion. It originates from a desire to protect children in their innocence and in their minority years. When, for example, there is the formal blessing and naming of a child in the Church, which happens when a child has parents who are members of the Church, it triggers a lot of things. First, a membership record for them. It triggers the assignment of visiting and home teachers. It triggers an expectation that they will be in Primary and the other Church organizations. And that is likely not going to be an appropriate thing in the home setting, in the family setting where they’re living as children where their parents are a same-sex couple. We don’t want there to be the conflicts that that would engender. We don’t want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different. And so with the other ordinances on through baptism and so on, there’s time for that if, when a child reaches majority, he or she feels like that’s what they want and they can make an informed and conscious decision about that. Nothing is lost to them in the end if that’s the direction they want to go. In the meantime, they’re not placed in a position where there will be difficulties, challenges, conflicts that can injure their development in very tender years.” -D. Todd Christofferson, responding to the public outcry after the church policy to bar children of gay parents was leaked, 6 November 2015. [source]
COMMENTARY: If the Mormon leaders were really concerned about the current and future well-being of children and the harmony of their home environment, I don’t think they would limit the protections of non-member status to only those children who already had the benefit of being in a same-gender parented home. I think children of straight parents deserve our love and protection, too. But what do I know? I’m just another apostate.
