Mormons and the movement for LGBT equality

Queerty reminds me that 5 senators who are Mormon voted for ENDA yesterday, which includes Harry Reid and Orin Hatch.  Pretty amazing turn of events.

Calling the Mormon Church an opponent of the gay rights movement is a massive understatement. But of the seven Senators who are Mormon, five of them voted to pass ENDA: Harry Reid, Tom Udall, Dean Heller, Jeff Flake and Orrin Hatch. (Mike Lee and Michael Crapo voted no.) Now Reid and Udall are Democrats, so you could argue their votes were to be expected, but the remaining three are Republicans. In particular, Hatch represents Utah, which is virtually synonymous with the Mormon Church, so he’s not likely to be taking positions that are going to enrage the Church.

From yesterday's New York Times, read this article about the Mormon Church and the gay rights movement, too.


We need to keep pressing the Mormon Church to stay out of the marriage equality debate. After the strong public backlash from their heavy support of Prop 8 and during the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, the LDS church has kept a low profile on this and other gay-releated issues.  But, recently in Hawaii, they seem to have fallen back to their old ways of preaching from the pulpit against the LGBT, while some of their most prominent members, like Steve Young, openly disagree with the church's teachings on homosexuality.