Mormon LGBT Purge

Gerardo Sumano [00:00:00] Foreign.

John Dehlin [00:00:05] And welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's May 13, 2024. We are live streaming and we have some breaking news that we want to share today. We don't do it in happiness or in elation. We do this in a somber tone without any. Any joy or happiness, really. The episode for today is Mormon LGBT Purge resumes question mark and we have some late, you know, recently told to U.S. news that at least five lesbian couples apparently have been excommunicated from the Mormon Church that just in the past month or so, faithfully attending, not causing any trouble, earnestly believing, as I understand it, and. And some of them with children. So, yeah, that's what we're going to be talking about today. I am grateful to have back on our panel Gerardo Sumano. Hey, Gerardo. Hi.

Gerardo Sumano [00:01:17] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:01:17] John and Julia Sanders. Hey, Julia.

Julia Sanders [00:01:20] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:01:22] Thanks for being here under not great circumstances.

Mitch Larsen Dead at 53

Julia Sanders [00:01:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:30] Before we dive in, I'll just give. I wanted to give a few just quick little thoughts. The first is many of you will know about Encircle. It's an LGBT youth home and then a series of homes that were built throughout Utah and in other states. The Encircle was started by my dear friend Stephanie Sorenson Larsen. And I believe Encircle has been for sure one of the most important dynamics in Utah over the years to provide support and to move hearts and minds, you know, around the intersection of the LGBTQ experience and Mormonism, especially in Utah. And I just wanted to just briefly acknowledge that my dear friend Mitch Larsen, the husband of Stephanie Sorenson Larsen, passed away last week unexpectedly. He was 53 years old.

Guest [00:02:37] He.

John Dehlin [00:02:37] He apparently died of a blood clot from a back surgery that he attempted to have. Mitch is a brilliant, kind, loving, funny, super intelligent friend. He's been a friend and a supporter of Mormon stories for a long time. And he was for sure Stephanie Sorensen, Larsen's top ally and friend and supporter who made the Encircle houses possible. And it's just a huge loss. So just really quickly, our love to. To Mitch Larsen and to Stephanie and their six children. I. That's just more than anything, I just wanted to make that personal tribute. So love, love you, Stephanie and family and Mitch, we're gonna miss you. Rest in peace, Mitch. Okay, so I wanted to provide a little bit of background for today's episode because this episode comes as one in a series of episodes that we've covered. Many of you will remember that in the past, in some of the past episodes, we've talked about former BYU University mascot or cougar, Charlie Bird and his husband Ryan Clifford. Here is a photo that I was able to grab from USA Today. They recently did some sort of Taylor Swift tribute. And this is, this is a photo that came from USA Today. And from that tribute I wanted to make sure and pick a photo that was nationally used and approved of. So that's what that is. But we also, I'll just reference the most recent episode that we did and Julia Haro were on that episode along with our friend Kyle. The episode was called Mary Gay Mormons Get Sacrament and callings, episode number 1859 on Mormon stories. And on that episode, we rejoiced in learning that Charlie Bird and Ryan Clifford were in fact not only actively attending their ward as a married gay couple, but they were also members in full standing, including Heaven colleagues. And so we did that as a celebration and we did that also celebrating what we perceived to be progress by the Mormon Church where it seemed like they had maybe called off, you know, the excommunication of same sex married couples. And we were all cautiously optimistic and, and so that's where things were last time we did that episode. And it's been a little bit since then. And before we dive into the news, we wanted to again provide some disclaimers. And the disclaimers are that we enthusiastically celebrate and support LGBTQ Mormons and allies who choose to remain active in the LDS Church. We believe in self determination and, and we only celebrate people that make that decision. In no way are any of us here to pass judgment on people that choose to make Mormonism work, regardless of their, their positions. We also are, have been super excited that historically, at least over the past several months, if not more, the Mormon Church has been choosing not to pursue excommunication for LGBTQ same sex married Mormons. Of course we wish that the church would announce that, that unofficial, what seemed to be an unofficial policy. We wish the church would announce it and standardize it so that everyone could know. But they hadn't chosen to do that. But, you know, that's, that's, you know, a call they have to make. But we were cautiously optimistic about the progress that appeared to be happening. And again, even though we sometimes talk about Charlie Bird and Ryan Clifford, we want to make it clear that we are super happy for them. We want them to remain active members in good standing for as long as they want to. And we're also happy for all the other same sex married LGBTQ couples that we've heard about throughout the United States who continue to be allowed to be active in their LDS wards and to have callings, because as I understand it, there still are many. And we are happy about that and we celebrate it. And then finally we want to make clear that we want nothing more than for the LDS Church to become a safe and a healthy place for LGBTQ Mormons. Now I'm going to pause. Gerardo and Julia, anything y' all want to say in addition to these disclaimers that I've already added? Julia will have you go first.

Charlie Bird and Ryan Clifford: Gay Mormons Get Sacrament and Callings

Julia Sanders [00:07:52] Oh, no, I don't think so. I think that was really good pointing that out. Just that we want the best for these people who are in the church. These, these couples. And that's. That's all that we want is just the best for them and to make safe places for people for me, like up and coming people who aren't out yet. Like, I myself am a late in life lesbian. So, like, yeah, just making it safe for everybody.

John Dehlin [00:08:11] And Julia, you actually grew up with Charlie, isn't that right?

Julia Sanders [00:08:14] Well, so I, I grew up around him. We're in the southern Missouri, so we're in this right now. Or when I was excommunicated myself, we were in the same kind of ward while his. With his family. I'm more his older sister's age. So, like, I wasn't ever really around Charlie. I was more around his other family members. So.

John Dehlin [00:08:30] Okay. Yeah, but you know the Bird family in one way very well.

Julia Sanders [00:08:34] Very well. Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:35] Okay. All right. Okay. Gerardo, anything you want to add to the disclaimers or to the intro?

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:41] I wanted to make a quick just correction to. I don't. Julia did not participate in that original episode.

John Dehlin [00:08:47] Oh, okay. My bad. Oh, that was Jillian.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:51] Okay. Sorry.

Gerardo Sumano [00:08:53] But yeah, on that episode. Good. Okay. But yeah, so, yeah, I think the, the disclaimers you just read, John, covered it. And honestly, if I would add something, it would be that I. My wish is that all members are treated the same, no matter where they are living or their affluence or living conditions or, you know, being. Having grown up in Mexico, in the church in Mexico, I would have probably loved for the same policies that apply in the US for people to apply there for the people in Mexico. And so, so yeah, and I, I think that's part of what we're going to be talking about. Right? About how the church could potentially be purposely allowing for there to be confusion and for people to be treated differently so that the church leaders at the top are not held accountable for. For these excommunications But. But, yeah, that. That would be something I would add.

Julia and Gerardo on Being Excommunicated

John Dehlin [00:10:07] And, Julia, did you already mention you were excommunicated? Did you already mention that?

Julia Sanders [00:10:13] I did mention that I was excommunicated, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:15] Okay. And, Gerardo, do you want to talk about your status with the church? Are you. Do you even want to talk about that?

Gerardo Sumano [00:10:21] Yeah, well, I'm still a member of record. I don't. I don't regularly. I don't regularly attend church, but. But I'm still a member. Protected by the Mormon stories. Mental, probably.

John Dehlin [00:10:37] And, yeah, and most of you will know I was excommunicated, but I'm also super straight, but I was advocating for same sex marriage back in 2013, and that's what kicked off my excommunication. So, you know, that's. That's about me. Okay, well, let's go ahead and jump into the breaking news, and we'll. We'll try and be thoughtful about how we do it. But the basic news is that we were recently made aware of at least five excommunications of five faithful lesbian couples who were Mormon or LDS over the past month or so. We were. We don't. We don't have their names. We don't know their names. These couples are not, as far as we know, not yet ready to talk about their excommunications, and we believe that's their right. But you know what.

Lesbian Couples Excommunicated

Gerardo Sumano [00:11:32] What.

John Dehlin [00:11:32] What has been shared with us is that three of them are in Texas, one of them is in Utah, and one of them is in Tennessee. And, you know, some might ask, why in the world are we talking about it if. If these, you know, couples aren't ready to have it be talked about. And I'm curious if. If Julia or Gerardo, either of you want to share your thoughts on that, or if. If y' all just want me to go ahead and give my. My reasons. Julia, you can go first if you want.

Julia Sanders [00:12:03] I'm sorry. I was distracted by reading some of the comments.

John Dehlin [00:12:05] Oh, okay. No problem.

Julia Sanders [00:12:07] You. You go.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Do. Do you have anything you want to say first?

Gerardo Sumano [00:12:12] Well, I think this. These issues are important to be brought up. I. I feel like people and members and former members, I mean, a lot of us who either don't attend church anymore, I don't affiliate with the church, have family members who are still affiliated with the church. Right. I think these are topics of interest to us, and I think the only way that the church is going to do better is if these topics are being discussed, are being brought up to the public. View. And also if church leaders are actually, if pressure is brought to church leaders to actually make change, which, you know, we know has happened before, so we know it's possible that.

John Dehlin [00:12:57] Yeah. That way, if somebody said to you, hey, why are you talking about this? If they're not ready to talk about it, y' all shouldn't be talking about it. Would you add anything in terms of news responsibilities or informed consent or anything like that?

Julia Sanders [00:13:12] Well, I think it's important, like you did point out that we don't know these people's names. We're not. We're not doxing anybody. I think it's an important thing to talk about because, like Gerardo was saying, to hold the church accountable to these things, it helps to make change. And we'll see some of these things as we go through this presentation today. Is that because pressure has been put on the church, they've made changes. They're kind of small, but they're changes. And so that's kind of what this is. Is that just bringing this to light. And we're not trying to call anybody out or say anything negative, but bringing this to light does help make a safe space for the future.

John Dehlin [00:13:47] I love it. Yeah. Let me just. We're going to be sharing. I'm going to ask Maven to star some of the comments and questions that she thinks are worthy for us. We welcome our live audience. Josiah writes, I've been studying with the missionaries and going to their church the past three weeks. They reached out to me saying they were LGBTQ inclusive. Am I wasting my time with them? So, Josiah, that's a perfect example of why it's important to talk about these things. I'm sure these missionaries don't even know about these excommunications. They might be under the understanding that the church has become more supportive and affirming. And unless this sort of information gets shared, someone like Josiah may get baptized when they really shouldn't or wouldn't. That's a great example. Thank you for sharing that, Josiah. I'm sorry you're feeling confused and frustrated. Matthew writes, I wish the church would make up its mind of how it treats LGBT community, love us fully, and allow participation or excommunicate everyone. At least people would know where Jesus's church stands. Thank you, Matthew. And he is a member of the LGBTQ community. Kneller's writes, I wonder why they all are female, same sex couples and no males. We're definitely going to talk about that. Thank you, Jay Larsen, for the super chat. He says, when anyone says Issues. I respond with gauze and tight. Does anyone know what he means by that? Because untied. Oh. Oh, okay. Got it. That's a joke. Thank you for that. Okay. All right. So, yeah, I'll just add that we're going to be talking about how, you know, one of the things we're going to be talking about is a recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune about faithful parents of LGBTQ kids remaining active. And of course, LGBT people, you know, might choose to remain active thinking that the church is now going to leave them alone. And that's the impression many would have if this stuff weren't publicized. But if the lgbt, if the Mormon Church, if the LDS Church is going to become. Is going to open up hunting season on same sex married Mormon couples, then I think the LGBT Mormon community deserves to know that so that they can protect themselves. Because I can tell you, as someone who was excommunicated, the excommunication process is barbaric. It's violent, psychologically violent and emotionally violent, and no one should have to go through it. So I think personally, as someone who's been excommunicated, people deserve to know what their organization is likely to do to them so they can make decisions accordingly, including self protection. Julia, how do you describe your excommunication? I don't even know that you attended.

#AskWSJD: The LGBTQ Community

Mormon leader on LGBT Mormons remaining active

I Was Excommunicated For Being Gay

Julia Sanders [00:16:47] Yeah, so this is kind of confusing. I was just thinking about that as you were talking. So I was. I don't know how to explain this, but. So I separated from my husband because I realized I was gay. And then during the separation, I started dating somebody. And when. Then we eventually lived. Started living together. My divorce took two years. And then shortly after, my ex husband notified the bishop that I was living with my girlfriend. And then the council was held. I did not attend because that just seemed really traumatic to me and nor did I have any desire to attend. I had fully deconstructed my religion by then or the church by then. And then. So I. I skipped going. And then, so. And then I got a paper of a letter eventually saying the reasons why that I was excommunicated and the reasons why. And it actually isn't very specific. It doesn't say for adultery. It doesn't say for being gay, just says that I was excommunicated. So there's. It's really vague. So I don't know how to. I always think of it as that I was excommunicated for being gay. I have several family members who have left the church that have been in sexual relationships with other people and they have not been excommunicated. So I feel like it's a sort of double standard, if you're going to say it that way. But I don't. It's kind of messy, so I don't, I don't really know how to answer that question.

John Dehlin [00:17:59] Gerardo's married and he's left alone. Right. Yeah. And, and I, I do recommend Gerardo's interview for anyone interested.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:11] I'm also, I should probably be to talk about this. So when I moved to Utah right after school ended, I attended a, A YSA ward once. That's far from my house right now. And I quickly moved my records there and I only attended once. So it is likely like, well, the bishop doesn't know who I am, but, and would be hard to track me because I don't live in the area at all.

John Dehlin [00:18:44] But, but the strength in the church members committee could have submitted your name very easily and hunt down where your membership record was.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:54] Take care of it. And the church clearly has chosen not to in your case.

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:58] Yes, that's, that's also true.

John Dehlin [00:19:01] I'll, I'll keep sharing comments as they come in. It's Jenny, right, Gerardo? Is that her name? Jenny?

Guest [00:19:07] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:19:08] Life take two. She's, she's a super fan. Hey, Jenny. She does great work on TikTok. She writes, I have family members who are dead because of the church's policies. This is a life or death discussion. Thank you, Jenny, for sharing that. Justin writes, ambiguity and policy allows the quorum of the 15 or the church's top 15 leaders to avoid making public statements for or against. And we definitely think that the church is being purposely vague. And Megan agrees. Megan says, I feel the church is purposely being vague about how they talk about the LGBTQ community only being clear on matters like at byu. And again, we'll talk more about that. What we think is intentional ambiguity. Okay, so Julio, you brought this slide. You added this slide. And I think the point you wanted to make here is that even though the church, you would think that, you know, if there's a, if there's a publication called the Church News, you would think that this would be news. Right. Mormon church opens hunting season against lesbian same sex married couples. But, you know, what's your point here? That the church news is missing any discussion of these excommunications.

Mormon Church opens hunting season against lesbian same-sex married couples

Julia Sanders [00:20:28] Yeah, like I, I, yours was in the news. I, I don't think it was in the, it might not have been in the church news. Maybe the Deseret News. We have Sam Young, we have Natasha Helfer. All these big. Or even Bill Real, maybe even, like, all these big people who have been excommunicated. We hear about them, but with these LGBTQ couples, there's nothing there. It's just quite. It's just silent. And so without you breaking this news on Mormon stories, I don't know that people would hear about it.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] Yeah, yeah. And I would say it's definitely not the norm for the church to announce excommunications now. Now, interestingly, for those who are history nerds, the Desiree News every week used to publish excommunications in the Deseret News of just any random Mormon. Did you know that?

Julia Sanders [00:21:11] I did not know that. What years. What year was that?

John Dehlin [00:21:15] 30s and 40s.

Julia Sanders [00:21:17] Wow.

John Dehlin [00:21:18] Y' all could Google right now. Deseret News, excommunications. And. And you'll see them. But. But, you know, the Church has gone back and forth on how much it likes to talk publicly about these excommunications. Now more than ever, the Church tries to downplay it because it's embarrassing. It makes the Church look medieval and barbaric. So we've been able to convince the Church, you know, we were even able to help the Church convince the Church to rename them. Like, the Church doesn't call them excommunications anymore. It. It should be mentioned that the Church now calls them membership councils. Councils. And you're. They don't excommunicate you. They withdraw your membership. It's all euphemistic. Right. Obviously, the Church is still excommunicating people, but they've changed the names they use to make it sound less awesome.

Julia Sanders [00:22:07] I would argue that some. There are some bishops and stake presidents that still use the old language. Like, I was excommunicated in, I think, September of 21. And we. We use the same language. We use excommunication and disciplinary council and things like that. So, like, I don't know if it had changed by then, but, like, I don't. Maybe it's just a selective bishops that are actually picking up on that.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:25] The change was made in 2020. So, yeah, I'm surprised that they were still using the old language.

Julia Sanders [00:22:32] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:22:32] Yeah.

David Archuleta's Mother Stays in the LDS Church

John Dehlin [00:22:34] All right. Well. And. And. And, you know, there was a really interesting article in the Sally Tribune over the weekend that got me going. It's written by Tamara Kemsley, who I feel like I have a decent professional relationship with. And the article's entitled, david Archuleta's mom left the LDS Church after her son Came out, these parents stayed, but not without difficulty. And we, we, you know, we talked about. Gerardo, this. David Archuleta's new song, Hell Together, right? Is that what it's called?

Gerardo Sumano [00:23:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:12] And, you know, we covered that on Mormon stories, I believe, or in the Mormon newscast, or both. I forget. Did we cover it?

Gerardo Sumano [00:23:19] Not on Mormon story. Newscast.

John Dehlin [00:23:20] We covered on the Mormon newscast. And it's a great song. We recommend that everyone listen to it. We've also interviewed Lupe Bartholomew Gerardo, and I interviewed her on Mormon Stories podcast. I did think it was an interesting choice for the Tribune to not just cover his song in Lupe, but to couple the, you know, the song in Lupe's story with a story about parents of LGBT Mormon youth staying in the church. Did you either of you have thoughts on that?

Julia Sanders [00:23:52] Well, I pulled out some of the. I pull out some quotes throughout the presentation, and I think some of them are really sweet. They're like, let me try to remember there. There were some that say. One of the points that they say is that a lot of. I think they said all the parents that have stayed in the church, that with gay kill with gay children, 100% believe that their children will be with them in heaven, the highest heaven.

John Dehlin [00:24:13] Right.

Julia Sanders [00:24:13] Which. Which is a very against church doctrine. So I just thought that was really interesting.

John Dehlin [00:24:18] Yeah. And we're gonna. We're gonna definitely talk about that, Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [00:24:22] Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. We're gonna talk. We're gonna cover the article a little bit more in detail, but.

Where is Aaron Sherinian? Was he reassigned

John Dehlin [00:24:28] Okay. Well, I put together a bunch of questions that I think are really important. Now that we've kind of broken the story, we're going to talk about all these. And the first is, where is Aaron Sherinian? You know, was he reassigned? And if so, why? And some of you are like, who in the fetch is Aaron Sherinian? Well, back In January of 2024 of this year, the Deseret News released the article entitled, Latter Day Saint Leaders Hired New Managing Director for Church Communications. This is Tad Walsh, who wrote this article for the Deseret News. Other quotes from the article. Communications professionals are always looking for a job that has purpose. And this job is filled with not just purpose, but the message of love for everyone. Shinian said he will spend more time listening than talking. And, you know, that that fits because we haven't heard a peep from him. And we're already in faith and we haven't heard a peep from him. But in all seriousness, pretty quickly after this was Announced.

Gerardo Sumano [00:25:39] Did you finish, you didn't finish reading your questions for.

John Dehlin [00:25:42] Oh, no, we're coming back. I'm just doing them one at a time.

Gerardo Sumano [00:25:45] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:25:45] Okay, we'll come back to the other questions. I know that's confusing, but sometimes I, I put the full list and then I cover a couple and then I come back and cover more. Is that okay?

Gerardo Sumano [00:25:56] Sounds good.

The New Spokesperson for the Church

John Dehlin [00:25:57] Okay. So as soon as shinian's new position was called, people started like, you know, background checking him and they immediately found that he like, attended pride parades that he celebrated when same sex marriage was declared law. So these are a couple of the Instagram photos from his Instagram. This is him celebrating the Gay marriage is now legal across all 50 states and it's got a white house colored in rainbow. You know, he's talking about transgender rights or human rights, you know, talking about Caitlyn Jenner and how brave she is, etc. And

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:46] I think arguably after the general authorities, this is probably the most important position in the church that's not necessarily ecclesiastical, but tell us why Herodota? Well, this is the spokesperson for the church. Whenever there's questions about anything related to the church, either like it could be like a big thing, like a scandal or something that has been leaked or just any changes that the church has done, the person that usually will give the statement will be the, this person, the communication. The. What's it, what's the position called? Public affairs and Meter Relations Director, Managing Director of communications.

John Dehlin [00:27:31] Is what, what I'm reading here.

Gerardo Sumano [00:27:33] Yeah, so, so yeah, it's a, it's a. For example, if you remember, remember the, when, when the news came out about the church denouncing Tim Ballard? Weirdly, the, the, the statement that was given to Vice News did not come with, with, with a name attached to it. But then it was later found that it was, I believe Doug Anderson, who at the time was, had this position and that gave that statement a lot of, a lot more weight than it originally had for, for many people.

Gerardo Sumano [00:28:14] Right.

Gerardo Sumano [00:28:14] Because this is, this is the person who the church, who the brethren have hired to give the official statements from the church. Right, the official church spokesperson.

John Dehlin [00:28:25] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:28:26] So this a pretty important position. So having an, an ally, an LGBT ally, having this position is. It was really interesting.

Guest [00:28:36] For sure. Yeah.

Are These Excommunications Being Done to Gay Members?

John Dehlin [00:28:38] We have a question. Neller's writes, are these excommunications happening to gay members that are active or are they doing this to non active members? My understanding from the source that I've spoken with is that these are active, faithful, believing, attending lesbian couples who are married Some with kids.

Julia Sanders [00:29:00] But it has, but it has happened in the past where they've excommunic, they've gone out of their way to less active members and excommunicated them as well. And I think you've interviewed some on Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:29:09] Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So we're talking about believing faithful lesbian couples that are quietly serving, having callings, just trying to exercise their faith and not have to choose between their faith and their family and their love. Right. So really quickly here is, I guess this is Aaron Sherinian's announcement when it happened. Is that right, Gerardo or Julia?

Mormon Church PR Boss Aaron Sherinian's Announcement Sparks Conservative

Gerardo Sumano [00:29:40] Yes, that's right.

John Dehlin [00:29:41] So four months ago he wrote, earlier today, the Church of Jesus Christ, Not Our Saints, announced that I will serve as its new managing director of communications. I share this news with both gratitude and excitement. Blah, blah, blah. Is there anything, Gerardo, you wanted to. Maybe.

Gerardo Sumano [00:29:57] So he says this new role starts immediately and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. I will continue to travel between Washington and Salt Lake for the next few months anyways. And then he thanks his colleagues at Desert Management Corporation with whom he had been working since 2021. So he gives this big update. I think what was important here is that he says it will start immediately. So there's no question that, that this position, I mean he's had since, since January of this year.

John Dehlin [00:30:32] Got it. A couple other screenshots we have Aaron Alberty writes Mormon Church Higher triggers conservative backlash because the Desnet, the Desnat community kind of lost its mind. For those who don't know what Desnet is, there's a, there's a group of, of sort of really conservative, almost MAGA Mormons who, who, who engage in Twitter a lot. And they're just kind of hate filled spewers of bigotry and hatred who are also faithful, active, believing Mormons. And they did not like this, this selection and they let it be known. And we, we also covered that on Mormon stories through the Mormon newscast. Also Matthew Bowman, who I think incidentally is married to Tamara Kemsley if I'm not wrong. He wrote why the LDS Church's new PR boss is drawing criticism from conservative members. Now this is interesting. So who wants to talk about this slide?

Gerardo Sumano [00:31:39] So this is a screenshot. Well, I, I saw, Julia and I both went in and talked to screenshots, similar screenshots. But this was taken today, May 13, 2023. And as the director of Media relations, they have listed Doug Anderson and they have his phone number and an email address there.

John Dehlin [00:31:59] So that I think that's the Old guy. Unless we misunderstand the position.

Gerardo Sumano [00:32:04] Well, what's interesting is that before Doug Anderson was listed last year, in December, someone else was listed and we'll talk about that. But so, so basically what I'm saying is there's no way that this, like you can say, oh, they haven't updated the website because they did update it because in December it said something different. And then they didn't put Aaron Sherinian's name in there. Instead they put Doug Anderson's name.

John Dehlin [00:32:34] Yeah. And Doug's the guy again that got it. Got. Got in trouble for the Tim Ballard disaster and how that was handled. And then this is interesting. So tell us what we see here.

Gerardo Sumano [00:32:46] So this is screenshot from Doug Anderson's public LinkedIn page. And it says that he is the Director of Media Relations. And he says he's been doing it Since January of 2009 to present for 15 years and 5 months he's been working for the church as the Director of Media relations in his LinkedIn.

John Dehlin [00:33:07] And I'll have to say the church is usually pretty good about keeping websites updated and profiles current.

Guest [00:33:15] So.

John Dehlin [00:33:15] So this actually is troubling to me. This isn't just like the Mormon Church always has profiles and websites outdated. But that's my impression. Julia, what do you think?

Julia Sanders [00:33:25] Yeah, especially when he says that his job starts immediately and it's been four months and we don't see any of his contact information.

Gerardo Sumano [00:33:33] Not just contact, but anything he said, there's nothing he.

John Dehlin [00:33:39] I think somebody made a dark joke. But Laurie writes, I think Aaron Sherinian is in the church office basement parking lot. You know, obviously she's joking, but I do think we want to know where this guy is and why he's not speaking up because this would be a great time for him to do it. And then this is. This is What, Aaron Sherian's LinkedIn page.

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:01] Yeah. Screenshot taken today. And again, under experience he has, he is the senior vice president, Global Reach, Desert management Corporation from October 2021 to present. Two years and eight months. Now, I did call earlier today.

John Dehlin [00:34:17] Isn't that the job he left?

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:19] Yeah. So it's interesting he hasn't updated it even though he made that post on LinkedIn.

Julia Sanders [00:34:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:28] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:28] Is this present? Now? I did call Desert Management Corporation earlier today and ask them about this position. They said it hasn't been filled. So I said, so. So I said, so you. Because Air engineering and still shows on their website as. As the senior vice president. They said, yeah, they haven't updated that on his on. On their website. But. But that he doesn't work there anymore. But it's interesting that he hasn't updated it to what his current position should be. Right. And then we have two LinkedIn profiles that have not been updated. Then there's more if you go to the next slide.

Eric Hawkins Has Update His LinkedIn Profile

John Dehlin [00:35:08] Okay, so this is the slide you were talking about earlier.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:10] Yeah. So this is from wayback machine from December 10, 2023. And, and this one shows Eric Hawkins as the media person for. It doesn't have his position, it just has his name for any media inquiries on his phone number. Now this is like super easy to find so like you can just Google news media contacts and it, it will be the first website to. To they'll show. So I just, I'm just saying that because there's phone numbers in there. So these, these are public phone numbers that anyone can call.

John Dehlin [00:35:44] And just to compare it, it's Eric Hawkins back in December and then now it's Doug Anderson.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:52] Where the freak is Aaron?

Julia Sanders [00:35:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:58] My gosh.

Gerardo Sumano [00:35:58] And then one more. Eric Hawkins is showing as have as the managing director of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day saints on his LinkedIn. So a third person that hasn't updated his. His LinkedIn profile.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] Why are you laughing, Julia?

Julia Sanders [00:36:19] Because the. It's just silly. Like where is he? Like, like. And then it'd be really interesting to see like his. The Eric Hawkins was. The screenshot that you took was a month before he or the deseret release to his. The announcement. And like. So when did they update it to Doug? Like what? It's just really messy.

John Dehlin [00:36:37] Yeah. And maybe we don't understand. Maybe there's a difference I guess between spokesperson or who gets media inquiries and the. And the head of. Of communications. Like maybe communications. He doesn't feel media inquiries. I don't know.

Julia Sanders [00:36:58] Maybe you think his name would be on one of those papers or.

Gerardo Sumano [00:37:02] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:37:05] This led. I think this is from Rebecca Biblioteca but she made a little meme from the where in the world is Carmen San Diego meme. It's got Doug Sherinian's face in it. Where in the world is. Oh, sorry, Aaron. Where in the world is Aaron Sherinian? So anyway, I think that's kind of weird, right? And sometimes, you know, you report the news and sometimes you make it. I'm pretty sure the collective Mormon and Desnat and ex Mormon YouTube channels raising a fuss about Shrinian probably made this situation complicated for Shrinian in the church. And I'm not necessarily proud of that or not but would you guys guess that might be what happened?

Julia Sanders [00:37:51] Probably.

Gerardo Sumano [00:37:52] For sure. I mean, even the Desert News has an article and, well, we showed it, right, like announcing the new position. So why, why is it not updated on the website? I tried to call the church that phone number and it didn't. It just sent to voicemail. So I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] I mean, so a progressive Mormon might argue, guys, you're messing it all up. They got a good guy in there. And, and then because you all made a stink about his, his LGBT affirming positions, you ruined a chance to have one of the good guys there.

Gerardo Sumano [00:38:27] Wait, we didn't. It was the conservative, it was a conservative YouTube channels, like, well, but, but

John Dehlin [00:38:32] let's say they're smaller and then Mormon stories is bigger and that made them more. I'm just saying I often hear the progressive argument that we should all just be quiet whenever something is going on because that gives, whatever's going on that's positive, the best chance for having a positive impact if we all shut up. Kind of like when Marlon Jensen went to Oakland and apologized for the way the church has treated LGBT people. And then we talked about that publicly and then he wasn't made an apostle. It was like, you're ruining things. Or when the church was going to make an apology for its racist past and then that got leaked and then the church never made the apology. Do you guys have a reaction to that argument that we should stop talking about these things? Julie, you go first.

Julia Sanders [00:39:22] I just keep thinking how cowardly it is to just be like, like, everyone stay quiet so that the church can actually do this thing, this good, this really good thing. And if the church is going to act based on that, like, that just seems really cowardly of them. I mean, like, you don't, like, who are we? Are you taking direction from God or are you not, Are you taking direction from the people? Like, I don't know. I, I, I don't know. That's really complicated because you're right in some, to some extent, changes can't, aren't made or things are retracted. I don't know about, I'm interested about the apology because I knew that there was a fake one, but I, I can't even picture the church making an apology like that.

Gerardo Sumano [00:40:00] But yeah, I have two thoughts. My first thought is how do we even know, right, that the, that what, whatever we did was, or what Mormon stories did was part of why he was removed or not given the position at the end? Like, how, how do we know that that's that was the final drop that actually affected that change the Church made. And then the second one is like how, how do you calculate which things, what things go right on, on the right direction versus not right. Like because I think arguably we can say that a lot of the changes that the Church has made are, are, have happened because of, because people have spoken out, because news media have covered scandals, because Mormon stories has covered and hammered the Church over and over again over, you know, know, excommunications and, and they stopped calling them excommunications. They changed the rules on who's even merit, who even merits in excommunication. They removed the November 15th policy. So like how do you measure what's. How much good comes out out of sp speaking out versus how much good is doesn't necessarily come out of it? It's, it's hard to say. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:41:22] But that's and for me it's just simple. It's just, I just think informed consent is good. Let's more, more sunlight, more evidence, more truth and then let people decide. So that's kind of where I stand. Maybe I'm mistaken there, but that's kind of how we roll really quickly. Some of our viewers have noted that we had dates wrong. Gerard I don't know if you saw this, but we had 2023. I've changed the slides, but several of these slides accidentally said 5-13-2023. So I just want to for example, this Doug Anderson media inquiry is May 13, 2024. In other words, it was taken today. And harado you did say it was taken today, but the slide said 2023. So again, this screenshot of you know who to contact as a media inquiry, that's Doug Anderson. That was taken today. This screenshot of Doug Anderson's LinkedIn profile was taken today. This Aaron Sherinian LinkedIn was taken today. And and then this one is correct. The 2023 news media context that included Eric Hawkins, that was correct. And then Eric Hawkins LinkedIn today is is 2024, not 2023. So I just wanted to correct those really quickly. Thanks to the viewers and listeners that keep us honest. I'll share a couple quick thoughts. Wend Wendy Merrill Perry writes that she confirms that they would announce excommunications and disfellowships in sacrament meeting Mormon sacrament up until the late 1950s. So that's in addition to the desert news.

Correction: Doug Anderson Media Inquiry and Eric Hawkins LinkedIn

Julia Sanders [00:43:00] That's so wild.

John Dehlin [00:43:03] That's true. Pluto writes this is upsetting but not surprising to me. Thank you for sharing Pluto, Patty writes, I visited a Mormon church. I was asked outright if I was gay. When I said yes, I was literally asked to not come back. I'm so sorry that happened to you, Patty. So that's all we're going to share about that. All right, so let's go ahead and go back to some of the questions we wanted to discuss. I don't know that we answered the question of where is Aaron Sheridan? But we certainly made the point of we want to know, was he reassigned? If he was reassigned, why has he. Is he, you know, quit? Has he been fired?

Aaron Sheridan: Was He Resigned?

Julia Sanders [00:43:44] You know, spending more time listening?

John Dehlin [00:43:47] Is he still on his listening tour? Yeah, all that. All right, so the next question I have is, why the recent uptick in LGBTQ communications is this a new purge? And, Gerardo, I actually asked you, do we really want to use the word purge? Can we even say that this is a purge? So why don't we start, Gerardo, with you talking about why you chose that word, and then we could talk about whether we think there is a purge.

Was the LGBTQ Church Purge a New Event?

Gerardo Sumano [00:44:16] I mean, it's.

Gerardo Sumano [00:44:17] It's.

Gerardo Sumano [00:44:17] I think it's pretty simple. The. The definition of the word purge is to remove someone from an organization or a place in an abrupt or even violent way. And I think. I mean, this is the five excommunications of LGBT couples, I think, definitely fit that definition to me. But that's why.

John Dehlin [00:44:41] Julia, how about you? Do you. Do you think it's. Do we know enough to call this a purge or not?

Julia Sanders [00:44:47] Well, I guess in my brain to say purge is, like, a large amount, and maybe that's not the definition at all, but, like, that's just what my brain conjures up. And so, like, but with five lesbian couples. Five. That's 10 women, right? Is that. Is that right? That's 10 women going to church who have been excommunicated. Like, I don't. I don't think lesbian couples going to church, and even gay couples, I don't think that's very common. And so to have these 10 people excommunicated feels like a purge, in my opinion.

Guest [00:45:13] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:45:14] All right. Well, that's a valid opinion. I'll just say the reason why I wondered about the word purge is because a per. And this goes to my next question that I think we talked about with our mutual friend Gerardo. Is it ethical or unethical and or helpful or harmful to talk about these excommunications openly? And the argument that, you know, I've heard shared with me by multiple people is it goes Something like this that, okay, we thought the church had stopped excommunications. Now we know that they are still excommunicating same sex married couples. However, because we talked about Charlie Bird and Ryan and others, and because there's a general understanding that the church is not excommunicating same sex married couples, at least based on the ex Mormon Internet and the Mormon Internet, then that leaves bishops and stake presidents to feel empowered to not excommunicate same sex married couples. Whereas if we talk about the excommunications, then it lets bishops and stake presidents reconsider and then makes them feel like maybe they should go ahead and perform excommunications on the same sex married couples in their words and stakes. And I think that one more piece of reasoning there is the more same sex married couples that become active and get callings, the more that they become like, entrenched in. In the body of the church, and then the harder it is for the church to get rid of them once they're more pervasive. So that's the argument. And I. I think it's a reasonable argument. I'm not disagreeing with it or making fun of it. Gerardo, what's your response to that argument? And then, Julie, I want to hear your response.

The Need for More Transparency About Same-Sex Couples

Gerardo Sumano [00:47:14] Well, I. I don't know. I think it's like you said, John, is that it's a valid argument. I just think differently. I. I think we already covered it at the beginning when we said why we were talking about. While we were speaking out about it and covering the story. I think that transparency is important and it should be talked about.

John Dehlin [00:47:38] Okay, so just transparency, right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:47:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:43] Anything you want to add to that argument?

Gay & Lesbian Mormons on the Church

Julia Sanders [00:47:45] I think one of the things that I really appreciated with the last episode you guys did covering Charlie Bird and others taking the sacrament, is that. Gerardo, I hope this is okay to share, but you were telling. When you told your father this, he said that he was of the mindset that if you and your husband attended church, he would give you callings and let you guys take the sacrament. And in my mind, I thought, well, maybe because your dad is hearing that other bishops are doing this, that they're treating people in a Christlike way, that they're letting them. They're. They're. Let them worship how and where and what they may or whatever. Like, because other bishops are doing that, your dad felt empowered to do the same and so like to cover these. That there are women out there who, who are a couple. Who are couples, lesbian couples that are attending church, like maybe letting that be aware, made everyone aware of that, that they can feel the, the other bishops can feel the freedom to make that choice. But then I guess on the flip side then it's like, oh, if these women are being excommunicated, then you can say other bishops should make the same, same decision. But I don't know, I think it's really good to, to make these public, to let people know that these are happening.

Gerardo Sumano [00:48:46] Yeah, yeah, I agree And I, I think another, another point that I talked to you, John, at the beginning about this was that I think progressive Mormons who tend to be the ones to have this kind of thinking, they T, I, I, I, it is my opinion that they, they tend to overestimate the amount of progressive Mormons out there in let's say the US and, or the amount of Mormons who would actually hear about who Charlie or Ryan are or who would, who would have even heard about the episode that we did or that they are not being excommunicated. So that being said, since I think it's reasonable to, to think that the, the, the amount of Mormons who actually know about these issues is very, very limited, including the local leadership, really like the, the, the argument falls a little bit apart. Right? Like once you start considering that like if is, is this story of Ryan

Julia Sanders [00:50:02] and,

Gerardo Sumano [00:50:05] and taking the sacrament something that, that most bishops or a significant percentage of bishops or sick presidents are going to hear about, to me the answer is no. And therefore I think it does. In my opinion it is better to talk about this, to talk about that these things are still happening because it is our side, the ex Mormon community, the progressive Mormon community, who can actually do something about it by holding the church accountable this way instead of relying on the rest of the membership who are probably never going to hear about the episode or Charlie and Ryan to, to do the change.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Got it. Yeah. And I'll just, I'll just add that one of my biggest concerns about the lack of transparency and the lack of informed consent with Mormonism is that people make massive life decisions based on the information that they have within Mormonism and within high demand religions. So like I could imagine gay, gay or lesbian teens deciding to serve missions because they believe that now the church is, is, you know, no longer excommunicating, you know, gay or lesbian Mormons. I could imagine gay or lesbian Mormons, you know, deciding to be active or deciding to, you know, raise their children in the church because they have the perception that the church is going to leave them alone. And, and. Or deciding to pay 10% of their income or, you know, all sorts of different religions, really major life decisions, you know, accordingly. And I just think people deserve to have all the information before they make such serious decisions, including just remaining active. I'm sure there's a lot of students, maybe at BYU or others who are gay or lesbian, who think, should I leave the church or should I stay because the church is a lesbian becoming a safe place for me. And if. If they decide to remain active under those false pretenses, I think that's a problem. And then, of course, people joining the church, if they don't know that it's hunting season on same sex married Mormon, gay Mormons, or lesbian Mormons, they might join the church again under false pretenses and join something that's very, very unsafe. So those are just a few of my concerns.

Gerardo Sumano [00:52:46] I just wanted to add something more to the point I made earlier. Our friend, who is the one who told us about these. These excommunications, when we asked him if these. If these couples had brought up Charlie and Ryan to their local leadership, uh, he responded, uh, one couple in Texas brought up Charlie and Ryan to their stake president, and the state president had no clue who he was. Yeah, so. So that's just goes to my point. Like, really, I think believing that. That an episode that we did covering the privileges that Charlie and Ryan enjoy is gonna reach the vast majority or even a significant percentage of the membership is. I think it's kind of delusional.

John Dehlin [00:53:43] Yeah. Another. Another argument I've heard is that these are maybe rogue area authorities or rogue stake presidents. That. That overall, the church has kind of put the kibosh on same sex marriage excommunications, but that these are rogue stake presidents or rogue bishops or rogue area authorities that somehow are defying church leadership. Why are you laughing, Julia?

Julia Sanders [00:54:12] I'm pretty sure with excommunications, you have to send it up to the first presidency. I. I don't know if that's. I'm pretty sure that's correct. And so to say that they're rogue. I don't know if that's accurate. I. I don't know. Okay. Yeah.

Rogue Marriage Proposal

John Dehlin [00:54:27] All right. Gerardo, do you have a reaction to the rogue, rogue argument?

Gerardo Sumano [00:54:35] Well, the church can really easily take out of their position. So as someone that's rogue and doing something that the church doesn't want them to do. So,

John Dehlin [00:54:46] yeah, I don't know. In my view, they could make sure no one goes rogue by just issuing a memo. Never excommunicate a couple for being same sex married ever. And so I, I just don't, I don't, I don't support a church that's allowing such chaos when people's lives and marriages and families are literally at risk here. I think it's, I don't care if it's a rogue area authority or even a rogue apostle, which we've had in our history. It's, in my view it's grossly irresponsible for the church not to make a standard policy that is evenly applied across the church. And I know progressives are going to say that's not how change works in the world. Change incrementally, change happens. It takes patience. And I'm like, fine, fine, let the church take a year or five years or 10 or 30, but have it own its change and make it standard if it's going to make a change. Not have the lives of same sex married couples just sort of like thrown into this chaos. Mill of carnage.

Gerardo Sumano [00:56:01] Yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:56:04] That's how I feel.

Gerardo Sumano [00:56:05] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:07] Couple comments. Oh, go ahead, Gerardo.

Black Mormons and the Priesthood Ban

Gerardo Sumano [00:56:09] Well, I was just gonna mention that I, I've been reading a book for some episodes that we're preparing here soon. The book is called Second Class Saints, written by Matthew Harris and Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality. And he, he delves really deep into the reversal of the priesthood ban for black members of the church. And it's just so mind blowing to see so many parallels about, uh, about what was going on and how the progressive were pushing the Brethren to change and remove the ban and how the Brethren kept resisting and resisting and doubling down and putting even worse rules than before and then trying to like take them out eventually but then put them back, going back and forth. It's, it's just, I don't know, it's just very enlightening to see that this has happened before. And I know some people take some issues with comparing the black members of the church not being able to hold the priesthood and, and just what they are experienced to, to the LGBT experience just because it's completely different. But just the parallels of how the Brethren have managed these situations, specifically when they have to do of things that end up in the public view and there's public criticism is really, really telling. But yeah, I just wanted to mention

John Dehlin [00:57:45] that I'm looking forward to that episode. Matt's brilliant couple comments. Nate writes, I would call it a resurgence rather than a purge. Thanks for that suggestion. Clancy not writes repurchase. She's being silly. Programming Program Ninja writes, change dies without information. If people don't know what's going. What's actually going on, you cannot advocate for a better place. Thanks, Program Ninja for that. Emily writes, another reason for talking about this before the couples are ready to talk about it is that it shouldn't only be the responsibility of victims to either change their abusers or to inform all of us about the abuse that's going on. Thank you, Emily. That's a. That's a really important perspective. We appreciate all of your comments and suggestions as well as those who are able to throw us super chats to help support these episodes. Liz writes, I think if all five of these couples are in the same ward or stake, and we know that not all five are, I don't know about the three from Texas, but she says if all are in the same ward or stake, that's a purge. If all are in different states, you've got the leadership roulette happening. And Liz, I think you're right. There's definitely some leadership roulette going on here. And then Jordan writes, if the church finally allows gay marriage, I can't wait for the doctrine versus policy conversations where the church says, it was never a doctrine, it was only policy. And yeah, I think we all know where they're getting at. All right, let's go back to the other questions. Why primary. The next question is why primarily lesbian couples? And Julia, we wanted to make sure and have representation on this episode. And are you comfortable just sharing how it feels to know out of the blue it's five lesbian couples?

Why Is The Church Against Gay Couples?

Julia Sanders [00:59:50] Well, like, I guess women have been picked on a lot in the church and especially the church's history. And so I don't know if it has anything to do with that. Like, that's. It seems like I just have a lot of questions and I don't know if you have an answer of why lesbians are being sort of picked on.

John Dehlin [01:00:02] I have no idea. It's just bizarre. I didn't expect to hear it.

Julia Sanders [01:00:07] It's so interesting to me that the women. I don't know what else to say. Like. Like, you have women who have the priesthood, it gets taken away. Women have the Relief Society, it gets taken away and eventually gets brought back after 20 years. Like, I just. And then women have just been, like, pushed down and pushed down in the church. It's just really interesting. Why, why, why is this happening? And then, like, I guess one of the reasons why the church is against gay marriage is because, like, households don't have the priesthood. Like, who who do we give the priesthood to? And it kind of. Of course, it hurts the family proclamation because you have different roles being played by different. By the wrong people. Um, yeah, I. I have no idea why. It's just super interesting to me that. Why this is happening.

John Dehlin [01:00:51] Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for sharing that, Julia, and I'm sorry for the distress that this must cause you and you, Gerardo, and other members of the LGBTQ community. I also just then want to go to the next question. How does it feel to know that five lesbian couples are. Were excommunicated and yet Charlie Bird and Ryan Clifford remain, as far as we know. And here's a photo of them again from the USA Today article that they were excited to share during the Taylor Swift craze. This is for those just listening. Charlie's dressed up as Taylor Swift's boyfriend, the. Travis Kelsey. Right. From the Kansas City Chiefs. So that's. That. That's. That's Charlie dressed up as Travis Kelce, football player. And then it's. It's Ryan Clifford dressed up as Taylor Swift. And I think that's awesome. That's a fabulous set of photos. I celebrate them. I'm happy for them. But, Julia, how does it feel to know that, you know, five lesbian couples are excommunicated, yet as far as we know, Ryan and Charlie are left alone? And, you know, and then why are they being protected at all? Julia, what's your reaction to that?

Charlie Bird and Ryan Clifford Are Excommunicated

Julia Sanders [01:02:11] Well, like, that really hurts me. Like, the. I was. I grew up a member of the church. I was born and raised in the church. And so my excommunication was very painful for me. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:02:22] It's.

Julia Sanders [01:02:23] Clearly, I'm still working through stuff. I have a lot of family that's still in the church, and they're. And they're. Their treatment of me is very different because I'm gay and because I'm out of the church, and so, like, if I was famous enough, would I have been protected? If I was well known enough, would I have been protected? If I had published my own book, would I have been protected? Like, there's just a lot of questions because it feels really unfair, and I. Nothing against Charlie, love his family, nothing against him. I'm so glad that he's able to have this safe space for himself, but why can't we have that safe space for everybody?

John Dehlin [01:02:54] Beautiful. Thank you for sharing, Julia. I'm sorry for how distressing this must be. Gerardo, anything you want to add? I know we. We don't. We only want to celebrate Charlie and Ryan and we don't want the church to excommunicate. To be clear, we're not wanting the church to excommunicate Ryan and Charlie. We want them to stop excommunicating people for just loving each other and getting legally married and just wanting to raise their family in the church. So to be clear, we're not calling on the church to punish Ryan and Charlie in any way. And if they do, that's not on us. But, Gerardo, anything you want to add about what appears to be a double standard and one that's very distressing?

Mormon Church's Double Standard For Gay Couples

Gerardo Sumano [01:03:42] Yeah, well, I, I, I, I, I, I, Again, I think I put the responsibility on. On the brethren on the top. I think they know what they're doing. They know. Well, we know for a fact that at least one of the apostles knows that these five couples have been excommunicated. And the same. The same apostle also knows about Charlie. And it's. I think it is. I mean, they're doing it purposely. They want to wash their hands off of the responsibility of what's happening with, With LGBT members in the church because they want to appease the conservative bishops, the conservative stake presidents, the conservative membership in. In certain areas, and also make some rich Mormons in affluent communities in Utah feel great about having gay couples being embraced in full fellowship in the church. And they want to keep those two sites, or. Yeah, those two sites happy and, and not question the church or. Or be upset at the church or its leaders. So that's the way they're doing it. They're. They're doing it by keeping it ambiguous, by letting the church, local leaders take the fault. And I think that's troubling.

John Dehlin [01:05:07] Yeah. It could also be that. That maybe one of Ryan or Charlie's families is wealthy and connected and knows the right people. It could be that because Charlie's an influencer and has a really large following, my understanding is he has three times the Instagram following that we do that maybe the church just makes the calculation. We're giving Charlie a pass because he has a big following, and we don't want to deal with the carnage of excommunicating someone who's super popular. But again, is that how God works? Is that how Jesus works? That people with large social media followings or wealthy, affluent, connected parents get a pass? You know, and that speaks to your point, Julia. That just feels heartbreakingly unfair.

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:55] Yeah. Liz writes why lesbians? Yet Charlie Bird gets a pass. That's just reflecting. We're not the only ones that feel that way. Canadian Anglican Writes, a bit of advice. Keep speaking up. It's how we got the Anglican Church to accept LGBTQ people. Congratulations, Anglican Church. Lee Mortensen writes, I think it's misogyny and that lesbians are often put on the lowest rungs of society. That makes me sad. And then Tammy writes, is there any connection between the recent talks on how women are given power and how they are equal? Were these couples outspoken? Did they question the equality of women in the church? My understanding these women just quietly were serving in the church, attending church, and in some cases, just being really quiet and just wanting to be left alone. That's my understanding. Cassidy writes, God works in mysterious, ineffective, and breathtakingly cruel ways. And I think we laugh so we don't cry. Is that right, Julia?

Julia Sanders [01:07:04] Yeah. That's terrible.

Guest [01:07:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:06] Yeah. Because, I mean, for our. Never Mormons. Part of what makes this so difficult is that the Mormon Church doesn't just teach that the church, you know, does good things and is a nice social club to help people do good. The Mormon Church teaches that its leaders are prophet seers and revelators that speak directly to and for God. So when the Mormon Church leaders talk, it's as if Jesus and God themselves are talking. And personally, I believe why we've had such a crisis of LGBTQ youth and young adult death by suicide is because it may as well be God or Jesus making these decisions, not just local bishops or stake presidents. Right. Okay. Well, let's keep going in our presentation to back to some of these questions that we're trying to ask. It. You know, I think this. We've already answered the question if. If uneven enforcement of church discipline is ethical or unethical. And Gerardo and Julia, I think we've already answered that question. Right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:19] Okay, so let's go ahead and go on to this article that appeared recently.

Salt Lake Tribune: Will the Salt Lake Tribune Cover the Mormon Church

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:23] The last question was interesting.

John Dehlin [01:08:25] John, we're gonna. I want to end with that question.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:27] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:08:28] Oh, do you want to do. Should we talk about it now? Let's talk about it now,

Guest [01:08:33] Will.

John Dehlin [01:08:34] You know, like, I love. I love, for example, the work that Tamara Kemsley has been doing. I think the Salt Lake tribute has been doing a good job covering tough Mormon issues over the past year and some would say over its entire history. So I just. I don't want to in any way say anything other than good things about the Salt Lake Tribune. What I do notice sometimes is they seem to shy away from some of the most difficult issues. So, for example, when. When Mormon bishops or Mormon church leaders or Mormon therapists are caught sexually abusing youth or kids. I don't hear a lot from the Salt Lake Tribune on those types of stories. And the other thing I don't hear a lot from the Salt Lake Tribune on is excommunications. There was a time where they covered them, but more and more, it just seems like if it involves ex Mormons, if it involves excommunications, and in this case, I just want to ask the question, hopefully, will the Salt Lake Tribune cover now that they know, hopefully, that this has happened? Are they going to use their investigative journalist resources to cover this story, or are they going to just let more people be quietly excommunicated without covering it? Which, in my view, kind of gives the church a bit of a pass, and I don't think the church deserves a pass. And then the other quote. You know, we know, Gerardo, that from our last episode where we talked about this, Equality Utah was so mad, you know, about the way we covered that story, that, you know, Equality Utah, Equality Wyoming and Equality Arizona all issued a joint press release condemning Mormon stories. And me and you, Gerardo, for our coverage of, you know, the. The disparate treatment of Charlie and Ryan versus, you know, other church members historically. And I guess I think it's a fair question to ask. Is Equality Utah going to investigate these lesbian excommunications and are they going to issue a joint statement with Equality Wyoming and Equality Arizona and condemn the Mormon Church's excommunication of lesbian couples that just wanted to quietly exercise their faith? Or is that not how Equality Utah thinks it should be spending its time or its resources? Gerardo, did you want to comment on that, or is that to miss?

Gerardo Sumano [01:11:05] I'll answer right now. The answer is no. They're not going to investigate.

John Dehlin [01:11:08] You don't think they will? You don't think they will?

Gerardo Sumano [01:11:12] No, no. We all know why that statement was made and who. But anyway, I'm just not gonna.

John Dehlin [01:11:19] Okay. All right. But it would be as. As a queer Utah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:11:26] Oh, that would be great. Yeah. I would. I would hope that. That that's what they would be doing.

John Dehlin [01:11:30] Right, but not condemning allies.

Gerardo Sumano [01:11:35] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:11:37] Your people.

Gerardo Sumano [01:11:38] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:11:39] But condemning the church. Julia, do you have anything you want to add as a. As a lesbian woman who spent a lot of time in Utah, and I

Julia Sanders [01:11:47] serve my mission in Utah.

John Dehlin [01:11:48] Okay.

Julia Sanders [01:11:49] Yeah. So, like, I'd love to hear their stories. Like, I don't know where they are. Like, I don't know if they'd be willing to come on Mormon stories or any of these other smaller podcasts that cover these topics. But I like, I'd love to hear their stories. And I like because, because it's sort of, sometimes we feel alone in those who like how hard it is to be excommunicated. And I know you've covered to some extent these people that have been excommunicated in the past, especially those in the LGBTQ spectrum. So I'd, I'd love to hear more. I don't. I, I doubt that these news cover, these news articles are going to cover anything.

John Dehlin [01:12:20] Yeah. Anything about equal to Utah Equality, Arizona, Equality, Wyoming.

Julia Sanders [01:12:24] I, I'm not really familiar with. With them as I should be.

Correction: Aaron Sherinian's Name in the LDS Church

John Dehlin [01:12:27] Okay. All right. Maven highlighted this quote. John de Lynn, honorary lesbian, thank you for your ally. That's from Anna Marie. I do not claim that title, but Maven wanted me to share it. I think. Thanks for the kind gesture. Jeremy Christensen writes, it just boggles my mind that the church would willingly excommunicate members, kick them out of the church when their membership continues to dwindle. Seems counterintuitive to me. I agree. I think that's why they don't publicize this stuff and try and get away with doing it on the sly. This is a correction squad. Llama writes, you have it wrong. Doug Anderson has always been the church spokesman in the church spokesman role for the past three managing directors of communication. So that's something that I was wondering. And then he says Aaron Sherinian is the managing director, which is an administration role. So that's one of the questions I was wondering is, is the reason why Aaron is not listed as a media contact and why he hasn't been vocal himself because he's in a role as a managing director where it's just not his job to speak publicly and it's not his job to field media inquiries. And I, you know, maybe we've got all that wrong. I still think some of our points stand, but. Gerardo, Julie, do either of you want to respond to that correction?

Gerardo Sumano [01:13:52] Well, so Doug Anderson is. Doesn't say spokesperson when on the church's website it says director of Media Relations.

John Dehlin [01:14:03] Okay.

Gerardo Sumano [01:14:05] That, that like they have, they have their title there. I don't know if that's the same as Aaron Sheridan was given. Aaron Sherian, say, said I will serve at his new managing director of communications. So it seems like a little bit a different title.

John Dehlin [01:14:26] Julia, anything you want to add?

Julia Sanders [01:14:27] I'd be curious to see the people who have had Shrinian's calling in the past. Did they speak out within the four months after that they were called to this position or is joining unusually silent. Like I don't know the pattern or even the specifics of this calling. So that's just more research to be done.

John Dehlin [01:14:44] Yeah. And I'll just say, where are the spokespeople? This is clearly, this is an issue that deserves, you know, and maybe it takes the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times or a critical mass of people alerting, embarrassing the church to the point where a spokesperson feels like they have to speak up. I think that's dishonest. I think that the church shouldn't wait for that sort of thing. But you know, I guess the church is going to do what it's going to do.

Julia Sanders [01:15:14] And it's not like this topic is the only one that's happened in the last four months since Shrinan's been called in. Like we've had Jody Hildebrand, we've had the Valo cases or Daybell cases and we've had like big things happen in Mormonism that haven't been covered or haven't been talked about from what I've understood with Aaron Sheridan. So I, yeah, I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:15:33] Yeah, I mean the church I guess gets to pick how it wants to do public relations and media relations. It just, it's, it's mind boggling how they're, how they're handling all this or not handling it or the David Archuleta stuff. Right. Yeah. Which takes us to this article in the Salt Lake Tribune by Tamara Kemsley entitled David Archuleta's mom left the LDS Church after her son came out. These parents stayed, but not without difficulty. So this is, I don't know Tamara Kemsley's church status. I don't know the reporters, good reporters even want their church status to be discussed. So maybe that isn't even something that should be mentioned. I know that historically, Peggy Fletcher Stack. Many people believe that Peggy Fletcher Stack's reporting has been, she's a one of the, you know, most famous reporters for the Salt Lake Tribune of all time, arguably one of the most influential. Many people believe that her believing faithful status in the Mormon Church over the years has heavily impacted how she reports and has, has led her in many instances to report in a very biased way. So you may disagree with that. But regardless, it is interesting to just kind of note what the Salt Lake Tribune does choose to cover and doesn't choose to cover. I don't choose to go after the Salt Lake Tribune really hard because like our only alternative is the Deseret News do we want to put the Salt Tribune out of business so that there's no dissenting voice? I don't. So generally, I try to just keep my mouth shut when it comes to my opinions about the Tribune's reporting. Gerardo and Julia, do you all have any thoughts about that?

Julia Sanders [01:17:20] I'd rather have the reporting, like, some reporting than no reporting, which I feel like is sort of the Deseret news. Yeah, I really appreciate what the Sully Tribune does.

John Dehlin [01:17:28] Yeah, so do I, Bardo, you too?

Gerardo Sumano [01:17:30] Yeah.

Mormon Parents on the Church Decisions

John Dehlin [01:17:31] Okay, so with that, let's just talk about tomorrow's decision or. Or the editorial group's decision to couple the David Archuleta story with all these, I guess, Mormon parents that are choosing to stay in the church. Do you want to read some of these quotes, Julia?

Julia Sanders [01:17:49] Yeah. So this is. This is David Archuleta. His mother, Lupe, she said, I was hurting because I love the church so much, but at the same time, oh, my gosh, my child is suffering. I had to make a decision.

John Dehlin [01:18:00] And why. Why did you. What did you find valuable about that quote, Julia?

Julia Sanders [01:18:04] I think a lot of parents feel like they have to decide. Like, she feels like she has to decide between the church. Church and. And her child. And I think so much when parents choose to stay in the church, that means that they're not supporting their child. That's how it is with my family. And she could see, even when she was bringing her son to church, she could see that he was suffering sitting there in the. In the pews. And so she felt like she had to make the decision. So she said, I'm gonna leave with you. And that's the. What spewed. That's what spurred the song, that we'll just go to hell together. And so, yeah, I just think that's. It's just a hard thing to make parents just make that decision.

John Dehlin [01:18:38] Yeah. And then here's the next quote. Go ahead and read it, Julia.

Julia Sanders [01:18:41] She told her bishop, the lay leader of her Latter Day Saint congregation, that she, like her son, was stepping away from the church soon after she formally withdrew her membership. I told David. She said, we'll go to hell together.

John Dehlin [01:18:53] And it's a great song. Everyone should go listen to it. It's really inspiring. I'll say what I love about this report, reporting from Tamara Kemsley. As someone who spent six years training for a PhD in clinical and counseling psychology, there's a really important study that everyone should know about called the Family Acceptance Project. And you can go to lgbtqfamilyacceptance.org and you can learn about it. They have resources for LGBTQ youth and families. They even have a Mormon themed pamphlet. And one of the really important. Some of the really important findings are that highly rejected LGBTQ youth are something like nine and a half times more likely to attempt death by suicide if they are highly rejected by their family. In addition, they're over three times more likely to engage in illegal drug use. That's LGBTQ youth. If they experience high rejection from their family, they are over about three and a half times more likely to be at risk for HIV infection. And then, conversely, if they're extremely accepting by their family, 92% report that they gain beliefs that they can be happy as an LGBT adult. That's a. You know, it's very important that your kids believe that they can be happy if they happen to be LGBT. And then, you know, 69 of LGBT youth that have extremely accepting parents want. End up wanting to become parents themselves. So if you are a Mormon parent who says, oh, I don't want my kid to be queer because I want grandbabies, which is a very selfish thing probably to feel still, if that's what you want, it looks like you're 70% more likely to have your. Your children want to have kids if you're extremely accepting of them. So keep that in mind if you need that to support your kids. Julia, do you want to read the quote from Lisa Diamond, a distinguished professor who is identifies as queer herself? She's at the University of Utah. Do you want to read her quote?

Julia Sanders [01:21:20] Sure. Yeah. This is from the. Still the same Sally Trabine article. She says today's Latter Day Saint parents are less likely to kick LGBTQ children out of their home or disown them than in times past.

John Dehlin [01:21:31] Yeah. And back, you know, back in 2008, after Prop 8, between then and the exclusion policy, basically, there was an epidemic of. Of homelessness of LGBTQ youth in Utah, where I think up to a third of the homeless people or the homeless youth identified as LGB as LDS and LGBTQ and having been kicked out of their LDS homes. Julia, what did you make of this quote?

Julia Sanders [01:22:02] Like, I'm really happy that that change is being made. I wish I knew what. What was causing it. It's just really interesting if the. If people are just. Because throughout this whole article, we see that parents nowadays, they have more, like, love and acceptance than in times past is. Which is kind of what she's saying. And then even in their beliefs, not just their actions are changing to be. I don't know, I just, I'm curious about what's causing this and then I'd love to see more of it.

John Dehlin [01:22:26] Did you know about that? Did you know about that finding Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:32] Not well, I think I, I, I didn't know about it from like a source like list like a professor for university, but I, I, I, it was on my mind that like that was not happening as much anymore.

John Dehlin [01:22:49] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:50] As it used to.

John Dehlin [01:22:51] Okay.

Gerardo Sumano [01:22:52] And I think you and I, John, have talked about how the rhetoric in, in general conference has been, has changed around LGBT issues. How, you know, overall the, the, the way the, the church talks about these issues is way different than, than 20 or 10 or 15 years ago. So the church is no longer recommending conversion therapy or mixing or mixed orientation marriages as, as often as they used to. So, so yeah, I, I would imagine that, that most parents today would or, or a, a larger percentage of parents, Mormon parents would feel just a little bit less inclined to, to kick their kids out of their house. But it's, I mean it still happens. I have a friend, a close friend who basically their parents told him if you want to be gay, you have to leave the house.

Gerardo Sumano [01:23:50] So

John Dehlin [01:23:53] yeah, it's tragic. All right, let's, let's share a couple quotes really quick. Renee Days writes, what boggles my mind is how people can claim to follow Jesus. That people who claim to follow Jesus can hate so much when Jesus only preached love. That is an irony, Renee. Thanks for sharing it. Bambi, 1830 wants to know what constitutes high rejection. You'd have to read the Family Reject Family Acceptance project studies by Caitlin Ryan. Dr. Caitlin Ryan. Go to that website and read the pamphlets that are freely available on the website. Bambi and I think you might be able to get more information. You're asking a great question. That's kind of the methodological framework of the studies. A good science minded person would ask that. And I just, I didn't take the time to refresh my memory.

Mormon Stories: High Rejection

Julia Sanders [01:24:48] But we can absolutely put it in the show notes on the website.

John Dehlin [01:24:51] Absolutely. Yeah. Liz writes, it boggles my mind how any parent could kick out their child. Gross. Boggles my mind as well. Liz, Gerardo, you'll be happy to know that our friend Nathan Kitchen writes. Thank, thank you for bringing this to light. Hey Nathan, we appreciate all the work you do. Nathan does good stuff. Right Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:25:11] Yeah. That's awesome.

John Dehlin [01:25:13] Yeah. Let's see. Lee writes, the fact that they are distinguishing high rejection from medium rejection says a lot about how often hate and rejection happens. I think it also speaks to this idea of, like, tolerance versus, like, enthusiastically accepting. Julia Gerardo, I'm guessing y' all would much do much better, feel much better if your parents enthusiastically celebrated your love and your relationships versus rejected or simply tolerated or accepted your decision. Is that right, Julia? How do you feel?

Julia Sanders [01:25:52] Yeah, I think that would make a huge difference. Yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:25:56] Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [01:25:57] Yeah, I agree 100%.

John Dehlin [01:25:59] Okay. All right. And also, just really quickly, thanks to Jay Larsen for his super chat. He says gesundheit. That's a running gag for Jay. And then also thanks to complete Teresa for her super chat. We do pay everyone involved in Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation, so we appreciate those who support us. Really quickly, let's celebrate some of these highly affirming parents, because I think that's the really great thing about Tamara Kemsley's article, and I think this could save lives, Tomorrow's article and the Salt Lake Tribune's article. So, Julia, why don't you. You read about some of these parents celebrated in the Tribune?

Mormon LGBTQ Parents Celebrated

Julia Sanders [01:26:41] Yeah, I don't know how to say her name. Is it Derese Darius?

John Dehlin [01:26:44] It's Darice Austin. Yeah.

Julia Sanders [01:26:46] So Derese Austin, A mother of four, including one transgender child, recently pulled 25 Latter Day Saint mothers, all in their 40s, of LGBTQ children. None of them, the Denver resident said, ever had any doubts their child would be with them in the eternities.

John Dehlin [01:27:01] And that's a really interesting point of the article, is that, number one, that faithful Mormon moms are choosing to stay in the church even though they have queer kids. But secondly, that they've all redefined heaven. And, you know, because David Archuleta and Lupe talked about sad heaven. I mean, what's implied in David Archuleta's song, you know, this Mormon church likes to make its supreme claim is that if you join the Mormon Church and you're faithful, you and all your family, your spouse and all your kids and grandkids all get to go to the celestial kingdom and be together forever. Whereas all the people that aren't faithful active temple recommend holding Mormons who don't make it to the celestial kingdom. Really good people, but who are just Protestants or Catholics or Jews or Muslims or atheists. Even if they're super good people, they go to the terrestrial and they don't get to be with their spouses or their kids or their family members. And then, of course, murders and rapists and adulterers, they get to go to heaven. They just go to the telestial kingdom, which is still awesome, but they don't get to be with their family members. So that's what the church touts is one of its top value adds to potential converts or to existing members. The problem is what happens if, if your spouse leaves the church or if one of your kids or grandkids leaves the church, Then you have what we call in Mormonism, empty chairs in the celestial kingdom, where it's sad heaven. Because, oh, it's great that seven out of eight of us are in the celestial kingdom. But Johnny, he was gay, so he's going to sad heaven. And now we're all going to be sad that Johnny's got an empty chair not in the celestial kingdom. And then Johnny's sad because all of us are having fun in the celestial kingdom, but because Johnny's gay, he's going to be in sad Mormon heaven, which some would argue is that heaven at all. And so that brings all these affirming LGBTQ dragon moms, as they're sometimes called, to say, I'll just redefine heaven, Mormon heaven for me as everyone gets to go, especially my kids, who I love. Julie, I'm curious your thoughts. Oh, Gerardo's got a slide. Did you want us to show the slide, Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:29:20] Oh, that's not my. That's Julia's.

Julia Sanders [01:29:22] Yeah, that's my slide.

John Dehlin [01:29:23] Okay, Julia, why don't you read this slide?

Julia Sanders [01:29:26] Prior to having. So this is Jen Rollins from the same Salt LA Tribune article. Prior to having queer kids, I would have thought, oh, they'll just go to the lower kingdom, a form of heaven, and we'll just come and visit them. Once I had queer kids, I couldn't wrap my mind and my heart around that even being a possibility.

John Dehlin [01:29:42] So, Julia and then Gerardo, what do you guys think of Mormons? Just like deciding they get to define how it doesn't matter that Joseph Smith received a revelation, enshrined it in Doctrine and Covenants section 76. And that's Mormon doctrine. And not just Mormon doctrine, but that's like, was it missionary discussion 4 where you teach the plan of salvation and it includes the three degrees of glory as a part of the plan of salvation? Like, it's few things are just as distinctive Mormon doctrine as the Mormon three degrees of glory in heaven. Julia, what's your reaction to Mormons just going, nah, I don't believe in that. I believe in my own heaven. What do you, what do you think, Julia?

Julia Sanders [01:30:23] Well, I love that. I'm like, I wish more people had the freedom to do that. Yeah. With us it was the third lesson and we teach that, you know, there's three. It's the top one. And then you can. You can visit the lower ones, but if you're lower, you can't go up, which is kind of confusing. And I think there's only a vague reference in the scriptures to visiting the lower kingdoms. I'd like to learn more about that or do that research. But, like, yeah, I just love that they're like, no, we don't care what the past prophets and apostles have said, specifically Joseph Smith in our canon scripture. We're just going to redefine heaven as everyone's there. Like, I love that.

John Dehlin [01:30:55] Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's like buffet Mormonism, right? All the car Mormonism. I'll just say, part of the reason I was excommunicated, it wasn't because I was queer. It's because I was advocating for things that weren't doctrine, like apostasy. One of the main criteria of apostasy is for teaching or advocating things that aren't church doctrine. And isn't that what these moms are doing? So while I celebrate their buffet cafeteria Mormonism, Gerardo, isn't this literally the definition of apostasy? Advocating for doctrines or principles that are contrary to those of the church publicly? I just realized that these women are technically an apostasy. Right.

Gerardo Sumano [01:31:39] Well, let me tell you, John, it's not just women. My dad actually believes that, and he's a Mormon bishop.

John Dehlin [01:31:49] I guess I'm a little salty because of the hypocrisy. Why was I excommunicated because I supported sex marriage and, like, had questions about some of the church's doctrine and theology. I'm sorry. I don't mean.

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:02] I Honestly, it's. It's hard. I think that this is. There's no other way the church can keep these people. Right. And it's a. It's a big amount of people in the church today that will have a family member that's lgbt. So if you start cracking down on all these people, including bishops, like my dad telling them, no, you cannot believe that your kid is going to be with you in heaven. Like, how many people are going to be left in the church at the end? Like, you know when this is just something that affects so many families in the church today?

John Dehlin [01:32:37] Yeah, well, yeah, I guess. I guess forget my saltiness. We should just celebrate that the church is becoming more liberal, becoming more tolerant, becoming more progressive, and letting people think and feel and believe what they want without punishing them. Right.

Ways the Church can become more liberal

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:54] It does seem like a big departure of what a Big departure of, of what the church used to do. Right.

John Dehlin [01:33:04] Can you imagine, like Bruce Armor Conkey or Boyd K. Packer allowing members to stay as faithful members when they publicly say they don't believe in core doctrines of Joseph Smith?

Gerardo Sumano [01:33:17] What a better. Another question is, like, what would people like? Like I, I put a new slide, John a slide 36. Can you, if you want to play that video. Okay. I think I have a question for, for you.

Jeffrey R. Holland on Same-Sex Families

John Dehlin [01:33:33] All right. This is our buddy, Mormon Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland. We all love Elder Holland. He's currently the acting president of the Quorum of the twelve apartment Apostles. So he's the fourth most senior church leader in the Mormon Church, is that right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:33:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:52] Let's play his clip.

Gerardo Sumano [01:33:55] We're able to do that because Jesus is the son of God and the Savior of the world. This is his church, and those are his temples. Temples. And he is all that we declare him to be, the light and the life of the world. I don't know how to speak about heaven in the traditional, lovely paradisaical beauty that we speak of. Heaven. I wouldn't know how to speak of heaven without my wife or my children. It would, it would not be heaven for me. Now, you can say that's wishful thinking or you can say that's just because you love each other and you've gotten cozy here on earth and you like each other's company. It's a lot more than that. There is something eternal in the statement that neither is the man without the woman nor the woman without the man in the Lord. That isn't just good sociology. That is theology. It's eternal.

John Dehlin [01:35:18] I mean, her order. Go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [01:35:22] I, I mean, the question I was going to ask is I wonder what would have happened if Elder Holland had a gay son, right? Or Elder Christopherson, who has a gay brother, or I mean, one of the apostles today has a openly gay son. Elder Gong. So how can they speak? Like his literal words are, if my child, if my children were not there, it wouldn't be heaven for me. So even an apostle is saying that whatever version of the, whatever orthodox version of heaven, Mormon, orthodox version of heaven Mormons believe we're talking about, it wouldn't be heaven for him. So why, why would it need to be heaven for. For anyone else in the church?

John Dehlin [01:36:15] What was your emotional reaction to that clip, Julia?

Julia Sanders [01:36:19] I actually got kind of teary because if you like picture if I was picturing my parents saying this to me and it changes everything or like if you put a pin on his, on his lapel, a rainbow pin. It changes everything that he's saying. I mean, it doesn't fit exactly because he's saying the man without the woman. But you could say no family is the same without the, the parents or the children. Like, just changing the. Changing the. What? He means. Like, he's just, he's talking about LGBTQ families. Like, I don't know how else to see that. Like, if it's parents. Parents of LGBTQ families have to have to wrestle with this. Like, is heaven. What is heaven without my children? Like, do my parents. Because I was excommunicated, I technically won't be saved in the highest heaven. So is heaven heaven to them? Like, is. Are they going to be happy? Is it going to be empty seats? Do they really believe that? Do they think. Do they think that I will be there anyway? It's just. Yeah, it's just really complicated.

John Dehlin [01:37:13] Yeah. And it's. Yeah, it's really problematic. And, and if they. And let's just say, you know, D. Todd Christofferson, Mormon Apostle, quietly believes that his, you know, brother Tom is going to be with him in the celestial kingdom. Let's say in some way, Tom ends up. And I, I, you know, I'm just speculating because as far as I know Tom's. He's a dear friend. As far as I know, he's active and faithful in his ward. But let's just say if, you know, if Tom had not gotten rebaptized and had stayed with his partner, if D. Todd had, like, had his own version of heaven that he quietly told his brother, hey, you know what, Tom? I still believe we'll be together in the celestial kingdom. What's that about? That an apostle or Gong, if Gong, Elder Apostle Gong tells his son, don't worry about that, son. The Lord and his wisdom is going to make all things right. And I don't believe we're going to be kept from each other. If apostles maintain also this progressive belief, but just do it quietly, how unethical is that, that the worldwide church membership has to maintain these beliefs about sad heaven? When these privileged apostles get to have their own private beliefs that they don't tell anyone, that doesn't feel right to me. So it just doesn't work in all the different ways. I'll share a few quotes that I think are useful. Lee writes, I don't want to go to the celestial kingdom. I think that's a valid position. Neller's writes, I'm curious how these moms attend church and if their queer kids also attend In Neller's opinion, that's not healthy. I just want to say we can't say what's healthy for people. That's what they need to decide and we should be only supportive, in my opinion, of people and what they think and feel. Nathan writes, the church's erratic and inconsistent enforcement of policies constitute spiritual abuse to its members because it makes us not know if we are okay with the general authorities or at risk for church discipline. Totally agree. Donnie Lee Gringo in Brazil writes, John At Stake President and Bishop Roulette. I think he's talking about my disciplinary council. Stevedore Charlie writes, I love the parents defining heaven for themselves. My experience in Catholicism worked the same way. So healthy if you're going to stay in the church. Badass. So Stevedore is liking, like you, Julia, these parents claiming their own beliefs. Stevedore also writes that my excommunication was illogical. Authoritarians do illogical, arbitrary stuff all the time. Sad but true. It's fun to get a Catholic perspective there since Catholics brought us excommunication in the first place. As I understand it, Hippie Gypsy writes, please don't be upset that you were kicked out of a screwed up religion, John. Wouldn't you rather save lives? I would say clearly that's the decision I made, but thank you. William writes, excommunication is barbarism. Ren writes, the Celestial Kingdoms sounds like a never ending sacrament meeting. I think we know what you're getting out there, Wren. I do wonder what we're going to do up there for eternity. Jason writes, Three Degrees of Glory was taken straight from Emanuel Swedenborg. It's not original. Joseph Smith was a magpie. Some like to call him Inspired Syncretist. I think those are the words of Tero Givens that he liked bricolage. Those are fancy words that Mormon apologists like to use. Others call him a plagiarist and doesn't give attribution. Cassidy writes, I told my husband that I hoped the church wasn't true. The celestial kingdom sounded awful and I could not reconcile polygamy. Let's not forget that according to Doctrine and Covenant Section 132, polygamy is the new and everlasting covenant and anyone who wants to be in the celestial kingdom is going to need to practice polygamy. That's also, as I understand it, Mormon doctrine. A few more comments. These are good. Thundersnow writes, it's all a lie. They can pretend they accept them, but the covenant path is obedience to the top leaders at all costs. You can Pretend it's more liberal, but like you said, John, it's apostasy. Another person. Yeah. Thunderstow also writes, you can redefine Mormon heaven, but that's not Mormonism. What do you guys think about that argument that. That you can create a chapel liberal view, but that's not Mormonism and never has been. Do you guys have a. Have a feeling about that?

My Excommunication: What I Learned

Julia Sanders [01:42:03] Well, my first thought is like Mormonism to begin with was polygamy. And then people there was. It was really hard. Or the. I think legally they had to change it. So the.

John Dehlin [01:42:14] Julia, not to correct you, but it wasn't polygamy. Then it was polygamy.

Julia Sanders [01:42:17] You're right. You're right. So yeah. 1830. 18 in 40. Well, no. Well, he was taking women in 35, I guess, anyway. So. Yeah, it didn't start out, but it was. Anyway, my point is that the church does change its positions, like, anyway. So I can't even remember the point I was trying to make.

John Dehlin [01:42:36] Just that it changes a lot. Right. And again.

Julia Sanders [01:42:39] Right. Oh, like his. It wasn't because like he was saying it's not Mormonism that their version of heaven and now it is Mormonism. Or like you could say anyway, you could say that with so many different things. Like that wasn't Mormonism, but now it is because people have had that belief.

John Dehlin [01:42:53] Yeah. I think it was John Larsen that makes the point that you really can't pick a core distinctive Mormon doctrine that hasn't changed significantly over the past 200 years. And I think that's true. And you can check out Charlie Harrell's book, this is my Doctrine that talks a lot about that. Let's just see a couple more quick comments. Liz writes, it's not that these parents don't believe. It's that they believe that there is continuing revel. They think it will change. Okay, that's fair. Maybe the brethren will like with the priesthood ban and the temple ban on black people, like Gerardo said earlier. Maybe this will be one of those things that changes when the government or public pressure becomes too great. Tixin writes, mormon Heaven makes me a sister wife. I don't want that. And the Mormon heaven caters to straight men only. Latter day GI Gigist writes, a former ward member took in kicked out pregnant teens. And their example helped me on the way out. Nathan Kitchen writes, some parents comfort themselves that if they are in the celestial kingdom, they can go visit their children in lower kingdoms. Unfortunately, visiting hours are a feature of prison, not heaven. Well said, Nathan Kitchen. Thank you for sharing Tixon also writes that Mormon heaven had black servants at one point. That's actually true. This is not hyperbole. This is not racism. This is just basic historical facts. And then Sean McLaughlin from New Zealand writes. Hi from New Zealand. Respect to all those moms, but they're raising the kids amongst people who hate them. That's surely a toxic and dangerous environment for queer youth. Now, I don't think, you know, one. One clarification I would want to make is I don't think all Mormons are homophobic. I think maybe the majority of Mormons love and are kind and are generally accepting, tolerant people. Gerardo, what would you say in response to Sean? Because we don't want to unfairly stereotype believing Mormons, right?

Mormons Say All Mormons Are Homophobic

Gerardo Sumano [01:44:59] Yeah, well, yeah, I think giving a blanket statement saying that the. Oh, that they're hated in their words. Like, who knows, right? Like, it might be a word like Charlie and Ryan's where most ME members of the Word accept them and love them and feel good about them being active. Also to mention that most of these. This. The article doesn't mention whether or not the LGBT children of these moms are attending or active in the church. It could very well be that the children are not active or attending. So that's important.

John Dehlin [01:45:33] I just think it's a credible position to hold that you want to stay in the church to be an ally, to be a safe place, for example, for LGBTQ youth, or to correct homophobic statements that are made or homophobic decisions that are made. I know a lot of progressive Mormons that stay to try and make the church better or safer. Julia, do you have any thoughts about that or anything else?

Julia Sanders [01:46:00] Not really. Like, I think there. There are wards that can be very loving and supportive. We've heard other people that were on Mormon stories that they said that their wards accepted them as gay couples attending church. But I think that there are. I think, far and wide, the majority would not be as accepting as these other wards. But I have no idea if that's accurate. I just know from my experience, my word was not. Did not react that way.

John Dehlin [01:46:21] Yeah.

Guest [01:46:21] Do you.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:22] Did you show slide 35, John, which one's that? The one with the three, I think, right before.

John Dehlin [01:46:32] Yeah.

Guest [01:46:32] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:33] Did we read it?

John Dehlin [01:46:34] Yeah, we did.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:35] Okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:46:37] Really quickly, I. I do think Elder Holland has a lot of gall to say publicly how terrible it would be to be in heaven without your loved ones.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:48] Not just terrible. He says it wouldn't be heaven.

John Dehlin [01:46:51] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:52] Basically saying it would be hell. Right. Like, if it's not Heaven, It's. It's the opposite of that. Right.

John Dehlin [01:46:57] And yet, as. As the. As the president of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he upholds that policy for what, 5 to 10% of his own membership?

Gerardo Sumano [01:47:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:09] It's a really, in some sense, a really dark and horrific juxtaposition.

Gerardo Sumano [01:47:15] And the percentage probably grows once you consider parents and siblings, you know, LGBT people, because they are affected as well, because they're the ones that are not going to be able to be with their. With. With their family.

John Dehlin [01:47:27] It's not just queer Mormons. It's all the family members of the queer Mormons right inside heaven as well, which is at least probably not the church, if you think about it really quickly. We're gonna have to end because I'm going to be on a live stream next. And I want to just tell you all, join us in seven minutes for the Mormon newscast, where we're going to be talking about Mormon news with Radio Free Mormon Bill Real and Rebecca Biblioteca. Really quickly, Gerardo, I know Ben is. I'll say it jokingly. Ben's a buddy of yours. You want to read this quote from Ben?

Bobbi and Ben on the BYU Honor Code

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:03] Sure. He says, what the message that kid needs from their parents again and again is that they. That you belong and I claim you, and you're not a burden and you're a gift. Doing so will not only save lives, but increase mental health and also strength, strengthen family relationships.

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:24] On that, Gerardo, on Ben.

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:26] Yeah, I totally agree. I agree with that. And also, if you go and read the article, I thought it was really bold for him to be a little bit of. Of a critic of Elder Oaks and one of his specific remarks of elder Oaks from 2006, and he says, you know, that something along the lines of Elder Oaks position in the 2006 interview that has been publicized by the church is problematic.

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:57] And.

Gerardo Sumano [01:48:57] Yeah, I think. I think that was pretty brave of Ben to do.

John Dehlin [01:49:02] Yeah. And he used to be at BYU upholding the honor code, and then recently, I guess he stepped back and. And switched over to uvu, which I. I think is. I think. I don't know. Is that a good sign? Is that any sign? Any thoughts on that hero?

Gerardo Sumano [01:49:21] I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Well, I'm happy that he's not upholding homophobic rules at byu. I'm certainly happy about that.

John Dehlin [01:49:35] Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, hopefully he's finding joy and happiness. I definitely hope he is. Really quickly, we're going to have to jump through. We'll end by Just saying. Kind of a personal implication that's near and dear to the Mormon stories heart. One of many of your favorite episodes historically is the Dusty Johns interview that we did. I don't know exactly the year that we did this, it was back 2018, I think 2018, where Dusty and his husband in Idaho faced excommunication for being same sex married. They were just lovely, faithful gay men who wanted to raise Dusty's kids in the church. And we won't have time to cover the fact that that the church has definitely significantly changed its policy where it used to have same being in a same sex marriage as requiring a disciplinary council, whereas attempted murder and rape and sexual abuse and spouse abuse were optional in terms of a disciplinary council. We're happy to announce that the Mormon Church has updated that putting up rape and sexual assault and child abuse and incest and other things as requiring a council. Where. And do we know where same sex marriage is maybe required on the left? Okay, so they downgraded same sex marriage to maybe required and upgraded rape and sexual assault and child abuse as requiring. And we at Mormon Stories want to take credit for some of that because we beat the church over the head with it or many, many years until they finally changed. We won't have time to go through Dusty's interview. We recommend, I, we definitely recommend that you go watch that. But what we will play to end is some just really interesting news that we heard from Dusty Johns just recently. And we'll just go ahead and play it.

Dusty Johns on The Mormon Church's Disciplinary Councils

Guest [01:51:36] I have known Ben. I went to. There's a group by the way, you should, if you have a gay child or you have are lgbt. There's a group in eastern Idaho called Open Arms Foundation. Group of people that I love dearly, that they are moms and they have beautiful kids and. They are my friends.

Gerardo Sumano [01:52:01] And.

Guest [01:52:07] I've been to conversations with Ben and with Charlie Bird, if you don't know. Charlie Bird is married. They have a beautiful marriage, him and his husband. And they are members of the church and they have been welcomed by their ward and their stake and have they're able. They take the sacrament and they have callings and I'm very happy for them. Really, truly. Like it's progress and it's growth and it's change and I love it. And Ben was here tonight. But Ben has also made some changes and some. And, and I'm proud of him and love him and I'll let him tell his own story.

John Dehlin [01:52:49] But is he talking about Ben Shalotti? Gerardo?

Gerardo Sumano [01:52:53] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:52:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:53] Okay.

Lesbian Couples Excommunicated

Guest [01:52:57] Last Night yesterday and last night, today, I just had a lot on my mind. So I want to tell you where I'm at right now. I'm going to cut this short. It's late and I appreciate all of you this spent some time with me. So here I am right now. I want to again. Why am I saying this? Because I've had a bunch of people message me on Facebook. I know I talked about being the state president and I was wearing my suit on Sunday and 400 people liked it. Because you love them. Go back to church. There's a small part of me, it's like, is it just because you want to go? Anyway, here's where I'm at. That's what I'm gonna say. Wherever you are with your faith, whatever faith that is, whether you're gay, bi, straight, whether you're a member of the church or not, whether you've been a member of the church and you've been deeply hurt by the church, I understand you and I know what it's like to be where you sit. And I'm sorry for the pain that has been yours because of your membership in the church. Some of that may have been caused by the church. Some of that may have been caused by the judgment, the culture and the sick game that we play. Some of it may be you know what the reason is. And I just want you to know that I see you and I hear you and I am sorry. I stand beside you and with you and that will never change. Period. Or the doctrine. Shauna, whatever your reasons are, I stand with you. I hear you. You're not any less valid. They're not any less. You're not any less human. You're not any less. You're nothing, nothing less.

Gerardo Sumano [01:54:16] I love you.

Guest [01:54:17] You are my people. Period. Okay? And that will always be the case for me. I miss my membership in the church and have missed it for a very long time. I love my Savior and I believe he lives and I believe he knows me and understands me and supports me.

John Dehlin [01:54:44] And I don't know if that's exactly where we were having it end, but doesn't he say he's thinking about going back and rejoining the church?

Guest [01:54:51] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:54:51] So he's going to rejoin the church?

Guest [01:54:53] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:54:54] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:54:55] Stake president and IR authority visited his house after he now that he has divorced his husband and offered him to come back. And it's my understanding that he is going to be re baptized in the church.

John Dehlin [01:55:08] And we love Dusty and we celebrate his right to make that decision. We're not Judging it, however, how T.R. and I relate. I there oftentimes I miss attending church and being a Mormon. So I relate on a lot of levels. But it's just interesting that Dusty Johns is thinking about getting re. Baptized, and I wonder if this news will impact that, you know.

Gerardo Sumano [01:55:34] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:35] And we should say our heart goes out to all these lesbian couples that have been excommunicated. I don't know that we properly said that, but as. As two of the three of us who have been excommunicated, it's a horrific thing. We're sorry. And our hearts go out to you, Julia and Gerardo. Let me have you guys both have the last word. Gerardo, let's have you go. And then Julie gets the last word.

Gerardo Sumano [01:55:58] Yeah. So I'm. I just hope that these issues are talked about, that we. That the church leaders are held accountable for. For their intentional ambiguity that they have perpetuated on this issue. And I. I really hope that everyone gets the same treatment. And. And my hope is this is the treatment that Charlie and Ryan have gotten and that. That it becomes widespread throughout the church and. And this excommunication stop. So, yeah, I. That's what I want to end with.

John Dehlin [01:56:36] Thank you, Gerardo. Julia.

Julia Sanders [01:56:38] I just wish that people had this space to. To put themselves wherever they feel the need in the church, like, to stay active as a queer person or to. To remove their records as a queer person. I wish that they had control over that rather than having to relinquish that control to their bishop or their stake president. Like, I. For me, I was. I was excommunicated before I was ready to stop going to church. And that really, really hurt me. And I think that that's the same case, it seems like, with these lesbian couples who were actively attending church and then we're excommunicated. Like, I wish that that was just that we had control over our relationship with God rather than having to give that away.

John Dehlin [01:57:15] Well said. Beautiful. Thank you, Julia. Thank you, Gerardo. I'm sorry we have to talk about these hard things, and we appreciate your willingness to share your perspectives as queer ex Mormons.

Gerardo Sumano [01:57:26] Thank you, John.

Julia Sanders [01:57:28] Yeah.

Mormon Stories: Bo's Wedding

John Dehlin [01:57:28] All right. And thanks to everyone for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Please check out more. The Mormon newscast. It's next. I'm going to jump over to that live stream right now. Thanks to Maven and Julia and Brooklyn and everyone who makes all this possible. Thanks to our donors. If you value this content, please become a monthly donor@mormonstories.org hey, Bo. Bo's sending love. Thanks Bo and everyone who who's apprehension. You like Bo, Julia?

Julia Sanders [01:57:54] Oh, he's great. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:56] Yeah, I agree. All right, you guys, stay tuned. We love you, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast, Mormon Church. Please do better. Thanks, everyone, and take care.