Advocate hopes to see all same-sex LDS couples comfortable at church, but ‘we don’t have that right now’

Critics often say there is no place in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for LGBTQ+ members, which preaches that having same-sex attraction is not a sin but acting on it is.

It has led to self-loathing among LGBTQ+ members and conflicts between some orthodox Latter-day Saints and those who believe everyone has a right to love whomever they choose.

In 2012, members of the then-newly formed Mormons Building Bridges did their best to reduce the tension between these groups by donning their Sunday best and marching en masse to wide applause in a Utah pride parade. It was a simple yet potent gesture that echoed around the globe, setting an example for fellow believers who then took up the style, if not the name, in other pride parades.

This year, though, there were no Latter-day Saint marchers under that banner. Indeed, the parade had few if any entries with a strong Latter-day Saint identity. Has the landscape changed for LGBTQ+ members and their allies? Are they finding their place instead in a variety of organizations rather than in public statements?

Here are lightly edited excerpts from The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast with Allison Dayton, founder of Lift + Love, who discusses the current state of LGBTQ+ members and the Gather Conference taking place later this month in Provo.

What prompted you to launch Lift + Love?

I grew up with a brother who was gay. He was born in 1960, out in the mid-1980s and tried so hard to stay active in the church. He went on a mission, and did all the things that he was supposed to do to try and stay. Back then, it was really about him being cured from this gayness. And he did everything he could. Then, after his mission, he was finishing college, he realized, this was just not going away. So he actually left the church, had his name taken off the rolls, moved away and never moved back to Salt Lake, where we were raised. His life was an up-and-down conflict between family and church, identity and being kicked out. There were years that he did so well and years that were just super painful. …I n 2017, he took his life and his last note to us was really full of this pain. …A year later, my son came out as he graduated from high school. I just felt like I did not want this life for my son. He’s this greatest, sweetest kid. I wanted him to have a healthy, happy life. He went to BYU, then brought a couple of friends home to go to a pride parade. I was talking to these kids, and none of them really had support from home. I was just shocked. I thought I’ve got to do something. So I started Lift + Love as kind of this inspirational Instagram thing. People started flocking to us, and I realized there was a need for parents — moms particularly — to talk through raising these kids. These moms and parents were not trying to fix their kids. They were not trying to get rid of them. They were trying to manage the same conflict of being in the church, loving this child and trying to protect and do the best for this child. So that’s what we started with.

What would you say is the group’s mission?

It’s to support LGBTQ individuals and their families in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and, for those who want to stay, to help them to work through that tension.

Is your group’s goal to change the church’s stance same-sex relationships?

No. That would probably be a fool’s errand. I say we’re a tent in the parking lot of the church. We have this group and this community that’s just right outside of the church, but that speaks the same language. That’s not to say we don’t have good interactions with members and leaders of the church, but it is a little bit outside.

Short of a major policy shift, are there other changes that your group advocates or would like to see?

We don’t talk about it within Lift + Love, but, as a mother, and someone who has talked to literally thousands of people, I would love to see more dignity shown to gay, lesbian, bisexual and specifically transgender people in the church. If my son marries a man, I’d love him to be able to come to church as a married person who wants to be faithful, to be able to sit in the pews, to have a calling, to be loved, to be part of the whole program. I would love to see that and [hear] conversations that support and allow him to have that dignity and that connection to the Savior through the church in ways that we don’t have right now.

Why do you think it’s so tough to actually build bridges?

It’s hard, and it has gotten harder. There’s so much fear on both sides. There’s so much hurt. I know that the [church] policy on transgender people was the beginning or the last straw for the incredible people who run Mormons Building Bridges. We have this idea that LGBTQ+ people hate the church. There are some who might, but there’s also this yearning to be part of this gospel that raised them. Being close to LGBTQ+ people, knowing a trans person — which most people don’t — changes the way you look at them. It takes away the fear of what’s going on here, and the uncomfortableness. We don’t want to get into that uncomfortableness. We’re really comfortable where we are with everyone in our ward who looks like us and acts like us and has the same beliefs. Starting across that bridge building is “like, I’m going to get uncomfortable, and I’m going to keep being uncomfortable. People are going to say horrible things about me, and I’m going to keep going.” As a human family right now, we’ve lost the ability for that.

There have been signs of retrenchment at BYU and emerging tensions with Trump-era policies, especially for transgender individuals. Are LGBTQ+ groups, individuals and allies in the church on the defensive again?

Absolutely. Our kids get a nearly constant barrage of telling them that they are disgusting, hated, weird, that they shouldn’t be in the country. I cannot imagine growing up today with that kind of barrage of hate, and it just comes on their phone. They cannot get away from it. My feeling is that the church should be a sanctuary from that, a place where we come and say, “No, you are super important. You’re important to me. You’re important to this community, and you’re important to God. Shut out the world and come here.” But we haven’t figured that out yet.

Have you noticed some positive changes in the church on this issue?

I actually got invited by the Relief Society general presidency [and the leaders of the other church organizations] and their boards to talk about what I’ve learned. That’s positive. People came up after and said, “We need more of this.” There is a desire to know how to better support. Will that come down from the top? As we all know, the only messages that really matter have to come from the top. Overall, what it has to be to really make broad changes, is not [happening] yet, not yet.

Note to readers • To hear the full podcast, go to sltrib.com/podcasts/mormonland. To receive full “Mormon Land” transcripts, along with our complete newsletter and access to all Tribune religion content, support us at Patreon.com/mormonland. This story is available to Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.