Boy Scouts can now be openly gay—and the LDS Church wants it that way

Taking a step in the direction of equal treatment, Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced today (5/23/2013) that it would admit openly gay Scouts. The change is the result of a 61-38% vote by the BSA’s National Council. This body agreed to accept the following proposed language: “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” At least for now, the ban against openly gay Scout leaders remains in place.

Given the margin of victory, it appears that this change would likely not have happened without support from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The LDS Church is by far the largest organization that charters Scouting units associated with the BSA. Based on statistics from the end of 2012, the LDS Church operates 37,856 chartered units, representing 36% of all 106,200 chartered units. Scouts from these units constitute about 17% of all Scouts. In addition, many of the top BSA leaders are Mormon. Thus, the LDS Church has an outsized influence on the decision-making at BSA.

The church came out early in favor of the current language, apparently signaling an interest in “consistent standards for all BSA partners, recognition that Scouting exists to serve and benefit youth rather than Scout leaders, [and] a single standard of moral purity for youth in the program.” Thus, this policy appears to be exactly what the LDS Church wanted. Within hours of the vote that lifted the discriminatory policy, the church already apparently had a letter on hand in support of the new policy, signed by the church’s First Presidency, which will now be distributed to local congregations.

Interestingly, the church’s statement reveals, “Sexual orientation has not previously been—and is not now—a disqualifying factor for boys who want to join Latter-day Saint Scout troops. Willingness to abide by standards of behavior continues to be our compelling interest.” Apparently, the LDS Church had been quietly at odds with BSA policy all along, and the vote today merely brings the BSA into conformity with longstanding LDS policy. If it is true that the LDS Church was violating this policy all along, one has to wonder whether the BSA was oblivious, or was intentionally looking the other way while this was happening. That would not be surprising, given that the BSA board members, who are drawn from corporate America, have been pushing for this change.

The church’s statement also raises the question of whether the church continues to disregard BSA’s continuing discriminatory policy against gay and lesbian Scout leaders. LDS Scouting policy stipulates, “Worthy adults, whether members of the Church or not, may be called to serve as Scouting leaders.” (§ 8.5). LDS policy currently considers gay and lesbian Mormons to be “worthy” so long as they are celibate. (Church Handbook of Instruction, Book 1 § 17.3.6). Conceivably, the LDS Church might get behind a BSA-wide policy that requires gay and lesbian Scout leaders to be celibate. Or perhaps the church might also get behind a policy that allows local units to follow their own policies regarding gay and lesbian Scout leaders. That way, the LDS Church can have its own policy, and other organizations who feel differently can have a different policy. If an openly gay or lesbian parent or other adult wants to be involved in Scouting, there would at least be some units where they will be welcomed.

As an Eagle Scout, I’m happy for the gay Scouts who will no longer be excluded. I am also happy that my church seems to have effectively sponsored this change. However, I don’t think the spirit and ideals of Scouting will be fully honored until openly gay and lesbian Scout leaders are welcomed into the Scouting program.

Might the LDS Church be okay with a more inclusive policy on gay Scouts and leaders?

A few days ago, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced that it was considering changing its policy to allow local Scout-sponsoring organizations to make their own decisions on whether or not to ban gay Scouts and leaders from their troops. Wednesday, after pressure to delay the decision from several scouting organizations, most notably the Great Salt Lake Council in Utah, the BSA decided to delay the decision until its annual meeting in May 2013.

There has been speculation that much of the pressure on the BSA came from the LDS Church, but apparently, not so. In a news release issued Thursday, the church said that it had not yet taken a position on the proposed policy change, and denied that it had been involved in any effort to prevent such a change. It encouraged people “not to speculate about our position or to assume that individual Latter-day Saints inside or outside the Scouting movement speak for the Church.”

There is a good chance that the LDS Church’s eventual position on the BSA’s proposed change might surprise us. A few years ago, the LDS Church baffled many conservative Mormons by supporting two city ordinances in Salt Lake City that prohibited housing discrimination against gays and lesbians. And just Thursday, conservative Mormons had further reason to be baffled when it was reported that the LDS Church was quietly seeking to extend Salt Lake City’s anti-housing-discrimination protections statewide throughout Utah. I suspect that Mormon clergy overall tend to be more sympathetic toward LGBT issues than many of the rank-and-file. I think this is true of most churches. It is difficult to be overly judgmental and dismissive of people you actually know, who are in your flock and for whom you have a duty to love and serve. One might imagine that it was his prior service as a bishop and Stake president that influenced 2012 Presidential candidate Mitt Romney to come out in opposition to the BSA’s ban on gay Scouts.

The BSA’s proposed policy change actually squares with current LDS policy on sexual orientation. Openly gay and lesbian Mormons are officially welcome within LDS congregations, even in leadership positions or as full-time missionaries, as long as they remain celibate. For example, Mitch Mayne, an openly gay Mormon, was called in 2011 to serve in an LDS bishopric in San Francisco. In the LDS Church, being a Scout leader is essentially a church leadership calling. There does not appear to be any official prohibition on the calling of celibate gay or lesbian Scout leaders in the LDS Church, or the participation of gay scouts.

If the LDS Church does not intend to discriminate against celibate gay or lesbian boys and leaders, then the current BSA policy is problematic. The current BSA policy is one of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” So gay Scouts and leaders can remain in the organization as long as they are closeted. But when the come out, they are expelled from Scouting regardless of whether or not they are celibate. Thus, while a Mormon Scouting troop might want to include a celibate, openly-gay boy as a member, the BSA would not currently allow that.

My sense is that the LDS Church wants to have complete control over whatever accommodation it decides to make on the issue of sexual orientation of Scouts and Scout leaders. In a previous post, I suggested that if the LDS Church were required not to discriminate against openly-gay Scouts and leaders, that the church might part ways with Scouting. However, I don’t think that is the case so long as the LDS Church can frame its own policy, so that celibacy, rather than closetedness, becomes the criterion for admission of gays and lesbians to the Scouting program.

Mormons and witchcraft

As the most sacred holiday for witches is upon us, I thought I would write a little of what I know about the intersection between Mormonism and witchcraft. First, let me state the obvious, that Mormons are not witches, and most Mormons probably don’t think much about witchcraft. In fact, most Mormons would probably be horrified to see me comparing Mormonism with witchcraft. Like Mormonism, witchcraft is a much maligned religion, but one that I greatly respect and admire for their nature-based and environmental theology. Comparing Mormonism to witchcraft is not as preposterous as it might at first seem, given that I understand that in predominantly-Mormon Utah, the majority of witches are former or sometimes even current Mormons. Evidently, there is something within witchcraft that appeals to a certain rare segment of Mormons or former Mormons.

The diverse pagan traditions we call witchcraft have been around for a very long time. It mostly had died-out by the 19th century, but in the early 20th century it experienced a rebirth in the form of Wicca and various related denominations, who tried to reconstruct the pagan faiths based on old traditions and records. At the time Joseph Smith founded Mormonism in 1830, the witchcraft theology had basically disappeared. But some of the magical elements of these traditions were carried forward in the form of folk religion practiced by believing Christians. Joseph Smith was part of that magical culture, though he was by no means a witch. He was, really, no different than countless of other rural Christians who practiced folk magic.

Though he did not think of it as witchcraft, Joseph Smith was not unfamiliar with things like spells, talismans, curses, and magic divining stones. For example, Smith used a “seer stone” to translate the Book of Mormon. Smith referred to this stone, and similar stones, by the biblical phrase “Urim and Thummim.” Smith taught that in the far future, residents of the glorified crystal earth would each receive such a stone whereby they will be able to know “things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms” (D&C 130:10). Smith, like countless others of his era who lived close to the earth and relied in part upon the cycles of nature for their survival, also evidently believed in astrology. One of Smith’s early revelations indicates that he also believed in dowsing. Smith’s connection to the magical practices of his era are fully explored in the groundbreaking but controversial work Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, by D. Michael Quinn (1998, Signature Books, ISBN 1560850892). These magical practices were still part of Christianity, not withcraft, but they represent a common folk tradition between the two faiths.

In addition to the magical elements of early Mormonism, there are superficial similarities between Mormonism and witchcraft on a theological level. Most practitioners of witchcraft recognize at least two gods, the Moon Goddess and the Horned God. Mormons, in addition to recognizing the male Christian Father, also recognize a Heavenly Mother. Thus, both traditions recognize male and female deities. But the theological similarities between Mormonism and witchcraft are rather superficial. Though heterodox in relation to traditional Christianity, Mormons came from that tradition, are still part of it, and have been working hard to find common ground with it. Though not trinitarian, Mormons still believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of Christianity. Some Mormons believe that the Heavenly Mother is the Holy Spirit, but beliefs are varied. (See this 1980 Sunstone Magazine article for an overview of the Mormon Heavenly Mother doctrine.)

None of this is to say that Mormonism, especially modern Mormonism, is anything at all like witchcraft. But there are enough superficial similarities that Mormons ought to be sympathetic to witches. As much as I favor Mormon dialogue with traditional Christianity, I would also be on board for some sort of Mormon-witch dialogue.

How Mormons feel about Islam

A couple of weeks ago, I had the misfortune of watching parts of the hate-filled anti-Muslim film made in the United States and promoted by Pastor Terry Jones—the spark that set off the recent flames of anti-Western rage in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, and elsewhere. Jones, in case you don’t remember, is the same bigot that planned to burn copies of the Qur’an on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The film is horribly offensive. There have been offensive films made about Mormons, too, but nothing quite like this. It is truly trash, both artistically and as an expression of hate against Muslims.

Mormons have much in common with Muslims, and were subject in the 19th century to much of the same kind of ridicule as Muslims. Therefore, I think that Mormons are less likely than many evangelical Christians to join in Muslim-bashing. Also, there are many differences between Mormonism and evangelical Christianity that might tend to make Mormons more tolerant of Muslims.

First, unlike evangelicals, Mormon do not believe that Muslims are destined for hell unless they convert to Christianity and accept Jesus as their savior. To be clear, Mormons do believe that Mormon theology represents an exclusive path to the highest heavenly realm. However, in 1836, the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith said that he had a vision in which he was told, “All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it had they been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God.” (D&C 137:7). “This gospel” refers to the doctrines of Mormonism. Thus, according to Smith’s 1836 teaching, any Muslim who was not familiar with Mormonism, but would have accepted it had they known about it in their lifetime, would be automatically saved in the heavenly kingdom. Statistics would suggest that there ought to be far more Muslim-born people in that kingdom than Mormon-born.

A few years later in 1840, Joseph Smith introduced the practice of baptism for the dead, by which Mormons could be baptized as proxies for those people, including Muslims, who had died without Mormon baptism. Mormons today understand that in the afterlife, such people will have the choice as to whether or not to accept that baptism done on their behalf.

In Mormonism, all people including Christians are required to accept a Mormon baptism as a condition for salvation. Thus, as far as salvation is concerned, Mormon theology does not fundamentally distinguish between someone who died as a Muslim and someone who died as a Methodist.

Second, although Mormons believe that the “keys” to an effective baptism have been entrusted only to Mormon priests, they are not in generally opposed to the idea of non-Mormon or even non-Christian prophets. Mormon theology teaches that God “is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in.” (Alma 26:37). A very influential early 20th century Mormon scholar and leader named B.H. Roberts wrote in 1907 that Mormonism:

“is one of God’s instrumentalities for making known the truth yet he is not limited to that institution for such purposes, neither in time nor place. God raises up wise men and prophets here and there among all the children of men, of their own tongue and nationality, speaking to them through means that they can comprehend. … All the great teachers are servants of God; among all nations and in all ages. They are inspired men, appointed to instruct God’s children according to the conditions in the midst of which he finds them”

Muhammad would have been one of these non-Mormon prophets to whom God revealed his truth. In 1978, the LDS Church issued an official statement that Muhammad and other great religious leaders “received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals.”

Therefore, there is not much excuse within Mormon theology for Islamophobia, and there are enough outward similarities between Islam and Mormonism that one would not expect Mormons to be overly intolerant toward Muslims. Anti-Islam sentiment undoubtedly exists among some Mormons, as in any group, but I really believe it to be rare.

Is Romney the “face of Mormonism”?

In-fighting among Mormon politicians has erupted over an article by Gregory A. Prince, a well-known Mormon biographer. In the article, Prince claimed that Romney was “not the face of Mormonism.” Prince had been a Romney supporter prior to 2007, when Romney was a moderate. However, Prince became dismayed when Romney lurched to the right in his 2008 presidential campaign. and was baffled by Romney’s infamous “47% video.”

Prince argued that Romney’s dismissal of the “47%” was a betrayal of everything that Romney stood for as a Mormon lay pastor. A pastor who is a “good shepherd” goes after the lost sheep: even if one sheep in a hundred is in jeopardy, the pastor is to leave the fold and recover it. Also, Mormons were early champions of reaching out to the disadvantaged and providing social safety nets such as the Latter-day Saint Welfare Program. According to Prince, writing off 47% of the American population as a moocher class does not seem consistent with Mormon leadership principles or compassion.

Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has entered the fray, stating that he agrees with Prince. Reid and Romney have been at odds with each other before, but this time, it is about Mormonism itself.

To be honest, Romney probably is the face of a certain class of well-known Mormon industrialists, among them J.W. Marriott, Jon Huntsman, and the late Larry H. Miller. Perhaps these are some of the more visible faces of Mormonism. And men who walk, talk, dress, and look like Romney inhabit the upper echelons of the LDS Church hierarchy. But I could not imagine any of these church leaders writing off the needs of what the far right views as the “moocher class,” as Romney appears to have done in the video.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Mormons on average have become increasingly conservative. But Mormon leaders have periodically reined-in that conservatism to counter dismissiveness or lack of respect and empathy towards the poor, immigrants, and the disadvantaged. Mormons by and large have not adopted the most belligerent postures of the far right. Therefore from a Mormon perspective, Romney’s dismissive attitude might seem surprising and out of character for a Mormon who has been a lay pastor devoting years to serving the neediest under his care. Perhaps that is what Prince and Reid are reacting to.

There is another possibility: that Romney’s “face” is merely a mask, and that in dismissing the 47%, he is telling his wealthy conservative donors exactly what they want to hear, rather than what he truly believes. But that, too, is decidedly un-Mormon. A Mormon article of faith is that “we believe in being honest.” A current LDS Church manual quotes Brigham Young in stating, “If we accept salvation on the terms it is offered to us, we have got to be honest in every thought, in our reflections, in our meditations, in our private circles, in our deals, in our declarations, and in every act of our lives.” I wonder what Young would have thought about a candidate misrepresenting himself to a private group of donors—if that is what Romney did—in order to get campaign money.

A better face of Mormon honesty might actually be Jon Huntsman, who was ridiculed during the 2012 Republican Primaries for his consistently moderate views. He refused to lurch to the right as a political expediency, the way that Romney seems to have done. Like Romney, Huntsman was also born into a wealthy family, and therefore he is also probably a bit removed from the concerns of average struggling Mormons, but based on his views and consistency, he might have a little better claim for representing Mormon idealism than does Romney.

But perhaps it is incorrect to think that anyone could be the “face of Mormonism.” Mormons are more diverse than most non-Mormons think. There are single parents, undocumented immigrants, liberals, gays and lesbians, libertarians, and out-of-touch industrialists, all happily sitting next to each other on the pews of many Mormon congregations. Sometimes each of them is not completely honest, or compassionate, or tolerant, but they are all Mormon. Thus, ultimately I agree with Greg Prince’s observation that Romney’s video was not a good representation of Mormon ideals; however, I think that Romney has as good a claim to be the face of a flawed Mormon as any other Mormon does.

Mormonism and Ayn Rand

Objectivist writer Ayn Rand has been in the news recently because in 2005, Romney VP pick Paul Ryan said that Rand was “[t]he reason I got involved in public service.” Although Ryan has recently tried to distance himself from Rand, by all indications, he was a Randite as late as 2009, when he argued that “Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism.” As far as I can tell, nobody knows whether or not Mitt Romney agrees with Rand’s “moral” view of capitalism, but it is worth considering whether there is any place for the ideas of Ayn Rand in the Mormon worldview. I don’t think there is.

In many ways, Ayn Rand’s views as a whole are incompatible not just with Mormonism, but with all religion, as she was an atheist who rejected all forms of religion and altruism. Her philosophy was self-centered: the only morality, in her view, was the promotion of heroic self interest. She earnestly embodied the philosophy expressed by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street that “greed is good.”

Despite the presence of anti-Christian elements within Rand’s philosophy, right-leaning Christians such as Paul Ryan and many others have overlooked Rand’s anti-altruism and strident atheism to embrace the “greed is good” part of her philosophy as a moral justification for capitalism. Undoubtedly, Mitt Romney is an altruist, as evidenced by his years of unpaid service in the LDS Church. I have no reason to think that Paul Ryan is not altruistic as well. But it is possible to be an altruist in specific circumstances yet also believe that as a general principle, the rational pursuit of individual gain and self interest is a form of morality.

Although Rand’s philosophy does not seem to have made a huge impact among Mormons, there are undoubtedly at least some Mormon Randians. Interestingly, it appears, based on partially-redacted data available on the LDS church website new.familysearch.org, that some of her fans have probably proxy baptized her into the Latter-day Saint faith. I suspect that some Mormons may be drawn to Randianism because a large fraction of Mormons happen to be conservative libertarians, and Rand provided a kind of “theology” for this corner of the political spectrum.

But it seems difficult to square Rand’s philosophy with Mormon scripture. The faith’s founding scripture, the Book of Mormon, frequently condemns those who “set their hearts upon their riches.” (Hel. 13:20). The book warns, “But wo unto the rich, who are rich as to the things of the world. For because they are rich they despise the poor, and they persecute the meek, and their hearts are upon their treasures; wherefore, their treasure is their god. And behold, their treasure shall perish with them also.” (2 Nephi 9:30). The pursuit of wealth, and the class pride of the wealthy over the poor, are repeatedly cited as the reason for religious apostasy, environmental disaster, and military defeat. The book envisions an ideal, utopian state as one where “they had all things in common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor.” (4 Ne. 1:3). Nothing seems further from the anti-collectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, who wrote, “This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before! I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of spirit.” (Anthem).

Could LDS Church involvement in Boy Scouts be coming to an end?

It now appears that at least one board member of the Boy Scouts of America is thinking of overturning the organization’s traditional policy of barring gays and lesbians from admission either as leaders or as scouts. James Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young, has said he is working to “encourage dialogue” on the issue. The issue of revisiting this policy came to a head when Jennifer Tyrell, a lesbian mother, was ousted as a den leader in April 2012. Seeking to change the policy, she launched an online petition directed to Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T, who is also on the board of the BSA. Speaking for AT&T, Stephenson implied that the corporation did not agree with the policy, but he argued “that change at any organization must come from within to be successful and sustainable.”

From near the beginning, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been a proud sponsor of BSA, and remains the largest single sponsor of scouting units. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court case BSA v. Dale upheld the First Amendment right of the BSA, as a private organization, to discriminate against homosexuals. During that case, the LDS Church led a small group of other churches in submitting an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in support of the right to ban gays and lesbians. This brief, written by Von G. Keetch, a Salt Lake City attorney the church has hired on other occasions, suggested that the churches might “part company with Scouting altogether” (p. 25) if sexual orientation became an impermissible basis for discrimination by BSA. In a statement to the Salt Lake Tribune, Keetch suggested more positively that the LDS Church would withdraw from Scouting in those circumstances. Keetch, of course, is not part of the LDS hierarchy, and that would not be his decision to make.

But that was the year 2000. Since then, the LDS Church has softened its policy toward LGBT people, and allows gay and lesbian Mormons to function in positions within the LDS Church, so long as they remain celibate. I have heard rumors that certain local church leaders have barred gay men from positions that deal with children or youth, although I cannot find reference to any church-wide polity to that effect. Such a policy, if it exists, would be highly controversial, because it feeds into a stereotype that LGBT people are pedophiles, or that they have an agenda to convert children to their “cause.” For the most part, Americans have increasingly been willing to accept LGBT people within positions of influence with their children, without cause for alarm. For example, according to polls, most modern Americans believe schools should not have the right to fire gay or lesbian teachers. But Mormon attitudes tend to change more slowly than American attitudes in general.

Of course, if the LDS Church were to pull out of Scouting, the only opinion that really matters is the sometimes-unpredictable opinion of church’s leaders. The LDS Church has had a long history with Scouting, but the loss of Scouting would not be catastrophic. Long before Scouting was even invented, the LDS Church had created a Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA). When the BSA came alone in the early 20th century, the YMMIA essentially merged with the Scouting program and became an arm of the BSA. For reasons that have never been clearly articulated, the church’s complementary girls’ program did not merge with the Girl Scouts, and the LDS Church has never supported Girl Scouting, even though it maintains a Young Women organization that serves many of the same purposes.

It would not be far-fetched to expect that if the BSA decided to admit gays and lesbians, that the LDS Church would dissassociate itself with the organization and revert to the YMMIA model. That would not be a huge change, because the church already operates what it calls its “Young Men” organization for boys 12 and older, independently of Scouting. Unlike Scouting, however, the Young Men organization is designed for the spiritual needs of boys, while Scouting is designed more for recreation and to train boys in leadership and self-confidence. If the LDS Church left Scouting, the Young Men organization would have to serve dual roles, as does the present Young Women organization. What would change? Probably not much, except that the young men would no longer be wearing uniforms and badges.

I think it is inevitable that BSA will at some point reverse its policy of discrimination. But as an Eagle Scout with fond memories of scouting, I would hope that that the LDS Church would not pull out of Scouting for that reason. Realistically, any BSA policy change is not going to change how Scouting operates on a local LDS Church level. As far as I know, BSA has never required that local units appoint leaders, or admit scouts, in a way that contradicts the religious values of the sponsoring organization. All that would likely change is that Scouting units would be free to admit gays and lesbians if they chose to do so. So in some non-LDS Scouting units, there would be leaders and scouts who are openly gay or lesbian. That would not affect Scouting in the LDS Church.

Perhaps the LDS Church mighth even see a change by BSA as a positive outcome. There are undoubtedly active Mormon gays and lesbians whose skills would make them ideal leaders of local LDS Scouting units. But BSA policy currently prohibits these men and women from participation. A policy change would give the LDS Church more flexibility to appoint gay and lesbian leaders on a local level. It would also allow openly gay Mormon youth the opportunity to participate in Scouting, which could be a positive influence on their lives.