LDS and homosexuality in daily life

September 1, 2009 4:45 PM

What is the view of the LDS church on homosexuality in real life situations?

Example: Would an out lesbian physician have a difficult time practicing medicine in a small town that is 25% LDS (not in Utah). On a daily basis what sort of expectations would be realistic about working and living in such a place?

posted by BrodieShadeTree to religion & philosophy (12 comments total)

You know though, having come from a religious background, there was a pretty clear separation between national policy and dogma and personal life application ...
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 4:57 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]

Completely anecdotal, but everything I've heard is that it's hard to find work in Utah if you aren't Mormon, as Mormons hire Mormons. If you are not LDS and lesbian, I would think it would be very difficult.
posted by Houstonian at 4:58 PM on September 1

I know someone who has changed their legal name and converted to Judaism just to drive the point home (I think) (the family are LDS.) That was a decade or so ago, but still.

My understanding is they are not very tolerant on this particular point.
posted by TravellingDen at 5:04 PM on September 1

here's a high profile mormon explaining his take on prop 8

As many of you may know I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some might conclude given my family's membership in the Mormon Church that our company supported the recent ballot initiative to ban same sex marriage in California. This is simply untrue. Marriott International is a public company headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and is not controlled by any one individual or family. Neither I, nor the company, contributed to the campaign to pass Proposition 8.

---

i have a lesbian aunt. i come from a large mormon family (i'm a former mormon). some of us have been very welcome and loving towards my aunt and her lifestyle, and some won't allow my aunt to bring her girlfriend over and she has to sleep at a hotel so the kids "don't get the wrong idea". it's not as easy as saying "mormons supported prop 8, and BYU practiced aversion therapy, so all mormons must be anti gay". it's a complex issue that you have to take on a person by person basis.

just like there are prochoice southern baptists and pro-contraception catholics, there are mormons who understand people are people, no matter their sexual orientation.
posted by nadawi at 5:13 PM on September 1 [2 favorites]

I am LDS. I know that you are not talking about Utah here, but - I worked in Utah for a while for an attorney that was kinda LDS. I mean he didn't practice the religion, but I guess technically he was LDS. We got phone call after phone call asking if the attorney was LDS and if he was, they didn't want him representing him. Some weren't too keen on having LDS representation, for whatever reason.

Then I moved to Arizona and was employed by a law firm with two LDS attorneys. SAME thing. A lot of people were happy that they were LDS, but an equal amount of people didn't want a Mormon representing them.

I'm just saying, that even in very Mormon areas like Utah and Arizona, there is a huge population of non-LDS people that would welcome some non-LDS people!

So, you mention a small town that's 25% LDS. I'd think you'd do marvelously!! You've got 75% of the population that's probably sick of running into LDS people on every corner and in every profession!!

Like I said, I am LDS and active in the church. However, I really don't give a hoot about whether you're straight, gay, rich, poor, a pygmy, whatever - I just want quality care. And I'd be willing to bet that others feel as I do. Of course, there will be others that won't be, but you'll find that any where ever you go.

Best of luck to you!
posted by Sassyfras at 5:16 PM on September 1 [5 favorites]

what kind of physician are you?

i would imagine a pediatrician and a gynecologist would have more road blocks to overcome than an ENT dr.

it would also help to know where you're looking (to know if there's already a community of GLBT established). with it being 25% mormon, i'd assume you mean somewhere in idaho or arizona.

i honestly think you'll find about the same attitudes in the rural deep south as you will in a community that is a quarter mormon. while the mormons got beat up about prop 8, their views on homosexuality aren't very different from fundamentalist christians.
posted by nadawi at 5:20 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure I can answer this without writing a lengthy essay of an answer that I don't have time for. But it depends on a number of factors. First, there is a difference between a) the official Church position on something, b) the way that the church members as a culture approach it, and c) the way that local "official" church culture in a given geographic area or even a single congregation would approach it. (Then there is also the way that members of the church in a given area interpret and relay the actual official position of the Church, which is another story altogether).

The LDS church culture that one encounters in Provo, Utah (which is not a small town) will be vastly different from that in an urban congregation in San Fransico, and that will be different from a small town. Your experience will depend largely on where, exactly, you are and what the LDS culture is in that place.

Personally, I think that the more "enlightened" or "tolerant" (or whatever adjective fits) culture of certain Mormon congregations toward GLBT is more closely in line with the "true" doctrine of the Church than most Mormons are willing to culturally accept. I think this has to do with political views that many Mormons hold which heavily influence their interpretation and implementation of religious doctrines. I hope that will change.

I am tempted to jump from there to the conclusion that small town Mormons will be influenced by "small town values" and conservative political figures in the way their religious culture plays out and, therefore, be less tolerant than in other places. But my actual experience suggests otherwise. I know several GLBT people from small Mormon towns in Utah and Idaho, and they have been much more accepted by their small towns than they have been in bigger Mormon suburban areas like Provo.

For whatever it's worth, my wife and I are LDS and very active in the church, and the sexual orientation of a doctor would have absolutely no bearing on our decision to be treated by that doctor. I know a lot of Mormons, including many who live in small towns, and I can only think of a few that might hesitate to be treated by a lesbian doctor (and those particular people, who make me furious, would be that way regardless of their religion). Even the most conservative, pro-Prop 8 Mormons I know would not hesitate to be treated by a gay or lesbian doctor.
posted by The World Famous at 6:04 PM on September 1 [4 favorites]

I knew a handful of Mormons when I was growing up and all of them were very tolerant of others. They had strong opinions and religious convictions, but very much acted along the lines of "Hate the sin, love the sinner." Granted they were a small minority where I grew up (deep-ish south) which might have encouraged a more tolerant attitude, but the attitude was universal among them (5 different kids from 3 different families).
posted by thekiltedwonder at 6:19 PM on September 1

The Mormons I've known were incredibly tolerant of such differences. (And didn't bat an eyelash at being called Mormons, which must explain why go back and forth between that term and LDS?) However, I was friends with Mormons who had been raised to be accepting of other beliefs, and were encouraged to have a diverse group of friends growing up. With the implicit understanding that they'd grow up, go to college, do their mission, marry a nice LDS girl and raise their kids in the church.

Those who would have been intolerant (and certainly my friends knew plenty through their church) wouldn't have been hanging out out in my best friend's basement or convincing their parents to cart us all over town before we were old enough to drive or participating in local theater groups.
posted by desuetude at 6:30 PM on September 1

Good thoughts, all.
I am not the physician, I am asking for an acquaintance.
This would be in N.Az, and pediatrics/family med.
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 7:29 PM on September 1

As has been said, it's pretty individual. Obviously, there are awful people in every religion and wonderful people in every religion.

But in my experience, members of the LDS church do not generally discriminate in their associations outside church in the manner that you're describing. For the group of LDS members I know and have known, a lesbian physician would not have problems practicing medicine. My physician could be lesbian, for all I know, and I couldn't care less. She's never given me anything less than solid medical advice, and has never acted inappropriately, and that's all I ask of a doctor - an attitude I find common in LDS church members I associate with. If said lesbian physician decided to open a lesbian-aimed nightclub, obviously the LDS folk would probably not patronize the business, but that's a different story.

I know many people who have looked up contributors to the Yes on 8 campaign in order to avoid giving them business. I don't know of any who have done the opposite - "boycotting" businesses which contributed to the No on 8 cause.

Working and living in a place that's 25% Mormon, one might experience certain level of alienation - not intentional, not cruel, just a low-level feeling of not being included and perhaps the sense that one is being talked about behind one's back. Church members tend to socialize mostly with other church members. Which isn't always bad - there are plenty of folks who don't want to associate with Mormons. On the other hand, one can also probably expect to be reached out to in typically "Mormon" ways: with plates of cookies, jars of jam or fruit, and invitations to join in with church activities as a welcome to the community. Different communities of members have different levels of insularity; some places you move to and get 10 plates of cookies the first day you're there, others you never hear a peep until you go looking for the Church. Again, people are different, and you can come across brilliantly wonderful individuals as well as those who have a lot further to go in their quest to become Christ-like.

And desuetude - the Church itself tells us to use LDS more often, but Mormon is pretty ingrained in everybody's psyche by now, and rolls off the tongue more easily. That's my explanation for the switching back and forth, anyway.
posted by po at 8:52 PM on September 1 [1 favorite]

Northern Arizona is, in my experience, about half hippie/libertarian and half conservative. It's as lesbian-friendly as an average place could be, and I certainly know a whole slew of NAU-grad lesbians who love it and would live there forever.

For what it's worth, having grown up in the East Valley of Phoenix which is heavily Mormon, I tend to think of Mormon as a cultural term and LDS as a religious term.

The Mormons I grew up with were very tolerant of homosexuals in a social setting. It's unfortunate that the LDS church got so involved with Proposition 8 in California, but not surprising. I believe that the general view is, as with some other religious groups, a sort of "love the sinner but hate the sin" type of feeling that, combined with a tradition of political activism in the church, contributed to this support.
posted by padraigin at 12:00 AM on September 2