List of Doctrines on "Sin: Sexual Sin - Homosexuality"
782. Men are not to have sexual relations with other men, or women with other women.
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
President Harold B. Lee
J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
President Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, N. Eldon Tanner
Recorded in Leviticus
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Paul
Paul
Recorded in Jude
President Spencer W. Kimball
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Because of the seriousness of this sin [of homosexuality] it carries a heavy penalty for the unrepentant. The offender may realize that disfellowshipment or excommunication is the penalty for heavy petting, adultery, fornication and comparable sins if there is not adequate repentance, yet he often supposes that because his acts have not been committed with the opposite sex he is not in sin. Let it therefore be clearly stated that the seriousness of the sin of homosexuality is equal to or greater than that of fornication or adultery; and that the Lord's Church will as readily take action to disfellowship or excommunicate the unrepentant practicing homosexual as it will the unrepentant fornicator or adulterer. (The Miracle of Forgiveness, pp. 81-82) TLDP:72
President Harold B. Lee
I want to warn this great body of priesthood against that great sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, which has been labeled as a sin second only in seriousness to the sin of murder. I speak of the sin of adultery . . . and besides this, the equally grievous sin of homosexuality, which seems to be gaining momentum with social acceptance in the Babylon of the world, of which Church members must not be part. CR1972Oct:127
J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
[T]o keep the Children of Israel from committing these sins, the Lord proceeds to name them and to prescribe penalties for their commission. I am going to name a few of them.
First is incest. I am not enlarging on it. In the law incest included more than we now ascribe to it. It included marriage between people within prohibited relationships. The penalty for incest was death to both parties.
Fornication—sometimes adultery and fornication are used interchangeably. But for certain kinds of fornication, the penalty was death.
For adultery, it was death for both parties.
For homosexuality, it was death to the male and the prescription or penalty for the female I do not know.
. . . . Prostitution was called an abomination.
After the Lord finished his listing of abominations recorded here, he continued: . . . "Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgements, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you." CR1957Apr:87
President Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, N. Eldon Tanner
(First Presidency)
[Church] leaders should generally approach these unhappy [homosexual] people in the true spirit of the gospel of love and understanding rather than of condemnation. They are sons and daughters of God and made in the image of God, and intended to become like God in righteousness and honor and integrity and virtue.
They should be convinced through kind persuasion that a total continuing repentance could bring them forgiveness for the transgression. They can also be assured that in spite of all they may have heard from other sources, they can overcome and can return to total normal, happy living.
Many of these people have reached their present depressed state on a long road of gradual deterioration and cannot be expected to perfect themselves instantly. Consequently, high ideals and positive programs should be suggested to them and frequent visits will help them gain self-mastery.
The inspiration of the Lord will generally bring happy solutions to these problems. (His Servants Speak, pp. 157-58) TLDP:73
Recorded in Leviticus
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (Revelation to Moses for the children of Israel) Leviticus 20:13
Elder Spencer W. Kimball
Prophets anciently and today condemn masturbation. It induces feelings of guilt and shame. It is detrimental to spirituality. It indicates slavery to the flesh, not that mastery of it and the growth toward godhood which is the object of our mortal life. Our modern prophet has indicated that no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice.
While we should not regard this weakness as the heinous sin which some other sexual practices are, it is of itself bad enough to require sincere repentance. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation—practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality. . . .
But let us emphasize that right and wrong, righteousness and sin, are not dependent upon man's interpretations, conventions and attitudes. Social acceptance does not change the status of an act, making wrong into right. If all the people in the world were to accept homosexuality, as it seems to have been accepted in Sodom and Gomorrah, the practice would still be deep, dark sin. . . .
In this context, where stands the perversion of homosexuality? Clearly it is hostile to God's purpose in that it negates his first and great commandment to "multiply and replenish the earth." If the abominable practice became universal it would depopulate the earth in a single generation. It would nullify God's great program for his spirit children in that it would leave countless unembodied spirits in the heavenly world without the chance for the opportunities of mortality and would deny to all the participants in the practice the eternal life God makes available to us all. (The Miracle of Forgiveness, pp. 77-79, 81-82) TLDP:71-72
Related Witnesses:
Paul
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. (Paul's letter to the Church at Corinth, Greece, about A.D. 55) 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Paul
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. (Letter to the Church in Rome regarding the unrighteous, about A.D. 55) Romans 1:27
Recorded in Jude
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. . . .
7. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (Letter of Jude, brother of James ) Jude 1:4,7
President Spencer W. Kimball
To be specific, let us postulate clearly and unmistakably that all sexual life outside of the proper marriage association—I said the proper marriage association—are evil and forbidden by God, and the unrepentant and those who indulge in these will be disillusioned.
The fornicator minimizes his sins. The robber justifies his thievery. The pervert says that God made him that way. The petter rationalizes his act into insignificance. Let it be understood without equivocation that the common indulgences are transgressions, for sin is the breaking of the divine law. [Italics by SWK] ACR(Sydney)1976:54
