A Non-Peculiar People: Latter-Day Saints and the American Family During the Twentieth-Century Amanda Victoria Piazza

Florida State University Libraries

2016 A Non-Peculiar People: Latter-day Saints and the American Family during the Twentieth-Century Amanda Victoria Piazza

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

A NON-PECULIAR PEOPLE:

LATTER-DAY SAINT FAMILIES AND THE AMERICAN FAMILY DURING THE

TWENTIETH-CENTURY

By

AMANDA V. PIAZZA

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major

Degree Awarded: Spring, 2016

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 2. THE STORY OF CULMINATION ...... 8 FAMILY HOME EVENING ...... 9 HOMEFRONT ...... 13 THE FAMILY: A PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD ...... 21 3. THE LATTER-DAY SAINT EMERGENCE IN AMERICAN POLITICS ...... 25 THE LATTER-DAY SAINT CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT...... 26 INTERTWINING THE PROCLAMATION AND SEXUAL POLITICS: LATTER-DAY SAINT INTERVENTION IN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LEGALITY IN THE 1990S ...... 36 4. A TUMULTUOUS RELATIONSHIP ON THE HORIZON...... 44 Works Cited ...... 52

iii CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Google: Mormon. The first link directs me to www.mormon.org1, where I am prompted to take a quiz on my knowledge of Jesus Christ and should I not do very well, there is a 90- second video on Jesus Christ. Below, the site previews Lindsey Sterling’s story: Lindsey suffered from an eating disorder and, through a revelatory moment in which she discovered the

Church, she overcame her disease.2 The first tab on the website, “People,” directs me to the page

“I’m a Mormon.”3 Upon clicking this link, hundreds of faces appear in what seems an infinite scroll filled with the testimonies of a very diverse group of people all professing their unified belief in Jesus Christ through the Mormon Church. The ability to choose specific profiles based on gender, age range, ethnicity, and even previous religious affiliation personalizes the experience of the online browser. Every page offers a chat box in the event the visitor may have questions. Missionaries are readily available and eager to answer any questions from the public, clarify church doctrines, and describe who their members represent.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints introduced the “I’m a Mormon” campaign in 2010. With the initial launch, 2,000 Latter-day Saints (LDS) completed profiles describing their faith and their reasons for being Mormon. Members also addressed commonly

1 See: “What Is the Mormon Church and Religion?,” Mormon.Org last modified 2016, accessed March 8, 2016, https://www.mormon.org.

2 See: “Hi I'm Lindsey Stirling,” Mormon.org, last modified 2016, accessed March 1, 2016, https://www.mormon.org/me/b1nv.

3 See: “Meet Mormons,” Mormon.Org, last modified 2016, accessed March 4, 2016, https://www.mormon.org/people/find.

1 asked questions, “What do Mormons believe about the Bible?”4 and, “Why don’t Mormons drink coffee or alcohol?”5 “I’m a Mormon” is aimed at Christians and other non-Mormons whose only experience with the Church involves the Proposition 8 fight in California throughout the early

2000s, The Book of Mormon musical on Broadway, and fundamentalist practices of polygamy associated with the term “Mormon.” The Church partnered with top advertising agencies, Ogilvy

& Mather and Hall & Partners, to deliver the first externally-produced advertisement campaign since the Homefront commercials. Homefront spots proliferated the American home television screen since 1973.6 The Church used the Homefront spots to situate its organization as the embodiment of the American family. Similarly, “I’m a Mormon” positioned the Church as a transparent, welcoming organization with universalizing initiatives. The Church used these campaigns to reaffirm the Latter-day Saint movement as the embodiment of American religion.

This paper tells a story of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it navigated public perceptions of the American family in the twentieth century. Internally, the LDS Church used new practices, such as the Family Home Evening program to instill in average LDS members sentimental family values. Externally, the church used television advertising and other forms of mass media to mold public perceptions of the LDS as a family-centered religious movement. That is to say, the church, under the leadership of the First Presidency and its

4 See: “Frequently Asked Questions - Bible,” Mormon.Org, last modified 2016, accessed March 7, 2016, https://www.mormon.org/faq/topic/bible/question/bible-word-of-god.

5 See: “Frequently Asked Questions - Health,” Mormon.org, last modified 2016, accessed March 6, 2016, https://www.mormon.org/faq/topic/health/question/law-of-health.

6 Laurie Goodstein, “Mormon Ad Campaign Seeks to Improve Perceptions,” Nytimes.Com, last modified 2011, accessed April 6, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/us/mormon-ad-campaign-seeks-to-improve- perceptions.html.

2 auxiliary groups, created thematic interests for members inside the church, while simultaneously managing the public relations of the church to present these themes to non-Mormons.

This thesis analyzes the history of images of families in The Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints’ during the twentieth-century. Latter-day Saints launched a triad of campaigns to protect the family. Its concerns regarding the family were shared with the mainstream religious ideologies in America, particularly affiliated with conservative proclivities. I argue that this campaign moved from small to large scale; the Church worked internally by revisiting doctrine, publishing new devotional material, and announcing new policies. These internal moves worked on a grassroots level, effecting how members perceive their religion.

Concomitantly, the Church developed branches for public relations and parented with communications companies to promote an image to the public. My narrative through which this process unfolds begins within the 1970s, and recounts the inception of Family Home Evening and the Homefront advertisement spot series from Church officials. My project also analyzes

LDS-sponsored campaigns against the Equal Rights Amendment and involvement in the Baehr v. Miike lawsuit in Hawaii through the turn of the millennium. I argue that these moments of political involvement are telling testimonies to the ability of the LDS Church to mobilize, not least of all their members, to promote a particular ideal entwined with their own theology.

Throughout the work, I directly reference one document driving the force of this thesis:

The Proclamation to the World: The Family7. This document represents the culmination of twentieth-century Mormon history and politics within the American context. The Proclamation to the World, a religious text released in 1995, was not a change in policy nor a revelation, rather a reaffirmation of beliefs as stated by the First Presidency. The release of the Proclamation was a

7 “The Family: A Proclamation to The World,” lds.org, last modified 1995, https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng.

3 moment of definitiveness during a storm of chaos for The Church. Within the United States, The

Equal Rights Amendment was not ratified. Similarly, The HIV/AIDS scare of the 1980s and

1990s brought homosexual rights to the forefront of the American battlefield for justice, and the

Church needed to make a statement in order to align members and to ensure their image was untouched by new developments in their surrounding world. After the release of the

Proclamation, the Church consistently used it to reference their beliefs on social issues. I position the Proclamation to the World at the center of this thesis because it represents the

Latter-day Saint’s response to the culmination of the long twentieth-century, and creates a foundational document from which they could publicly reference their beliefs—once again, deeply entwining theology and the family.

The LDS Church restricted access to its archives for non-members over the course of the twentieth-century. As a result, non-members were unable to publish scholarship well into the millennia. Pioneers who transcended these barriers include the revered scholar Jan Shipps for her work on identification of Mormons including the dynamic transformative nature of nineteenth- century Mormonism.8 Another leader in the discipline is Patrick Mason, the chairman of the

Mormon studies program from a secular university outside of Utah.9 Concomitantly, former-

Mormon scholars such as Dennis Michael Quinn (D. Michael Quinn) studied the Church during the 1980s and 1990s through a critical lens. This perspective eventually led to Quinn’s excommunication from the Church in 1993 in what is commonly referred to as the September

8 Jan Shipps, Sojourner in The Promised Land (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

9 A Thoughtful Faith, “Patrick Mason Part 2,” podcast, The Messiness of Mormon History, War and Peace, Mitt Romney, Cafeteria Mormonism…And More, last modified 2014, accessed March 6, 2016, http://athoughtfulfaith.org/patrick-mason-messiness-of-mormon- history-war-peace-mitt-romney-cafeteria-mormonism/.

4 Six.10 Mormon studies within American religious history is now a large subfield, and while newer disciplines in Mormon studies are being explored, there are particular areas that need uncovering. Scholarship on The Proclamation lacks in Mormon history as a whole despite its profound importance to Church members. Released in 1995, the Proclamation remains one of the most recent historical documents released by the Church and by this standard, also one of the less developed areas in Mormon history.11 This project aims to shed light upon the steps The

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took to represent their Church and its members as beacons of wholesomeness, and how The Proclamation to the World functioned as not only a reaffirmation of their beliefs, but also as an opportunity for the Church to concretely define the parameters of family life to non-members in order to demonstrate their ability to assimilate into the broader, mainstream conservative culture.

In my research, I have relied on both internal and external works. My primary sources from within the Church include General Conference talks12, articles from Latter-day Saint publications such as Ensign and Sunstone, and statements from the First Presidency. I have also considered the testimonies of LDS lay-members, those who participate in church affairs from within their respected wards. From other scholars in the field, I particularly emphasized the works of Neil Young, Martha Bradley, and J.B. Haws to inform my arguments. Neil Young’s first work on the Equal Rights Amendment was integral in historicizing my narrative on Latter-

10 David Haglund, “The Case of the Mormon Historian,” Slate Magazine, last modified 2012, http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2012/11/d_michael_quinn_and_mormon_excommu nication_the_complicated_life_of_a_mormon.html.

11 “The Family: A Proclamation to The World.”

12 For General Conference, see: “Deseret News,” deseretnews.com, accessed March 4, 2016, http://www.deseretnews.com/topics/2320/LDS-General-Conference.html.

5 day Saint participation with the ERA. Martha Bradley’s work supported this endeavor by explaining how Latter-day Saints mobilized their resources.13 Her scholarship offers a vast breadth of knowledge on the Equal Rights Amendment and the place of Utah women during the twentieth-century. Young’s recently published We Gather Together discusses Christian ecumenicism within a political context, which I found particularly useful in crafting my own argument for Mormons matriculating into the mainstream and how they maintained their Latter- day Saint identity based on family values.14 J.B. Haws’ work is a masterpiece of Latter-day

Saints’ history in the latter half of the twentieth-century, and informed much of my work on the

Homefront series and the Latter-day Saint fight against same-sex marriage.15 Additionally, I used many articles from media outlets, such as Deseret News and the LDS Church News archives for lived documents written by those who saw these moments unfold in their present day. Using articles from both inside and outside of Utah allowed for a lively reconciliation of the internal way in which Latter-day Saints perceived their efforts and how others perceived them.

This study is in many ways a continuation of Spencer Fluhman’s “A Peculiar People:

Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America.”16 Fluhman argues that anti-Mormon narratives provide a telling testimony to nineteenth-century conceptions of religious tolerance in America. He also states that secluded Latter-day Saints gave mainline

13 Martha Bradley, Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005).

14 Neil Young, We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).

15 J. B. Haws, The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

16 J. Spencer Fluhman, A Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).

6 Protestants a common enemy upon which they could promulgate the idea that Mormons are dangerous, subversive, and deviant. This thesis considers Fluhman’s argument and appropriates it within the context of the twentieth-century. I argue that Mormons work towards balancing this notion of being peculiar and non-peculiar people within the following chapters. Through the development of a public relations branch within the Church, Latter-day Saints first crafted an image of the idealized American family, and then conformed to that image. In many ways, this thesis works as a continuation of Fluhman’s work. While Latter-day Saints hold onto their peculiar cultural heritage, they also strive to join forces with mainstream Christianity. Like

Fluhman’s argument, the religious ecosystem through which Mormons maneuvered during the latter-half of the twentieth-century informs scholars of a greater theme within religion in

America. This thesis hinges upon religion being tied to family values. The Latter-day Saint narrative telling this history harmonizes these forces.

7 CHAPTER 2

THE STORY OF CULMINATION

Introduction

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discussed family matters at the 1980

General Conference. Eldon Tanner, First Counselor of the First Presidency under Spencer B.

Kimball, presented a review of the previous decade’s growth and set the tone for expectations in the 1980s. “Our early citizens who were patriotic and God-fearing, and in many instances lacked for material possessions, believed in large families; and from that stock came some of our greatest statesmen and finest lawyers, scientists, and educators,” said Tanner, who believed the

Church and the American public needed to restore their most fundamental unit of society—the family—after decades of turbulence.17 The counter-culture movement of the 1960s and 1970s problematized the spread of containment by advocating for social issues such as women’s duties beyond the home and marrying at an older age.18 Single-family homes, as one example, threatened Mormon Americans at a cataclysmic level because they disrupted the sanctity of the family as the fundamental unit of society according to theologically-held beliefs. These threats ignited the Church to take action during the latter half of the twentieth-century. While the church

17 Nathan Eldon Tanner, “Celestial Marriages and Eternal Families,” in General Conference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1980), accessed February 28, 2016, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1980/04/celestial-marriages-and- eternal-families?lang=eng&clang=ase#d.

18 For the idea of containment, I drew much influence from May’s Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. Her study traces the post-war emphasis on domesticity and outlines definitions of containment as they were constructed not only by the federal government, but also by domestic relationships. For more on containment, see: Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era – 20th Anniversary Revised Edition, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2008), pgs. 14-15.

8 maintained its nonpartisan commitments, Latter-day Saints launched a series of campaigns both within the church and externally to assert their organization as protectors of what was at stake during the 1970s and 1980s: the traditional nuclear family. This chapter traces those campaigns and places them in a broader social context. The overarching argument shows that Latter-day

Saints, through their internal efforts, engaged with the American public in new ways. That is to say, the Saints explored the possibilities of using public relations tools and media outlets as they externalized their Church. As a result, the Church not only created an idealized image of the

American family, but also conformed their Church and members to that conception to elevate their public image at large. To arm children with the tools necessary to guide them in their adolescent and adult lives in society, outside and away from the home, The Latter-day Saints re- emphasized Family Home Evening and expanded the program to ensure parents were interacting with their children in a secure setting. The Church also launched Homefront, an award winning public service announcement (PSA) series aimed at teaching important family values and earning the Church a strong presence in an already entertainment-saturated culture. Finally, in 1995, the

Church announced The Proclamation to the World. This completed the LDS’ campaign to assert themselves as protectors of the family and serves as the platform from which church members reference social issues well into the twenty-first century.

Family Home Evening

In April 2015 to commemorate 100 years of Family Home Evening (FHE), Ensign19 published an excerpt from the original First Presidency letter introducing FHE to church

19 Ensign is a periodical publication published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints including stories and sermons from members within church leadership and articles submitted by lay-members. The periodicals also contain full reports of General Conference proceedings. See: https://www.lds.org/ensign?lang=eng

9 members in 1915.20 The original excerpt included the purpose of FHE with specific instructions, reading,

This home evening should be devoted to prayer, singing hymns, songs, instrumental music, scripture reading, family topics, and specific instruction on the principles of the gospel on the ethical problems of life, as well as the duties and obligations of children to parents, the home, the Church, society, and the nation.21

The Church emphasized FHE as a light-hearted activity to keep children engaged with the scriptures. It serves as a complementary setting to the formal church structure, allowing families to discuss scripture and doctrine in an informal setting. FHE encourages children to appropriate their teaching towards ethical issues outside of the home. Latter-day Saints state the emphasis on home gospel instruction originates in biblical scripture, such as Deuteronomy 6:6-7, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Doctrine and

Covenants supplements biblical scripture, and guides LDS families teaching their children at home alongside within the church setting.

As a result of the Great Depression and the vast migration of families from rural areas to urban cities, the church urged families receive a new emphasis on the importance of home evening. With vast urbanization also came the loss of comfort and containment LDS families were so accustomed to in the intermountain west, a region of the United States high in LDS population. With these new locations came new lifestyles, and the Church felt it necessary to

20 Joseph Smith, Anthon Lund and Charles Penrose, “100 Years of Family Home Evening,” Ensign, 2015, accessed February 28, 2016, https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/04/100- years-of-family-home-evening?lang=eng.

21 Ibid.

10 reassess where families stood for church members.22 In the Spring General Conference of 1964, one bishop recalled, “There is no calling in this Church that supersedes that of being a father. No assignment in the Church should ever be considered an excuse to neglect the home. The home is the basic unit of the Church. . . Your family needs your allegiance and fidelity to the Church which includes your home.”23 Just a year later, celebrating 50 years of FHE, the Church published a new manual to aide members in teaching weekly lessons in 1965. In its introduction,

President McKay addresses the necessity for home evening, stating, “The problems of these difficult times cannot be better solved in any other place, by any other agency, by any other means than by love and righteousness, and precept and example, and devotion to duty in the home.”24 Including the phrase “difficult times” effectively placed LDS in relation to the greater social issues at hand in the United States. For example, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique addressed the role of women in society and the public and private division that was already creating tensions for many young women. Similarly, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 divided many

Americans based on their willingness to comply with desegregation mandates. And on a much larger scale, President Kennedy’s assassination left Americans feeling vulnerable and unprotected. Americans perceived the vulnerability of the United States and they needed to rebuild the country during a fight against communism overseas. Domestically, the Church

22 Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (W.W. Norton & Company. New York: New York. 2012).

23 John Vandenberg, “Conference Report,” in One Hundred Thirty-Fourth Annual Conference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1964), 49, accessed February 28, 2016, http://scriptures.byu.edu/gc-historical/1964-A.pdf.

24 Church Educational System, Church History in The Fullness of Times (Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1992).

11 needed to solidify a structured, ritualized practice of FHE to ensure its members were facilitating these dialogues at home to protect their children from the dangers beyond.

In 1970, the First Presidency formally standardized FHE as a Monday evening tradition to maintain unity. To promote FHE, they released announcements that no other church events should occur on Mondays, and temples would close on Monday evenings. From 1965 until 1985, the Mormon Church published revised manuals with updated lessons paralleling the concerns of

LDS families. In 1985, the 1965 manual received an update implementing the Family Home

Evening Resource Book. The Resource Book functioned not only as a tool consolidating other doctrinal texts supporting FHE, but also articulated to LDS families what ethical concerns mattered most. The Resource Book continuously received updates since its publication in 1985 and spans over 300 pages, but throughout its history, the book provides detailed ideas for family activities and instruction for teaching doctrine to children of a variety of ages. Among these topics are family history, money management, self-control, and more directed topics such as how to choose which media outlets to watch or listen to, and how to make a survival kit to prepare for potential disasters.25

FHE often works, both now and since the 1980s, with other programs designed to facilitate the maturation of Mormon youth. The resource book offers lessons on obeying authority and learning responsibilities. One of the distinct differences between the earlier iterations of FHE from that of the 1985 editions regards the Church’s scope of what conception of family used the manual. While previous FHE targeted the traditional family compromising of a mother, father and children prior to the adolescent years, later iterations included broader

25 “2015 Marks Two Milestones for Family Home Evening - Church News and Events,” Lds.org, last modified 2016, accessed February 28, 2016, https://www.lds.org/church/news/2015-marks-two-milestones-for-family-home- evening?lang=eng.

12 imaginings of family. These imaginings included single adults not married, couples married without children, families with children of all ages or families with children away at college; and perhaps most surprising, single-parent families. The family was no longer traditionally imagined in a nuclear sense with the suburban household and a white-picket fence, but now included divorced parents raising children without their opposite-sex spouse. A specific necessity to engage teenagers also existed in FHE. After the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, teenagers and college-aged young adults became dangerous because they were impressionable according to their elders. Their political participation and desire to protest needed containment.

By expanding beyond the parameters of the traditional nuclear family unit and following young members into their college careers, FHE worked to secure Mormon youths from traveling down dangerous roads that could steer them away from the church.

Homefront

By the 1960s, the Latter-day Saints already tasted success from a rapidly expanding television and radio business. In 1929, the Salt Lake City radio station KSL broadcasted a

Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance. The Tabernacle Choir performance later became one of the longest-lasting programs in broadcast history. During the Great Depression, KSL merged with CBS Radio Network, becoming one of the first AM stations in the United States. In 1964, the Church formed Bonneville International Corporation with the acquisition of KSL and KIRO, a station based in Seattle. Bonneville International was created “as a broadcast production facility to help develop a positive media image for the Church and to convey its doctrines and beliefs.”26

26 Peter Johnson, “Motion Pictures, LDS Production,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York City: Macmillan, 1992).

13 The Latter-day Saints used the Homefront series to elevate their public image during a time of morally driven momentum for religious groups. Though the Supreme Court would not rule on Roe v. Wade until a year after the Homefront series first aired, its presence was in the media, stirring up emotion from the left and right. Also, the looming deadline of the Equal

Rights Amendment for 1979 kept activists busy. The Mormon Church was privy to this moment of opportunity. Its leadership needed a foundation upon which the Church could reach an audience to identify Mormons in a positive light. Kevin Kelly, now a BYU advertising professor, worked for Bonneville in 1976 on the Homefront series. Kelly remarked on the success of branding the Church using the PSA series, stating, “The brand was so well established, if you froze the commercial, you knew those were the Mormons. . . people still think this is a family church.”27 The Church desired Americans to associate Mormons with the families, and not a religion with a troubled past entwined with polygamy and exile to Utah. Leaders like Kelly not only aided in constructing that image, but were also intrinsically aware of their active role in creating a family-branded perception of the Church.

In 1972, Bonneville Media Communications and the Church began the Homefront series, a commercial spot-style, public service announcement campaign to communicate Latter-day

Saint values pertaining particularly to family life. The commercials ran on average one-minute- long and portrayed different scenes of families spending time together. Their spots carried various moral messages, including being honest, respecting your elders, being virtuous, spending time with family members, and showing integrity. Latter-day Saint public relations officials were integral in the process of creating the commercials, albeit industry professionals in Southern

27 Kara Mason, “Mormon Commercials Spread the Gospel from 1970S to Now,” The Daily Universe, last modified 2015, accessed February 28, 2016, http://universe.byu.edu/2015/08/25/from-missionary-work-to-millenial-work-faith-based- commercials-throughout-the-decades1/.

14 California produced them to ensure their success. The simplicity of the spots resonated with

American families because of their lightheartedness. While some involved working through a difficult situation, such as a child cheating on their homework, most used humor to appeal towards a greater audience. One spot included a young girl hitting a home-run despite a distracting umpire because of her father’s encouragement and support by practicing baseball with his daughter.

As stated earlier, the earlier advertisements are more simplistic as earlier noted. Often, the commercials feature no dialogue between the characters and only at the end, a voice-over narrator states, “From The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” As the PSA campaign grew more successful, however, the Church used distinctive branding techniques to produce recognizable Mormon image on television. The campaign focused on families spending time with one another as much as possible. Listening and compassion were two virtues fervently pushed in these commercials over the decades the commercials aired. For example, one of the well-known 1973 videos, “Take the Time to Listen,” shows various clips of families spending time together and laughing conversing with one another until we see a young, adolescent girl crying in her bedroom. Her mothers walks in to consult her daughter, and the two begin a dialogue. The ending is joyful: the mother and daughter hug and smile at one another lovingly, and the viewer understands the two have reconciled. A voiceover states: “The listening moment: when love says, ‘nothing is more important right now than you.’ Listening: the beginning of understanding.”.28

A much later video, “Going to the Dogs,” takes a more playful approach to the imperative need to listen. This advertisement depicts a young girl trying to show a drawing she

28 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Take The Time to Listen, video, 1973, accessed February 28, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0etceBn-Qw.

15 made at school to her family members to no avail as they as are all distracted by the mudanities of life. She is forced to sit with the family dog, a labrador retriever, and share this special moment with the dog. The voiceover appears, stating, “Children can go to the dogs when families don’t listen…”.29 “Julie Through the Glass,” a 1981 ad, depicts two parents watching their newborn daughter in the hospital nursery as they imagine her growing through her childhood and adolescence.30 This advertisement is meant to not only remind the viewer to pay attention to your children, but to also cherish the brevity of life.

These campaigns were, at a foundational level, meant to proselytize. Latter-day Saints favor exaltation over salvation, meaning there is a certain level of glory saints can achieve based on their actions during their physical life. For LDS, that level of glory is in part dependent on forming a marriage bound by covenant within the church. Though no Homefront commercial mentions actual LDS doctrine, commercials such as “Julie Through the Glass” communicates to both members and non-members that a strong relationship between husband and wife is imperative to developing a child’s future and their own happiness.31

The branding techniques became more explicit as the commercials moved into the later

1980s. “Isn’t It About…Time?” became a popular slogan within the Homefront campaign and incorporated the perspectives of children trying to break their parents’ attention away from

29 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, going to The Dogs, video, 2012, accessed February 28, 2016, https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2009-04-021-going-to-the- dogs?lang=eng#p3s:59100&p3e:60940.

30 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Julie Through the Glass, video, 1981, accessed February 28, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax4EGaR-BYQ.

31 Rollo Romig, “‘Julie Through the Glass’: The Rise and Fall of the Mormon TV Commercial,” The New Yorker, 2012, accessed February 28, 2016, http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/julie-through-the-glass-the-rise-and-fall-of-the- mormon-tv-commerical.

16 distractions of the mundane life. As the American economy shifted from one of production to service during the twentieth-century, the tension between the work and domestic sphere grew.

This change allowed women to enter the workforce in masses and in many circumstances, decreased the amount of time children and parents could spend interacting with one another in the home.32 “Little Mr. Microchip” provides an excellent example of LDS reconciling these tensions. In “Little Mr. Microchip,” a mother works on her personal computer—frustrated by the technology—when her son appears by her side. She glances at him, but because she is preoccupied by her work, she turns back to her screen with irritation. Only then does her son take control of the mouse to the computer and resolves the issue. She looks at him in wonder when a voiceover states, “This remarkable moment brought to you by your family. Isn’t it about time?

From The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”33 “Little Mr. Microchip” spoke to various audiences, but delivered the same message. For LDS members, it reflected the sentiments given by Church leadership in their talks regarding the reconciliation between the working sphere and the domestic spheres of life. For the public, “Little Mr. Microchip” offered to working women that their children are their greatest accomplishment and that nothing, not even the triumph of modern technology, can triumph the joy of child-rearing. Latter-day Saints, through their partnership with Bonneville Media Communications and with the help of experts from Hollywood, created the slogan “Isn’t It About…Time?” to not only associate Mormons with family values, but with a public relations campaign that would at the very least promote a positive message encouraging families to spend more time together. Within Latter-day Saint

32 Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).

33 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Little Mr. Microchip, video, undated, accessed February 28, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsjmwJO4ba8.

17 doctrine, FHE ritualizes spending time together and while the ultimate goal of Homefront was to grow the Church, these commercials promoted the ritual of spending time together without necessarily revealing the doctrines supporting these practices.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Homefront series is the unique anonymity the spots presented until their end, when an announcer states a welcoming, “From your neighbors-” or, “From your friends The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” especially in the context when televangelism was so popular and successful. Figures such as Pat Robertson, Jerry

Falwell and Billy Graham operated on a variety of media outlets to express their beliefs and platforms regarding not only theological issues as they related to the social climate of the United

States, but they also touched on politics. Homefront was unique because it provided viewers with a lens to view the LDS Church as a family church and by that standard, it gave the audience a small, if not important, glimpse regarding how they aligned themselves with other religious actors such as Falwell and Robertson. Homefront may have never explicitly made a connection with external social campaigns occurring in the United States but as we will see in Chapter 2,

Latter-day Saint participation in these movements allowed the Homefront series to function as a public relations move.34

As a public relations move, Homefront was wildly successful. Some members within

LDS leadership claimed Homefront remains the most highly awarded PSA series in history and while these claims are unfounded, it won over 300 awards including multiple Emmys and a

34 J. Brooks Flippen, Jimmy Carter, the Politics of Family, and the Rise of the Religious Right (Since 1970: Histories of Contemporary America) (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011).

18 Bronze Lion from the Cannes Film Festival in France.35 Unarguably this is no small feat for a religious organization to receive such positive feedback over decades, winning national awards from the American Advertising Federation given to Apple in years prior. This popularity spoke to the Church’s ability to produce spots for a wide variety of audiences. Homefront also communicates the Church’s navigation between proselytization via family values and taming an overtly religious tone in mass media. J.B. Haws, who also writes on the power of the Homefront series, recounts the results of surveys studying the effects of the spots:

They dealt the church’s Missionary Department, noted that when surveys were conducted in those early years, asking people ‘When you hear the word ‘Mormon’ what comes to mind?’ people would say: ‘Well, I think of polygamy; I think of racist; the Osmonds; the Mormon Tabernacle choir…’ After Homefront had been on the air for some number of years, as we’d ask that question again, the number one answer was: family. ‘You’re the Church that believes in families.’36

Latter-day Saints celebrated these successes throughout the 1970s and 1980s via many outlets.

The November edition of Ensign from 1985 reports the Church’s expansion of Homefront from a domestic base to an international program, reaching as far as Australia and New Zealand. The

Ensign article reported that the United States and Canada broadcasted spots by 5,429 radio stations and 788 television stations. Internationally, 6,550 radio stations and 845 television stations broadcasted the spots. The pervasiveness of Homefront should not be underscored as a

Latter-day Saint public relations affair- it was insurmountably influential in reconfiguring the

Mormon image. Just as the Church rapidly expanded internationally through its missionary

35 “LDS Church News - Second Emmy in Two Years,” Ldschurchnewsarchive.com, last modified 1988, accessed February 29, 2016, http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/17406/Second-Emmy-in-two-years.html.

36 J.B Haws, The Mormon Image in The American Mind (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2013).

19 programs, these light-hearted spots displayed to the world that the Church prioritized a universal principle: the family.37

The Latter-day Saints in part also revere the success of the Homefront spots simply because the Church never paid money for the television spots. Since the 1930s, Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) policies required an amount of air time be set aside for noncommercial use, of which approximately 37-45% are religious broadcasters. The FCC particularly pushed broadcasters to donate time for public service announcements during the later half of the twentieth-century to promote more wholesome media in the United States.38 Stephen

Allen, former director of what is now the Church’s Public Affairs Department, recalled his experiences as the assistant director within the electronic media branch of the Public Affairs

Department. He stated that when the Federal Communications Commission reviewed the renewal of broadcast station licenses, the broadcasters had to prove they were operating for public interest and necessity.39 Allen notes the role of the Public Affairs Department in accommodating that public interest:

So Bonneville and Heber Wolsey would come up with this idea of producing public service announcements for the Church—30 and 60 second commercials that the Church would pay to produce and then would send out to stations and invite them to air them as public service announcements, free of charge.40

37 Shaun Stahle, “LDS Church News - Family. Isn't It About . . . Time?,” Ldschurchnewsarchive.Com, last modified 2016, accessed February 28, 2016, http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/31487/Family-Isnt-It-About----Time.html.

38 Federal Communications Commission, “Nonprofit Media,” accessed February 28, 2016, https://transition.fcc.gov/osp/inc-report/INoC-31-Nonprofit-Media.pdf.

39 Jonice Hubbard, “Pioneers in Twentieth Century Mormon Media: Oral Histories of Latter-Day Saint Electronic and Public Relations Professionals” (Masters of Communications, Brigham Young University, 2016).

40 Ibid, 40.

20 Allen later notes the financial worth of air time given to the Church through this outlet, approximating $18 million dollars’ worth of free air time.41 For Latter-day Saints, the policies mandated by the FCC promoted the Church’s initiatives to reconfigure the American image of

Mormons and as a result, Homefront became one of the most successful PSA spots in broadcast history. This opportunity expanded LDS presence within mass media tenfold, aligning the

Church with mainstream Christian organizations by molding perceptions of Latter-day Saints on the pretense of family values.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

During the September 1995 general conference for the Relief Society42, President Gordon

B. Hinckley of the LDS Church first addressed to the women before him, “Stand Strong against the Wiles of the World.” He stated, “With so much of sophistry that is passed off as truth, with so much of deception concerning standards and values, with so much allurement and enticement to take on the slow stain of the world, we have felt to warn to forewarn.”43 President Hinckley then read, on behalf of the First Presidency of the Church The Proclamation to the World: The

Family for the first time. President Gordon B. Hinckley’s shared his sentiments with the moral majority during the late twentieth-century. The Proclamation forewarned individuals of the fates

41 Ibid, 41.

42 The Relief Society serves as an auxiliary organization to the priesthood within the LDS Church. All adult women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in the Relief Society, and work alongside the priesthood to fulfill church duties. For details on the organization of the Relief Society, see: “Relief Society,” lds.org, last modified 2016, accessed March 10, 2016, https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/relief- society?lang=eng.

43 Gordon Hinckley, “Stand Strong Against the Wiles of the World,” in General Conference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1995), accessed February 29, 2016, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1995/10/stand-strong-against-the- wiles-of-the-world?lang=eng.

21 awaiting them should they not adhere to the traditional family unit as defined by the Church: one man and one woman bonded through the covenant of matrimony with their children. The

Proclamation intended to reach individuals beyond the Mormon Church. That is to say, the First

Presidency intended for this exclamation of beliefs would assist Latter-day Saints in establishing

Mormonism as a world religion. The Proclamation needed to touch the broader conservative audience within American borders.

While the majority of the Proclamation is dedicated to explicilty stating that Latter-day

Saints believe marriage is only between man and woman, the Proclamation also weighs in on the sexual division of labor between man and woman pertaining to child-rearing practices. The

Proclamation reads, “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”44 In a 1972 Ensign article titled “Maintain Your Place as a Woman,” the same year the Homefront series debuted,

President Harold B. Lee of the First Presidency wrote, “It is when we tamper with nature that we are in trouble, for there are things a woman does that are natural in the divine order of things. To be a wife is one of your greatest responsibilities—true companion, a helpmeet to your husband.”45 In chapter two, Latter-day Saints will participate in campaigns against the Equal

Rights Amendment because it endangers the role of women remaining within their domestic quarters. Theologically and culturally, LDS women fulfilling a domestic niche is a long-standing

44 “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1995).

45 Harold Lee, “Maintain Your Place as A Woman,” Ensign, 1972, accessed February 29, 2016, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1972/02/maintain-your-place-as-a-woman?lang=eng.

22 expectation within the Church. The Proclamation answers questions of the woman's position in the United States throughout the twentieth-century while emphasizing family values.

After September of 1995, President and Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley agreed to an interview with Mike Wallace of CBS News for an episode of 60 Minutes.46 Hinckley’s interview stunned members and non-members alike by agreeing to the interview, as LDS leadership had denied any opportunity to interview with CBS or similar secular news organizations. When

Hinckley sat down with Wallace in December of 1995, a lot was at stake in bringing Latter-day

Saints into the spotlight not only because of the released proclamation in September of that year, but also because of Wallace’s reputation to ambush his subjects. The interview between

President Hinckley and Wallace astounded both members of the Church and non-members alike for its success. Deseret News published an article following the death of Wallace in 2012 commemorating the relationship garnered by Wallace and Hinckley. Wallace remarked, “From the time we spent with Gordon Hinckley and his wife, from his staff, and from other Mormons who talked to us, that this warm and thoughtful and decent and optimistic leader of the Mormon

Church fully deserves the universal admiration that he gets.”47 For the Church, developing a relationship with CBS, no less the prickly Mike Wallace, gave the broad majority of Americans both a scope into what Mormonism is and the inviting faces representing the religion.

46 Cbsnews.com, “An Interview with Gordon Hinckley,” last modified 1997, accessed February 29, 2016, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-interview-with-gordon-hinckley/.

47 Joseph Walker, “Wallace ‘Ambushed’ By Cordial, Warm, Thoughtful Gordon B. Hinckley,” Deseretnews.Com, last modified 2012, accessed February 29, 2016, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865553729/Wallace-ambushed-by-cordial-warm- thoughtful-Gordon-B-Hinckley.html?pg=all.

23 Gordon B. Hinckley maintained a public presence in 1995 and 1996 following the release of the Proclamation. Shortly after announcing the Proclamation, Hinckley attended various press conferences for the Church in 1996, including one in Japan during which he stated,

Why do we have this proclamation on the family now? Because the family is under attack. All across the world, families are falling apart. The place to begin to improve society is in the home. Children do, for the most part, what they are taught. We are trying to make the world better by making the family stronger.48

For Hinckley, the purpose of the Proclamation was explicit in that the necessity to restore the family was crucial after decades of battling liberal agendas. Hinckley seeks to argue that the nuclear family can be rescued only if parents can teach their children important morals and values through the beliefs presented in the proclamation. Though Hinckley states this is a global issue, the talking-points referenced in the Proclamation speak to issues on the American frontier: same-sex marriage, feminism, divorce, and the women’s role in the home and at work.

48 Daughters in My Kingdom (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2011).

24 CHAPTER 3

THE LATTER-DAY SAINT EMERGENCE IN AMERICAN POLITICS

Introduction

The LDS Church maintains an official policy of political neutrality on domestic and international affairs. The Church does not endorse candidates running for any political office officially, nor do they permit the usage of their church buildings or other resources to serve partisan political efforts.49 One qualifier of this policy of political neutrality involves questions of morality on specific legislation. If the Church deems a specific piece of legislation morally charged for the Church and its members, it is permissible to take part in political activity. It was on this very platform that Latter-day Saints participated in campaigns against the Equal Rights

Amendment and in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.

This chapter explores the depth of political influence Latter-day Saints harnessed during the late twentieth-century as part of their sustained effort to assert their church and its members as the embodiment of the American family. Chapter one constructed the foundation upon which

Latter-day Saints worked within to construct a particular image of the Church based on the concerns not only Americans shared, but also concerns at the crux of Mormon theology. This foundation builds from an essential understanding of public relations and optimizing the networks of resources available to Latter-day Saints, such as the Federal Communications

Commission. Chapter two considers the existence of the LDS public relations branch through a politically and legally charged framework. This framework places it in context with the actions

49 “Handbook 2: Administering The Church: 21. Selected Church Policies and Guidelines,” Lds.org, last modified 2010, accessed February 29, 2016, https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language- materials/08702_eng.pdf?lang=eng.

25 taken by the Church and its lay members during the latter-half of the twentieth-century— particularly the campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment (hereinafter ERA) and the fight against same-sex marriage. By discussing the ERA and the Baehr v. Miike lawsuit in Hawaii, the amount of power LDS posses in garnering support from other groups becomes apparent and the extent to which the church can sway a piece of legislation toward or away from success is illuminated. This chapter seeks to reveal how the Latter-day Saint public relations campaigns during years’ prior, such as Homefront, informed their later success regarding the ERA and marriage equality.

The Latter-day Saint Campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment

The National Women’s Party first introduced The ERA, and comprised of only one clause: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any

State on account of sex.”50 The ERA (hereinafter ERA) moved through state congresses for ratification, having an original deadline for 1979. After Congress introduced the ERA in 1923, momentum surrounding its ratification gradually increased. In the 1960s and 1970s, anti-ERA campaigns gained support from a wide base of conservative Americans. In prior years, the ERA brought about a feminist split between those who supported the ERA for its advocacy towards equality for all women, and those who considered the ERA a detriment to protecting women from entering into jobs that require long work hours or manual labor. Neil Young’s study on the

LDS campaign against the ERA places the role of Mormon women in an interesting position regarding this feminist split. He argues the Church resisted the ERA because Latter-day Saint

50 “ERA: FAQ,” Equalrightsamendment.org, accessed February 29, 2016, http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/faq.htm.

26 women had a divisive role within their own church involving political engagement.51 This chapter spends much of its time examining Young’s work because of the unique argument he puts forth. What is unique about Young’s argument is the specific way in which Latter-day Saint women, by empowering themselves within their own church through political engagement in the campaign against the ERA, disrupted the movement for equal rights for all women in the United

States.52 Mormon women saw the ERA as an opportunity to secure their eternal fate according to beliefs within their own church and deemed the defeat of the ERA imperative to the status of eternal families. We will further explore the relationship between eternal families and the ERA, but it is important to note the process through which the church mobilized women to rally support against the ERA and ensure its demise.

The Latter-day Saint Church’s involvement with the ERA did not intensify over a long period; rather, the Church dove into the realm of politics surrounding the ERA. Throughout the

1970s, the Church reasserted the sexual division of labor within their publications and conference speeches. Recall President Harold B. Lee of the First Presidency’s article, “Maintain

Your Place as a Woman.” Lee presents various testimonies from women offering their perspective on the dangers they encounter in the external world. Lee shared the sentiments of women concerned with the entertainment industry’s portrayal of women as sex symbols, who state, “…It destroys my dignity; it prevents me from being what you want me to be—an example of Beauty, inspiration, and Love: love for my children, love for my husband, love of my God and

51 Neil Young, “‘The ERA Is a Moral Issue’: The Mormon Church, LDS Women, And The Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment,” American Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2007): 623-644, accessed February 29, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40068443.

52 Ibid, 625.

27 country.”53 The article uses women’s perspectives to demonstrate their autonomy in deciding their niche in society. Lee very specifically addresses how to reconcile the need for women to work in a struggling household with their duties as mothers at home, offering,

I now want to say something to you sisters that is a somewhat delicate subject. Even if circumstances require mothers of families to work because of the insufficiency of their husbands’ salaries, or because they have been left alone in widowhood, they should not neglect the cares the duties in the home, particularly in the education of the children. Today I feel that women are becoming victims to the speed of modern living.54

While Lee states women may need to enter the workforce to supplement their husbands’ income, he urges women that their role apart from the home should never impose upon maintaining the home. Lee argues that women must return to their traditionally domestic roles to balance the sexual division of labor between male and female. For Lee, maintaining the sexual division of labor will prevent the American family from falling into a state of corruption. Regarding husbands, Lee tells LDS women this: “It was someone with deep understanding of married life who said that the good wife commandeth her husband in any equal matter by constantly obeying him…The good wife commandeth her husband in any equal matter by constantly obeying him.”55 The balance, therefore, is maintained according to Latter-day Saints through the sexual division of labor. LDS women should return home from work and perform their domestic duties while the father fulfils his role as a spiritual guide and primary financial contributor.

Leaders shared these sentiments on a global scale. Harold B. Lee of the First Presidency set the precedent for what would come in LDS publications on the role of women in the country.

53 Harold Lee, “Maintain Your Place as A Woman,” Ensign, 1972, accessed February 29, 2016, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1972/02/maintain-your-place-as-a-woman?lang=eng.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

28 During the October General Conference of 1973, Eldon Tanner presented in his talk the dangers of modern conceptions of women in society, arguing:

Satan and his cohorts are using scientific arguments and nefarious propaganda to lure women away from their primary responsibilities as wives, mothers, and homemakers. We hear so much about emancipation, independence, sexual liberation, birth control, abortion, and other insidious propaganda belittling the role of motherhood, all of which is Satan’s way of destroying women, the home, and the family—the basic unit of society.56

This 1973 talk is more extensive—and deliberate—in relating the publicity surrounding the ERA to the dangers it inflicts upon families. Tanner is also more explicit in the argument that sexual liberation is simply a guise by the devil to insidiously destroy the family. The framework of this argument became the platform upon which the Latter-day Saints used to defeat the ERA. When the Deseret News published an official statement from the First Presidency in October of 1976, the message was clear: The ERA was not aligned with Mormon doctrine.57

According to Church leadership and doctrine, the ERA contradicted fundamental beliefs about life and after life. In his writing on the Mormon opposition to the ERA, Young provides an excellent description of Latter-day Saint belief regarding the afterlife. He writes, “The question for Mormons is which realm of glory they will deserve based on their life on earth. The highest realm of heaven is the celestial kingdom, where families dwell together forever and continue to procreate.”58 The Latter-day Saint belief in realms of heaven informs their belief of exaltation in place of salvation. Marriage is essential to receiving the highest level of exaltation as attaining

56 Nathan Eldon Tanner, “No Greater Honor: The Woman’s Role,” in General Conference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1973), accessed February 29, 2016, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1973/10/no-greater-honor-the- womans-role?lang=eng.

57 Young, “‘The ERA Is a Moral Issue’.”

58 Ibid., 631.

29 celestial kingdom. Because temple-marriages are restricted to covenants between men and women, the Church places sexual difference between male and female at the heart of exaltation.

LDS leaders asserted that the ERA's ratification and concomitant jurisdiction threatened the interdependent relationship between exaltation and eternal marriage. According the Latter-day

Saints and many other religious conservatives, the ERA worked to eliminate sexual difference by supporting equality towards women, steering women away from obligations within their marriages. Even within celestial kingdom, tiered realms exist. Those who are devout, temple- married members with children born under covenant have a better chance of receiving the most glory by being earning the highest tiers of celestial kingdom. Because of this interdependent relationship between temple-marriage and exaltation, Latter-day Saints found themselves morally obligated to fight the ERA, and saw their campaign efforts as a way to demonstrate devout earthly activity to secure their future in celestial kingdom.59

The United Nations declared 1975 The International Women’s Year (IWY). The IWY was part of a larger program developed by the United Nations during the Decade of Women from 1976 to 1985. The conferences and conventions put forth by the IWY and other meetings during the Decade of Women sought to establish internationally codified standards to recognize gender equality and promote the role of women in the workforce. What began as an international taskforce became a domestic battle-front. In response to the United Nations declaration,

President Ford issued Executive Order 11832, creating a National Commission on the

Observance of IWY. The commission mandated each state participate in its own IWY state-held

59 Ibid., 631-632. See also: Doctrine & Covenants 76: 72-114.

30 conference, culminating with the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977.60 The account detailed in the Latter-day Saint involvement with the International Women’s Year exemplifies the organizational power the Church possesses in their ability to rally their members for a political reason.61

During state-held conferences, the ERA became a pressing topic of discussion as the deadline to ratify drew nearer. In June of 1977, Utah held the nation’s largest state IWY’s conference. There, fourteen thousand women gathered in Salt Lake City to discuss various topics centered on the status of women. The record-breaking attendance at the conference was deliberate in that the LDS Church rallied LDS women to promote their own agenda at the IWY to ensure the defeat of the ERA’s ratification. Church leaders throughout the nation gathered women from each ward to attend this state conference. Each ward expected at least ten women to attend the IWY conference in Salt Lake to counteract liberal agendas and promote ideas aligned with LDS doctrine.62

The Church had no initial intention to take part in the IWY conference in Utah due to their conviction that Mormon women should not involve themselves with politics surrounding the conference. Their participation, the Church feared, would be received as a promotion of feminism and the ERA. However, Church leadership soon realized the potential of Latter-day

Saint women in creating a new majority at the conference. Latter-day Saints women focused on revealing the dangers of the ERA had the potential to sway a vote in a favorable position for the

60 Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008).

61 The United Nations, International Women's Year, General Assembly Twenty-seventh session (New York: United Nations Publications, 1975), https://documents-dds- ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/270/40/IMG/NR027040.pdf?OpenElement.

62 Young, “‘The ERA Is a Moral Issue,’” 633-635.

31 Church. Because of this realization, President of the Relief Society, Barbara B. Smith, met with a team of four for five days in June of 1977, only weeks before the conference, to create a strategy that would ensure LDS women would control the IWY. Relief Society leadership involvement gave new autonomy to the organization after having their organizational authority overtaken by

LDS men in 1970. With the help of resourceful leaders within the Church such as the director of the Public Communications Department and President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles Ezra

Taft Benson, local wards carried out specific instructions with their members. As previously noted, one instruction was to recruit ten women from each ward to attend the International

Women’s Year conference in Salt Lake City, but each ward carried out this process through a different process. Some would work through the Relief Society, instructing their respective

Relief Society president asks women in the church to accompany her at the meeting. Other wards acted more decisively. The bishop of other wards would “call” women to represent their local ward at the conference.

Callings operate on a multi-level basis: within the ward, within the temple, and within the ecclesiastical leadership organizations of the Church. Callings are an extremely important aspect of rank-and-file members daily lives in their respective wards. Through the bishop, every member within the Church receives a calling within the ward. Leaders within the ward state that callings are divinely inspired as laid out in the Pearl of Great Price: “We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.”63 Young writes in his analysis of

Mormon exaltation, “Just as the Relief Society lost its organizational autonomy to the church’s male authorities in 1970, Mormon women reach exaltation only by submitting themselves in

63 See: Pearl of Great Price, Articles of Faith, Chapter 1: 5.

32 marriage to a priesthood-holding Mormon man.”64 Therefore, for Latter-day Saint women during the International Women’s Year, receiving a calling to attend the conference equated to divine forces bringing them to Utah for a specific purpose in fulfilling their role as devoted women of the Church. Attending the IWY conference only furthered the Latter-day Saint woman’s journey to exaltation and allowed them an empowered position within Church confines by advocating for policies that asserted their divinely inspired roles as mothers and care-takers. At the Utah IWY conference, thirteen thousand of the fourteen thousand women in attendance were Latter-day

Saint women. There, they commanded the discussions during committee meetings and defeated every proposed resolution at the conference, including a variety of subjects such as the fight against pornography. The main aim for Mormon women was, however, to defeat the ERA. They met their goal: the resolution “The Equal Rights Amendment should be ratified,” lost in a vote count of 8,956 against to 666 for. Latter-day Saint women’s presence at the Utah IWY was only the beginning for what would become a platform upon which the Church could flex their political influence. The fight against the ERA was the ammunition Latter-day Saints needed to solidify their position through a public relations lens in the 1970s.65

The Mormon Church sought Nevada as the next state where they could sway the political opinion regarding the ERA. Latter-day Saints had enough voting power merely by voter turnout to determine the fate of the ERA, holding nearly 30 percent of the turnout in any election from

1975 to 1978. Latter-day Saints focused their targets on Las Vegas, where more than 50 percent of the entire population of the state resided. The Nevada senate already voted down the ERA, but was undergoing a ballot referendum backed by ERA supporters in the state. The anti-ERA

64 Young, “‘The ERA Is a Moral Issue,’” 631.

65 Ibid., 635.

33 movement, similar to the Utah initiative, rounded up women from the local stakes and wards of the greater Las Vegas area and gave them specific directions regarding what to say about the

ERA and whom to give this information to. On November 5th, Latter-day Saint women received instructions directly from church leaders to warn non-members of the dangerous implications the

ERA bore on women. Specifically, LDS women could recall church leaders describing a new world in which women would fight on the frontlines of war and be forced into unisex bathrooms, inviting rapists to attack them during vulnerable moments. The Church also reminded all members to head out to the polls in the upcoming referendum. Their efforts were rewarding; ninety-five percent of all eligible Mormons in Nevada were present in voting.66

Perhaps what was most surprising about the LDS win against the ERA in Nevada was not the win itself, but the efficiency with which the church mobilized their resources when needed.

Over a mere weekend, local Latter-day Saints, guided by upper-church officials, mobilized their members—both men and women—to campaign against the ERA. Martha Bradley references sociologist O. Kendall White in her work Pedestals and Podiums to articulate the power of organization and infrastructure, stating: “This covert campaign depended upon the infrastructure of Mormonism—the social bonds, the Relief Society, the coordination and tacit support of top officials, the local facilities, and the local and general church media.”67 Ultimately, the Church raised funds so effectively because they were, according to White, “products of this social structure, and this social structure, not simply the political beliefs and activities of citizens who also happened to be ‘church people,’ was responsible for the effective mobilization.”68 The

66 Ibid., 636-637. See also: Bradley, Pedestals and Podiums.

67 Bradley, Pedestals and Podiums.

68 Ibid.

34 Church set out a specific course of action in which they targeted the most populated parts of the state and armed their members with the tools to succeed: rhetoric promoting the ERA. This unifying rhetoric extended to non-members. The Church operated through citizen groups comprised almost exclusively of Mormons, but interacted with non-LDS majority groups.

Bradley lists some of the activities authorized by top church officials that facilitated these alliances:

The ‘citizen’ groups organized car pools and bus caravans to bring hundreds, even thousands, to anti-ERA demonstrations at state capitols. These well-publicized public rallies were important in creating common ground between Mormon organizations and other groups…Alliances were forged with other anti-ERA groups. This last step was particularly significant, given the church’s history of insular politics and aloofness from other religious groups…anti-ERA Mormons ‘have allied with other groups…whoever sees things the way we do—Catholic, Baptist.’ Bridging barriers of mutual suspicion, the Religious Right coalesced in new ways.69

The LDS Church and other religious movements used citizen groups to uncover a common ground rooted in conservative politics in the latter half of the twentieth-century. Noted in

Bradley’s work, sociologists of religion placed the Mormon Church “squarely in the middle of the new Religious Right,” and argue that “Mormons became increasingly aligned with conservative Republican politics.”70 This empowered not only the LDS Church in their mission to defeat the ERA and secure their image as part of the Religious Right, but it also promoted an overall understanding of the moral majority within the United States—one concerned with restoring values to the family and enriching religious life.

Intertwining The Proclamation and Sexual Politics: LDS Intervention in Same-Sex Marriage Legality in the 1990s

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid.

35 The question of same-sex marriage lingered well into the end of the twentieth-century and numerous attempts to solidify the definition of marriage created tensions within the country.

The gay rights movement gained momentum following the HIV/AIDS epidemic scare in the

1980s, bringing questions of death and inheritance into the minds of gay men and women who had no legal rights to their loved ones. While states such as New York provided more liberal policies for same-sex couples, the state was a minority against a very large and powerful conservative majority arguing against these rights. The narrative of Latter-day Saint involvement in the politics of same-sex marriage outlines this fear and traces their efforts to curtail same-sex marriage legalization within American borders. This narrative follows the origins of DOMA as a reaction to Baehr v. Miike and leads into the twenty-first century and concludes with The

Proclamation to the World’s integration in the Baehr v. Miike lawsuit.

Throughout the chapter, I argue that same-sex marriage established for several religious groups a common ground founded in protecting the family. This common ground presented an opportunistic position for the LDS Church through which they could rally leaders from other religious organizations. What becomes apparent over the next twenty years is that Latter-day

Saints become a part of these political moments in American religious history by instructing their members from the top, down. With the First Presidency behind them, members mobilize as they did in the 1970s to defeat the ERA. What changed from the 1970s to the 1990s and early 2000s, however, were two key factors in this historical narrative. First, the breadth of technology substantially revolutionized over twenty years, and continued to improve at a rapid pace within the 1990s. This made mobilization much easier for Mormons. Second, the Proclamation changed how Latter-day Saints within Church hierarchy could reference their positions on a given issue.

The Proclamation equipped members with a piece of religious rhetoric and started a dialogue on

36 the family. This dialogue definitively excluded the possibility of same-sex marriage from that equation. Together, these two developments marked a Mormon moment in American history.

This moment situated Latter-day Saints once again in alignment with their religious brethren in the battle to protect the family.

The bill H.R. 3396, or the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), was a response to Baehr v.

Miike called for by the House of Representatives. Published in 1996, DOMA arose in the midst of Hawaii’s contentious battle over same-sex marriage legality. DOMA created laws on two levels—one pertaining to state jurisdiction and the other on a federal level. Section 2 stated that no governing body of the United States—states and territories, for example—are required to recognize same-sex marriages considered lawful in any other state.71 Therefore, if one state ruled a same-sex marriage lawful, other states in which a couple might move to or visit are not required to recognize that marriage. Section 3 explicitly defines “marriage” for federal purposes, stating, “The word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”72 This clause prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex married couples with marriage equality, deterring these couples from receiving federal benefits and inheritance rights and the ability to jointly file federal taxes. These three clauses appealed to the Full Faith and Credit Clauses for the states. H.R. 3396 intended to, according to The House of Representatives, “lay down clear rules to guide their resolution, and it does so in a manner that

71 House of Representatives, Defense of Marriage Act (Washington D.C.: United States Government Publishing Office, 1996).

72 Ibid.

37 preserves each State’s ability to decide the underlying policy issue however it chooses.”73

Rapidly, states heard the Defense of Marriage Act before their own legislatures in the 1990s.

Concomitantly, the LDS Church placed themselves at the battlefronts to ensure their presence would change the course of action in each state. Besides the Hawaii case, the Latter-day Saint presence in Alaska and California regarding same-sex marriage politics are two useful case studies for looking at mobilization of resources within the Church.

During the winter of 1990, three same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses at the

Hawaii State Department of Health. The clerk denied their requests for licenses because the couples were of the same sex. This interaction prompted the couples to pursue a lawsuit against the state in May of 1991, arguing the Department of Health denied their licenses based on gender discrimination. The distinction between the use of discrimination against sex and sexual orientation was central to this case because sexual discrimination ruled unconstitutional as it violated the equal protection clause of the Hawaii Constitution. The Supreme Court of Hawaii held this opinion when it heard the case in 1993, though it would continue to move through the state courts into the late 1990s.74

In 1993, weeks after the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled the refusal of marriage licenses to same-sex couples unconstitutional, Apostle Boyd K. Packer spoke out on the gay rights movement at the All-Church Coordinating Council on May 18, 1993. Apostle Packer stated that the because of the social and political unrest influencing the Church, members are losing

73 Ibid.

74 Baehr v. Miike, 20371 Supreme Court of Hawaii No. 20371 (1999).

38 direction and are succumbing to the realities of the dangerous external world.75 In his talk, he focuses on three specific dangers: the gay and lesbian movement, the feminist movement, and the challenges of scholars and intellectuals criticizing the Church.

In similar fashion of the ERA movement within the Church, Latter-day Saints worked through their resources to propel DOMA towards success. Less than a year later in February

1994, the First Presidency released a statement titled, “First Presidency Statement Opposing

Same Gender Marriages.”76 In a brief statement, the Church affirmed not only their position regarding same-sex marriages, but also instructed members of the Church how to act within their civic duties on same-sex marriage. On these policies, the statement reads: “We encourage members to appeal to legislators, judges, and other government officials to preserve the purposes and sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, and to reject all efforts to give legal authorization or other official approval or support to marriages between persons of the same gender.”77 These statements served two different purposes within the Church and as a result, had two different effects upon first occurrence. For Apostle Boyd Packer speaking to a private, specific audience, his talk on the danger of homosexuality served as a forewarning of what is coming in the last decade of the twentieth-century. His sentiments warned officials of the Church on the dangers of liberating feminists, gay and lesbian individuals, and non-member scholars in a public Church place. For Packer, these groups work as a virus within the Church, reversing commitments to conservative agendas and promoting liberal ideology. The First Presidency’s

75 “Boyd K. Packer’s Talk to The All-Church Coordinating Council,” Zionsbest.Com, last modified 1993, http://www.zionsbest.com/face.html.

76 “First Presidency Statement Opposing Same Gender Marriages,” LDS.Org, last modified 1994, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1994/04/news-of-the-church/first-presidency- statement-opposing-same-gender-marriages?lang=eng&_r=1.

77 Ibid.

39 statement to the public had a different intention. For the First Presidency, this statement was a call to action.

It was in the Spring of 1995 that members first fulfilled this call to action in Hawaii.

Deseret News published on April 14th an article stating that with the support of church leadership in Salt Lake City, three Hawaii representatives of the LDS Church filed an appeal in February asking the Hawaii Supreme Court to grant the Church co-defendant position in the Baehr v.

Miike lawsuit against the state.78 These three representatives were local bishops and stake presidents79 representing their wards and clergy throughout the archipelago state. The co- defendants sought a reversal of the lower court decision which would prevent same-sex marriage from legalization. The LDS Church’s position for entering this lawsuit was not based on protecting traditional marriage definitions; rather, they based their argument for the reason of religious freedom. The representatives argued their interest in this case regarding their right to preserve their state-issued licenses to solemnize marriages, and because they are licensed by the state of Hawaii to solemnize marriages, refusal to solemnize a same-sex marriage may cause revocation of their state-issued licenses to solemnize all marriages.80

The Roman Catholic Church supported the LDS in Hawaii for their endeavors to prevent same-sex marriage from legalization. Together, they petitioned an amicus curiae brief against the plaintiffs. The Catholic spokesperson, Reverend Alexander, stated on this union between Latter-

78 “Church Opposes Same-Sex Marriages,” Ldschurchnewsarchive.Com, last modified 1995, http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/articles/26604/Church-opposes-same-sex- marriages.html.

79 Stake presidents preside over council meetings, call members to different positions within their respective wards, and make decisions based on the counsel of their supporting stake- high council. For more on stake presidency, see: Kim Cameron, “Stake President, Stake Presidency,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992).

80 Baehr v. Miike, No. 18905 (Supreme Court of Hawaii 1996).

40 day Saints and Catholics, “We believe, therefore [with reference to the amicus curiae brief], that we’re working very much in concert toward the same end as The Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints.”81 When the question of the Church’s intentions arose regarding political intervention, Elder Hallstrom, the regional representative for the Oahu Hawaii North Region of the LDS Church stated,

There are times when certain moral issues become so compelling that churches have a duty to make their feelings known. In rare cases, they may need to pursue their own constitutional rights to resist something they feel poses a serious threat to the moral fabric of society. We have reached such a situation in Hawaii.82

Unfortunately for the Church, the Hawaii Supreme Court did not agree. The Court dismissed the

Church’s motion to appeal on the grounds of the free exercise clause of the first amendment, stating,

If Hawaii permits same-sex marriages, and the Applicants’ religious beliefs forbade them from solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples, then the state could not require them to do so…Such a requirement would create excessive entanglement between government and religion, resulting in a violation of the free exercise clause.83

This small defeat did not stop Latter-day Saints from propelling forward with their efforts in

Hawaii, however. A political organization called Hawaii’s Future Today, jointly led by the LDS

Church and the Catholic Church in Hawaii, filed subsequent amicus curiae briefs with the lower courts in petition of allowing same-sex marriage. In 1997, attorneys for the LDS Church filed a final amicus curiae brief, in which they cited the Proclamation to the World several times for

81 “Church Opposes Same-Sex Marriages.”

82 Ibid.

83 Baehr v. Miike, No. 18905.

41 reference.84 Their conclusion summarized that homosexual relationships cannot fulfill the goal of bringing new life into the world. The attorneys stated, “Recognition of homosexual marriage will trivialize the traditional family – the basic building block of society – thereby having deleterious effects upon society as a whole.”85 The Church now had the Family Proclamation to reference for their position. It was in this brief that Latter-day Saints had their most definite argument— that same-sex marriage would inflict disastrous havoc on the American family.

Ultimately, in 1998, Hawaii’s legislature passed a constitutional amendment exempting same-sex marriage from sexual discrimination, reversing the lower court’s judgment originally on sexual discrimination and determining the original ruling null. Same-sex marriage would remain illegal in Hawaii until 2013. The battle was far from over, however. Baehr v. Miike articulates how Latter-day Saints first started political mobilization over the fight for and against equal marriage rights. Their involvement in contentious lawsuits illustrates the ability Mormons possess to gather and rally behind a common cause, and Baehr v. Miike demonstrates how the

Church worked with other religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church, to achieve a goal in line with their religious beliefs. Finally, Baehr v. Miike shows the LDS Church’s literacy in public relations. The Church’s employment of consistent phrasing, such as the “undermining of families,” and “radically redefining the institution of marriage” unified their public image, and elevated their position by having such a clear direction in how they should be perceived.86 These strategies would carry into the end of the twentieth-century and assist the Church in their endeavors in the fight against same-sex marriage legalization throughout the nation.

84 Martin Rice, “Baehr v. Miike, Amcubr 01: Hawai’i’s Future Today,” email, 1997.

85 Ibid.

86 Ibid.

42

43 CHAPTER 4

EPILOGUE: A TUMULTUOUS RELATIONSHIP ON THE HORIZON

In November of 2015, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints amended the official handbook used by Church leaders. This amendment came with no notification from Church leaders and there was no press release regarding the changes from the

Church. After a murky recent history in radial LDS-led movements concerning same-sex marriage, the Church made their intentions clear through this handbook amendment. The Church will take action to not only ensure members refrain from engaging in sexual same-sex activities, but will also go to new lengths to protect its interests. Under these new amendments, members of the Church also married to a member of the same sex must be considered apostates. The new policies outlined that children of same-sex marriages, members or not, cannot receive blessings, baptism, confirmation, nor priesthood ordinances- all of which are accessible to most adolescent males in good standing with the Church. In other words, children of a same-sex marriage could not become official members of the Church unless the child either disavowed their parents’ lifestyle or matured to the age of legal adulthood (18 years old).87 In a short amount of time— virtually overnight—the details of the new policy leaked onto the Internet, and all eyes were on the Church. Devout, long-standing members of the Church scratched their heads while younger members cried out in disapproval. Non-members protested the actions taken by the Church, stating it was a step backwards from the progress seen over the past few years. The progress to

87 John Dehlin, “Changes to LDS Handbook 1 Document 2,” Scribd, last modified 2015, http://www.scribd.com/doc/288685756/Changes-to-LDS-Handbook-1-Document-2-Revised-11- 3-15-28003-29#scribd.

44 which non-members are referring are the subsidiary movements by members of the Church towards acceptance of the LGBT community.

Following the handbook changes in November, Elder Christofferson spoke for the

Church once again. Christofferson offered that for the Church, this change in policy originated from love and a need to fulfill their roles in exaltation, stating, “This is about family; this is about love and especially the love of the Savior and how He wants people to be helped and fed and lifted, and that’s the whole motivation that underlies our effort”.88 Christofferson also navigated questions thrown at the Church through media outlets, such as why the Church found it necessary to release this statement now. For the Church, though same-sex marriage is legal in the

United States and in numerous other countries; Christofferson clarifies that same-sex marriage is a right to choose—a right which is denied within the Mormon Church. He also asserts that same- sex marriage brings into question the differences between laws of the land and laws of God.

Christofferson does not dwell on the legal and ethical side of this argument for the majority of the interview, nor was the interview remembered for these remarks. Instead, he focuses on the

Church leaders’ intent regarding the handbook changes, centered on the fate of children.

Christofferson stated in the interview, “We don’t want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the Church are very different.”89 Because the new policies forbid the performance of naming blessings on children from same-sex couples, the policies therefore prevent children from being placed on Church records. Once a child is placed on the Church’s records, Christofferson clarified, home-teachers

88 Sarah Weaver, “Elder Christofferson Says Handbook Changes Regarding Same-Sex Marriages Help Protect Children,” Lds.Org, last modified 2015, https://www.lds.org/church/news/elder-christofferson-says-handbook-changes-regarding-same- sex-marriages-help-protect-children?lang=eng.

89 Ibid.

45 may visit the child’s home for lesson plans and the child would be expected to attend Church activities regularly.90 The Church views this interaction as a point of contention for the child and the child’s parents, as the child would be taught doctrines pertaining to same-sex marriage within the Church setting and live within a different context at home.

Despite loyalty to their faith, many members of the Church spoke out against this change in policy. The handbook change sparked the interest of numerous media outlets—journalists being interested in the Latter-day Saint reaction to these handbook changes. Hundreds of members weighed in on the matter through public forums, such as blog posts and news interviews. Not only did progressive members speak out on the matter, but many members identifying as conservative and even orthodox Latter-day Saints offered their consultations.

Additionally, scholars from various institutions gave their opinions on the policy change from both a sympathetic standpoint and an objective perspective.91

On November 13, 2015, the First Presidency released a letter clarifying the handbook changes one week after the release and concomitant leak of the handbook change.92 Of these changes, the First Presidency affirmed that same-sex couples who marry or enter a similar relationship will result in Church disciplinary action. Additionally, priesthood ordinances, such as receiving baptism or a naming blessing, will only be restricted from minors whose primary residence is with parents engaged in a same-sex marriage or the equivalent. The Church also clarified that children baptized into the Church and living with same-sex couples prior to the

90 Ibid.

91 See: Laurie Goodstein, “Mormons Sharpen Stand Against Same-Sex Marriage,” The New York Times, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/us/mormons-gay- marriage.html?_r=0.

92 “First Presidency Clarifies Church Handbook Changes,” Lds.Org, last modified 2016, https://www.lds.org/pages/church-handbook-changes?lang=eng.

46 update are not required to curtail further ordinances. The letter does, however, instruct local church leaders to consider “preparation and the best interests of the child” regarding any future ordinances for children within these circumstances. Finally, the letter clarifies that all children may receive priesthood blessings of healing and spiritual guidance, a blessing offered to all non- members in need of particular prayer.93

The letter came with a statement by Michael Otterson, the Managing Director of Church

Public Affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.94 Otterson’s remarks are protective; he states the “episode” (of the release and consequential backlash) exemplifies the dangers of social media spreading false, presumptuous assumptions without having context or accurate information from the Church. He also remarked that one of the most problematic aspects of the handbook policy change is the ignorance surrounding the use of the handbook. The purpose of the handbook, according to Otterson, provides bishops with a reference for decision- making. The handbook is intentionally objective, and because of its procedurally-styled writing, it is not contextually driven nor explanatory. Otterson offers that the handbook is used in tangent with prayer and contextualized with each leaders’ own experiences within the Church. Otterson also clarifies another question aimed at the church: why release this update now? As a response to same-sex marriage being legalized in the United States and in other nations, the Church needed to emphasize their doctrines long-withstanding to align local church leaders on an international scale. In his final remarks, Otterson emphasizes that in practice these handbook changes are not likely to affect many children because most same-sex parents would be unlikely

93 Ibid.

94 Michael Otterson, “Understanding The Handbook,” www.mormonnewsroom.org, last modified 2015, http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/commentary-understanding-the- handbook.

47 to bring their children to the church for formal baptism and ordination. Rather, these measures protect small children, and not for the discrimination against same-sex couples.95

Otterson’s statement addresses an interesting relationship for Latter-day Saints in the twenty-first century: theology and technology. Young Latter-day Saints and their opponents channeled their receptions through blog posts. One blog post for example, Zelph on the Shelf, responded to Michael Otterson’s statement, “Like a cell phone plan, gay children have been grandfathered in to the Gift of the Holy Ghost, priesthood service (assuming they are male), and missionary service if they are signed up prior to Nov. 5, 2015. Otherwise, these children will still be denied the same blessings their friends could be receiving.”96 A member of the Church and blogger, Danny Rasmussen, offered a sympathetic response to the policy changes:

Of all the issues Mormons face with making sense of Mormonism in the context of modernity, perhaps none is as painful as the Church’s teachings on homosexuality…For children of parents who have gone through this wrenching experiencing, the struggle will continue. They will be uniquely exposed to the hardest of those questions to grapple with them before they make serious covenants of family-altering (dividing?) decisions about becoming Mormon.97

Rasmussen brings to light an interesting question of reconciling modernity within the Mormon context. Modernity implies a certain amount of control lost for Otterson and the Church. The leaking and subsequent discussion of the policy on public forums captures how Otterson interprets this loss of control. For Rasmussen and numerous other LDS bloggers, modernity is a quizzical phenomenon that members believe the Church is doing their best to reconcile with

95 Ibid.

96 “LDS Church Slightly Changes Handbook Policy, Doubles Down On Everything Else, Hangs Millstone Around Neck,” Blog, Zelph On the Shelf, 2015, http://zelphontheshelf.com/lds- church-slightly-changes-handbook-policy-doubles-down-on-everything-else-hangs-millstone- around-neck/.

97 Ibid.

48 traditional values. The LDS Church participated in legal efforts to ban same-sex marriage from legalization within the country and created websites to facilitate an open dialogue between homosexual and heterosexual Latter-day Saints in a welcoming and non-discriminatory fashion.98

My particular interest in this development is twofold. First, while I am intrigued by the reaction from rank-and-file members of the Church and the Church’s critics, I argue the receptions and statements made by religious organizations within the United States contribute to a greater understanding of how religious expression and freedom will expand over the course of the twenty-first century. At this moment, no official statements from other religious organizations on the new LDS policy exist, and while it is unlikely for a religious organization to condemn or condone the Latter-day Saint policy, religious organizations throughout the United

States are changing their own policies on marriage equality. The Southern Baptist Convention, along with the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, and the majority of Evangelical organizations do not condone same-sex marriage nor allow gay leaders within their churches despite the 2015 ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges. However, The Supreme Court ruling made way for new policies in other Christian denominations. The largest Presbyterian denomination in the

United States—Presbyterian Church (USA)—officially redefined marriage in their church constitution in 2015 to formally recognize gay marriage as a practice and allow same-sex weddings in every congregation.99 Similarly, The Episcopal Church allows marriage a right

98 See: “Love One Another: A Discussion On Same-Sex Attraction,” Mormonsandgays.Org, last modified 2012, http://mormonsandgays.org.

99 “GA221 On Marriage,” oga.pcusa.org, last modified 2015, http://oga.pcusa.org/section/ga/ga221/ga221-marriage/.

49 available to people of all sexual orientations and ordains LGBT bishops within their congregations.100

My second interest regarding the handbook changes pertains to overarching future of

Latter-day Saints as an American religion. Whether Latter-day Saints will strive to fall within the parameters of mainline Christianity will depend in part on retaining definitions of mainline

Christianity in America. That is to say, the dynamic religious landscape of America has the potential to drastically change in the face of modernity as is evident throughout the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century. I argue that the LDS Church’s belief in a living prophet profoundly determines its ability to mold with the mainline or conversely, stray away from the fringes of the mainstream. Ken Jennings, a celebrity within Mormonism, points out that the new handbook policy is generational, a result of having a living prophet, and an effect of church leadership composed almost exclusively of the Baby Boomer generation: “This is a generational change that’s happening and you just can’t stop a tidal wave…I think even for Mormons who are normally culturally conservative, this kind of policy really makes you take a long look.”101

Jennings sheds light upon the idea that because Latter-day Saints believe in a living prophet, policy changes and monumental church doctrines change between generations. Historically,

Latter-day Saints highest leadership is composed of older men who dedicated their entire lives to the Church, but the possibility for this change is absolutely conceivable and with that, major changes within church doctrine over the next century may be anticipated. J.B. Haws perhaps

100 “LGBT in The Church,” Episcopalchurch.Org, last modified 2015, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/lgbt-church.

101 Jana Reiss, “Thank You, Ken Jennings, For Speaking Out Against New Mormon Policies On Same-Sex Families,” Blog, Flunking Sainthood, 2016, http://janariess.religionnews.com/2015/12/01/thank-you-ken-jennings-for-speaking-out-against- new-mormon-policies-on-same-sex-families/.

50 most accurately outlines what to expect for Latter-day Saints within the mainstream: “A viable religion must have something unique to offer. At the same time, though, if a religious group is so far removed from societal norms that is is viewed as a dangerous pariah, that group will struggle to survive if the host society sees it as so deviant and threatening that is needs to be eliminated.”102 Haws uses sociologist Armand Mauss’ suggestion to pose that Latter-day Saints are attempting to find optimum tension within the American context.103 The LDS Church is successful is maintaining this optimum tension, using the Family Proclamation and its supporting texts to distinguish themselves, all-the-while matriculating into mainstream politics by inserting themselves into a larger conversation in which they have a stake.

102 J. B. Haws, The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

103 Ibid.

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