CHURCHES ROCKED BY SEX SCANDALS The Mormons, the Tory MP and shock revelations of gay men outed
YOUNG gay men who were outed by leading figures in the Mormon Church in Scotland have attacked the religion as a “cult” which is openly hostile to LGBT members.
Two former members of the church, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), have spoken out after they were targeted at a time when newly elected Tory MP Stephen Kerr was a high-ranking official in LDS.
Kerr, who represents Stirling at Westminster, denies he was involved in outing gay men when he was a Stake President (a head of diocese) and an Area Seventy (a position of power in the church which outranks bishops and priests). The MP, who won with a majority of just 148 votes, making Stirling the third most marginal Conservative seat the country, also claimed he is in favour of equal marriage.
However, according to church teachings “sexual relations are reserved for a man and woman who are married” and sex between people of the same sex “violates one of our Father in Heaven’s most important laws and gets in the way of our eternal progress”.
The revelations that gay men were outed when Kerr was a senior figure in LDS will be uncomfortable for the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson. When it emerged last week that Prime Minister Theresa May was ready to do a deal with the DUP – which is against equal marriage – Davidson sought assurances that any alliance would mean “absolutely no rescission of LGBTI rights in the rest of the UK”. Davidson, who is gay, said: “I was fairly straightforward with her and I told her that there were a number of things that count to me more than party. One of them is country, one of the others is LGBTI rights.”
After voting for equal marriage in 2014, Davidson said she returned to her office in the Scottish Parliament and “cried deep, sobbing tears of relief and release and joy and pain and pride.”
Davidson campaigned with Kerr before the General Election and tweeted her congratulations when he won the seat. She said: “So proud of him. He’ll make an excellent MP.”
One gay man claims he was outed after he had taken part in discussions about his sexuality on anonymous online message boards used by former Mormons. He said: “At church my father was handed a print-out of my posts. Bear in mind these are anonymous posts, but someone has taken the time to trawl the message boards and recognise my story sufficiently. My dad waved the print-outs at me, then it all kicked off. There was a lot of screaming and lots of anger.
“It caused a lot of recriminations at the time because I hadn’t discussed my sexuality with my parents. It caused huge issues. The relationship with my parents still isn’t great. I never got the chance to come out to them in the way I wanted. That opportunity was taken away. It was forcibly removed. It was traumatic for me and caused embarrassment to the wider family.”
The source, who asked not to be named to protect his family who remain in the church, said he was later confronted by a church leader at his parent’s house. At that time Stephen Kerr was an Area Seventy.
He said: “I was told by a church lead- er I’d be ex-communicated because of what I had written. I told him to shove it and resigned.”
The Sunday Herald contacted the former church leader, who has since left LDS. Speaking to the Sunday Herald on condition of anonymity, the former leader said: “I can remember getting sent to his door because he was saying things about the church online. I don’t know what was being said but I remember being asked to say to him he needed to keep his mouth shut or the church would be taking disciplinary action against him. I was a bishop at the time.”
When asked about the church’s attitude to gay people, he said: “As far as I was led to believe, gay people were allowed in the church but they couldn’t practise it. If they were a member of the church and they were practising it they would probably get ex-communicated. That’s what would happen. If I was a bishop I would be asked to conduct a hearing.”
The young man who was confronted is now openly gay and claimed LDS is “completely against homosexuality and opposes equal marriage”.
He claimed: “They have what’s called a ‘proclamation on the family’ and, as the highest lay officer of the church in Scotland, Stephen Kerr was obviously aware of that.”
The proclamation states that marriage between a man and a woman is “essential to His [God’s] eternal plan” and children are “entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother.”
Kerr regularly posts scripture, quotes and images of Jesus on his Facebook page. One post was an endorsement of a quote by Mormon elder D Todd Christofferson, which said: “We cannot afford young adult men who are going nowhere in life, who are not serious about forming families and making a real contribution in this world.”
ANOTHER gay man who also asked to remain anonymous to protect his family who are still members of LDS, claimed: “I was outed by a church leader when Stephen Kerr was a Stake President in Edinburgh. I was able to tell my family first and they suggested I should resign because they didn’t want the family name dragged through the mud. They knew what the church can do to people. Your reputation gets trashed.”
He added: “The church has a hatred for gays. We’re a threat to the family, to masculinity, to the system. The church thinks gay marriage is counterfeit marriage. There are many cases like mine.”
In the April edition of Ensign, the monthly magazine for members of the church across the world, Mormon elder Larry R Lawrence said: “Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, but same-sex marriage is only a counterfeit. It brings neither posterity nor exaltation. Although his imitations deceive many people, they are not the real thing. They cannot bring lasting happiness.”
Stephen Kerr confirmed he served as an Area Seventy and a Stake President before becoming an MP, but insisted the church did not out gay people and sought to play down his role in the church.
“My involvement with the church never put me in direct responsibility for anybody outside of Edinburgh diocese so I would not be involved in anything
Same-sex marriage is only counterfeit. It is not the real thing and cannot bring lasting happiness
like that,” he said. “That’s not the way we conduct ourselves either.”
When asked if he is aware that gay men were being outed, he said: “No, the church’s teaching on homosexuality you can read for yourself online. There’s no secret about what the church’s teachings are.”
When asked if he is against equal marriage, he said: “No, I am not. As a Member of Parliament, as a Scottish Conservative, I believe in equal rights for all people. People should feel free to be who they are and that is exactly the point of view I take in regards to my responsibilities as a Member of Parliament.”
When asked if gay people who are Mormon should be celibate, he said: “In our society people who are gay should be free to be gay. It’s not my job as a member of parliament to project one thing or another, in terms of my religious faith or anything else, on other people.”
When asked if there’s a conflict between being a member of LDS and a member of parliament, he said: “None whatsoever. No conflict. I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but my role as a member of parliament is not to project or to inflect my religious views, my faith, on anybody.
“My job is to protect all people, to see that they have the freedom and protection under the law that they need to be and to do what they believe and to be who they are – whether that’s in relation to faith, or sexual orientation or anything else.”
SNP MEP Alyn Smith described revelations that gay men were outed by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as “appalling”.
He said: “When I came out I was fortunate in that I had a great reaction from family, friends and colleagues so I feel for anyone who had to go through something like that. The day after the beautiful Pride Edinburgh march celebrating love, diversity and tolerance it is worth remembering that not all organisations in society have the same view.”
Smith also underlined the responsibility parliamentarians have to “protect and promote” equalities, adding: “This goes beyond party politics. All elected members in all parties have a duty to not just protect equalities but to promote them, as well as free speech and freedom of religion, and with honesty and respect we can all get along. But let’s not forget that the hard-won legal rights to equality would be rolled back by some, and be ever vigilant to their motives.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: “Stephen rejects the allegation that he was in any way involved in the incidents referred to here.”
A spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said the church would not comment on “these confidential and personal matters”.