Gays ‘outed’ when new Scottish Tory MP was key figure in Mormon church

YOUNG gay m en wh o were o uted by l eading figures in the M ormon Church in Sco tland have a ttacked th e re ligion as a “cult” which is openly h ostile to LG BT 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 wasa Stake President( ahead 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 am an 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 inLDS 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 doa deal with the DUP –which is against equal marriage– Davidson sought assurances that any alliance would mean“absolutely no rescission of LGBTI rights in there st of the UK”. Davidson, who is gay, said: “I was fairly straightforward with her and It old her that there were a number of things that count to me more than par- 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 am an anda woman is “essential to His[ God’ s] eternal plan” and children are “entitled to birth within th e 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 now herein life, who are not serious about forming families and making a