Same-Sex Attraction and Marriage

What the Church actually teaches — the distinction most people get wrong, and the doctrine that does not change.

Attraction Is Not a Sin

Start with the point critics most often misstate. Experiencing same-sex attraction is not a sin. It does not disqualify a person from Church membership, from callings, or from the temple. A member who feels this attraction and keeps the commandments stands in full fellowship, exactly like any other member who lives the law of chastity.

The Church does not teach that people choose these feelings, and it does not take a position on their cause. What a person feels is not the measure. What a person does with what they feel is where moral agency operates — and that is true for every man and woman alive, whatever their attractions.

One Standard for Everyone

The law of chastity is the same for all members: no sexual relations except between a man and a woman lawfully married to each other. That single standard governs everyone. A heterosexual member is held to it before marriage and outside marriage; a member who experiences same-sex attraction is held to the same line, not a stricter one. The Church has not created a special rule for anyone. It has one rule and applies it evenly.

Marriage as God defines it is the union of a man and a woman. This is not a recent policy or a cultural preference; it is the pattern given at the creation and affirmed by the Savior Himself.

Matthew 19:4–6

“Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, … and they twain shall be one flesh? … What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Christ grounded marriage in the male-and-female design of the creation and called it the joining of “one flesh.” The restored Church teaches the same, and adds what the Bible implies: marriage is meant to continue beyond death, sealed by priesthood authority. A same-sex union cannot carry that eternal purpose because it cannot fulfill the pattern on which it depends.

Why the Doctrine Cannot Move

The reason the Church cannot redefine marriage is doctrinal, not political. The purpose of mortal life, the family, and exaltation all rest on the union of man and woman. The Proclamation on the Family states that gender is an essential part of eternal identity and that the commandment to multiply remains in force. Marriage between a man and a woman is not a rule the Church happens to hold; it is the structure the plan of salvation is built on.

A church that claimed continuing revelation could, in theory, change a policy. It cannot change a doctrine that God has revealed as eternal without ceasing to be His church. This is why the position holds under enormous social pressure: it was never the Church's to change.

Love Is Not Optional

Holding the standard does not license unkindness. Every person is a child of God, and the commandment to love our neighbor has no exception clause. Members are directed to treat those who experience same-sex attraction — and their families — with sensitivity, kindness, and Christlike love, and to make the Church a place where they belong.

Truth and love are not in competition here. The same Savior who defined marriage also washed the feet of His disciples. Standing for the doctrine and loving the person are both commandments, and neither cancels the other.

Key References

The Promise Is Not Diminished

A member who experiences same-sex attraction and keeps the covenants is asked to carry a real and heavy burden. The Church does not pretend otherwise. But it also does not teach that such a person is denied any eternal blessing. God has promised that every faithful child will receive, in His time and by His means, every blessing withheld in mortality through no fault of their own.

No righteous desire goes unanswered forever, and no sacrifice made for the sake of the covenant is wasted. The gospel asks the same faithfulness of everyone and promises the same reward to all who endure in it.