Mormon Church Rolls Back Controversial Anti-LGBTQ Rules

The Mormon church has made a dramatic reversal of its previous policy excluding LGBTQ families from the church.

In 2015, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put forth a policy essentially banning people in same-sex marriages from the church, and preventing children with same-sex parents from being baptized until they turned 18.

The decisions caused a lot of controversy at the time, and a number of members of the church formally resigned in protest.

The church announced on Thursday that both of these decisions had been reversed.

While the Mormon church is saying the decision was made so as “to reduce the hate and contention so common today,” they haven’t exactly backed down on their general stance about the LGBTQ community.

Being in a same-sex marriage or relationship is still considered a “serious transgression” and is punishable — it’s just that now that discipline will be decided by individual area bishops rather than automatic ex-communication.

Still, it’s a step in the right direction. Or, back in the direction they came from just a few years ago.

The decision comes not long after a bill to ban conversion therapy, which was notably not condemned by the Mormon church, failed in Utah. The attempted ban was partly in response to Utah having the fifth highest suicide rate among minors in the U.S. — a rate that has skyrocketed in the past two decades, and that some attribute in part to the LDS rejection of its LGBTQ members.

“This statement by the LDS Church to change course is a move in the right direction that will make a real difference in the lives of LGBTQ Mormons,” said The Trevor Project’s Sam Brinton.

“We hear from LGBTQ young people in crisis every day who struggle to reconcile being part of both the LGBTQ and faith communities, and decisions to end policies of exclusion can help LGBTQ youth feel seen, loved, and less alone.”