People react to Mormon church LGBT policy

Roughly 1,500 Mormons are resigning from the Mormon Church of Latter-day Saints to protest a new policy that labels same-sex couples “apostate” as well as banning children of same-sex relationships from being baptized in the church. He also said the policy reflects a desire to protect children.

The church this year said it would support laws protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in housing and employment.

The Mormon church leadership recently announced a change to LDS policy on same-sex-marriage.

“We don’t want to see anyone leave the church”, the LDS said.

“A call for mass resignations started about a week ago, when the LDS church released new guidelines for lay leaders known as Handbook1”.

The leaders said the policy applies only to children whose “primary residence” is with a couple living in a same-gender marriage. “We hope that church leaders will reconsider this hurtful and deplorable policy”.

“To ask someone to turn their back on their own child or for a child to turn their back on a parent, that’s unnecessary”.

“The church’s decision about families was the final straw for me”, said Connie Walker, who carried a bright pink sign that read “I’m Resigning Today Because Jesus Says Love Everyone”. He noted the church has always been on record as opposing same-sex marriages.

Though the church didn’t specifically address joint custody like Kitchen has with his ex-wife, he thinks the clarification gives his local church leader discretion to avoid implementing the rules against his children.

Leah: “I’ve been inactive probably since when Prop 8 came out, is about when I started questioning my faith”.

When a child living with such a same-gender couple has already been baptized and is actively participating in the Church, provisions of Section 16.13 do not require that his or her membership activities or priesthood privileges be curtailed or that further ordinances be withheld.

Long lines of Mormons handed in letters of resignation letters an attorney.

The letters were then individually mailed by placing them in a post office box located across the street from church headquarters. “The church exists to build people and help them heal, and there isn’t one of us who doesn’t need help at a few point in our lives”.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spokesman Eric Hawkins didn’t immediately have any comment on the speculation. “It is a well-thought-out one and it is not taken lightly”, Brooke Swallow, one of the organizers of the protest, told the Reuters news agency.