Timeline of LGBT Mormon history

1805

• December – Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was born.^[4]:9

1820

• Spring – Smith later reported that beginning at this time he received a vision of deities and later visitations from an angel.^[4]:xiii

1830

• March – The Book of Mormon was first published.^[4]:xiii
• April – The early church was officially organized as the Church of Christ.^[4]:xiii

1842

• May – The first known instance of church discipline related to same-sex sexual activity was an excommunication for the alleged bisexual behavior of 37-year-old church leader John Bennett,^{[1]:266–267} who was accused of "buggery" by Joseph Smith's brother William in The Wasp newspaper.^[5][6] Historian Samuel Taylor also alleged that Joseph Smith caught Bennett having sex with 21-year-old Francis Higbee^[7]:168 though these interpretations of the accounts and the homosexual allegations against Bennett have been challenged.^{[7]:165–171}
• July – The Wasp newspaper also reported that the apostle Orson Pratt implicitly accused Joseph Smith of engaging in same-sex sexual activity.^[8]

1851

Brigham Young oversaw the creation of the new Utah Territory law banning sex between men. This portrait is from 1853.

• 1851 – The church-controlled legislature of the newly formed Utah territory passed the first law addressing same-sex sexual behavior banning any "man or boy" from "sexual intercourse with any of the male creation" with penalties left to the courts' discretion.^[9]:1200 Brigham Young acted as both Utah governor and church president in the theocratic government and oversaw the selection of the legislators.^[10]

1853

• April – The apostle Parley Pratt taught that God destroyed Sodom due to its "lawless abominations" and for predisposing its children "to be fully given to strange and unnatural lusts, appetites, and passions".^{[11][1]:296,412} This contrasted with church founder Joseph Smith's teaching a decade earlier that it had been destroyed for rejecting the prophets (rather than citing the traditional sexual interpretation).^{[1]:296,409[12]}

1856

• The first known reference to lesbians in Mormon history occurred in 1856, when a Salt Lake man noted in his diary that a Mormon woman was "trying to seduce a young girl."^[13]

1855

• April – The church's newspaper printed an article in which mission president Nathanial Vary Jones of the East India Mission in Calcutta, India^[14] falsely states that around the year 1700 the people of Burma (Myanmar) were about to become extinct because the men were practicing "the crime of Sodomy" instead of procreating with the women until the king and queen decreed that the women should wear clothing that exposed more skin in hopes of "reclaiming their men" which prevented their people's extinction.^[15]

1858

• April – Travelling bishop and later church historian Milton Musser wrote that Salt Lake City member Almerin Grow had demonstrated odd behavior and was wearing his wife's clothing in one of the first reported instances of gender non-conforming dress in the Mormon community. Church president Young subsequently sent him south to "never return," so Grow appointed Musser as guardian of his daughter.^[16][17]

1862

• April – Church president Brigham Young stated that "men will be sealed to men back to Adam" in reference to same-sex sealings in which men were sealed to other unrelated men in the Law of Adoption practiced in early Mormonism.^{[1]:414[18][19]}

1876

• February – Seventeen-year-old, George Naylor was sent on a mission to Arizona to separate him from his 28-year-old non-Mormon lover Frank Wells by church leaders citing their "scandal and improper connexion [sic]".^[9]:1200 There were no recorded excommunications for homosexual conduct under Brigham Young's time as church president (i.e. 1845–1877).^[1]:274

1879

• November – Twenty-six-year-old Arthur Bruce Taylor (1853–1924?),^[20] the son of then current church president John Taylor, had a long discussion with second counselor Joseph F. Smith who wrote in his journal that Bruce was "acane!". Smith had served a church mission in Hawaii where he became acquaintance with the Aikane custom where young males were socially acceptable sexual companions of older male leaders. Soon after this meeting Bruce left the Mormon church and moved to Oregon where he never married.^{[1]:40–41,232}

1882

• September – After hearing of a group of teenage males engaging in same-sex sexual activity First Presidency member Joseph F. Smith told the Richfield, Utah stake presidency to "get the names of all of them & cut them off the church" and described their behavior as a monstrous, obscene, filthy iniquity for which Sodom and Gomorrah was burned. This was the first known excommunication of teenagers for same-sex sexual activity.^[1]:276,299

1885

Brigham Young's son performing as Madam Pattirini

• 1885 – Brigham Morris Young, a founder of the church Young Men's program and a son of church president Young, began performing in drag as a Vaudeville female impersonator Madam Pattirini. He sang opera in falsetto throughout Utah into the early 1900s, and his gender-non-conforming act was well-received at church social events.^[21][1]:232 While historical evidence does not point to Young being a sexual or gender minority, it has been speculated by historian Michael Quinn that Mormon Tabernacle Choir director Evan Stephens (who also performed in drag during the late 1800s)^[22] was physically attracted to other males.^{[1]:235–237[23]}

1886

• 1886 – The Salt Lake City Bohemian Club was founded,^[1]:69–70 becoming a safe haven by 1905 for homosexual persons, including many current and former Mormons.^[1]:69,71 By 1908 the club's discussions and associations became more overtly homosexual^[1]:73 with lesbian club member Mildred Berryman (who was Mormon for a time)^{[1]:69,226–228} beginning her thesis The Psychological Phenomena of the Homosexual^[1]:223 in 1928^[1]:228 on 23 lesbian women and 9 gay men, many of whom she met through the club.^{[24]:20[1]:69,73} Berryman reported being acquainted with one hundred homosexual persons in Salt Lake.^[1]:222 The Bohemian Club continued until 1942.^[1]:73

1889

Church leaders May Anderson and Louie Felt in 1919

• 1889 – May Anderson moves in with Louie B. Felt, the first general president of the Primary organization. After the death of Felt's husband in 1907, the two continued to live together, sleeping in the same bedroom, for 40 years until Felt's death. Some historians, including D. Michael Quinn, have postulated that Anderson and Felt could have been in a same-sex relationship, citing the seemingly erotic connotations of their biographies;^[1] however, other historians have disputed this claim, arguing for an assumption that their relationship was strictly platonic.^[7]

1892

Maude Adams, who was raised in a Utah Mormon home, was a famous actress who had several romantic relationships with women.^[25]

• 1892? – In the early 1890s, sometime around the age of 20, famed actress Maude Adams would enter her first long-term, same-sex relationship, staying together with Lillie Florence until Florence died in 1901.^[25] She was born in Salt Lake City to a Mormon mother and spent some of her early years from age 9 to 13 being raised in Salt Lake City by her Mormon grandmother and cousins.^{[26]:135–136} Although it is unknown whether Adams had ever identified as Mormon like her mother, she was never baptized Presbyterian despite attending one of their school and never joined Catholicism despite some stays at nunneries. She had additionally referred to her non-Mormon father as a "gentile", and invited the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to her 39th birthday performance.^[26]:139

1897

Looking north on Regent Street (formerly Commercial St) towards Temple Square. The street had many of Salt Lake's brothels (including for gay men), and some brothels paid rent to the LDS church until 1941.^[1]:424,433

• January – The apostle Brigham Young Jr. resigned his position over the Brigham Young Trust Co. in protest of the board's decision to rent church-owned buildings on Commercial Street (now called Regent St.) to brothels. Some raids of prostitution houses there arrested male prostitutes for other men.^[1]:424 The red-light district (and Chinatown) of Salt Lake centered around Regent Street and Plum Alley.^[24]:19 Church property continued to be rented to brothels (which sometimes had male prostitutes) for fifty years until 1941.^[1]:433
• February – Four male prostitutes were arrested in Eureka, Utah at the state's only all-male brothel. Those arrested included a 15-year-old Mormon.^[1]:424
• October – During the October General Conference, First Presidency member George Cannon used the media attention on the 1895 conviction and two-year imprisonment of famed Irish poet Oscar Wilde as an opportunity to condemn homosexual behavior as an "abominable", "filthy", "nameless crime" that "caused the utter destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah". He continued stating that the only way to stop these "dreadful practices" was "by the destruction of those who practice them" and "for the Lord to wipe them out" noting that "if a little nest of them were left ... they would soon corrupt others".^[27][28]

1902

• March – Fourteen-year-old Clyde Felt of a prominent Mormon family cut the throat of Samuel Collins, allegedly as an assisted suicide for blood atonement.^[29] Sixty-two-year-old Collins had exhibited hebephilic or ephebophilic pederasty, giving gifts to Felt and two other teenage males with whom he had sex. Felt was cleared of the killing and later married in an LDS temple.^{[30][31][32]:804}

1903

• January – Kate Thomas who never married published a poem with homosexual themes of taking joy from a feminine kiss and using the word 'gay' in the Young Woman's Journal while living in New York City's Greenwich Village where gay was used as slang for homosexual.^{[1]:426[33][34]:128–131}

1908

• July – Ogden bishopric member and school superintendent Heber H. Thomas receives publicity for his involvement in beating seven teenage male students for having group sex on a campout. He later resigned as superintendent as a result of a legal investigation.^{[1]:327,427[35]}

1912

• May – Actress Ada Dwyer Russell of Mormon upbringing entered a lesbian relationship with poet Amy Lowell.^[1]:427 The next year it was reported to the First Presidency that her father James Dwyer, the cofounder of what is now the LDS Business College, had been teaching young men that same-sex sexual activity was not a sin. Upon learning this the First Presidency had Dwyer withdraw his name from membership.^[1]:428

1923

• 1923 – Cornelia (Cora) Kasius, a lesbian woman, began working as secretary to the Relief Society general president. She had been a staff member at their headquarters since 1920 and published an articles in the Relief Society Magazine in 1925.^[37][38] She was one of the subjects in Berryman's research on Salt Lake City lesbian and gay people, and later moved to the gay hot spot Greenwich Village in New York City.^{[34]:131[1]:385,431–432}

1926

• November – Mormon-raised^[39][40] young lovers Ruth Drake (19) and Sarah Lundstedt (22) drank cyanide poison together in North Salt Lake City after being pressured by family to end their four-year relationship and move away from each other. Their tragic love story, complete with love letters,^[41] made national news.^[42][43]

1936

• Summer – After graduating from Utah State University, LDS-raised lesbian May Swenson (born 1913, age 22) moved from Logan, Utah to the gay hotspot Greenwich Village in New York City to pursue her dreams of writing.^[44][45] She would go on to become an influential poet.^[46][47] Swenson lived with her partner for 25 years and after decades of writing passed away in 1989 at the age of 76.^[48]

1938

Grave marker for the resting place of Berryman

• November – Mildred Berryman (born 1901) ends working on her groundbreaking^[49] thesis The Psychological Phenomena of the Homosexual^[1]:223,433 on 23 lesbian women and 9 gay men, whom she met through the Salt Lake City Bohemian Club.^{[24]:20[1]:73} She was a lesbian woman who joined the LDS church at the age of 19,^[50] received a patriarchal blessing at the age of 21,^{[1]:226–228} and later entered a relationship with a Mormon woman for over three decades.^[51] Her study spanned well over a decade, but was only published posthumously by her choice.^[24]:20

1945

• 1945 – The apostle Reuben Clark asked church employee Gordon Burt Affleck to organize a surveillance for possible homosexual activity in the steam room of the Church's (now-demolished) Deseret Gymnasium at Temple Square.^{[32]:307,566[52]:191,488} The Church Office Building now occupies the space where the gym was located.^[24]:22

1946

Patriarch Smith was released amidst accusations of homosexual affairs.

• October – Presiding patriarch Joseph Fielding Smith is released on October 6 after serving only four years amid accusations of multiple homosexual affairs, including with University of Utah student Norval Service,^[53] a man named Wallace A. G., and later with 21-year-old U.S. Navy sailor^[54] Byram Dow Browning^[55] who was also a Latter-day Saint.^{[1]:369–371[56][57][58]}

1947

• January – It appears church leaders were aware of several instances of homosexual behavior by members in Utah since apostle Charles Callis had been assigned to these cases before he died in 1947.^[59][60]:271 After Callis' passing the apostle Spencer Kimball was appointed to preside over homosexual cases.^[60]:271[61]

1948

• 1948 – Radio City Lounge bar opened becoming a major gathering point for Salt Lake LGBTQ community despite occasional raids from local police. Patrons included many gay Mormon men married to women like Bob Sorensen who met his husband there in 1966 after divorcing his wife. The bar closed in 2009, and was considered the oldest gay bar West of the Mississippi.^[62]
• April – Gay BYU students Kent Goodridge Taylor and Richard Snow^[63] who were in love went to visit with church president George Smith who told them to "live their lives as best they could" in their companionship. Smith wrote the words "Homo Sexual" in his appointment book.^[1]:434 Earl Kofoed who went from BYU from 1946 to 1948 similarly reported a "live and let live" attitude of leaders towards LGBT Mormons, and described a thriving gay community of friends at BYU. He stated that there were no witch hunts, excommunications, or pressure to change ones sexual orientation at BYU like there would be in later decades.^[63]

1952

In the 1950s Apostle J. Reuben Clark gave several of the first public speeches by a high-ranking LDS leader to use the term "homosexual."

• October – An increase in US public discourse around homosexuality in the McCarthyist Lavender scare era contributed to the first explicit mention of the term homosexual in general conference. Apostle Clark lamented that homosexuality is found among men and women, and that homosexual people exercise great influence in shaping culture.^[64][34]:146 After this LDS leaders started regularly addressing queer topics in public especially towards the end of the decade.^{[1]:375,377[2]:v,3}

1954

• July – Apostle Harold Lee explained that several scriptures in the Old and New Testament described homosexuality as the most abhorred sin in God's sight which justified the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.^[65]:230[66]
• October – Apostle Clark again addressed homosexuality in conference when in the October priesthood session he mentions that those guilty of "the filthy crime of homosexuality" are not a part of the "Army of the Lord to fight evil".^[67][68][69]

1955

• October – A Boise, Idaho gay witch hunt was launched to hunt down gay men among moral panic over several local arrests of males for same-sex sexual activity. This resulted in nearly 1,500 people questioned, producing hundreds of names of suspected homosexuals^[70] including several Mormons.^[1]:436 Author John Gerassi cites an oppressive environment engendered by the predominantly LDS population in his seminal 1966 work Boys of Boise as a contributing factor for the illegal sexual activity and subsequent witch hunts.^[71][72] The documentary The Fall of '55 was made about the events in 2006.

1957

• April – Apostle Clark cited Old Testament punishments for sexual sins to highlight that "sex transgression is tragically serious" in the April General Conference. He stated "for homosexuality, it was death to the male and the prescription or penalty for the female I do not know."^[73]

1958

This highly influential publication was the first publicly available book by a general authority to explicitly outline church stances on homosexuality.

• 1958 – General authority Bruce McConkie published Mormon Doctrine, in which he states that homosexuality is "among Lucifer's chief means of leading souls to hell". In the section on "Chastity" he states that it is better to be "dead clean, than alive unclean" and that many Mormon parents would rather their child "come back in a pine box with [their] virtue than return alive without it".^[74][1]:375

1959

• 1959 – The apostle Mark Petersen was appointed to work with Kimball over instances of homosexuality.^{[60]:381[32]:307[34]:147}
• 1959 – Church leaders begin their electroshock aversion therapy program on BYU campus in an attempt to change the sexual orientation of gay teens and men.^[1]:379 The program lasted over two decades until at least 1983.^[75]:65
• 1959 – The fictional book Advise and Consent is released featuring the story of a married Mormon US senator named Brigham Anderson from Utah who has an affair with another man. It won a Pulitzer Prize and was later made into a film in 1962.^[76][77][78] The novel's plot takes place during the ongoing 1950s McCarthyist Lavender Scare era when thousands of lesbian and gay applicants were barred from federal employment as national security threats under President Eisenhower's Executive Order 10450, and over 5,000 federal employees were fired under suspicions of being homosexual.^[79][80]

1960

• September – Utah native and LDS-raised R. Joel Dorius (born 1919) would became an unwitting champion of gay liberation after he was arrested in Massachusetts along with two coworkers and fired from his language and visual arts Smith College professorship. His house was raided and beefcake fitness magazines with erotic images of men were found in what is now considered a McCarthyist gay witch hunt.^[81][82][83] Along with a coworker, Dorius appealed the verdict of pornography possession to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and all three professors were exonerated as the raid warrants were deemed unconstitutional. The scandal has been dramatized in The Scarlet Professor and the PBS documentary The Great Pink Scare.^[84][85][86]

1962

• February – Apostle Lee gave a lengthy anecdote about a woman in love with another woman stating that the ugly practice and unpardonable sin of homosexuality is more common than we realize. He had her promise to never return to homosexuality and pray to become what he termed a normal, natural woman.^{[65]:230–232[2]:92[87]}

Under BYU president Wilkinson no students were allowed to attend BYU who were known to be attracted to people of the same sex.^[1]:379 Additionally, student spying^{[88]:207–217} and bishops reporting confidential confessions to the Honor Code Office were encouraged.^[34]:154

• September – Under president Ernest Wilkinson a complete ban of any students attracted to people of the same sex regardless of behavior was instituted at BYU per the directives of apostles Kimball and Petersen.^{[1]:379[34]:154} The ban lasted until April 1973.^[89][34]:155 Wilkinson received permission in 1967 to request that BYU bishops report any student whom they suspected was breaking rules or who had confessed to violating BYU conduct codes. This resulted in 72 students suspected of homosexual activity reported to the Standards Office (now called the Honor Code Office) within the first year of the new policy, and many expulsions and suspensions. Security files were kept on suspected gay students and student spying was encouraged.^{[34]:154[88]:207–217}

1964

• July – Apostle Kimball addressed seminary and institute faculty on BYU campus calling homosexuality a "malady", "disease", and an "abominable and detestable crime against nature" that was "curable" by "self mastery".^[90] He cited one lay bishop (a businessman by trade) assigned by the church to administer a "program of rehabilitation" through which there had been "numerous cures". He said "the police, the courts, and the judges" had referred "many cases directly" to the church.^[91][2]:91

1965

Spencer Kimball was assigned as a church specialist on homosexuality in 1947^[60]:381 and shaped church teachings on the subject through numerous speeches and publications in the '60s and '70s.

• January – Kimball again addressed homosexuality in his January 5 BYU speech "Love vs. Lust". He called it a "gross", "heinous", "obnoxious", "abominable" "vicious" sin. The text states that those with homosexual "desires and tendencies" could "correct" and "overcome" it "the same as if he had the urge toward petting or fornication or adultery", but that "the cure ... is like the cure for alcoholism, subject to continued vigilance". In the speech he stated BYU "will never knowingly enroll ... nor tolerate ... anyone with these tendencies who fails to repent", and that it is a "damnable heresy" for a homosexual person to say "God made them that way". He also states that sometimes masturbation is an introduction to homosexuality.^[92][34]:149
• November – Ernest Wilkinson, the president of BYU and Commissioner of Church Education, gave his "Make Honor Your Standard" address on September 23 to the BYU student body, stating, "nor do we intend to admit to this campus any homosexuals. ... [I]f any of you have this tendency, ... may I suggest you leave the University immediately .... We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence."^[93] The speech was later published in the church-owned Deseret News.^[94][34]:154

1966

• October – Milton Hunter lamented that "attitudes toward homosexuality have been liberalized in England" and that many US leaders were "clamoring for a liberal attitude in our land" in his General Conference address "Seeking Peace and Happiness".^[95][96]
• October – Patriarch of the church Eldred Smith cites "a campaign ... launched to bring acceptance to homosexuality" as one example of "corruption" and "conditions at home" manifesting the "cycle of ... unrighteousness and wickedness" that lead to "wars and destruction" like the current "war in Viet Nam" in his General Conference talk "Repent and Turn to God".^[97][98]

1968

The 1968 leader handbook was the first release to explicitly mention homosexuality.

• 1968 – A version of the Church Handbook was released containing the first explicit mention of homosexuality. It specifies that "homo-sexual acts" require a church court.^[99]

1969

• 1969 – The United Order Family of Christ, a young gay male Mormon commune was founded which practiced a uniquely Mormon form of communalism called the United Order.^{[1]:380[100][101]}

Kimball's influential book taught that homosexuality was curable and was officially recommended as a resource for homosexual members into the 90s.^[102]:2

• 1969 – Kimball released his book The Miracle of Forgiveness, in which he teaches that masturbation can lead to acts of homosexuality. His book was quoted in a 1979 church manual: "the glorious thing to remember is that [homosexuality] is curable .... Certainly it can be overcome .... How can you say the door cannot be opened until your knuckles are bloody, till your head is bruised, till your muscles are sore?"^[103] Kimball viewed many homosexuals as "basically good people who have become trapped in sin" and that "some totally conquer homosexuality in a few months." However, he also says that homosexual behavior can lead to sex with animals.^[104]
• April – Apostle Harold Lee stated that homosexuality is a prostitution of love and the ugliest relationship that we know.^{[65]:230[105]}
• April – Mark Petersen cites how homosexuality "was made a capital crime in the Bible" as evidence of the seriousness of sexual sin in a general conference address. He states "immorality is next to murder" and "the wage of sin is death" and that a rejection of morality "may bring about [this nation's] fall" as with "Greece and Rome" unless there was repentance.^[106][107]

1970

The apostle Mark Petersen was one of the church's primary voices on the topic of homosexuality in the 70s and 80s along with Spencer Kimball and Boyd Packer.^[108]:5

• 1970 – The church produced Hope for Transgressors,^[109] in which apostles Kimball and Mark Petersen offer ideas to leaders about how to effect a "total cure" and "bring the lives of [men with homosexual tendencies] into total normalcy" and "help these people recover" (lesbians are only mentioned once). Ideas include prayer, cutting off contact with homosexual friends, dating women and marriage,^[90] and scripture reading. He calls homosexuality a "despicable", "degraded", "dread practice", and a "perversion" that would "doom the world" while labeling the person a "generally lonely and sensitive" "deviate" and "afflicted one". The guide notes that Kimball and Mark Petersen were designated as the church specialists on homosexuality, and that homosexuality is not "totally" the fault of "family conditions" and concludes it "CAN be cured if the battle is well organized and pursued vigorously and continuously" (emphasis in the original).^[110]
• March – The First Presidency under Joseph Fielding Smith sent a letter to stake presidents on March 19 which expressed concern over "the apparent increase in homosexuality and other deviations" and mentioned the 1959 assignment of apostles Kimball and Mark Petersen to help homosexuals.^{[34]:147[60][90]} It was indicated that Kimball and Petersen would "send material and give counsel" as church specialists over "a program designed ... to counsel and direct [homosexuals] back to normalcy and happiness". A follow-up letter to leaders on December 23 asked them to "ask direct questions" about homosexuality when conducting pre-mission interviews.^[1]:380
• April – Victor Brown of the Presiding Bishopric gave an April 1970 General Conference address titled "Wanted: Parents with Courage" in which he states that a "normal" and "healthy" 12- or 13-year-old boy or girl could "develop into a homosexual" if "exposed to pornographic literature" and "abnormalities". He explains that exposure to the material would "crystallize and settle their habits for the rest of their lives", while calling recent media reporting on a same-sex marriage "filth on our newsstands".^[111][112]
• April – An anonymous Salt Lake, Mormon-raised lesbian woman states in the University of Utah newspaper that she had never seen such terror and hysteria as when her mother had confronted her one time over suspicions that her daughter was gay.^[113]
• August – Church President Harold Lee taught that the "so-called 'transsexuality' doctrine" was hellish and false since God didn't place female spirits in male bodies and vice versa.^{[65]:232[114]}
• October – Apostle Hunter asks "what will be the result of universal free love, abortions at will, homosexuality?" in reference to his fears about the future of family, the economy, community, and the "deterioration of morality" in his October 1970 General Conference address "Where, Then, Is Hope?".^[115]

Booklet revisions of Kimball's influential '70s discourse on homosexuality (from the top: '70, '71, '78).^[34]:147

1971

• 1971 – The church published a 34-page letter from Kimball to homosexual men titled New Horizons for Homosexuals. In it Kimball calls homosexuality "a ruinous practice of perversion" that the church "will never condone" that begins with "curiosity" and "an unholy practice" like "an octopus with numerous tentacles to drag [the person] down to [their] tragedy". He states that saying "perverts are ... born 'that way'" is a "base lie" since homosexuality is "curable" and "can be overcome" and "recover[ed]" from. The letter asserts "God made no man a pervert" or "evil" and that "[t]o blame a weakness ... upon God is cowardly." It also calls homosexuality "ugly", "degenerate", "unnatural", "vicious", "base", a "waste of power", a "deep sin", and "an end to the family and ... civilization". The publication advises for the homosexual to recover they must "shun" anyone "associated with the transgression" and pray and read the scriptures.^[116]
• April – In the April 1971 general conference presiding bishopric counselor Victor Brown stated that God created masculine and feminine traits, and if gendered appearance and behavioral traits are ignored, it can lead to the "reprehensible, tragic sin of homosexuality".^[117]
• April – In another conference address apostle Kimball called the decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual activity a damnable heresy, and the voices speaking in favor of churches accepting homosexuals as ugly and loud.^[118][108]:5
• December – In the December Ensign Assistant to the Twelve Bernard Brockbank stated that "homosexual acts are inspired by the devil and are grievous sins in the sight of God".^[119]

1972

• April – Idaho laws which barred same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults were reinstated on the 1st under heavy pressure from the LDS church after being repealed since January 1. Mormon state senator Wayne Loveless who spearheaded the effort stated that the previous law would "encourage immorality and draw sexual deviates to the state."^[120] The reinstated law restored the old wording that "every person who is guilty of the infamous crime against nature committed with mankind ... is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than five years."^{[121][122][123]}

1973

A 1973 church publication which taught that a passive father and domineering mother can cause homosexuality and that conforming to gender norms will change it.

• 1973 – The church published a guide for bishops and stake presidents titled "Homosexuality: Welfare Services Packet 1", which posited that "homosexual behavior" begins by being "molested" while also stating "not all who are molested become homosexual". It also suggested that homosexuality is caused by "a domineering mother and a passive father" and that "misunderstandings of sexuality among LDS people can contribute to homosexuality." As far as changing the sexual orientation of the person, the packet says that the lesbian "needs to learn feminine behavior", and the gay man "must be introduced to and learn the heterosexual or 'straight' way of life ... and what a manly priesthood leader and father does".^[124] The guide was written by BYU psychology professor Allen Bergin and LDS Social Services Personal Welfare director Victor L. Brown Jr. (the son of Presiding Bishop Victor Brown).^{[124][125][126]:11,14–15}
• February – An update to church policies was published as a "Statement on Homosexuality" in the Correlation Department's Priesthood Bulletin saying "homosexuality in men and women run counter ... to divine objectives."^[127][1]:382

Mormon psychologist Allen Bergin's publications were influential in shaping Mormon thought on homosexuality.

• July – The July Ensign contained an article by BYU psychology professor Allen Bergin on agency. The article portrays some homosexuals as "psychologically disturbed persons" who are "compulsively driven to frequent and sometimes bizarre acts". He cites two clients with "compulsive or uncontrollable homosexuality" caused by intense fear for the opposite sex, a lack of social skills for normal male-female relationships, and seeking security exclusively from the same sex. Bergin discusses the behaviorist sexual orientation change efforts he used to treat these individuals.^[128]
• August – Four months before his death Church President Lee gave an address in which he warned young men to guard against the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah since homosexuality and adultery were both equally grievous sins second only to murder. He also noted the increasing acceptance of homosexuality.^{[65]:232[129]}
• October – Presiding bishop Victor Brown gave a conference address in which he called homosexuality a weapon in the battle for Satan's legions to enslave mankind and destroy the family.^{[130]:299[131]}
• November – A Ensign article stated that the homosexuality in the Canaanite's religions was part of what provoked God to have the Israelites "utterly destroy"^[132] the peoples of the region of Canaan.^[133]

1974

• March – BYU president Oaks delivered a speech on campus in which he spoke in favor of keeping criminal punishment for "deviate sexual behavior" such as private, consensual, same-sex sexual activity. The speech was later printed by the university's press.^{[134][135][136]}
• July – The church's July edition of the Ensign magazine published the article "I Have a Question", in which a Mormon medical doctor states that homosexuals have "chosen this way of life" but "can be helped". Dr. Lindsay M. Curtis continues saying that "homosexuals and lesbians seldom are happy people" and their relationships are "unnatural", full of "emotional problems" and "promiscuity", and lacking in "fidelity, trust, or loyalty". Additionally, they try to recruit "others into their practice ... in their tender, impressionable years".^[137]
• July – On July 10 church president Kimball gave a modified version of his "Love vs. Lust" address previously given in 1965. In this version he states that "homosexuality and other forms of perversion are from the lower world". He also calls the use of the word "love" by homosexual persons as a "prostitution" of the term citing homosexual behavior as taking and exploiting.^[138]
• October – Kimball gave his October "God Will Not be Mocked" speech at general conference as the church's president in which he again stated that masturbation leads to homosexuality. He also said "[e]very form of homosexuality is sin. Pornography is one of the approaches to that transgression."^[139]
• November – First presidency member Eldon Tanner stated in the November Ensign that homosexuality was permitted and practiced to such an extent that the world was "truly following the ways of Sodom and Gomorrah".^[140]

1975

• 1975 – Advocate owner David B. Goodstein hired several gay Utah Mormons onto his San Francisco newspaper staff referring to them as the "Mormon Mafia".^[141] This included bisexual trans man Patrick Califia and gay male Robert Isaac McQueen as editor. McQueen had ceased involvement with the LDS church in 1964 shortly after his mission in Austria and was excommunicated in 1979 after publishing several church-critical articles on the LGBT-LDS intersection. He died from complications due to AIDS on 8 October 1989.^{[142][143][144]}
• January – The church-operated university BYU began a purge in January to expel homosexual students under the direction of president Oaks.^[88]:126 The purge included interrogations of fine arts and drama students and surveillance of Salt Lake City gay bars by BYU security. These activities were noted in the Salt Lake Tribune^[145] and the gay newspaper Advocate.^[1]:442
• April – Utah's first gay newspaper Gayzette was published without a title for the first issue^[1]:442 by the recently opened Gay Community Service Center, Utah's first gay resource center.^[146] It was later renamed, Salt Lick in January 1976. After a year without a Salt Lake City queer paper the Open Door was started in December 1977, and was later run by gay former Mormon Bob Waldrop from 1979^[147] until it shut down in 1981.^{[148][149][34]:159}
• May – The First Presidency sent a letter on May 30 to church leaders about the "unfortunate problem of homosexuality" encouraging them to not label people as homosexual because it makes the seem beyond solving to "conquer the habit".^[1]:442
• June – The Ensign published an article by Presiding bishop Victor Brown which addressed parents stating that the "lack of proper affection in the home can result in unnatural behavior in their children such as homosexuality."^[150]

Sergeant Matlovich, was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for heroic service in the Vietnam War, but was discharged from the military and excommunicated from the LDS church for being gay.

• September – LDS member Sergeant Leonard Matlovich was featured on the September 8 cover of Time magazine with the caption "I Am a Homosexual" for his challenging of the U.S. military ban against gay men and lesbian women.^[151] He was subsequently discharged from the military for openly stating his sexual orientation^[152] and excommunicated from the Church two months after the article was released.^[1]:442[153]
• October – Then apostle Gordon Hinckley told the story in the October general conference of a "tragic" young man involved in "deviant moral activity" leading him to a bleak future without hope and preventing him from ever having a son. Hinckley described asking the homosexual young man about the influence of the media he consumed and of his male friends "in similar circumstances".^[154]

Members of LDS Social Services (renamed 'LDS Family Services' in '95) were tasked with treating homosexual Mormons in 1972^[155]:15 and produced several important publications on homosexuality in '73, '95, and '99.

• October – Robert Blattner of LDS Social Services (which was tasked by the church to treat homosexual members in 1972)^[155]:15 gave an address at the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists (AMCAP) annual conference. Blattner served as a special assistant to the LDS Commissioner of Personal Welfare Victor Brown Jr.^[155]:15 In the address Blattner states that the causes of homosexuality in men are a "disturbed family background" of an "absent father" and "usually" a "controlling mother" and a "lack of relationship with peers", while for women he only says "we don't have much information". He also says homosexual behavior and alcoholism are similar. He is asked what "the church's feelings are about electric shock ... behavior modification" and answered the church had "never made a statement on it" but that "most people coming to us can be helped by it" in reference to aversion therapy research happening at BYU.^[156][157]
• October – LDS psychologist Robert D. Card presented his research on changing sexual attractions on Mormon men and women using shock aversion and hypnosis techniques at the AMCAP conference.^[158] The goal of his treatment was eliminating same-sex sexual behavior and having his clients enter an opposite-sex marriage as was common among the Mormon approach to homosexual individuals before the 80s.^[155]:17 Card was a prominent proponent of aversion therapy and held a patent on the penile plethysmograph for measuring male sexual arousal to determine when to administer vomit-inducing drugs or electric shocks while showing his clients gay pornography.^{[159][157][160]} He had clients referred to him by Utah judges and bishops.^[161][162]

1976

• 1976 – A version of the Church Handbook was released changing the 1968 reading of "homo-sexual acts" being grounds for a church court to "moral transgression" like "homosexuality".^[163][164] This change seemed to make Mormons vulnerable to church punishment for having a homosexual orientation alone even without sexual activity.^[1]:382
• 1976 – A 20-year study is published showing that 10% of BYU men and 2% of BYU women indicated having had a "homosexual experience".^{[1]:442–443} In 1950, 1961, and 1972 BYU Sociology professor Wilford Smith conducted a survey of thousands of Mormon students at several universities including many from the BYU sociology department as part of a larger survey.^[165]:45 He found that "the response of Mormons [at BYU] did not differ significantly from the response of Mormons in state universities".^[166]
• March – BYU music professor Carlyle D. Marsden completed suicide^[167] two days after being outed by an arrest during a series of police sting operations at an Orem rest stop.^{[168][169][170]}
• September – Top church leaders on the BYU Board of Trustees approved then BYU president Dallin Oaks' Institute for Studies in Values and Human Behavior dedicated most heavily on research for evidence supporting church views on homosexuality.^{[157]:73–74} The primary assignment was writing a church-funded book on homosexuality to be published by a non-church source (in order to boost the book's scientific credibility).^[171] BYU psychologist Allen Bergin acted as the director,^[172][173] and book author. Institute member and church Social Services director Victor Brown Jr.^[174] wrote, "Our basic theme is that truth lies with the scriptures and prophets, not with secular data or debate."^[175] Several dissertations were produced by the Values Institute^[89][176] before it closed in 1985.^[177]
• October – President Spencer Kimball stated in conference that homosexuality can begin by viewing "sex- and violence-oriented programs" on network television and that homosexuality (among other sexual behaviors) will "corrode the mind, snuff out self-esteem", and cause unhappiness.^[178]

Packer's conference address published here has been criticized of condoning anti-gay violence.^{[34]:150[165]:38–39}

• October – Apostle Packer gave the sermon "To Young Men Only" in the priesthood session of general conference. The sermon counseled against the "perversion" and "wicked practices" of men "handling one another" and having physical "contact ... in unusual ways". In the sermon, Packer commended a missionary who was upset after he "floored" his assigned male companion in response to unwanted sexual advances, saying "somebody had to do it".^[90] He further asserts that it is a "malicious and destructive lie" that "some are born with an attraction to their own kind". The sermon was published as a pamphlet by the church from 1980 to 2016.^[179][180]
• November – At a backstage press conference Church president Kimball praised Anita Bryant's anti-gay "Save Our Children" crusade which sought to bar the passing of nondiscrimination laws which would protect sexual minorities from being kicked out of their homes, fired from their jobs, and banned from restaurants solely for their sexual orientation. He stated that she was "doing a great service."^[34]:150 He continued stating that "the homosexual program is not a natural, normal way of life" and that church bishops and college-educated church counselors can aid those with "homosexual problems."^[181][182]

1977

• 1977 – Deseret Book published then apostle Ezra Benson's book which stated, "Every form of homosexuality is wrong."^{[183][184]:280}
• April – In the April general conference presiding bishopric member Richard Clarke told a story of a young man who claimed to have "developed into a homosexual" as part of attention-seeking rebellion against his distant father. In the address homosexuality was called a "vitiating disease" and "prison".^[185]
• April – Another mention of homosexuality occurred in the April general conference when church president Spencer Kimball asked "Is this a time to terminate adultery and homosexual and lesbian activities, and return to faith and worthiness?"^[186]
• June – The Relief Society general president sent a telegram to Anita Bryant for her "Save Our Children" campaign which stated, "On behalf of the one million members of the Relief Society ... we commend you, for your courageous and effective efforts in combatting [sic] homosexuality and laws which would legitimize this insidious life style [sic]."^{[34]:150[187][188]}

Affirmation's logo

• June – Under the name Affirmation: Gay Mormons United, the first Affirmation group was organized on 11 June^[189] in Salt Lake City by Stephan Zakharias (formerly Stephen James Matthew Prince) and a group of other Mormon and former-Mormon gays and lesbians at the conference for the Salt Lake Coalition for Human Rights.^{[190][191][192]} Stephan organized the group in response to the suicides of two BYU friends who had undergone shock aversion therapy on the campus.^[193] The original organization struggled to survive until 1978, when Paul Mortensen, inspired by an article on the group in The Advocate formed the Los Angeles chapter, and in 1980 the name was changed to Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons. Through the influence of the Los Angeles chapter, Affirmation groups began appearing in many cities around the US.^[194][195]

Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign visit to Salt Lake City, applauded by LDS church leaders,^[34]:150 sparked the first public protest by Utah's LGBTQ community.^[196]

• September – With an invitation from LDS church leaders, Anita Bryant performed at the Utah State Fair on the 18th.^[197] Her presence prompted the first public demonstration from Utah's queer community,^[198][199] organized by gay, former-Mormon pastor Bob Waldrop,^[200][148] in what gay, former Mormon, and historian Seth Anderson^[201] referred to as "Utah's Stonewall."^[196]
• October – Church president Spencer Kimball gave an October conference address titled "The Foundations of Righteousness" in which he spoke out against the "insidious" and "ugly" sins of homosexuality and lesbianism. He called homosexuality a "sin of the ages" that contributed to the downfall of ancient Greece, Rome, and Sodom and Gomorrah.^[202]

1978

• 1978 – The church reissues Spencer Kimball's New Horizons for Homosexuals as a 30-page pamphlet titled A Letter to a Friend.^[34]

Cover to the pamphlet containing apostle Boyd Packer's 1978 BYU speech on homosexuality.

• March – Packer delivered a sermon at BYU on March 5 entitled "To the One", which went on to be published by the church as a pamphlet.^[203] Packer characterizes homosexual activity as a perversion and presents the possibility that it had its roots in selfishness and stated that gay feelings could be "cured" with "unselfish thoughts, with unselfish acts".^[203]:6 He states that the church had not previously talked more about homosexuality because "some matters are best handled very privately"^[203]:3 and "we can very foolishly cause things we are trying to prevent by talking too much about them".^[203]:19
• April – Church president Spencer Kimball stated in the April conference that without the restraints of family life and real religion there would be an "avalanche of appetites" leading to an increase in homosexuality.^[204]
• May – San Francisco PBS station KQED funded and aired a 16-minute documentary by Andrew Welch featuring interviews of gay Mormons in Salt Lake City and Provo and BYU psychologists administering the electroshock aversion therapy program in attempt to make gay students straight. It aired on PBS stations in Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles, and was the subject of controversy in Utah as KUED general manager Robert Reed refused to air it in July 1978.^[205][206] Additionally, BYU's KBYU refused to air the documentary after Reverend Bob Waldrop of the Salt Lake Metropolitan Community Church petitioned to have it aired in response to the recent of showing of Packer's "To the One" speech on homosexuality.^{[207][2]:238–240}
• August – The First Presidency released a statement on August 24 outlining reasons for their opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment including "unnatural consequences" like an "increase in the practice of homosexual and lesbian activities".^[208]

1979

• 1979 – Stephen Holbrook opens a Salt Lake community radio show featuring lesbian and gay voices while serving in the Utah State House of Representatives after his first election in 1975. The hour-long show called "Gayjavu" eventually became "Concerning Gays and Lesbians," which lasted until 2003 as one of the nation's longest continually running queer radio programs.^[209][210] He had served an LDS mission in Hong Kong before disaffiliating from the LDS church, though, he did not come out as gay publicly.^[211]
• 1979 – Gay former Mormon Bob Waldrop who had served an LDS mission in Australia^[212] became the publisher and editor of Salt Lake's queer newspaper The Open Door as well as a leader in the gay-inclusive Salt Lake Metropolitan Community Church.^{[148][149][34]:159} In February 1977 his congregation had had its permission rescinded by Utah state Lieutenant Governor David Monson (a Mormon) to hold a queer-inclusive church dance in the Utah Capitol building.^[213]
• February – The LDS Welfare Services Department offered a video-recorded, several-day training seminar to LDS Social Services employees on "homosexual therapies".^[214]
• February – Church Seventy Vaughn Featherstone stated that "the homosexual cannot be exalted" since "perversion is perversion", and that condoning homosexuality "is not an act of charity" in an address to BYU.^[215]
• April – BYU's newspaper published a series of articles in April quoting church leaders^[216] and gay BYU students on homosexuality. A BYU counselor estimated that 4% of BYU students (or around 1,200 students) were homosexual^[217][218] and commissioner of LDS Social Services Harold Brown stated that homosexuality is not biological or inborn,^[219] and that church leaders just want to help them overcome their problem.^[220] LDS Social Services Personal Welfare director Victor Brown Jr. compared it to an alcoholic's addiction that can be cured.^[219]

Gay Mormon marchers with Affirmation at the 1979 Los Angeles Pride parade.

• July – Signs saying "BYU alumni" and "Gay Mormon" were held aloft by the Affirmation group at the Los Angeles Pride Parade in what was called the first out gay Mormon presence at a pride parade.^[24]:48[221] One of the participants was interviewed on camera wearing a BYU jersey.^[222]

Gay Mormons at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on 14 October 1979

• October – Gay Mormons from Affirmation marched with 75,000 people in the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.^[223][224]
• December – "Affirmation: Gay Mormons United" changes its name to "Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons".^[225][195]

1980

The church opposed the ERA in part from believing it would lead to same-sex marriage and parenting.^[226]

• March – The Ensign published the article "The Church and the Proposed Equal Rights Amendment: A Moral Issue" outlining the church's arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment. These included the possibility it could give "constitutional protection to immoral same-sex—lesbian and homosexual—marriages", thus, "giving legal sanction to the rearing of children" in a "homosexual home".^[226]
• April – Apostle Bruce McConkie gave an April conference address in which he grouped homosexuals with liars, thieves, and murderers in a list of evil "covering the earth".^[227]
• October – Kimball again addressed homosexuality in the October General Conference in his talk, "President Kimball Speaks Out on Morality". Kimball again asserted that "[s]ometimes masturbation is the introduction to the more serious ... sin of homosexuality."^[228]

1981

• 1981 – Church leaders sent every bishop and stake president a copy of a book on human sexuality and families by Church Welfare Services director^[229] Victor Brown Junior. The book stated that it was disturbing that renowned sexologists had stated that bisexual individuals were privileged for not experiencing sexual prejudice and that they pointed the way for society at large.^[155]:6[230] Brown further stated that equating same-sex relationships with opposite-sex marriage was fallacious and inconsistent and that homosexual people were less disciplined and orderly in their relationships than heterosexuals.^[155]:6[231]
• 1981 – The church issued a guide for LDS Social Services employees called Understanding and Changing Homosexual Orientation Problems, instructing them that because of agency it is "inconsistent" to think that a "homosexual orientation is inborn or locked in, and there is no real hope of change," and that "the homosexually oriented man ... does not fully understand how a masculine man is supposed to think and act." The guide further states that the homosexual's "thoughts of the opposite sex are often fearful or threatening."^[232]

A 1981 manual for local leaders which taught homosexuality wasn't inborn, but caused by masturbation or an unhealthy childhood, and was changeable through praying, and heterosexual dating.^[233][1]:51

• 1981 – The First Presidency and Twelve Apostles also issued a guide for church leaders simply called "Homosexuality" which stated "modern-day prophets have clearly promised that homosexuality can be changed", and that it was "inconceivable that ... [the Lord] would permit ... his children to be born with [homosexual] desires and inclinations". It advised "full rehabilitation" could take 1 to 3 years, and that being "cured" doesn't mean "the old thoughts never return". The booklet gave guidelines for "treatment and prevention of homosexuality" and "lesbianism". It taught that homosexual behavior is learned and influenced by "unhealthy emotional development in early childhood", a "disturbed family background, "poor relationships with peers", "unhealthy sexual attitudes", and "early homosexual experiments". "Early masturbation experiences" were also cited as reinforcing "homosexual interests". Church leaders recommended the leader encourage the member to disclose the names of sexual partners, to read The Miracle of Forgiveness and "To the One", to begin dating, and to pray in order to help change their sexual orientation.^{[233][1]:51[234]}
• April – In an April General Conference, church Seventy Hartman Rector Jr. gave a speech titled "Turning the Hearts" in which he stated the earth would be wasted if Jesus returns and "finds nothing but birth control, sterilization, and homosexuals." He adds, "If children have a happy family experience they will not want to be homosexual."^[235] Rector also states he is "sure" that homosexuality "is an acquired addiction, just as drugs, alcohol and pornography are." He also states "I do not believe" that homosexuals "were born that way" because "[t]here are no female spirits trapped in male bodies and vice versa."^{[236][237][238]}
• April – In the same conference church president Ezra Benson denounced how some public schools give sanction to "alternative life-styles" and "perverse practices" such as "lesbianism".^{[239][184]:296}
• October – A march of about 15 gay post-Mormons calling themselves "Ethyl and Friends for Gay Rights" was given city permission to protest on public property around Temple Square during the church's general conference with signs like "We are God’s Children." The leader Randy Smith (whose drag performance name was Ethel) had previously undergone electroshock aversion therapy at BYU.^{[240][241][242]}

1982

• August – In a speech to BYU on Aug 28 then president of Ricks College Bruce Hafen counseled students to avoid homosexuality "at all costs, no matter what the circumstances". He further cited the 1973 removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM as an example of something gone wrong "deep within our national soul".^[243]

1983

• 1983 – The Church Handbook was updated to state that a church court "may be convened to consider" serious transgressions including "homosexuality" and "lesbianism" but is not required.^[244]
• September – Salt Lake City native Michael Painter died of HIV-related causes, the first known AIDS death in Utah. He had served an LDS mission and had been married to a woman, though he was gay.^[245][246]
• October – Apostle Ezra Benson gave an October conference address in which he called homosexuality one of the "great problems in our society" and decried the use of the term "alternative life-style" as an attempt to justify homosexuality.^[247]

1984

• July – Gay former Mormon Gerald Pearson died of complications due to AIDS under the care of his former spouse Carol Lynn Pearson. After Gerald confessed same-sex sexual experimentation to his bishop, he told Gerald to marry a woman to make his life right. He later met Carol at BYU in 1965 and they were married in 1966.^[248] Carol would go on to write a memoir Goodbye, I Love You in 1986, a landmark work on the intersection of homosexuality and Mormonism.^[249]
• August – Apostle Oaks wrote a church memo in which he recommended the church make a public statement to "oppose job discrimination laws protecting homosexuals" unless there were exceptions for allowing employers to "exclude homosexuals from employment that involves teaching ... young people". He also noted "the irony [that] would arise if the Church used [Reynolds v. United States]," the principal 1878 ruling stating that marriage is between a man and a woman, "as an argument for the illegality of homosexual marriages [since it was] formerly used against the Church to establish the illegality of polygamous marriages." Oaks also clarified that the word homosexuality is used in two senses: as a "condition" or "tendency", and as a "practice" or "activity".^[250][251]
• October – Church seventy Richard Scott gave a discourse titled "Making the Right Choices" in which he says "stimulation can lead to acts of homosexuality, and they are evil and absolutely wrong".^[252]

1985

• 1985 – A few members of Affirmation including Antonio Feliz formed a Latter Day Saint church for lesbian and gay Mormons known as the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ.^[253][254]

1986

• January – BYU published a study by BYU professor and area Church Welfare Services director Victor Brown Jr.^[255] stating that people can eliminate homosexual feelings.^[256][257]
• March – Twenty-six-year-old Clair Harward who was dying from complications due to AIDS was excommunicated for his homosexuality and told by his Ogden, Utah bishop Bruce Don Bowen to disclose the identities of and avoid his gay friends,^[258][259] and banned from church meetings for fear of spreading the disease.^[260][261] His story made national headlines^[245] and prompted a statement from a church spokesman.^{[262][263][264]}
• October – The president of the church Ezra Benson announces that a priesthood holder is virtuous and does not participate in, "fornication, homosexual behavior, self-abuse, child molestation, or any other sexual perversion."^{[184]:283[265]}
• October – The New York Times published an article on AIDS in Utah citing the strong influence that Mormon teachings have on the state since 65% of the population were Mormon. The article stated that church members identified as homosexual were directed by the church to marry and that they faced great pressure not to acknowledge their gay feelings often leading to double lives. It further stated that since 1983, 47 Utahns had been diagnosed with AIDS and 24 had died. Several gay Mormon men were quoted saying that they had faced church pressure to marry with the belief that marriage would "cure" their feelings.^[266]
• December – An article for parents called "Talking with Your Children about Moral Purity" appeared in the December Ensign reaffirming that "sometimes masturbation is the introduction to ... the gross sin of homosexuality" which "is a perversion of the Lord’s designated roles of men and women".^[267]

Apostle Oaks has been an influential figure in church interactions with homosexual people, instituting a system of surveillance to identify and expel or attempt to "cure" homosexual students as president of BYU in the '70s, and doing numerous important video interviews and articles on the topic in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s.

• December – Dallin Oaks commented in a December 30, 1986, CBS-TV interview that "marriage is not doctrinal therapy for homosexual relations" and that "he did not know whether individual leaders have given such advice."^{[268][1]:393[269]}

1987

• April – Gordon Hinckley of the First Presidency gave his April conference address "Reverence and Morality" in which he stated, "homosexual relations ... are grievous sins." He continued by saying "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God .... Marriage should not be viewed as a therapeutic step to solve problems such as homosexual inclinations or practices, which first should clearly be overcome with a firm and fixed determination never to slip to such practices again."^[270]
• June – Seventy Theodore Burton implied a link between a "selfish indulgence" in pornography and homosexuality in his address to BYU on 3 June 1986.^[271]
• October – At BYU the president of the church Ezra Benson discussed the US AIDS epidemic stating that the Americans should abstain from any sex outside of marriage and that the issue "began primarily through widespread homosexuality."^{[184]:410[272]}
• November – Joy Evans of the Relief Society General Presidency stated that "there are lesbian women, as well as homosexual men, in the Church" to whom "the Lord has decreed 'Thou shalt not'". She acknowledges it is a hard task but states they must "keep the commandments" since "intimate relationships ... between those of the same sex, is forbidden". The article titled "Overcoming Challenges along Life’s Way" appeared in the November issue of the Ensign.^[273]

1988

• 1988 – Gay BYU history professor and former BYU student^[274] Michael Quinn resigned under increasing pressure for publications on controversial aspects of Mormon history^[275][276] after working for the university since 1976.^[277][278] He was later excommunicated in September 1993 along with other LDS scholars referred to as the September Six.
• 1988 – Gay, Mormon convert^[279] and activist David Sharpton founded the People With AIDS Coalition of Utah (PWACU) to serve the HIV-positive population of Utah after contracting HIV in 1985.^{[245][280][281]} He died in 1992 after living with AIDS for seven years.^{[282][283][24]:67–68}
• May – The First Presidency released a statement on AIDS stating, "Members of the Church should extend compassion to those who are ill with AIDS," and urging members to only have sex in an opposite-sex marriage.^[284]
• October – The October Ensign featured an article from BYU psychologist Allen Bergin in which he stated that homosexuality was "caused by some combination of biology and environment".^[285]
• November – On November 22 a 20-year-old man from a prominent Mormon family in Delta, Utah^[286][287] and another Utah man raped, tortured, and brutally murdered Gordon Church—a 28-year-old, gay, Mormon, student—near Cedar City, Utah in an anti-gay hate crime before US hate crime laws existed.^[288][289]

1989

• 1989 – The Church Handbook was updated to state that a church court is required for any "homosexual relations" committed by a member while holding a "prominent church position" such as a bishop^[290]
• 1989 – Evergreen International is founded^[291] to help Mormons who want to "diminish same-sex attractions and overcome homosexual behavior".^[292]
• February – A national TV story hosted by Peter Jennings featured Malcolm Pace, a former-Mormon gay man who was dying of AIDS, and his deathbed reconciling with his Mormon parents. The father states "I love my son and my religious beliefs. They don't mix."^[293][294]

1990

The 1990 edition of the For The Strength of Youth pamphlet called homosexuality an abomination.^[295]:3

• 1990 – The church published a version of the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet which contained its first explicit mention of homosexuality.^[296] The pamphlet was to be put "in the hands of every young person in each ward".^[297] In this pamphlet's eighth version section on "Sexual Purity" it states "the Lord specifically forbids ... sex perversion such as homosexuality". It continues "homosexual and lesbian activities are sinful and an abomination to the Lord" and "unnatural affections ... toward persons of the same gender are counter to God's eternal plan".^[298]
• October – BYU shock aversion therapy survivor^[160] and activist Connell O'Donovan organized Utah's first pride march. The marchers went right past the Salt Lake temple and the event complemented the annual Utah Gay and Lesbian Pride Day Festival that had been held since 1986. During next year's march participants were met with neo-nazi protesters at the Salt Lake City and County building.^[299][300]
• October – Packer gave an October General Conference talk titled "Covenants" in which he warned against "spiritually dangerous lifestyles" including "abortion, the gay-lesbian movement, and drug addiction" continuing to state that using scriptures to justify "perverted acts" of "gay or lesbian conduct" between "consenting adults" would by the same logic justify the "molesting of little children".^[301]

1991

• 1991 – Gamofites, a support group for gay Mormon fathers, is founded.^[302]
• March – During a case hearing Young Men's president and church Seventy Jack Goaslind gave a testimonial and stated on record that "[the church] would withdraw" from the Boy Scouts of America if homosexual youth were allowed to join, implying a current church policy banning youth based on sexual orientation.^[303][304] In March 1910 the church's Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association had adopted the Boy Scouts of America program as the church-wide program for young men in the US.^[305]
• May – The play Angels in America which prominently featured a gay Mormon man in a mixed-orientation marriage debuted in San Francisco.^[306][307] It would go on to a Broadway run, winning Tony Awards, a Pulitzer prize, and spawning a 2003 HBO miniseries.^[308][309]
• November – The First Presidency sent a letter on November 14 to be read in all congregations stating "homosexual and lesbian behavior is sinful" and that homosexual "thoughts and feelings, regardless of their causes, can and should be overcome" by "sincere repentance", "persistent effort", "the help of others", and "counsel from their bishop". The letter made a distinction "between immoral thoughts and feelings and participating in ... any homosexual behavior", and calls for "love and understanding" for those "struggling" to "overcom[e] inappropriate thoughts and feelings".^[310]

1992

• April – The apostle Packer stated in general conference that humans can degrade themselves below animals by pairing with people of the same-sex since animals don't mate with other animals of the same sex.^[311] However, same-sex pairing has been observed in more than 1,500 species, and well-documented for 500 of them.^[312][313] He had also stated this a month prior in a sermon at BYU.^[314][315]

Cover of a 1992 manual which marked a shift in LDS church rhetoric towards changing homosexual behavior rather than feelings.^[75]:40–41

• 1992 – The church published "Understanding and Helping Those Who Have Homosexual Problems" as a guide for ecclesiastical leaders. The six-page booklet states, "There is a distinction between immoral thoughts and feelings and participating in ... homosexual behavior. However, such thoughts and feelings, regardless of their causes can and should be overcome and sinful behavior should be eliminated." It further advised, "members can overcome these problems by turning to the Lord." "In some cases, heterosexual feelings emerge leading to happy, eternal marriage relationships." The pamphlet did not frame homosexuality as a disease corresponding to the recent change by the World Health Organization removing homosexuality as a mental disorder.^[90][316]

1993

• 1993 – Family Fellowship, a support group for LDS who have LGBT family members, is founded.
• 1993 – The Encyclopedia of Mormonism is published containing former presiding bishop Victor Brown's article titled "Homosexuality". It stated that "the divine mandate of marriage between man and woman puts in perspective why homosexual acts are offensive to God. They repudiate the gift and the Giver of eternal life."^[317] The church's flagship school Brigham Young University has owned the copyright to the Encyclopedia since 2001.^[268]

Apostle Boyd Packer played a large role in shaping over three decades of teachings on homosexuality through numerous speeches containing the subject.

• May – Packer gave his May 18 "Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council" (composed of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, and the Presiding Bishopric).^[318] In it Packer identified three groups, that pose a "temptation" or "danger" to "lead away" members: those in the "gay and lesbian" and "feminist" movements, and "so-called scholars or intellectuals". In the address he stated that a man who self-identifies as a homosexual has "gender disorientation".^[319]
• September - The September Six are excommunicated. They include the feminist Lavina Fielding Anderson and historian D. Michael Quinn. Despite his excommunication and critical writings, Quinn, who is now openly gay,^[320] still considers himself to be a Latter-day Saint.^[321]
• October – Apostle Dallin Oaks gave a conference address stating that "Satan seeks to ... confuse gender" and "there are many political, legal, and social pressures for changes that confuse gender and homogenize the differences between men and women".^[322]
• October – Church Seventy Spencer Condie related a story of a homosexual man's conversion in his October General Conference talk "A Mighty Change of Heart". Condie calls homosexuality an unclean "addictive behavior" that the man in the story developed "gradually" after being "introduced" to it "in his early youth" after which he had "relationships" which brought him "misery". Later the man read the Book of Mormon, experienced a "mighty change of heart", and was baptized, and was able to overcome his "homosexual tendencies" and marry a woman.^[323]

1994

• 1994 – Disciples2, a confidential online and email support group, was founded. It operated from 1994 to about 2013^[324] for male and female "strugglers" striving to follow church teachings.^{[325][326][327]}
• February – The First Presidency issued a statement titled "Same Gender Marriages" declaring that the church "opposes any efforts" towards same-sex marriage and encourages members "to appeal to legislators ... to reject all efforts to ... support marriages between persons of the same gender."^[328]
• April – Apostle Boyd Packer gave a conference address mentioning "gender identity" and "those confused about gender" as well as stating that changes in the laws around marriage and gender threaten the family.^[329]
• May – The church's publishing company published Laurie Campbell's "Born That Way?" under a pen name on her leaving a relationship with a woman and marrying a man.^[330][331]
• October – Apostle Richard Scott gave a conference address restating a part of Spencer Kimball's October 1980 conference talk by saying that "stimulation" or masturbation can lead to "acts of homosexuality".^[332]
• October – The apostle Joseph Wirthlin gave a speech in which he stated, "we are to avoid abnormal sexual behavior, including fornication, homosexual behavior, child molestation, or any other perversion of God’s plan of happiness."^[333][334]
• November – Then apostle James Faust gave a speech at BYU in which he stated that homosexuality is not biological or inborn and that same-sex marriage would unravel families, the fabric of human society.^[335]

1995

• 1995 – The church's LDS Family Services published the manual "Understanding and Helping Individuals with Homosexual Problems" advising practitioners how to prevent and treat homosexuality saying, "There is sufficient scientific research and clinical evidence to conclude that homosexuality is treatable and preventable." The guide states that male homosexuality is caused by "the motivation to repair the loss of the father-son relationship creat[ing] sexualized father-hunger or reparative drive", and that "in the homosexual male this core gender identity has become confused". The manual cites "the roots of lesbianism" as "a dysfunctional family relationship" and/or "physical, sexual and emotional abuse" which causes women to "have a tendency to develop overly dependent or enmeshed emotional relationships". The guide further states that the "love between homosexuals is pseudo-love".^[336]
• January – The church's newspaper published an article by BYU professor Daniel Judd in which he stated that the power of Christ freed a man from his problem of homosexuality.^[337][338]
• February – The LDS church begins efforts opposing same-sex marriage laws including recruiting members to work with and donate to Hawaii's Future Today in opposition to efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Hawaii.^[339] Pamphlets were spread in church meetings and church facilities were used to fax statements to legislative committees.^[340] The campaign spanned years and the church reported giving $600,000 in 1998 to the Hawaiian political-action group Save Traditional Marriage '98.^[341][342]
• April – The apostle Richard Scott stated in general conference that participating in homosexual acts is a deviant, unacceptable alternate lifestyle, and requires long sustained repentance and many prayers in order to receive forgiveness.^[343][344]
• September – James Faust gave a First Presidency member message in the September Ensign in which he denies any biological or "inherited" components in the etiology of homosexuality citing "no scientific evidence" supporting the "false belief of inborn homosexual orientation" leading to "so-called alternative lifestyles". He continued that if there was an inherited or inborn aspect to homosexuality it would "frustrate the whole plan of mortal happiness" and deny "the opportunity to change" leading to "discouragement, disappointment, and despair". The article also stated that same-sex relationships would also help "unravel the fabric of human society" and if practiced by everyone would "mean the end of the human family".^[345]

"The Family: A Proclamation to the World" is a 1995 LDS church statement used as a legal document in several court case amicus briefs opposing same-sex marriage.^[346]

• September – "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" was read on September 23, 1995 at the Relief Society General Conference meeting by Gordon Hinckley. The document states that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God" and "is essential to His eternal plan". It also teaches that everyone is a "spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents" and "gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose".^[347] It has been submitted by the church in amicus briefs as evidence against court cases which could legalize same-sex marriages.^[346]
• October – Gordon Hinckley gave an October General Conference talk titled "Stand Strong Against the Wiles of the World" in which he states that "same-sex marriage" is an "immoral practic[e]" though he says that members of the churth "reach out" their hearts "to those who struggle with feelings of affinity for the same gender" and "remember" them, "sympathize with" them, and regard them as brothers and sisters.^[348]
• October – Church Seventy Durrel Woolsey stated in general conference that Satan makes powerful and ungodly proclamations like "same-gender intimate associations and even marriages are acceptable."^[349]
• October – The church published an article titled "Same-Gender Attraction" by apostle Dallin Oaks in the October edition of the monthly Ensign magazine.^[350] in which Oaks states "we insist that erotic feelings toward a person of the same sex are irregular", but that "our doctrines obviously condemn those who engage in so-called 'gay bashing'—physical or verbal attacks". He says members should encourage those with AIDS to participate in church activities. He also seems to contradict Faust's address from a month earlier^[32]:58 by giving a nuanced view on potential biological components of the etiology of homosexuality stating "some kinds of feelings seem to be inborn" while others "seem to be acquired from a complex interaction of 'nature and nurture,". He continues, "the feelings ... that increase susceptibility to certain behavior may have some relationship to inheritance". However, Oaks discourages members from calling themselves or other people lesbian or gay saying, "we should refrain from using [gay and lesbian] as nouns to identify specific persons. Our religious doctrine dictates this usage. It is wrong to use these words to denote a condition."^[90][351]

1996

• 1996 – Previously excommunicated Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn and his controversial book Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example both come out.^[352]

In 1996 a Salt Lake City high school became a focal point of tension between LGBT individuals and a largely LDS city administration and population.

• February – Salt Lake City became the only US city to have its Board of Education ban all students clubs after Mormon students Erin Wiser and Kelli Peterson^[353][354] formed an East High School club called the "Gay/Straight Alliance" in September 1995. The club had cited a federal law sponsored by LDS Utah Senator Orrin Hatch which forbade school boards from discriminating against clubs, although, Hatch stated that the law was never meant to promote "immoral speech or activity". Four-hundred of Salt Lake's high school students protested the ban.^[355][356] One Mormon senior at East High was quoted stating that he would rather all clubs be banned than allow the gay-straight alliance.^[357] Additionally, Mormon state representative Grant Protzman^[358][359] stated “I think that many legislators have serious concerns about the group’s moving into recruitment of fresh meat for the gay population."^[360][361] Club founder Peterson responded that recruitment was not at all what the club is about, stating that it was founded to help her and her LGBT friends deal with a hostile school atmosphere where she faced physical and verbal assault as an out lesbian.^[362][363] In response to the gay-straight alliance group, some students at West High formed the Student Against Faggots Everywhere (SAFE) group.^{[364][365][366]}
• July – BYU Spanish professor Thomas Matthews was reported to a top LDS authority for previously stating that he was gay in private conversations. He stated that BYU did not like that he was out of the closet despite being celibate and keeping BYU codes of conduct, and eventually left the university a few months later.^[367] BYU president Lee had stated that it was "simply not comfortable for the university" for him to continue teaching there.^{[368][369]:162–163[370]}

1997

• 1997 – A poll of over 400 BYU students found that 42% of students believed that even if a same-sex attracted person keeps the honor code they should not be allowed to attend BYU and nearly 80% said they would not live with a roommate attracted to people of the same sex. The poll's stated 5 percent margin of error was criticized as being too low an estimate because of the cluster sampling in classes, however.^[371]

During his 13 years as president, Hinckley brought a shift in tone towards empathy in church public discussions on homosexuality.^{[372]:46[373]:62}

• January – Issue of the church's Ensign magazine contained an anonymously authored article "Becoming Whole Again". In it the author who was married to a woman discussed his struggle with "same-gender attraction" calling it a "trial", "weakness", "impure thought", "tempation", and "misguided feeling" caused by "longing for true brotherly love or a desire for masculine characteristics". At the end the author states "same-gender attraction can be successfully resisted and overcome".^[374][375]
• March – Church seventy Bruce Hafen presented at the World Congress of Families in the Czech Republic. He stated that one thing that will unbridle societal principles and harm us was legalizing same-sex marriage and that, "if the law endorses everything it tolerates, we will eventually tolerate everything and endorse nothing—except tolerance."^[376]
• April – Gordon Hinckley, then president of the church, gave an interview in April in which he stated "we have gays in the church. Good people." He continued saying that no action is taken against them unless they're involved in sexual transgression, in which case there are "certain penalties" same as with "heterosexuals". He reaffirmed the stance that God made marriage for one man and one woman and that essentially gay people must live a "celibate life".^[377]
• November – The church Seventy Jay Jensen told a reporter that the LDS church offers gay people help and support that will point them to happiness.^[378] He had presented at the September Evergreen International conference two months before.^[379]

1998

• 1998 – The Church Handbook is updated to ban members from full-time missionary service who have participated in "homosexual acts" from age 15 and on unless it has been at least one year since the occurrence and the leaders see "strong evidence of lasting repentance and reformation".^[380] The update also includes the first church policies sections on homosexuality and same-gender marriage stating if members have "homosexual thoughts or feelings or engage in homosexual actions" they should be helped to understand faith, repentance, life's purpose, and should be helped to "accept responsibility for their thoughts". Additionally, the manual asserts that the Church "opposes any efforts to legalize" same-gender marriages and encourages members to appeal to government officials to reject those efforts.^[381]
• October – The church donated a half million dollars^[342][341] to oppose efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Alaska.^[382][383]
• October – Twenty-one-year-old gay student Matthew Shepard was tortured and left for dead by Mormon-raised Eagle Scout Russell Henderson,^[384] and Aaron McKinney in Laramie, Wyoming. McKinney would later state “The night I did it, I did have hatred for homosexuals” and that he target Shepard because “he was obviously gay. That played a part. His weakness. His frailty.”^[385] Mormon congregations joined other Laramie denominations in including Shepard's family in their prayers.^[386] Rulon Stacey, the LDS CEO of the Colorado hospital where Shepard died became caught in the ensuing media storm and later stated that he received hate mail for expressing grief and support over a gay murder victim and his family.^[387] In The Laramie Project play about the murder, there are parts with an LDS stake leader and LDS home teachers to the family of one of Shepard's killers.^[388]
• November – Church president Gordon Hinckley gave a general conference sermon entitled, "What Are People Asking about Us?" Hinckley said "so-called gays and lesbians" have "certain inclinations which are powerful and which may be difficult to control". He continued "We want to help these people ... with their problems ... and difficulties", as well as stating "we love them" but made it clear that the church could not support "so-called same-sex marriage".^[389][375]

1999

• May – The Area Presidency of the North America West Area, composed of Area Seventies, sent a letter to all area leaders directing a letter to be read in all California sacrament meeting which directed members to "do all you can by donating your means and time" to ensure that Proposition 22 (known as the Knight Initiative) passed.^[390] This act restricted marriage recognition in California to that between a man and a woman denying homosexual or same-sex couples legal recognition of their unions. A follow-up letter directed to stake presidents from Area Seventy Douglas Callister on May 20 assigned them to invite church members to donate money to the "Defense of Marriage Committee" in order to pass Prop 22.^[391] A third letter was released eight months later on January 11 a month and a half before the proposition would pass asking members to "redouble their efforts" in contacting neighbors and friends and to place the "provided yard signs" in their lawns.^[392]
• September – The church's Ensign magazine published an article titled by LDS Family Services assistant commissioner Dean Byrd who also served on the Evergreen Board of Trustees. Byrd posited that "homosexuality is not innate and unchangeable", but is caused by "temperament, personality traits, sexual abuse, familial factors, and treatment by one’s peers". He further asserted that individuals can "diminish homosexual attraction" and that "when homosexual difficulties have been fully resolved, heterosexual feelings can emerge". In support of this he stated "many individuals who have experienced homosexual difficulties have" had their "burdens" or "trial" "lifted through the Lord’s grace." The article continued acknowledging that those who desire to diminish their "homosexual urgings" may "experience extreme pain because of the extensive changes that are required" including "changing one’s thoughts ... friendships ... or even clothing styles".^[393]
• October – Church president Hinckley gave an October General Conference talk called "Why We Do Some of the Things We Do". He stated "so-called same-sex marriage ... is not a matter of civil rights; it is a matter of morality." He added, "we love and honor" and "our hearts reach out to ... gays and lesbians" and "they are welcome in the church".^[394]
• October – Some members of Affirmation in Salt Lake City protested the church's lobbying and funding of initiatives in California and other states to keep the traditional definition of marriage.
• November – Director of BYU's World Family Policy Center Kathryn Balmforth addressed the World Congress of Families in Geneva.^[395][396] In her speech she stated that gay rights activists are part of an anti-family movement that is hijacking human rights by legal force to gain power and "curtail the freedom of most of humanity."^[397]
• November – The PBS documentary on the intersection between the Utah Mormon community and homosexuality titled "Friends and Family: A Community Divided" aired on Utah's public television.^[398][399] It featured interviews from LDS Family Fellowship leaders^[400] and their gay son and lesbian daughter, LDS bishop and Evergreen International director David Pruden,^[401] a lesbian active Mormon, and a gay active Mormon man married to a woman.^[402][403]