DD's husband is LDS military chaplain. A chaplain does a lot of stuff to strengthen marriages, such as having week-long military-sponsored retreats, featuring seminars and counselling for couples. It turns out that LDS counsellors are the only ones who do same-sex couples, because many of the other chaplains of other religions either refuse to deal with same-sex couples, or are prohibited by their sponsoring church organizations, or both. The LDS church, however, apparently makes no such restriction. So my son-in-law is the only one in his unit that works with same sex couples, and has worked with several.

Women having the vote in Utah, long before the rest of the nation. Salt Lake City's laws to prevent LGBTQ housing discrimination.

Those aren't good examples. The church gave women the right to vote only as a tool to legally vote in church leaders to state positions, giving a legal veneer to the theocracy. Up to that point, federal officers ran Utah, because it was just a territory, and the church's Council of Fifty ran a parallel government behind the scenes. The theocracy endures today.

As for the LGBT housing thing, that has proven to be a red herring, making the church look better than it was. Then the church later nullified any progress with other initiatives.

Thanks for pointing that out. The LDS ALWAYS have an agenda. Their good deeds are just worms on hooks.

A vote is still a vote and housing discrimination is best prevented whatever the motivation for doing so.

That's really interesting. In what ways is he allowed to counsel them? Is he supposed to report any LDS couples to the non-military "clergy"?

Fortunately, LDS chaplains are bound by law in their discretion and confidentiality. So, no, even if an LDS couple were to disclose stuff that would get them in trouble with the LDS church, the chaplain would be legally bound to confidentiality and not pass that info on to LDS authorities. If a chaplain did that, he'd be dismissed by the military and find himself unemployed.

Wherever LDS chaplains exist, however, always have a position on the stake high council. DD's husband and the other LDS chaplain in the area are both members of the stake high council. So they do have plenty of opportunities to meddle, and the potential for being affected by inappropriate LDS pressure could be high.

Good to remember: In the military, LDS chaplains are Protestant chaplains, and are constrained to be every bit as ecumenical as any other Protestant chaplain, and have to know how to function as a Protestant and even lead Protestant congregations. DD's husband will soon have his doctorate in divinical studies. I suppose he could then start up his own Baptist ministry if he wanted.

LDS chaplains are the only thing close to trained clergy that the church has. Too bad bishops can't get even a smidgin of that training.

I didn't answer the full question, but the answer is, I don't know about how he counsels them. I just know that he conducts a lot of couples retreats. Sometimes it involves gay couples, I assume same-sex military couples, but am not sure. They exist now, and I have one friend here in the Army who is in a same-sex lesbian marriage. The retreats seem to be about strengthening marriage, and apparently involve various kinds of seminars, exercises and role-playing, things like that. I think it's curious that LDS chaplains are among only a few who agree to do it for same-sex couples, allowing the other chaplains to bow out. But son-in-law likes the retreats. He gets to take the entire family to some hotel or resort at a nice tourist location (like Outer Banks or Blue Ridge Mountains), where it is partially catered and where there is child care for the participants' kids.

TSCC doesn't even have marriage enhancement retreats for opposite-sex couples. Don't they encourage couples to stay away from them. Godforbid they might find out that there is something more to marriage than church and kids.

In the first place, the fact that the taxpayers have to support clergy in the military is an outrage. If service members need religious intervention, then the "faith" community should be standing ready to deliver it, whenever and wherever, free of charge.

Second, the taxpayers having to support military clergy who are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual preference (or for any other superstition-based reason) is also an outrage.

And third. Giving the LDS church any credit whatsoever for positive ministry to gay people is like giving the Assad administration credit for humanitarian aid to the Syrian people.