On Sunday, January 13, 2019 at 10:30am, my Mormon Stake President and former Bishop of my local word in Long Beach knocked on my door and asked to speak to me. Terror ensued that this was the inevitable and they were here to call a church court after nearly 20 years of inactivity.

I had never met the Stake President before but he was very kind and after a few introductions, he got to the point and told me that he has been making some changes in his stake. He has tried to reach out to minority groups and LGBT+ groups and he also wanted to reach out to me. He was emotional when he told me that I wasn't a transgressor for being gay and he apologized for how I was treated. My former bishop was silent as he spoke, but I knew the bishop well and appreciated everything he did for me and my fellow gay members until he was removed from his position as Bishop in 2000. I was instantly overwhelmed with this news and it sent my head spinning. I was also very hesitant to accept what the reasons were for this meeting.

They invited me to January's Stake conference where they would have a member, Michael Secrist speak and come out as gay from the pulpit and share his story. While I wasn't able to attend due to prior commitments, I thanked him for his visit and we scheduled a time where I could talk to him about my own journey through Mormonism and being gay.

We have had lengthy discussions sharing ideas and stories and I'm really grateful that this Stake President decided to not just hold another meeting that January morning, but decided to get out of his chair and come and visit me personally to make some changes.

I have made it clear to the Stake President that I don't have any intention of reintegrating with the Mormon church, but we have had lengthy and sincere discussions about how to reach out to members of the LGBT+ community who are Mormon or who have Mormon background. I have assisted in creating a Family Home Evening group for LGBT+ members and families and friends and church leaders to meet monthly. In fact our next meeting is tomorrow (May 19th) at 5:00pm. If anyone is interested, please let me know and we would love to have you attend. I will personally be speaking to tomorrow's group at a member's home. The group's purpose is to do the following:
1. Invite all to attend whether they are LGBT+ or Mormon's or not.
2. No Church bashing and No Gay bashing.
3. We deliver a supportive message.
4. All bishoprics in our stake are fully on board with this program including our area president.
5. We are supportive of the personal journeys that are shared and church membership action won't be taken against them for being LGBT+ or married by this presidency for sharing their personal journey.

My personal purpose is to try to reach out to anyone with LGBT+ issues and to make sure they don't have to feel alone or isolated in their personal struggles with Mormon beliefs. This is not a new thing. I realize it's been done before. But what I can tell you is that this Stake President gets it. He truly does. He understands the duplicity and the struggle. He grieves that struggle and he wants to help. To say he has had an awakening would be an understatement. His commitment to this issue rivals that of anyone I've ever met at his level in the church.

I will also be delivering a message at the next Stake Conference on June 8th at 7pm for our Stake. I have received special permission to do so from the attending General Authority and I am being given access to the pulpit to talk about what I wish with the theme being Ministry to the LGBT+ members of the church. I would really appreciate anyone and everyone who could attend and support me.

Long Beach California East Stake
4142 Cerritos Avenue
Los Alamitos, CA 90720

All regardless of religion are welcome to attend. I promise to speak my truth and am grateful for the opportunity. We all recognize these things often have limits and they don't often last. But while I have a listening ear and a chance to gain traction to help others understand, I will take it and run with it as far as I can and would appreciate any support you can offer me in so doing.

So, you're inviting us to stake conference?

Ummm... No thanks!

I'm suspicious. Sounds like an experiment. Sticking the toe in to test the waters. The tip off is the visiting General Authority who most likely will be an Area Seventy.

The handwriting in the wall for the Mormons. Well, perhaps the handwriting was on Rusty's note pad, but still, the Mormons have no choice and like they always have will finally after dragging their heels and kicking and screaming have to follow a kinder, progressive, society.

The Gerontocracy know they have to change and are looking for the best way to do it without apologizing or ever admitting they were wrong or accepting responsibility. This is Oaks 101.

This has all the makings of a Judas Goat situation. I don't trust it one bit.

That's my take as well.

He should not indulge them, IMO.

The olive branch is just a ploy so the Mormons can say, "See, we are nice people--not trying to hurt anyone." This is about polishing their facade. Paper roses.

It's all Show Biz kids.

The Mormon church is a harmful, insidious cult. Trying to act like they accept gays does not change that fact. Lipstick on a pig.

The Pink Pound / Pink Dollar (not as cool alliteration as the Pink Pound) / Dorothy Dollar is worth a lot. Even cults who have clearly shown they are not fans of the LGBT+ community want a slice of that money.

Haha. Money Money Money Sing out Liza!

"A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound . . . or a "Dorothy Dollar."
Is all that makes the world go around
That clinking, clanking sound...
Can make the world go 'round"

When businesses figured out the value of the gay dollar they did us a world of good. Suddenly we were wanted at the hotels and the ships and the planes and special events at theme parks and the exotic tours. Commerce had a part in equality for sure.

Do Mormons really want our dollars? I'm not sure on this one. I think they want their bigotry even more.

I wouldn't trust the church. It's a corporation that orders and dictates what members must and must not do.

The church just kicked out a family that was guilty of sponsoring an on-line support group. These people truly wanted to stay in the church even though they had many doubts.

Just my opinion, I think most gays would be happier finding support outside of the church. The church is lead by the most bigoted and homophobic persons on the planet.

Long Beach, CA is an extremely Gay-friendly city and it is a 'destination' location for Gays who want amenities not present in their current locations.

Now here begin my personal musings:

The percentage of mormon non-Gay residents of the city will continue to drop as time goes on.

If the mormon percentage of the population drops sufficiently, wards will have to combine, and so might the stake.

The OP's bishop and SP are way out of line in terms of mainstream mormonism. Accommodating 'the Gays' is not something on the radar of 94.6% of bishops and SPs simply because they don't have this Long Beach situation...

Thus, if a ruling/revelation/policy were made church-wide based on the needs of the saints (anagram: stains!) in Long Beach and similar enlightened locales, it would be a big step onto a slippery slope, and ID'd as such by the many sure to be in opposition. The members of this opposition include a big percentage of GAs born and raised in the church; the TWMs, true white mormons.

I'm putting this on my calendar. Anyone want to have a pre-meeting dinner and/or a round of drinks afterward?

No way. No way. Nope. Nope. Nope. THIS reeks of a set up. I don't know about you , but I'd run the opposite direction just as hard as I could. Noooooo.....Save yourself. Run....away from anything like this.

Well, the Church™ is still based on a 19th Century religious con-man's bible fan-fiction, and it's not a socially progressive platform, so...

Something to dovetail with Pence's 'Space Force', only they'll name it Space Farce.



just sayin'

This particular stake presidency may be supportive, but that might not be the case with the next stake president.

PANIC PANIC PANIC

What is your purpose for addressing the stake? What do you hope to achieve when addressing the LGBT community in a church setting? If you are not going to bash the church, what will you talk about? Your feelings being hurt? Do you think TBMs will care? I know my TBM family members couldn't care less. The LGBT community might be moved, but so what? How will it help them? Will it encourage them to be stronger members? Is that your goal?

The church is not true. It demands money and time from its members and gives nothing back. It goes against Christ's teachings of inclusion, forgiveness and acceptance. It demands that its members not think for themselves. It demands obedience to a corporation. Why in Gods name to you want to attach yourself in any way to such an organization?

I have a better idea... Why don't you and your LGBT friends have your own event that is not at a church building. Invite the bishop, stake president, etc. to listen to you on your own turf. Start a support group for the LGBT community where you CAN bash the church.

Great idea!

I hate the church and think it a force for evil in the world.

But in situations like this I try to think about the gay kid in the ward who feels terrible about his budding sexuality or the mother who is horrified by the things people say about her child. They need triage: help getting through today and tomorrow. Recognizing the deception and falsity of the church is a problem that can sort itself out over time--assuming the LGBTQ kid is still alive.

The need for triage makes me feel that participating in this effort, at least at this level, is a good move. PapaKen won't need to bear his testimony; he can merely point out that homosexuals are humans and deserve respect as such, that they and their families have been hurt by the church, that the church has an ethical and human responsibility to fix this.

Will that strengthen the church? Maybe, at least in the very short term. But the Good Ship Mormon is sinking, and what matters most right now is saving some children so that they can be airlifted off when the rescue helicopters arrive. And as EOD noted above, a conspicuous improvement in the way gays are treated may well increase disillusionment among the membership.

So I applaud what PK has decided to do. Always put the individual before the institution.

...doing the right thing for the wrong reasons?

One wonders what terms, what phrases, are being used in the conversations with the people who are the final filters of policy proposals to the 15 Oligarchs.

I can see someone like Ken's old bishop being interested in helping achieve rapprochement between the Gays and the mainstream church, but knowing deception in their dealings with the SLC church leaders is necessary in order to achieve the Greater Good.

But if this were the case, and Oaks finds out they're being played, it could get ugly beyond our wildest dreams. So naturally, that's what I'm hoping for.

Because exmos are not, as a group, interested in mormonism fooling Gays into believing that being a good, celibate TBM is what's best for them.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> One wonders what terms, what phrases, are being
> used in the conversations with the people who are
> the final filters of policy proposals to the 15
> Oligarchs.

I suspect that the 15 stooges realize that Monson's policy was, as Metternich once said, "a crime and, even worse, a mistake." There will be holdouts, but in this instance fixing the policy probably seems ethically right and, more importantly, politically astute.


------------
> I can see someone like Ken's old bishop being
> interested in helping achieve rapprochement
> between the Gays and the mainstream church, but
> knowing deception in their dealings with the SLC
> church leaders is necessary in order to achieve
> the Greater Good.

I'm not sure I agree--at least in part. Long Beach and San Francisco and some other places long ran their own affairs, welcoming gay people and treating them like decent human beings. SLC knew what was going on and chose to look the other way. The Monson policy upended that detente and created all sorts of problems with families all over the church.

What appears to be happening now is that the church is allowing something like a return to the status quo ante. Well-meaning Mormons are probably profoundly glad to see that.


---------------------
> But if this were the case, and Oaks finds out
> they're being played, it could get ugly beyond our
> wildest dreams. So naturally, that's what I'm
> hoping for.

I would hope for that as well were it not for the fact that a new crackdown would probably kill some kids. I have a hard time feeling comfortable with that even if the effect of restraint is to cause the speed with which the LDS church approaches oblivion from 300 million m/s to 299 million m/s.


------------
> Because exmos are not, as a group, interested in
> mormonism fooling Gays into believing that being a
> good, celibate TBM is what's best for them.

I agree with that. But I'd like the young LBGTQ people to survive adolescence and then leave the church at their own pace. Underlying this sentiment, of course, is my belief that the vast majority of gay people--and a lot of their families--will eventually, and inevitably, leave the church.

Am I right or wrong, Ken?

That's a tough one. I'm suspicious of anything they do or offer.

You are right. It is not me… It is a friend of mine. That’s why I wrote “friend” in the subject line.

That was confusing to me.

What, if you don't mind sharing, is your opinion on the matter?

Sorry for the confusion LW, it wasn’t confusing to me when I wrote it.

I stated my opinion in another reply:

I know the church is not true. And I would be happy to just let it go.

But people I care about deeply are still involved. And I am not sure that this isn’t a good idea. So I am probably going to go to the meeting, and see what happens.

Thank you.

This whole setup stinks. Notice that the church controls everything. No criticism of the church and yet the church comes out looking like a champion of goodness. I don't see any value for the gay community.

I agree that PapaKen and any others who cooperate could be perceived as helping the church. That argument might detain me if I thought the church were in good shape, but I think this is really rearranging the deck chairs.

Meanwhile, I remember a decade or so ago when Lot gave a testimony at F&T meeting about the moral equality of homosexuals. It went over like a lead balloon. A few years later the new bishop mentioned to me, long gone from the church, that his son had recently come out as gay. The kid was locked in a conservative family and a conservative social network and was deeply depressed when he heard Lot's speech. The bishop said it helped his son a lot.

Where is the boy now? Out of the closet and out of the church. He's also alive.

Did I mention that he is still alive?

Sounds like nobody thinks I should go to the meeting. I’m torn, because I want to support my friend, and I’m also curious to find out what happens.

BUT.... the Mormon church is not true, and so I do not care about their internal antics.

I only care about my friend. And others who might be suffering.

Thanks to everyone for your response.

Hey, I said I put it on my calendar because I'm interested, too. And I was one of those confused readers who thought it was you who was going to be talking.

Do they allow Mexicans?

Well I'm not going to attend if Papaken won't speak.*












*That and the fact that I live light years away, which may also enter into my calculations.

:-)

church. I can understand why you would want to go to support your friend. He WILL NEED your support.

We have some electrodes waiting in the basement for you.

You can’t be on the covenant path and be gay. You will always be a third class citizen in the church. No gay marriage in the temple so no exaltation for gays.

I really have no idea why a gay person would bother with the church. Russ says members need to stay on the covenant path. Well if you are gay it’s impossible to follow the prophet.

Being gay and being in the Mormon church is like trying to win a foot race with no legs.

This meeting is a farce even if some good intentions are involved.

There is nothing to clear up. The SP has no authority to effect policy change. Any meeting that has a set agenda where one side is controlling the situation as the Mormons are in this instance is D.O.A.

This is a continuation of "Mother May I" the Mormon church has been playing all along with their LGBT. The rest of the gay community doesn't even give the Mormons any consideration. They have better things to do and lives to live. This meeting is a joke. This is a couple of Mormons trying to alleviate their guilt.

If I were there I would tell them to quit the "chess game, wipe the checkered board and the plastic pawns off the table, and grow up. I don't want your olive branch. I want the whole goddamn orchard to share with everyone."

Some want to blame the men in the red velvet chairs for the deaths and misery of the Mormon gay youth. Me too. BUT. The parents are choosing a church over their own children. What the hell is that? The Parents. They disgust me.

2019. Information Age. All about Mormonism is at your fingertips and your ears. It's going to get through no matter what. Only you can shut your heart off.

All talk and no action. It is their game plan from Joseph Smith. Talk, talk, talk, have some meetings and talk some more.

Tell the feds you aren't polygamist. Tell people being gay is okay. Tell people Joseph Smith was a posthumous sexual predator.

Same headless Shiz different decade.

First, I’d like to apologize for the confusion about my original post. The entire post content was written by my gay friend. I only wrote the subject line.

My friend is Scott Osmond of Long Beach. (Osmond cousin). He gave me his permission to copy his message, and to use his name.

I sent Scott’s message to my family. Within hours, my daughter and her husband replied that they would like to attend the meeting. That really is thrilling to me. They are TBM, but are also very accepting, understanding & supportive of LGBT+ issues, especially when the LDS church is involved.

I also sent Scott’s message to some friends. One of them replied with concern that I might be going back into Mormonism, but I assured him that no, there was no chance of that. I am only going to support Scott, and others who might be suffering.

I think its great you are going and I think it's great your friend is doing this, because I don't think for one minute that everyone should to it my way. I sort of have strong feelings about it all. ( Very tired of maintaining a relationship with the over the top TBM family.)

Seems to me that more and more Mormons are trying to have it both ways. They want to follow the prophet and follow their hearts and they are kidding themselves that they can do this. So they are pushing the LGBT to commiserate with their conundrum as a way to maintain the difficult position of straddling the divide.

This is not a tenable situation.

Russ/Dallin/Wendy et al, or, Decency, your children and following your heart and head? Pick one. Cuz if your heart ain't agreein' with yer head, you got big problems.

I hope whoever goes to the meeting gets something they need. I hope it helps someone.

I thought about it and I have to take my first sentence back.

This is just playing the Mormon game. Should not be happening.

Understood. I was actually surprised at what you wrote, and so I’m not surprised that you would like to take it back.

We all have our own opinions, and they often evolve over time.

I really do need to go, since my daughter will be there, and I really am very curious about what might be said.

I will return and report.

I'll be honest with you have have a lot of confusing thoughts about this and I'm still thinking a lot of it through. I don't know if this will make sense or not.

On the one hand, I could see this as a good thing, to potentially help young members of the church who have been abused so long and are damaged so much by the church policies.

On the other hand, I have to wonder if this isn't just a local leader trying to do the right thing, but has no support whatsoever from those above him and as soon as it comes to light, won't have any further support.

My background, I was born in the church, was raised not only in the church with a very devout mother and father but in the very conservative south. I was very sheltered and while I didn't know precisely how, I knew I was different than the other young men and I also knew that to talk about it, even to ask questions to try and figure out what I was dealing with, would be very, very bad. So I didn't. I didn't understand homosexuality (or general sexuality) until I was well past my puberty, and remained deeply closeted. Thoughts of suicide were and remain a constant companion, there were many times that came close to following through with those thoughts. I was temple married because I was told, that it could "cure" me, and that it was the only way to salvation. Loving another man was completely unthinkable.

The church, ruined my life. I do take some responsibility, I could have made other decisions, but I made the choices I made based on the extremely limited information I had on hand. Information provided by the church. I'll never know what my life could have been like if I had been accepted for who I was. The very thought of that is laughable to me. Even though I've left the church, for a variety of reasons that stem from decisions that I've made in the past, I remain deeply closeted and will likely remain so for the rest of my life. I have fortunately, had good counseling and therapy to help me deal with the emotions involved, so while thoughts of suicide do pop up from time to time, I'm better equipped to deal with them and accept that the choices that I made were me doing the best I could with how I understood the world at that time.

So, now, there is a Stake President who wants to reach out to LGBTQ+ membership. When your friend says, "I can tell you is that this Stake President gets it. He truly does. He understands the duplicity and the struggle." I don't believe it. Not for a moment. He may be trying and good for him. But when you get right down to it, while his intentions may be good, he's working for an organization that continues and will continue to consider LGBTQ+ groups as 2nd class citizens.

Unless he, himself is a deeply closeted gay man himself (and maybe he is, I don't know him), he will never really understand my story and those like it. He will not understand what it is like to be feel so completely different, so very alone and to know that if you talk about it with anyone it would be the end of your life as you know it so you consider just ending it yourself now to save time and to wonder if that wouldn't be better anyway, because if anyone found out your secret, the pain that would cause those around you would be unthinkable. That dealing with your death would be easier for them. So no, I don't believe that he truly "gets it".

I realize that there is a danger of letting "better" being the enemy of "perfect" here. It is a step, possibly even in the right direction. There are warning signs even here though, "No Church bashing" is put on the same level as "No Gay bashing" That's the abusers being asked not to be questioned. Not allowing victims to give voice to what's happened to them. That's problematic. If this Stake Pres really "gets it" then he would want to hear every story, every damming, painful thing the church did to the people he's reaching out to. But that's against rule #2.

While this may not be meant to be a support group, what is it then? A group to say, "Look at how great the Church is treating you right now... in this one meeting a month... Please ignore the conference talks and continued attempts by church leadership to influence law to block equal rights for LGBTQ+ groups and don't talk about that, because that would be church bashing."

At the end of the day it might help some members. It might even save lives, and that's obviously a good thing. Maybe it would even give some young man, who, like me, doesn't understand what's going on with themselves. Maybe times are different enough from when I grew up that young people today can out themselves by attending such a meeting. I couldn't have. My parents certainly wouldn't have let me attend, even if I said I was going in support of someone else.

I also worry that meeting like this are also working keep LGBTQ+ groups members of an organization that WILL continue to abuse them, just in different ways, ways that will still hurt and will still cause damage. While the church may continue to change policies, the microaggressions and working in the background to marginalize minorities just isn't going to stop.

I don't know. I'm just glad I left the church.

you are still closeted? Are you still married? If so, does your wife know?

I hope Done & Done reads this so he can post the story about the man who left the church for his son.

Of course there would be pain. My life also could have been A LOT different had I known anything else. Going to the lds church for answers about gays was insane, but where could I go? This was 1983. So we married. I assume you have read some of my posts. We are still married, but not a couple since who knows when, early 1990s. It took time after he left and completely blew out of the closet and he wasn't terribly kind to our kids and I, but he and I are best friends now. I never stopped loving him. I love him just as a person and I always have. I just wish he could find a good guy and settle down with him. He is 62, so . . .

There ARE people out here who CARE what you are going through.

what cl2 is referring to is on page 5 of the Biography Board found on the main page. It is from sid 143: Leaving the church was easy because I had somewhere else to go.

He chronicles the time just before the church started the Prop 8 siege and his son came out to him as gay. He was a devout TBM mormon. Brings tears everytime I read it. It is the way things are supposed to be. It is what most of us gay Mormon kids never got and still, after all these years, wished we had.

An excerpt:


"I met the stake president after the letter was published. He was holding a copy when I entered his office. When I shared my story about my amazing son and my growing up around gays, I sensed his concern for me, but nothing I said elicited even an inkling of empathy. We talked a bit more, and then he said something that I will never forget. “You need to decide if you are going to follow the prophet or your son.” I didn’t respond immediately, but I thought to myself, what would a good Mormon dad do? The answer was easy because I had been taught my whole life that there is nothing more important than “family.”

That hot August evening in St. George I walked out of his office and never set foot in an LDS Church again. Over the next few months I had the usual visits from the high priest group leaders, the home teachers, and even a member of the bishopric. I was cordial but I wouldn’t budge. I felt the action the church was taking was mean-spirited and went against everything I believed in. This was by no means “showing forth more love.”


This is parent who loved his child. Not Mormon love but real love.

Anon for this Wrote:

> Thoughts of suicide were and remain a constant companion...

Anon,

I am very sorry that you had and have such dark times because of an imposed religion and judgement of you.

I am glad you have supportive therapy and hope things continue to improve for you.

Take care. :)

Anon,

Thank you for sharing your insights.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2019 03:31PM by mel.

if they break out in song while you are speaking just sit down.

They will have an opening prayer and ask the spirit to guide them I'm sure. Insulting from the point of view that while no gay bashing is allowed, praying to a higher power that LDS think explicitly see active gay people as sinners seems an affront.

"Dear Heavenly Father please let thy holy spirit guide us today as we try to make our beloved gay brothers understand why we must keep them at arm's length. Help them to understand that this is difficult for us as we strive to be more like they holy son--which they are not. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen."

NO.

And...please help them be advocates of our tolerance of them though we preach that tolerating is not one of the best things to do.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And...please help them be advocates of our tolerance of them though we preach that tolerating is not one of the best things to do.

Nailed it!

Speaking as a BIC TBM Gay man (hence my screen name), I have two thoughts.

The first is: ANY visibility from the pulpit will probably save lives. I knew I was gay at a very young age and, thanks to my TBM upbringing/thinking, I spent years thinking I was the only person like me in the church. This will give hope to that gay kid locked in his TBMness!

The second is: That area GA who gave his permission is probably chomping at the bit to have all the gay members join the FHE group so it's easier to start excommunication proceedings against the attendees. Call me cynical, but unless Russ gets a revelation, you can NOT be gay AND mormon. It is doctrinally impossible!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2019 01:54PM by oxymormon.

oxymormon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This will
> give hope to that gay kid locked in his TBMness!

Celibacy and sublimated self hate is better than death I guess.

According to Bednar:

"There are no homosexual members of the Church...They can receive the blessings of the temple and they can serve in the Church. It is when we act on the inclination or the attraction—that's when it becomes a sin. So, the reason I began my answer as I did, is that in this question, the word "homosexual" was used to describe or label a member of the Church. It's an inaccurate label. We are sons and daughter of God and we determine how to respond to the variety of challenges we experience in mortality through the proper exercise of our moral agency."

So, clearly, being gay is simply a challenge you need to overcome, cuz Ghawd didn't make no homosexuals.

Until a message is received from on high, being gay and Mormon is incompatible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2019 02:04PM by eternal1.

Right?

No such thing as a homosexual animal on this earth for Mormonism.

"Inclination or the attraction" isn't instinct and desires they promote to reign in on their heterosexual members and "save" them for marriage.

Well, Mormonism is all about breeding (for eternity). Since gays don't tend to reproduce, it flies in the face of their (eternal) breeding program. Can't have that now can we.

eternal1 Wrote:
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> Can't have that now can we.

Of course not. Joe can be an adulterer but gay people? Hell no. It wouldn't be natural! (is an enemy of God.)

This post and the responses make me think of persistence: people trying and trying and trying for acceptance, from rejecting people, over and over.

I think it is really sad that rejected gay people might still grasp at a straw, still hoping for acceptance.

And I think it is really cruel of church members to offer acceptance of gays if it will not be supported by higher ups.

I see a lot of potential here for hopes being raised and hearts being broken, again, if it is just a show, a sham, or for ulterior motives (appearing to include gays to lure them in only to reject them once they are members).

Take care everyone. It can be a harsh, cruel world out there.

>"And I think it is really cruel of church members to offer acceptance of gays if it will not be supported by higher ups."

I think this sums it up well. There's little chance that they have any support from Salt Lake for this. The whole thing reeks of a small group of local leaders feeling bad/guilty about belonging to an organization that goes against their personal morals so they are trying to make themselves feel better with this "outreach". This is their attempt to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

Finally Free! Wrote:
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> ...they are trying to make themselves feel better with this "outreach". This is their attempt to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

Well stated. Agree, sadly.