Physical intimacy is not only a symbolic union between a husband and a wife – the very uniting of their souls – but it is also symbolic of a shared relationship between them and their Father in Heaven. He is immortal and perfect. We are mortal and imperfect. Nevertheless we seek ways even in mortality whereby we can unite with Him spiritually. In so doing we gain some access to both the grace and the majesty of His power. These are moments when we quite literally unite our will with God’s will, our spirit with His spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real. At such moments we not only acknowledge His divinity but we quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves.
Please, never say: Who does it hurt? Why not a little freedom? ‘Flee fornication,’ Paul cries, and flee ‘anything like unto it’ the Doctrine and Covenants adds. The body is something to be kept pure and holy. Do not be afraid of soiling its hands in honest labor. Do not be afraid of scars that may come in defending the truth or fighting for the right, but beware scars that spiritually disfigure, that come to you in activities you should not have undertaken. Jeffrey Dodo Holland, article Ensign November 1998, ‘Personal Purity’
Anyone about to commit adultery or fornication or a homosexual act would first be required to submit an environmental impact statement. The rippling consequences of what was about to be done would be assessed and set forth beforehand so the predatory and the misled could at least contemplate, in part, what they are about to inflict on themselves and others. Neal A Maxwell, article Ensign February 1986
I believe that sin is a special form of insanity, that it reflects a kind of ‘blackout’ in which we either lack perspective about the consequence of our thoughts, words, and actions, or we lose it temporarily. Neal A Maxwell, article Ensign April 1974, ‘Insights’
One expression of appreciation from an Indian boy included these moving words: ‘Before I took LDS seminary I didn’t have very much to live for ... I had always felt that Indians could not do things as well as white people. Now I know that I am a child of God. I know that my people are of the house of Israel.’ Neal A Maxwell, general conference October 1970
Women are queens and priestesses but not gods. The Godhead, the ‘presidency of heaven’, is a presidency of three male deities, similar to a stake presidency whose members each have wives who are responsible for domestic religious education but not ecclesiastical functions. Rodney Turner, retired BYU religion professor, Sunstone panel discussion 7th September 1991
There was no mystery about why Utah law continued to prohibit interracial marriage. In 1947, the First Presidency wrote that ‘the intermarriage of the Negro and White races [is] a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now’. In other words, the First Presidency condemned interracial marriage as abnormal. In 1950, Counselor Clark added that ‘anything that breaks down the color line leads to marriage’. Five years later, on behalf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote to the First Presidency about African-American members of the LDS church in Utah and referred to the ‘danger of intermarriage’.
In 1963, Utah ended its restrictions on interracial marriage, and Counselor Brown officially endorsed civil rights for persons of all races that year. However, until that year, every living prophet of the LDS church since Brigham Young either actively opposed the civil rights of African-Americans or passively endorsed the existing civil discriminations against them in Utah.
… Utah’s racial discrimination did not occur by happenstance nor did it continue into modern times by accident. It was promoted by the highest leaders of the state’s dominant Church. As late as 1941, Counselor J Reuben Clark used the word [rhymes with ‘trigger’] in his First Presidency office diary. In 1944, the First Presidency authorized local LDS leaders to join ‘as individuals a civic organization whose purpose is to restrict and control negro settlement’ in Salt Lake City. A year later, LDS president George Albert Smith wrote: ‘Talked to Presidents Clark & Nicholas [G Smith, an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles] about the use of meeting houses for meetings to prevent Negroes from becoming neighbours’. The Church president’s diary did not indicate whether he endorsed or opposed this activity, but his brother Nicholas G Smith described it as ‘race hatred’. D Michael Quinn, Prelude to National ‘Defense of Marriage’ Campaign: Civil Discrimination Against Feared or Despised Minorities
For more than a century, Utah restricted African-Americans from patronizing white restaurants and hotels, prohibited them from public swimming pools, and required them to sit in the balconies of theaters. During World War II, African-Americans wearing their nation’s uniform had to sit in the balcony of Utah theaters, while German prisoners-of-war sat on the main floor with white servicemen and civilians. Utah law also prohibited marriage between a white person and a black (including persons only one-eighth Negro).
During this era of Utah’s racial segregation, the First Presidency ... repeatedly affirmed that no African-American could stay at the LDS church-owned Hotel Utah (which had maintained this exclusion since its opening in 1911). The LDS president was president of the hotel, and his counselors were its senior vice-presidents. The First Presidency explained this racial exclusion as simply ‘the practice of the hotel’.
Internationally renowned singer Marian Anderson endured this racial discrimination in Utah. When she gave her first recital at the University of Utah’s Kingsbury Hall, this African-American was denied entry to any of Salt Lake City’s hotels and had to stay with one of the concert’s promoters. When she returned in March 1948 to participate in a concert at the LDS Church’s Salt Lake Tabernacle, the First Presidency relented. America’s beloved contralto ‘was allowed to stay at the Hotel Utah on condition that she use the freight elevator’. This world-famous black woman was not allowed to use the main entrance and lobby. Likewise, invited to speak at the University of Utah, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ralph Bunche was allowed to stay at the LDS church’s hotel in 1951 only after this black man agreed to use the freight elevator, ‘have his meals in his room and not come to the dining room’.
Due to their international fame, Anderson and Bunche were exceptions to the Mormon rules of race. As Hotel Utah’s senior vice-president J Reuben Clark explained: ‘Since they are not entitled to the Priesthood, the Church discourages social intercourse with the Negro race ...’ Therefore, African-Americans were denied equal access to the LDS church’s hotel in order ‘to preserve the purity of the race that is entitled to hold the Priesthood’. ibid.
As American views began changing toward race relations from the 1940s onward, the Mormons of Utah continued to follow the example of LDS leaders against civil rights for African-Americans. There was widespread use in all-white neighborhoods of Utah’s Uniform Real Estate Contract, Form 30 which prohibited the purchaser of real estate and his/her heirs from reselling the property ‘to any person not of the Caucasian race’. The Salt Lake City School District prohibited blacks from being teachers and from fulfilling student-teaching requirements of their university training. In addition, 40 percent of Utah’s employers refused to hire Negroes. Employers who did hire blacks also discriminated against them in job assignment, promotion, and salary. Blacks were prohibited from eating at the lunch counter of Salt Lake’s City-County Building. All of Utah’s bowling alleys excluded African-Americans, and LDS hospitals segregated black patients, sometimes requiring them to pay for private rooms. This was also the policy at Utah’s Catholic hospitals. ibid.
There was no mystery about why Utah law continued to prohibit interracial marriage. In 1947, the First Presidency wrote that ‘the intermarriage of the Negro and White races [is] a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now’. In other words, the First Presidency condemned interracial marriage as abnormal. In 1950, Counselor Clark added that ‘anything that breaks down the color line leads to marriage’. Five years later, on behalf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Joseph Fielding Smith wrote to the First Presidency about African-American members of the LDS church in Utah and referred to the ‘danger of intermarriage’.
In 1963, Utah ended its restrictions on interracial marriage, and Counselor Brown officially endorsed civil rights for persons of all races that year. However, until that year, every living prophet of the LDS church since Brigham Young either actively opposed the civil rights of African-Americans or passively endorsed the existing civil discriminations against them in Utah.
… Utah’s racial discrimination did not occur by happenstance nor did it continue into modern times by accident. It was promoted by the highest leaders of the state’s dominant Church. As late as 1941, Counselor J Reuben Clark used the word [rhymes with ‘trigger’] in his First Presidency office diary. In 1944, the First Presidency authorized local LDS leaders to join ‘as individuals a civic organization whose purpose is to restrict and control negro settlement’ in Salt Lake City. A year later, LDS president George Albert Smith wrote: ‘Talked to Presidents Clark & Nicholas [G Smith, an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles] about the use of meeting houses for meetings to prevent Negroes from becoming neighbours’. The Church president’s diary did not indicate whether he endorsed or opposed this activity, but his brother Nicholas G Smith described it as ‘race hatred’. ibid.
By May 1989 ... counselors [Hinckley and Monson] felt it necessary to execute legal documents giving them Ezra Taft Benson's ‘power of attorney’ [which] shall not be affected by his ‘disability’ or ‘incompetence’.
However, Benson was already affected by that ‘disability’.
Despite a notarized statement by the First Presidency’s secretary, President Benson did not sign those documents himself. A signature machine produced Benson’s identical signatures on these legal documents.
Without public acknowledgement, this machine-signed document formally ended an official provision for dissolving the First Presidency that had been in print for ninety years. Since 1899 the book Articles of Faith, Written By Appointment; and Published By the Church had specified that the ‘First Presidency is disorganized through the death or disability of the President’.
However, this 1989 document specified that the counselors would not dissolve the First Presidency or surrender their powers despite the fact of the church president’s ‘disability’ or ‘incompetence’.
The current apostles have supported this policy, even though the officially published Articles of Faith continues to specify that when there is ‘disability of the President, the directing authority in [church] government reverts at once to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles’. D Michael Quinn, ‘The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power’