Neil Andersen
By Brady McCombs
A top Mormon leader reiterated the church’s opposition to gay marriage during the church’s biannual general conference.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ stance on homosexuality has softened in recent years, but this marks the second consecutive conference in which leaders took time to emphasize the faith’s insistence that marriage should be limited to unions between a man and a woman, as God created.
“While many governments and well-meaning individuals have redefined marriage, the Lord has not,” Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve said Saturday. “He designated the purpose of marriage to go far beyond the personal satisfaction and fulfillment of adults, to more importantly, advancing the ideal setting for children to be born, reared and nurtured.”
In the October 2013 church conference, Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum said human laws cannot “make moral what God has declared immoral.”
The church sent a letter to local leaders that includes that message, Andersen said Saturday. “As the world slips away from the Lord’s law of chastity, we do not,” he said.
During the first day of the weekend conference, LDS leaders on Saturday also encouraged missionaries to stay strong amid the inevitable personal abuse they will encounter and parents to shelter their children from the damaging effects of pornography.
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