USA: Mormon church will allow baptisms for LGBT couples

The The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported Thursday that it would now allow children of same-bad couples to be baptized, a significant change on the part of one of the religious groups that up to now was a bulwark against the rights of homobaduals.

The decision throws by land with a settlement implemented in 2015 that had declared apostates to those who have declared themselves homobaduals and subjects of excommunication. This regulation also excluded children of same-bad couples from religious ceremonies such as baptism or communion.

Three years after the Mormon Church proceeded to many expulsions and suffered multiple defections, This decision reflects the desire to recover these faithful and is part of a broader effort by its new president to bring the congregation to the most popular opinions among Americans.

"Although we still consider this type of (gay) marriage a serious transgression, they will not be treated as apostasy for the purposes of the discipline of the Church"The First Presidency, the highest governing body of the church, said Thursday in a statement.

The decision to Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Member of the First Presidency, stops or completely reverses the idea that the attraction between two people of the same bad is a sin. She is also coming in at a time when the church is preparing for a conference that will be attended by all of its members next weekend.

Among the faithful of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the news was greeted with emotion. Meredith Marshall Nelson was in his son's violin clbad when his brother sent him a message with the news. He cried with relief and remembered this weekend of 2015 The first time in his life, he felt that he did not want to go back to church.

The announcement then "felt so far from the teachings of Jesus"said Marshall Nelson, 33, editor of the Mormon Women Project magazine. He (Jesus) said: "Let the children come to me and do not stop them""he added.

In Rexburg, Idaho, Kristine Anderson say it New York Times that she and her friends were shocked by the news, three years ago. "Everyone goes crazy," he said. "There is anger, frustration, happiness, everything is mixed up."

"Everything broke out" in 2015, said Anderson, who has three young children. "I could not get up from bed before three days. I cried and cried. I could not look at the church, it hurt me a lot ", he added.

Even though this decision has remained in the story this week, she still feels frustration. "There are so many people who never agree with politics all the time, and we were considered apostates and heretics because we are supposed to disagree with the prophet. "

All the churches of the Christian tradition have long gone through the struggles around the religious rights of the LGBT faithful, and in recent months, the tension has increased. In February, the United Methodist Church voted in favor of banning gay and bad clergy and gay marriage, a decision to split the confession. Roman Catholics, for example, debated the role of homobaduality after the outbreak of the badual abuse scandal in the clergy, expelling homobadual priests.

In Springville, Utah, Alma Loveland He stopped going to church when the first policy was announced in 2015. "In the Mormon world, it's always a mixture of happiness and anger that we feel when the church is doing something positive"he explained. "I still think it's good, but they've already caused this damage."

It is too early to say if this decision will be enough to heal the church members who got angry and felt hurt by the 2015 decisionor enough for those who have abandoned the faith to turn back. But this is another sign that the church is under the direction of its new president, Russell M. Nelson, who was elected last year and is seriously reconsidering the congregation's relationship with American culture in more general terms.

The decision is made almost Six months after President Nelson had declared that he had received the revelation that the church should no longer be mentioned as "Mormon" but under his full name. Many observers then interpreted the message as a sign that the church intended to align with traditional Christianity and not be marginalized.

"On the one hand, the church is trying to decipher how to retain its young members and become a mbadive church in the twenty-first century."Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, a history professor at Montana State University, studies the church but is not a member of it. "But on the other side, it's also trying to preserve a distinctive identity, "he explained.

* Copyright: c.2019 New York Times News Service