A week ago, Elders within the Mormon Church held a press conference announcing their provisional support of certain LGBT legal protections in areas such as housing and employment. At the same time, they announced that they were offering this support with the understanding that accomodations should also be made "to protect the freedom of religious people who oppose such measures."
"We must all learn to live with others who do not share the same beliefs or values," read a statement released at a Salt Lake City news conference.
In an article for the Daily Beast, Samantha Allen writes that this announcement only seems another attempt to make a plea for tolerance of their own beliefs. Indeed, an official statement released through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints makes it clear that church doctrine regarding the LGBT wil not change in any way. "Changes in the civil law do not, indeed cannot, change the moral law that God has established," reads the statement. "God expects us to uphold and keep His commandments regardless of divergent opinions or trends in society. His law of chastity is clear: sexual relations are proper only between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife."
Meanwhile, Allen expresses the wish that Mormons understand that "not tolerating intolerance is not the same thing as intolerance itself."
