LGBT rights groups have expressed “deep disappointment” over recent comments made by Mormon Apostle L. Tom Perry disparaging LGBT families and children as “counterfeit.”
Speaking at the LDS church’s Annual General Conference over the weekend Perry said, “We want our voice to be heard against all of the counterfeit and alternative lifestyles that try to replace the family organization that God himself established.”
“Despite what much of media and entertainment outlets may suggest, however, and despite the very real decline in the marriage and family orientation of some, the solid majority of mankind still believes that marriage should be between one man and one woman,” Perry continued.
Several other speakers joined in “the drumbeat for ‘traditional families,’” the Advocate reported. “The end of all activity in the church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home and sealed together for time and for all eternity,” said Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.
The Human Rights Campaign said that assertions made by Perry, 92, the oldest member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Quorum of 12 Apostles, only serve to undermine common-ground progress the Church made just last month when it backed Utah’s new non-discrimination bill that extends employment and housing protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“The comments made by Mr. Perry and others at the church’s annual general conference last weekend are disheartening and wrong, and remind us yet again that the journey to full inclusion for LGBT people — including our families and children — is not done,” said Jeff Krehely, vice president and chief foundation officer at HRC. “Mr. Perry needs to understand how damaging his words are to LGBT youth struggling for acceptance in the Church, and in their own Mormon families.”
“As Equality Utah executive director Troy Williams said this week, our families are not counterfeit – they are real and beautiful,” Krehely said. “We encourage Mr. Perry and his fellow Apostles to embrace the diversity that already exists within their own church, and reject the language and practice of intolerance.”
