SALT LAKE CITY — The National LGBTQ Task Force today welcomed the comments of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Dallin H. Oaks condemning government officials who “apply (their) duties selectively according to their personal preferences — whatever their source.” His comments were widely seen as referring to Kentucky clerk Kim Davis who discriminated against married same-sex couples.
Public officials “are not free to apply personal convictions — religious or other — in place of the defined responsibilities of their public offices,”LDS apostle Oaks said Tuesday in a speech in Sacramento, Calif., reported The Huffington Post. “A county clerk’s recent invoking of religious reasons to justify refusal by her office and staff to issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples violates this principle.”
“In the very week we are having our Faith and Family LGBTQ Power Summit here in Salt Lake City, we are pleased to hear that a senior leader in the Mormon Church believes that using faith as an excuse to ignore the law and discriminate is wrong — such as in the case of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. This is another positive development in shifting the phony narrative that people of faith aren’t supportive of LGBTQ people and that LGTBQ people aren’t people of faith,” said Rev. Rodney McKenzie, National LGBTQ Task Force Director of the Academy for Leadership and Action.
For more information about the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Faith and Family LGBTQ Power Summit please visit thetaskforce.org/faithfamily.
