Hundreds of Mormons leave church over new gay policies

A group of Mormons have resigned their membership of the church, over new rules around gay marriage and parenting.

In a leaked memo, the church now says that children living with a gay parent cannot be baptised until they are 18, and only once they have renounced homosexuality. They also say that members can be expelled from the church if they enter into a gay marriage. Same sex marriage was made legal nationwide in the United States, following a Supreme Court ruling in June.

Now, hundreds of members of the church have taken part in a mass public resignation. On Saturday, they organised a rally in a Salt Lake City park, where they mailed letters severing their ties to the church – which has around 15 million members worldwide.

Damien and Shelby Steadman are a married couple who both resigned from the church on Saturday. Damien, who is transgender, told the Los Angeles Times, “If we had kids together and they wanted to be LDS, I wouldn’t want them to make that decision, but I would support it. Now, they can’t. For them to be castigated and cast aside because of me being trans, that’s not right.”

Seemingly in response to this, the Mormon church has announced a slight change to their planned memo – saying these rules will not apply to children of same sex couple who have already been baptised – but it has not fundamentally changed its views on this topic.

The church had recently been showing positive steps towards embracing gay rights, having backed a Utah law which provided legal protection for gay citizens – but many liberals and conservatives alike are disappointed with these new rules.

This has occurred in the same week that a Utah court ordered a nine month old girl be removed from her lesbian foster parents, and placed with a heterosexual couple, in what many have called a blatantly homophobic act.