Latter-day Saints like me are unfairly denied access to the temple simply because of who we are.
At least, that’s what I’ve increasingly heard from people discussing LGBTQ+ issues in a faith context. But is it actually true?
With the Salt Lake City Temple open house coming up, the temple is on the collective minds of Latter-day Saints. Within the LGBTQ+ conversation, some have asked how Latter-day Saints who have an experience under that label connect to the temple. Given that same-sex sexual behavior doesn’t meet the standards of chastity required for temple attendance, are Latter-day Saints who experience same-sex attraction being offered the same blessings as everyone else? Does everyone have the same access to temple blessings, and if not, does that need to change?
The Question of Fairness
I remember first going through the temple and experiencing mixed emotions. There was the culture shock of a religious ritual I hadn’t prepared for, paired with a profoundly spiritual witness of its veracity and importance. I looked around at the family members who attended my endowment with me and had a distinct impression that within these walls was the closest we could get to heaven. I saw the divine potential in each of my family members as they stood in the temple’s halls in pure white clothing. My understanding was relatively immature; there were certain aspects I found uncomfortable, but I knew it was something I wanted to experience more. There will always be differences in which standards are difficult for each of us to live up to.
While I don’t actually subscribe to that line of thinking, this more cynical voice was in the back of my mind because of how often I’ve encountered it online. As if he could see that distraction in my mind, my bishopric member started the interview in a way that brought me out of my mental detour. He explained that he would read the questions verbatim. He said he wanted to present them perfectly, since Christ would do it perfectly, and he was there to represent Christ. That simple shift recentered my mind on what the temple is for.
What the Temple Is For
The temple is a sacred place with a very specific purpose. Its purpose isn’t to reward people whose lives fit a certain mold. Instead, it brings us into covenant with God, shows us our divine potential, and points us toward Christ.
We’re required to live specific standards to be worthy to enter the temple, but those standards are more about preparing us for the highly spiritual temple experience than about a religion controlling our choices. The less we live by the commandments, the further removed we are from the Spirit. The less of the Spirit we have in our lives, the less prepared we will be for the spiritual experience the temple offers through religious ritual. Not to mention, the temple adds more responsibility to our eternal progression. If we aren’t willing or able to keep the standards required to enter the temple, how can we be expected to keep our covenants?
The temple’s belief- and conduct-based standards are the same for everyone. It’s this equal application of the standards and the promised blessings of the temple that makes it a fair system, if still painful at times in practice.
Equal Standards, Unequal Difficulty
It all comes back to belief as the foundation. Do we believe this is God’s church?
This doesn’t mean we should dismiss the real pain of Latter-day Saints who feel like the temple isn’t for them. Whether it’s the complexity of same-sex attraction, the deep wounds of abuse, or the loneliness of single life, their pain is real, and it shouldn’t be dismissed. It’s easy for those of us who find joy in the temple to dismiss the painful realities faced by some of our brothers and sisters. We should look for those whose heads hang a little lower than ours on this topic. We can listen to their pain. And while we don’t have to validate every belief they might have, we can certainly validate the feelings those experiences bring up.
Fairness Depends on What We Believe
In mortality, we often think of fairness as an equal distribution of hardship. That tendency sometimes bleeds over into temple worthiness requirements. If a standard is more complicated for one group to abide by, we may assume it is an unfair standard. And to be fair, that claim might be true if we were only talking about the temple ceremony as a religious rite put on by a religious institution. But that’s not all it is. As the name suggests, it’s an endowment of power and knowledge that puts us in a covenant relationship with God. One of the temple ceremony’s primary functions is to remind us to keep an eternal perspective. It’s this perspective that doesn’t take away the pain but contextualizes any perceived injustices as what they are: temporary.
It all comes back to belief as the foundation. Do we believe this is God’s church? Do we believe prophets are His spokesmen—men who have the sacred calling of speaking on His behalf, not perfectly, but in a way that will never lead us astray if we follow their counsel? Do we believe temples are God’s house, where we are endowed with power with eternal significance?
If not, that is our right. But we may need to evaluate what we believe and why the temple is our goal. If we believe this is God’s kingdom on earth, the temple and all we receive as patrons and eventual heirs of God’s kingdom are worth any sacrifice or complexity. We believe in a God who will eventually right every wrong and rectify every injustice. As we read in Revelation, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
Costs or Blessings?
Growing up, I always imagined a wife and family. Later, I was told that being authentic meant pursuing a same-sex relationship, or at least accepting that temple marriage was not for me. But that wasn’t what I wanted, and my experiences with God kept pulling me toward the covenant path. Eventually, I met my wife, Amanda. My story is not a prescription for everyone, but it shaped how I see this question.
In my case, I was fortunate to find a life-giving, fulfilling marriage with a woman I love.
But what about those who don’t have or haven’t found a temple marriage?
Dean began with an important note about worthiness.
“There’s nothing about my gayness that says ‘you can’t go to the temple’ or ‘you’re lesser when you’re in the temple.” Then he added, “My being attracted to guys has zero impact on my worthiness to attend the temple. And so if I am willing to live the commandments, then I get to have everything that any other member could have there.”
He then repeated that idea with this line, which struck me: “There’s nothing within the temple that I can’t do.” Before I could ask him to clarify, he added, “I can do all of the ordinances of the temple. There’s actually only one ordinance that you get to do for others before you do it for yourself, and that’s the sealing. And so even though I’m not sealed to a woman—I’m not married—I can still participate in that ordinance for others.”
This is what inspired me most about my interview with him. Even though he recognized the difficulty of not having a temple sealing for himself, he also recognized how certain blessings of the temple can extend to those who participate in proxy ordinances. In his mind, the temple is worth any sacrifice:
As good as a relationship with another man could be, I got to choose that or this. And if that’s the case, I’m choosing this … I will eventually have everything that Heavenly Father has. Because eternally, He will not let me miss out.
He concluded with this:
The temple is super important. I know that this is God’s church, and I know that’s a really important part of what we do in our eternal progression: the ordinances that we receive and then do for others in the temple, and also the peace and the love and the revelation that we can receive there.
The policies around what I can do there don’t marginalize me. So I don’t let anybody else marginalize me or marginalize myself by stepping aside.
The temple is the ideal. The city on the hill. The mountain of the Lord. When we talk about the temple or the standards required for entering its doors as unfair, we degrade its power in our lives and the lives of others. We demean its sacredness in an effort to make it more equitable. We bring it down to a terrestrial glory in an effort to fit our mortal standards in a God-shaped hole.
We all wear white in the temple for a reason. Not to say we’re all the same in a worldly sense of equity. But to remind us of our equal value before God, our inner commitment to be holy, and the equal application of blessings available to us.
Our timeline for the blessings promised in the temple may differ for each of us, but the promises aren’t different—that is, as long as we are willing to live the standards and, like Dean so wisely observed, “not marginalize ourselves.”
