"Crushingly Cruel" shocking new speech has plunged Mormons into another furious battle over gay righ
“Crushingly Cruel”
A shocking new speech has plunged Mormons into another furious battle over gay rights and the church’s future.
On Aug. 23, Jeffrey R. Holland, Brigham Young University’s former president and a senior apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, gave an inflammatory speech to BYU faculty and staff. In it, he urged faculty to take up metaphorical muskets to defend the faith. He called on them to be both builders of knowledge and defenders of the institution—the church—that determines whether the university exists and the faculty get funding to do their jobs, a fact he reminded them of multiple times in the speech. His words were unmistakably a call to arms: Holland used the word “fire” 10 times, “musket” eight times, and made multiple references to “friendly fire,” “wounds,” and “scarring.” In particular, he called for “more musket fire” from BYU’s faculty to defend Mormonism’s official position on the inferiority and social dangers of same-sex relationships and marriages.
On Aug. 23, Jeffrey R. Holland, Brigham Young University’s former president and a senior apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, gave an inflammatory speech to BYU faculty and staff. In it, he urged faculty to take up metaphorical muskets to defend the faith. He called on them to be both builders of knowledge and defenders of the institution—the church—that determines whether the university exists and the faculty get funding to do their jobs, a fact he reminded them of multiple times in the speech. His words were unmistakably a call to arms: Holland used the word “fire” 10 times, “musket” eight times, and made multiple references to “friendly fire,” “wounds,” and “scarring.” In particular, he called for “more musket fire” from BYU’s faculty to defend Mormonism’s official position on the inferiority and social dangers of same-sex relationships and marriages.
Though the speech was directed at the faculty of BYU, it has shocked Mormons and ex-Mormons far beyond the university in its aggressive tone toward the LGBT community. Just two years ago, the church received much public praise for rescinding a 2015 policy, controversial among Mormons at the time, that declared the minor children of gay people could not be baptized into or join the church as members—at least not until they were 18 years old, and only then if they would denounce their parents’ marriage and condemn their sexuality. Given how contentious the question of gay rights has been among Mormons since the church threw its whole weight behind California’s anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 in 2008, the post-2019 period has been one of welcome relative quiet from the church. That is, until Monday.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/09/mormon-lds-church-gay-rights-controversy-byu-speech.html
Holland cited as his inspiration for the speech a couple of anonymous letters from concerned believers who have been watching the rise of LGBT acceptance at BYU. “You should know,” Holland read ominously from a letter sent by one faithful informant, “that some people in the extended community are feeling abandoned and betrayed by BYU.” The letter accused faculty of publicly contradicting Mormon gospel with their LGBT support, and warned that some faithful Mormon parents wonder whether it is even worthwhile to send their children to BYU, rather than some other school.
Holland’s targets weren’t just limited to the faculty. He singled out one openly gay BYU alum in particular, former valedictorian Matt Easton, who came out as gay in his 2019 commencement speech. In simply identifying himself as gay in the course of the speech, Holland alleged, Easton had “commandeered” the 2019 ceremony. Holland asked the faculty Monday, “What might another speaker feel free to announce the next year, until eventually anything goes? What might commencement come to mean—or not mean—if we push individual license over institutional dignity for very long?”
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