LDS general authority emeritus Steven Snow answers questions at the Gather Conference on LGBTQ+ issues within the church.
‘We need to be more inclusive’ — Retired LDS general authority discusses his journey to LGBTQ+ allyship Gather Conference • Elder Steven E. Snow and poet Carol Lynn Pearson call for greater empathy and inclusion in the church.
Emeritus general authority Seventy Steven Snow answers questions at the Gather Conference on LGBTQ+ issues within the church at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo on Friday, June 27, 2025.• When asked what initiated his change in attitude toward LGBTQ+ issues, a retired top Latter-day Saint leader points to his gay granddaughters.said. “When I learned about my granddaughters, when they came out, that was real. That made a huge change in my life.” People come together for the Gather Conference at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo on Friday, June 27, 2025. During a Q&A session, Snow voiced his belief that church members have a responsibility to make the institution safer and more welcoming. “We need to do more. We need to be more inclusive,” Snow said. “We need to find a place — hard as it may be right now — we need to find a place for our friends, our grandchildren and our children to be at home in the church.”,” Pearson is an active member who has long used her writing and voice to advocate for LGBTQ+ and women’s issues.to a kind of “pioneer journey” for individuals and the institution as a whole, with some members acting as “scouts out front” — seeing the territory ahead and urging the rest to move faster. Pearson said she hopes Latter-day Saints come away from events like the Gather Conference with a “more immediate understanding of the hugeness of this situation.” Author Carol Lynn Pearson, shown in 2002, says the church can and must do better to support LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints.or a neighbor that we love. All of us are affected by this,” she explained. “And so today, we are listening with different ears than we did before.” Pearson also shared the story of a bishop in her area who ministers to a lesbian couple in his congregation. “The bishop has said, ‘If I am ever instructed by somebody in authority above me to do anything to discipline those women, I would before that resign my post as bishop.’” “I’ve heard similar stories,” Pearson said, “of bishops who have been that determined to make sure that everybody has a place there.” Fifteen years ago, Snow said, he would have had a hard time imagining himself at an event like Gather. But as his granddaughters have “taken a step back from the church,” he said, he has developed a deeper understanding of the difficulties that LGBTQ+ members face. Art by Hannah Olive, titled “They That Wait,” is displayed during the Gather Conference. Snow has observed not only his own shift in perspective but also broader changes in Latter-day Saint culture. “The one thing that is foundational about our beliefs is continuing revelation. I’m just hopeful,” he said. “I think attitudes are changing. … We’ve got a long way to go, but thinking has changed very rapidly on this issue.” Pearson said that as the church “takes two steps forward, and three steps back, and several more forward,” she envisions a future when members are seen mainly as “children of our divine parents,” rather than being identified by sexual or gender orientation. Emeritus general authority Seventy Steven Snow, right, and moderator J. Andan Sheppard at the Gather Conference. “We are ready. People down here at the bottom in the church are ready for more progress, and more rapid progress toward the goal of a kind of equality,” said Pearson. “And this will be a long journey — but to see all of us just as human beings, as children of our divine parents, and not necessarily first of all noticing, ‘Are you straight? Are you gay? Are you bi?’ But we will just see them first as children of our divine parents. That’s my hope.”Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, says gay grandson of LDS apostle Dallin Oaks, creates ‘an environment ripe for violence’LDS vs. non-LDS divide: LGBTQ Utahns navigate complex dating world and forbidden relationshipsGet to know the Mammoth’s newest draft picks: ‘I’m so happy with Utah’Donate to the newsroom now.
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