June 26th, 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling of the United States Supreme Court recognizing same-sex marriage as constitutional under the 14th Amendment. Perhaps many Utahns remember that the headwaters of the Obergefell decision first bubbled in Utah as Kitchen v. Herbert when, on December 20, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby struck down the state’s one-man-one-woman marriage law.
But very few people understand the leading role that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints played in the Obergefell ruling – making U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion a very easy task. Most Utahns might be led to believe that the LDS church is a dark enemy of same-sex marriage. That narrative is partial and now strains credulity.
This part of the narrative is correct: The church released its “Family Proclamation” in 1995 firmly and unarguably in favor of the natural family as the fundamental unit of society, and that proclamation was followed by moral-driven political interventions against same-sex marriage proposals in several states, primarily in Hawaii and California, in the late 1990s and early 2000s leading ultimately to the church’s successful orchestration of California’s Proposition 8 by late 2008.
For nearly two decades the LDS Church inveighed against same-sex marriage. So, how is it that the church made Justice Kennedy’s Obergefell decision so much easier? Through heaping helpings of startling naiveté – legally, politically, and philosophically.
Its first err was legal. To support gay rights while simultaneously opposing same-sex marriage was absurd. Argued in a court of law, the idea was incongruous – and Justice Kennedy smelled it a mile away. When the LDS church joined an amicus brief including several other religions, its Obergefell brief was nearly entirely based on the idea that the signatories held no animus against homosexuals. With the LDS church in the lead, the established argument at the time was clear: Homosexuals should have every civil right except same-sex marriage.
The source of this legal tactic was developed by the church over decades by the time Obergefell hit the Court. Who needs reminding? During Proposition 8 and especially after Californians approved the measure, the LDS church repeatedly affirmed that while it opposed same-sex marriage it supported gay rights generally – domestic partnerships, civil unions, and legal protections for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization, medical care, housing, employment, and probate rights – a strategy first proposed by then-lawyer Dallin H. Oaks in a 1984 memo to church leadership.
That legal misjudgment set a precedent for a cavalcade of political errs. Coming out of Proposition 8, the church endorsed two Salt Lake City ordinances regarding housing and employment protections in 2009. By 2015, the church sought to codify the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into state law through the celebrated “Utah Compromise,” and the national attention it received fueled the pride of certain church leaders to try to spread the deal far and wide in other states culminating in the unsuccessful “Fairness for All” congressional legislation in 2019. And, lastly, in 2022, the church threw its substantial influence behind the passage of the federal Respect for Marriage Act endorsing same-sex marriage.
After erring legally and politically, the church erred philosophically: It officially recognized the chimera of “same-sex attraction.” In an uncharacteristic way to show empathy to validate ubiquitous emotions (i.e., human feelings), the church nailed this false flag to its welcoming doors despite the indisputable fact that no replicable scientific or medical (let alone theological) evidence exists to prove a human being is born homosexual, whether described as sexual orientation, gender identity, same-sex attraction or any other social construction to explain away homosexual behavior.
This series of legal, political, and philosophical accommodations by the church made Justice Kennedy’s majority decision easy to pen, especially as the church argued that its opposition to same-sex marriage was not based upon animus.
If the most visibly historic opponent of same-sex marriage in the United States at the time supports all of “the rights of [its] LGBTQ brothers and sisters,” the judicial author of 1996’s Romer v. Evans and 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas must have been delightfully puzzled as he contemplated a response to establish precedent in Obergefell. If the LDS church can accommodate every civil right for homosexuals, as of 2015, why would it oppose the last civil right for homosexuals?
Of course, what Justice Kennedy (and everyone frankly) would not know at the time is that the LDS Church would eventually accommodate same-sex marriage by 2022 through its official endorsement of the congressional Respect for Marriage Act.
How the LDS Church Handed America Same-Sex Marriage
June 26th, 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling of the United States Supreme Court recognizing same-sex marriage as constitutional under the 14th Amendment. Perhaps many Utahns remember that the headwaters of the Obergefell decision first bubbled in Utah as Kitchen v. Herbert when, on December 20, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby struck down the state’s one-man-one-woman marriage law.
But very few people understand the leading role that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints played in the Obergefell ruling – making U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion a very easy task. Most Utahns might be led to believe that the LDS church is a dark enemy of same-sex marriage. That narrative is partial and now strains credulity.
This part of the narrative is correct: The church released its “Family Proclamation” in 1995 firmly and unarguably in favor of the natural family as the fundamental unit of society, and that proclamation was followed by moral-driven political interventions against same-sex marriage proposals in several states, primarily in Hawaii and California, in the late 1990s and early 2000s leading ultimately to the church’s successful orchestration of California’s Proposition 8 by late 2008.
For nearly two decades the LDS Church inveighed against same-sex marriage. So, how is it that the church made Justice Kennedy’s Obergefell decision so much easier? Through heaping helpings of startling naiveté – legally, politically, and philosophically.
Its first err was legal. To support gay rights while simultaneously opposing same-sex marriage was absurd. Argued in a court of law, the idea was incongruous – and Justice Kennedy smelled it a mile away. When the LDS church joined an amicus brief including several other religions, its Obergefell brief was nearly entirely based on the idea that the signatories held no animus against homosexuals. With the LDS church in the lead, the established argument at the time was clear: Homosexuals should have every civil right except same-sex marriage.
The source of this legal tactic was developed by the church over decades by the time Obergefell hit the Court. Who needs reminding? During Proposition 8 and especially after Californians approved the measure, the LDS church repeatedly affirmed that while it opposed same-sex marriage it supported gay rights generally – domestic partnerships, civil unions, and legal protections for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization, medical care, housing, employment, and probate rights – a strategy first proposed by then-lawyer Dallin H. Oaks in a 1984 memo to church leadership.
That legal misjudgment set a precedent for a cavalcade of political errs. Coming out of Proposition 8, the church endorsed two Salt Lake City ordinances regarding housing and employment protections in 2009. By 2015, the church sought to codify the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into state law through the celebrated “Utah Compromise,” and the national attention it received fueled the pride of certain church leaders to try to spread the deal far and wide in other states culminating in the unsuccessful “Fairness for All” congressional legislation in 2019. And, lastly, in 2022, the church threw its substantial influence behind the passage of the federal Respect for Marriage Act endorsing same-sex marriage.
After erring legally and politically, the church erred philosophically: It officially recognized the chimera of “same-sex attraction.” In an uncharacteristic way to show empathy to validate ubiquitous emotions (i.e., human feelings), the church nailed this false flag to its welcoming doors despite the indisputable fact that no replicable scientific or medical (let alone theological) evidence exists to prove a human being is born homosexual, whether described as sexual orientation, gender identity, same-sex attraction or any other social construction to explain away homosexual behavior.
This series of legal, political, and philosophical accommodations by the church made Justice Kennedy’s majority decision easy to pen, especially as the church argued that its opposition to same-sex marriage was not based upon animus.
If the most visibly historic opponent of same-sex marriage in the United States at the time supports all of “the rights of [its] LGBTQ brothers and sisters,” the judicial author of 1996’s Romer v. Evans and 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas must have been delightfully puzzled as he contemplated a response to establish precedent in Obergefell. If the LDS church can accommodate every civil right for homosexuals, as of 2015, why would it oppose the last civil right for homosexuals?
Of course, what Justice Kennedy (and everyone frankly) would not know at the time is that the LDS Church would eventually accommodate same-sex marriage by 2022 through its official endorsement of the congressional Respect for Marriage Act.