Aaron Sherinian and Things That Will Never, Ever, Ever Change

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I'm here with the cold but undaunted Ian Wilkes. How are you, sir?

I'm doing very well, Jim. Good morning to you. How are you?

I'm doing all right, but I understand you've got, what, 6, 7 inches of snow? We do.

We spent quite a bit of time clearing the drive this morning and getting quite old for that. So yeah, we'll, we might move at some point in the, in the future. It's a big, big job to clear the drive. Big long drive.

Well, we've got a little bit here. It's not quite as bad, but every year this happens, I just You know, I've been living in this area for 20 years now, and every, every winter I'm always thinking, this again? Really? I have to do this again?

I love the snow. I don't like driving on it. I certainly don't like clearing it off the drive. And it is, it is what it is. But, but good exercise at the same time. Yeah, but, but a lot of calories. So that's good.

Well, this is all good. Well, we are going to be talking about a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, and I appreciate you indulging me here a little bit, but there's been a lot of news in the Mormon blogosphere, the Mormon Twitterverse, whatever you want to call it, that is focused on a new hire that the church has done. The church has hired a new managing director of communications. I mentioned this in the podcast about Donald Trump, but did not realize how much this would sort of blow up. And how, how prominent it would become in the discussion. The new managing director of communications is a man by the name of Aaron Sherinian, and many people, MAGA Mormons, are losing their minds over the fact that he's a very clear LGBTQ ally. There are pictures of him. There was a A, um, the day that the Obergefell decision came down from the Supreme Court, that's the decision that legalized gay marriage throughout the United States. He posted a rainbow picture of the White House along with a celebratory sort of, uh, tweet saying, way to go, SCOTUS, love is love, hashtag love is love. You know, all of these kinds of things. There's a picture of him with his children at a pride parade. He is wearing a shirt that says love, has a heart that has a rainbow on it. And even as recently as, you know, and a lot of people were saying, well, this is in the past. This is in 2015, 2016. Well, he was working for Deseret Management Corporation as its vice president. This is the company that manages the business end of the church. And his LinkedIn profile had pronouns. Aaron Sherinian, he/him, which is an absolute no-no for the people who, for, for Desnatt and the people who weaponize the family proclamation. Just being able to say these are my preferred pronouns is acknowledging the existence of trans people, which many, many of these fundamentalist Mormons are not willing to do. Anyway, so the long and short of it is this has been a very controversial hire. It has been spoken of in, you know, we've had these podcasts, the Quick Show with this guy who just went on for hours about how this is the end of the world. But he's not trying to check the church. He's not trying to correct the church, but the church is in complete apostasy and is going to burn in hell. But he's not really— I mean, it's just, as someone who's been attacked repeatedly for being too progressive, it is, in an unchristian way, sort of, you know, in terms of schadenfreude, somewhat delightful to watch these people lose their minds when the church does something that they don't like. And I probably shouldn't enjoy that as much as I should. I think I talked about that in the Trump episode as well, that That's, that doesn't really speak well for me, but I am who I am and that's where I am. And watching these people blow up has been sort of delightful for me. But the, the other thing is that I know Aaron Sherinian. I know him quite well. I met Aaron Sherinian in 2016. It was right after my father had a stroke that took his life. He died 3 weeks after the stroke, and he was living in Roslyn, Virginia, which was part of the Arlington, Virginia ward where Aaron Sherinian was serving as bishop. And if you go through the timeline, 2016 is not long after the Obergefell decision, and it's around the same time that Aaron Sherinian was posting pictures of himself at a pride parade. So all of this was happening. A lot of the fundamentalists are trying to sort of deal with their cognitive dissonance by saying, well, he was in apostasy then, but he's repented now. He no longer believes all of that, which I think is absolute nonsense. And the reality is, when he was posting these pictures, he was serving as a bishop. And, uh, my father had the idea— after my father left the Senate, he started his own consulting firm, and he very much wanted to get a contract with the church where my father's consulting firm would essentially function as the church spokesman, and the consulting firm would hire Aaron Sherinian as the person who would do it. My father was very impressed with Aaron Sherinian. He has a really remarkable background, a lot of experience. And back then, my father said he had been offered this position that he's now taken. Multiple times. The church has pursued Aaron Sherinian and tried to get them to work for him for years. And Aaron Sherinian turned them down primarily because he didn't want to take the pay cut. He was, he was getting compensated quite well. When I met him, he was the communications director for the United Nations Foundation. And I ended up actually getting a contract. He arranged a contract where I was given— after Patrick Kearin's talk on refugees, the church was very interested in sort of doing everything they could to up the media profile of the church's efforts with refugees. And Aaron Sherinian helped arrange a contract whereby I was tasked with placing articles and opinion pieces about refugees in red state newspapers. In other words, in states that were predominantly Republican. A lot of that was in, in Utah. I was a columnist for the Deseret News at the time, and I placed a number of articles in the Deseret News as a result of that, and also in a bunch of other, uh, different different newspapers. But so I actually worked with Aaron Sherinian as a result of this. At one point, I went to a conference that he put on in New York City where Joe Biden, who was the vice president at the time, came and spoke about what he called the Cancer Moonshot. This was the effort to put all the kind of effort that we put into landing on the moon to curing cancer. It wasn't a political speech. But, uh, Joe Biden was the sitting vice president, so we all had to go through metal detectors as we went and did this. But anyway, so I know Aaron Sherinian. Where I got a real sense of who Aaron Sherinian is and where I realized just what a magnificent human being he is was the night my father died, May 4th, 2016. Uh, for 3 weeks, all of my siblings and I were sort of standing vigil around my father's bedside because we knew the end was coming. And Aaron Sherinian and Emily Sherinian were constantly at my parents' house, just sort of to keep us company, just sort of to talk to us. I mean, they were doing everything they could to be true disciples of Christ. To really just show that sort of human element in a family that was in grief. And the night my father died, after he passed away, it was minutes before Aaron Sherinian came to our home and he just sat with us and just talked with us and wept with us. It was just the most gracious, kind thing that anybody could do. And so I just adore this man. And when I saw that he'd been hired, I was absolutely thrilled. And I didn't even think about the political implications of this. I knew that he was not a Trumper. I did not know the extent of his LGBTQ alliances, but I knew that this was not a man that fit the sort of traditional MAGA Republican mold. Anyway, so I know Aaron Sherinian. I've actually been in communication with him while this has been happening. I don't really want to get into that because he hasn't given me permission to share any of that information, but But I know that this has been difficult for him. I think it's been particularly difficult for his children. There have been people who come after his kids online. I mean, and these are active members of the church that think they're doing the church a service by trashing a good man because they don't agree with his politics. But it's, it's even more than that. I mean, the meltdown of the Desnats over Aaron Sherinian is on the idea that Aaron Sherinian was doing all of these things and the church should realize that he's in direct opposition to church doctrine. That's, that's a direct quote from one of these tweets. I mean, I can share with you a few more of them. I mean, most of them are really quite ugly. I mean, one guy asks, what can we as members of the church do about openly apostate shitlibs gaining lofty positions in church proceedings? Or excommunicate immediately. Or the church offices is polluted. That's what they said. But is polluted with so many apostate woke garbage humans, and it is hurting everyone who blindly follows the church and not the Savior. This will only make things worse. I'm still waiting for them to correct the false statement about the safe and effective jab. So there you have somebody who's, uh, mad at the church for promoting vaccination. Uh, they committed legitimacy suicide years ago. It just takes time for the reverberations to take effect, and this is one of the stages of dying. I mean, these are people who claim to be active members of the church. Um, infiltration, look around, it's everywhere. Or, uh, the fact someone this educated and theoretically skilled in understanding public dynamics such as PR and communications couldn't foresee down the road a few years to recognize how badly the woke agenda's tactics were going to blow up and therefore have the courage to say no. And that's just where that stops. Another guy says, where's my pitchfork? I mean, these are people who consider themselves to be the most righteous members of the church, the most active members of the church, and they're the ones deriding the church for doing this and ripping Aaron Sherinian, ripping the brethren. And every time I push back and I've said, so it sounds like you don't sustain the leaders who appointed them. Oh no, no, you're not. No, no. What are you talking about? I absolutely sustain the leaders. They didn't know about this. This was, I mean, as if Aaron Surinian sort of snuck into the church office building and took this job without any of the brethren knowing. And, you know, John Delenn and RFM and Bill Reel and our friend Rebecca Bibliotheca did a podcast where they talked about this and they framed it as, well, either the church is grossly negligent and incompetent and didn't know this, or they did know this.. And I want to go on record as saying there is absolutely no way that the church did not know this, that they did not know about Aaron Sherinian's background. RFM is saying that Aaron Sherinian is scrubbing his social media, or that the church is scrubbing his social media. I don't think so. I, I don't know if that's true. I think it may be likely that Aaron Sherinian is embarrassed by all the attention that this has created and scrubbed it himself. You know, I don't think there's a massive conspiracy here because I don't think Aaron Sherinian believes he's been hired to launch a new direction for the church. The communications director does— the tail doesn't wag the dog. The communications director does not set church doctrine. Does not set church policy, and Aaron Sherinian is not going to do any of that. He is going to be a loyal spokesman to the church and for the brethren. Uh, but, uh, so it's clear that the brethren absolutely knew about this and hired him anyway. So the question then becomes, well, what does this mean? And I think that's what we can explore here on this podcast, and I'm happy to to talk about anything that you want to raise as well. But I— what I think this means, in my estimation, is not that the church is on the cusp of becoming LGBTQ friendly, or that the church is on the cusp of performing same-sex temple sealings, or any of the kinds of things that these des-nats are terrified of happening. What I think it absolutely means is that you can be an LGBTQ ally and still be a member in good standing. A lot of people have cited the temple recommend question about affiliating with apostate groups or affiliating with anybody that, uh, whose teachings and practices oppose those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And historically, that question has been the subject of leadership roulette. There was a big story in the Salt Lake Tribune a few years ago about a mission president who sent a missionary home because this missionary had a lesbian mother who was married to a woman, and he wasn't willing to disavow that. And he said, well, your practices and affiliations are not in accordance with the church. And so he got sent home and eventually That went— that worked its way through leadership, and he ended up getting a temple recommend and was invited to go back and serve the rest of his mission and refused to because that was such a negative experience. But you have many leaders who will say, look, you can't believe that gay marriage is a good idea because that's contrary to the teachings and practices of the church. You also— I mean, this kid that was sent home from his mission was sent home on the basis of you're not sustaining your leaders. Because sustaining your leaders means agreeing with your leaders. So you have to believe exactly the same way that your leaders believe, or you can't have a temple recommend. What this Aaron Sherinian incident— I wish there were some other way to describe it because it sounds like Aaron did something wrong, and he absolutely didn't. But this whole kerfuffle, what this demonstrates is that the brethren do not see that kind of support as disqualifying. And I think that is actually a huge step forward. And I think the people who are terrified that things are going to change, uh, maybe a hunch of something here, because while this isn't the, the, the event that shows that this is going to change, it is one more piece of evidence that we are moving slowly in that direction, painfully, haltingly. We're sort of being dragged in that direction. But the reality is, for the Church to say you can't support gay marriage and have a temple recommend would disqualify Church leadership from holding a temple recommend because the Church endorsed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified the legalization of gay marriage in the United States after the Supreme Court decision. And they did it, I think, because they were dragged into doing it, and they were great that that legislation provided for religious institutions. So the church can continue to discriminate because it's a religious institution, but legally, gay marriage is legal in all 50 states, and that no longer relies on a Supreme Court decision. That is now the law of the land as a result of legislation that the church has explicitly endorsed. So I've thought many times that if any church leader were to come back to me and say, well, wait a minute, uh, don't you support LGBTQ rights? I'm going to say, well, I support the Respect for Marriage Act that the church endorsed. I, I, I embrace that. Uh, and if you've got a problem with that, then you'll have to take it up with the First Presidency. And because the church has endorsed this position as well. So, so that I think is the one concrete thing that this means. This means that you cannot deny a temple recommend to somebody who supports gay marriage. You cannot deny a temple recommend to somebody who is an LGBTQ ally. If you do, then you are interpreting those questions differently than the brethren who hired Aaron Sherinian with their eyes wide open, knowing Aaron Sherinian's background. There's no possible way you can look at Aaron Sherinian's resume and not realize that, that he is a progressive and very likely he is an LGBTQ ally. And I know that the church— we've talked about the Strengthening Church Members Committee. We know that the church gathers a lot of information that's out on social media about rank-and-file members. You think they didn't gather that kind of information about somebody they were hiring to be the spokesman for the entire church? That's lunacy. They knew this was there. They hired him anyway. And that is a signal to the Desnats, who have made anti-LGBTQ bigotry the centerpiece of their faith, that they are doing something wrong, that their exclusion of people who are LGBTQ allies is wrong, and they need to get on board with the reality that people in this church don't hate gay people the way they do. And they shouldn't. I mean, I, I think that's another message, uh, that comes through all of this. So, so I'm coming at this with this background with Aaron Sherinian, a personal background with him, but also seeing how much flak I've taken because I have not been sufficiently anti-LGBTQ for these people's purposes. And and recognizing that the church has gone out on a limb to some degree and said, look, you can be an LGBTQ ally and still be considered faithful. And I think that's a bridge too far for a lot of these folks, and they're terrified of where it's going to lead. But I'm very interested, you know, when I suggested this as a topic, I said, I want to talk about Aaron Sherinian, and you responded, who? I mean, you're coming at this as a blank slate. So coming at this as a blank slate, I'm very interested to hear what your first impressions are and what you think this means.

Yeah, thank you, Jim Bennett. I listened intently. Your, the context, the background, the personal relationship that you have with Aaron and his family. The insights that you have are incredibly valuable and you've articulated them extremely well and raised some really important points there. Of course, I don't know this individual, but I did some research and I have some thoughts and some comments. First, in response to some of the tweets or comments that have been made that draw into comments against Ari's family. Are absolutely shocking and disgraceful from some of the quarters in the church. It's clear, and I've seen this a lot over the years in the, um, announcement of social media comments on church platforms, uh, it's clear that politics, to me at least, politics trumps religion. And, uh, people were not shy in, in being coming forward and seemingly forgetting the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is love and kindness and benevolence and charity and patience and long-suffering. And quite very, very quick and very hard to make, you know, some very harsh judgmental comments aligned with their political thinking. It's also in my notes here, just listening to you, some of your comments, I am firm in my belief that there's quite a few members of the First Presidency, First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, that are not in lockstep with rank-and-file members politically, uh, or even religiously. I think there is a— there's a gap there. You know, you've got this thinking, uh, this, this type of thinking from the traditional members, which has been, um If you like, it's enshrined in doctrine, it's become entrenched over the years. And that has come from similar thinking leaders in the past. So those conservative, old-fashioned traditional leaders over the years, those prophets, you know, Spencer Kimball, Ezra Benson, right up until, you know, to somewhat Howard W. Hunter, but certainly Ezra Benson, when you and I were serving missions and prior to that, this conservative thinking in the leadership And that was built over the years, 180 years or so, this, this, this conservative traditional thinking base, uh, over years, which is deeply embedded across the church. And again, it's enshrined in doctrine and policies and principles. And now we have, I think, members of the Quorum of the Twelve who, who don't think like that anymore. They're, they're softening their position. And I see this, uh, decision to hire Aaron, as incredibly significant, really interesting in terms of what that means, highly strategic actually on the part of the church. If I was leading the church myself and I was trying to figure out a way to get off that hard ramp, you know, that— think of some off-ramp strategy to soften my position on LGBTQ issues. How do I change that? How do I facilitate that? How do I send a message that we are changing? Uh, but I need to be very strategic. It would be this. It would be hiring someone like Aaron into what is— I understand his role, it's really important title— Head of Public Affairs and Media Relations. That's really significant. That title there speaks volumes. He's dealing with the public affairs, media relations, is the face of the church with the world, et cetera. The church again professes to be a world, uh, religion. And so we see a lot of, uh, to your point there, a lot of, uh, countries around the world, not every country, uh, introducing laws and legislation to protect the rights of LGBTQ individuals. And that's absolutely right. Um, and so some thoughts and comments come to my mind is, is, uh, For example, you mentioned earlier that they were pursuing Aaron for this role for quite some time, which tells me that they were thinking strategically, or thinking along these lines, uh, long before this appointment was made recently. So that's interesting. This gives you some insight into looking back into the history and thinking about, you know, they had these conversations internally. You know, they don't make mistakes on stuff like this. I don't think they make mistakes. The church does make mistakes often, but not, not too often. And, and they've really thought this through. And so, uh, they have done his back— they have done the background research, um, on, uh, on him. And, uh, in researching him, because I didn't know a great deal about this individual, didn't take me too long to learn that he worked for the United Nations and as a, uh, you know, a commissioner or individual working for the United Nations, it's important that anyone working, and I've got friends that work for the United Nations and they tell me that it's very important that you understand the fundamental principles upon which the United Nations are based upon, including issues around slavery and race and LGBTQ issues. And on the United Nations website, there is a very clear defined statement that's been there for quite some time around the rights of LGBTQ individuals. And I'll read it, it's very, very important here. And Aaron used to work for this organization organization, and the church will know that, you know, what the position of the United Nations is. It's very, very important, their position on, on, on this issue. And I'll quote, it says, deeply embedded homophobic and transphobic attitudes, often combined with a lack of adequate legal protection against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, expose many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender queer and intersex, LGBTQI people of all ages and in all regions of the world to erogenous, erogenous violations of their human rights. In intersection with racial discrimination on the grounds of race, color, descent, national origin, makes, makes LGBTQI+ people even more vulnerable to discrimination and hate-motivated violence. Several international instruments and human rights mechanisms explicitly recognize the impact of intersecting forms of discrimination on the enjoyment of human rights. So Aaron will have known that, it will have been, you know, if you look at his comments online and you've made reference to one earlier and I can see other comments he's made on Twitter, now called X I believe, where he says, hey, Chris Mosier on Making History is the first trans member of Team USA. And then another comment on, uh, 27th of February last year where he says transgender rights are human rights. He says very clearly, join us in standing up for trans rights. So this information is, uh, is public, uh, the church will have known this. So why would they have hired them, uh, The only reason I can think of is that they are trying to slowly but surely, to your point, transition strategically, carefully in the direction that they know they have to go. The church has lost the argument on, um, on gay rights, which has now become a civil issue in the United States, and certainly a civil issue across other parts of the world. This hiring was no mistake. Uh, there's a hiring process. They will have, you know, a role like this. They will have researched his background. They will have gone into great detail in terms of, you know, his, his politics, his family, his background. This is, uh, this is no mistake. Um, and what does this say to the rank-and-file members? Uh, what does it mean for the, uh, uh, missionary program in terms of what we teach on the family? You, you've given us some insights into how the traditional members are reacting. Uh, at the moment we have no comment from the leadership. I've not seen any, uh, quotes in regards to a particular position from a member of the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve. If that exists, I don't— I haven't found it. I don't know if they come about and make statements when these posts are— these appointments are made. Um, and what does it mean for the proclamation of the family? I think it's extremely significant because the family is now— and not that traditional family unit, that nuclear unit of, you know, male and female, you know, father and mother. Families comprise of all kinds of, um, different, um, you know, formations, different makeup. And so I think this is significant. I think it's timely, uh, I think it's extremely encouraging. And it's interesting that you're getting this, um, and not surprising frankly, getting this very, um, ferocious in some quarters attack on, uh, you know, on Aaron and his family and on, you know, whether the or not the, uh, you know, whoever's running the church offices, uh, you know, he actually knows what they're doing. So it's interesting and, uh, and raises lots and lots of questions. So they're my thoughts, comments. I don't know Aaron as well as you. You know him personally. He sounds a remarkable individual, a very kind individual, him and his family. And at the end of the day, um, it's not, uh, you know, our, uh, I think politics or our position on, uh, gay rights, which is obviously a very important position to hold. It's really who we are as people, that we act with kindness and love and compassion. And, and really, at the end of the day, that's what's important. It's what we do, it's who we are that defines us. And the kindness and love that we show, especially when they show that love to your family, you know, when they supported your family that difficult time when your father passed away. In the end, I think that's what is important, and Christ recognizes that. It's not these political positions or other necessary positions that people hold. It's really how we behave and support each other with love and kindness. So, you know, they're my thoughts and comments. And so I think your insights there are really important, and I hope people listening to this will appreciate the importance of getting the facts before they make any statements or any accusation or allegation, which could be very hurtful to the family.

No, I think you're right, and I appreciate that. I, I, it's interesting you talk about love and kindness because a lot of these people who are expressing these vicious attacks on Aaron and his family preface it with, well, we should love everybody and we should be kind to everybody. I mean, yeah, we understand that we should love and be kind to LGBTQ people, but they're terrible, awful people that are going to burn in hell. And, you know, kindness to LGBTQ people for many members of the church is an abstraction. Because when you say, okay, let's be kind to them. So if your son marries another man, what are you going to do? Well, I'm never going to let them be in my house, that's for sure. And I'm never going to let them corrupt my family. And I'm going to preach to them. You know, that's, that's the practical reaction. And when you try to point out that there's no kindness or love in that approach, you get a blank stare. You get, you're an apostate, you don't get this. And what's interesting to me, so there's a guy named Kwaku L. He's one of what used to be called the Midnight Mormons. I've done several podcasts with him. I've met Kwaku on a number of occasions. I find him to be a very pleasant guy, although he claims that my daughter was trying to hook up with him on the Mutual app, and my daughter has never had the Mutual app. So I have that kind of Kwaku and I have a bit of a disagreement there, but he's a bit of an opinion leader. He's an African-American young Latter-day Saint in his 20s who put up a poll on X. I hate calling it X because X doesn't make any sense to me. I still want to call it Twitter. But anyway, he put up a poll on X that says if the church embraced same-sex marriages and same-sex temple sealings, and the prophet directed it to be embraced and implemented by his authority and in the name of Jesus Christ, would you stay a faithful member? I was the first person to answer the poll. I clicked on it and it said 100% yes, 0% no. And I was really excited until I realized I was the only one who had answered. But the final results— at one point the no was leading, but the final results are yes, Yes, 53.5%. No, 46.5%. So, in other words, if the church were to allow for same-sex sealings, 46.5% of the members, at least responding to this poll, would leave the church, which I find astonishing and find an example of the fact that— because the way he frames it is this isn't just something This is if the prophet were to come and say, God wants this, this is a revelation that we have received that you need to embrace. Uh, 46.5% feel so strongly about maintaining exclusion of LGBTQ people that they would leave the church over this. Uh, but what's, what's instructive too is what you find in the comments and the people who, um, The people who are opposed to this over and over again, essentially their answer is, this will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever change. I mean, there are variations of that. I mean, here's a guy named ShaneTrump2024: Not going to answer such a question as it flies in the face of the plan of salvation. And here's another one: Stephen M. Booth says, I have a better and more reasonable question. If a double-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex appeared on my front lawn at 2:43 AM next Saturday morning, would he be able to win in a one-on-one tennis match with Venus Williams? You know, over and over again, uh, the likelihood of that ever happening is 0%. It won't, says Andy the Latter-day Bean. I mean, just over and over again, the continual response whenever you raise the possibility, not just of same-sex sealings, which is, I think, way down the road, but any kind of inclusion, you know, could the church— the church today, without any doctrinal change, could say, we will take no disciplinarian action on anyone who is legally and lawfully married. They wouldn't even have to frame it in terms of gay or same-sex or traditional marriage. They could just say, today we will take no disciplinary action. Uh, and, uh, the church could do that, and you would have people flying off the handle of, absolutely not, this flies in the face of the Family Proclamation, this flies in the face of And we've talked about the Family Proclamation because the Family Proclamation actually doesn't say what most of these people who weaponize it think it says. But that's another discussion altogether. But the, the thing that I want to reinforce here is the idea that saying something will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever happen comes from a place of profound weakness. Not strength. It comes from a place of profound fear and a recognition that not only can it happen, but it likely will happen. And I think that's what people are seeing, or people are doing, in their response to Aaron Sherinian. They see this— I mean, this is not an announcement from the Church that we are changing our doctrines or policies or whatever you want to label them with regard to LGBTQ people at all. We are not beginning the process of temple sealings for gay couples. We are not even saying that legally lawfully married people who don't go through the temple, uh, are welcome in our church. We're not saying any of that. We're not saying anything And yet people see this, just this one sort of tiny— and really it is tiny, although we're saying it's significant because it represents to some degree a greater acceptance than we had before. But even this, the idea that the brethren aren't going to exclude somebody from working for the church because they support gay rights. Uh, that's a bridge too far for them, and it's terrifying to them. And they see this as a slippery slope. And I think to some degree they are right to see it as a slippery slope, uh, because I— the church has changed so drastically on this issue in such a short period of time that it's foolhardy to think we won't continue to change. And the only response that these bigots have to those changes is to deny they've even happened. Because when I say that, when I had that big, you know, Jacob Hanson, I don't even like to call attention to him, but I had that sort of online debate with the guy. He insisted the church has never changed on this. And I pointed out, It's changed very radically in a very short period of time. No, how, how has it changed? Well, it's changed. One, we now acknowledge that people do not choose which gender they will find sexually attractive. In the days when I was growing up, in the days of For Young Men Only and The Little Factory and Boyd K. Packer, it was— this is Elder Packer gave another talk that was about as awful as For Young Men Only. It was called To the One, and it talked about the idea of homosexuality. He said, I'm only going to use the word homosexual once. I'm only going to use this word once. And then he said homosexual. And he says, I describe it as a temporary condition because nobody is born this way and nobody has to live this way. No way on earth is anybody born homosexual. And of course it's changeable. And the reason people are homosexual is because of a deep and profound selfishness. And he describes this selfishness, you know, it's— you may not even realize it, but you're being selfish by being— it's like, this doesn't make any sense. And the church has moved so far away from that position to the point where we now explicitly say You do not choose which gender you are going to find sexually attractive. And the second part of that that is significant is sufficient righteousness does not change your sexual orientation. You will not— do not expect that if you pray and if you keep all the commandments and if you fulfill all of your callings and you do everything right, do not expect that suddenly this will be taken from you because it won't. And they've retreated to the idea that this will all be fixed in the afterlife, that when you die, if you're a gay man, you will suddenly transform into being a straight man, and then you will be attracted to women, and then this will all be fixed. And what's remarkable too, and this is maybe another discussion as well, is that the focus is almost entirely solely on gay men. No mention of lesbians. No mention of non-binary, no, no real mention of transgender in a lot of the things that the church has done. And absolutely no mention of intersex people. You know, you have, you have somewhere around, I think it's about 1% of the population that is intersex, that have both male and female physical characteristics. Where do they fit in the plan of salvation? Well, the church has just ignored that question. Forever. But the point being, uh, we have changed. We have changed drastically. We have changed in ways that I think gave Elder Packer fits because he saw it before he died, which is why he gave his talk in 2010 where he insisted that nobody is born gay. And the First Presidency made him change it. The First Presidency corrected publicly and embarrassingly the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in a way that everybody had to notice and everybody had to, had to deal with. So it's, it's just stunning to me that people think this can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever change because it's already changed. And, and what's important also with that is we are a church that ought to embrace change. We are the church of modern revelation, of continuing revelation. What is the point of continuing revelation if nothing new can ever happen? If everything has to stay the way it was? Of course continuing revelation is going to change things. We should not only think that it's possible, we should expect it and welcome it and be seeking it. And I think when this finally changes, and I, I, I am absolutely convinced that it will, and I don't have to stand here and say, it will absolutely change, it will change, it will change, because I think I'm coming from a position of strength and not weakness. I know it's going to change. And so I'm patient. The Lord has asked me to be patient about this, and so I'm going to be patient, but This is going to change. We are going to get to where we need to be. I am not going to put conditions on that. I'm not saying the church is absolutely going to do same-sex sealings in the temple because I do not want to put any preconditions on what the Lord will do. I don't want to put any limits on what the Lord will do. I believe that the Lord is going to open the doors for greater LGBT queer inclusion in ways that most of us do not anticipate or do not understand. I think it's going to happen in ways that are going to be really remarkable and really stunning. But so, so I don't have to tell you, you know, I mean, I've had so many of these kinds of people approach me and say, are you saying the church is going to Do same-sex temple sealings? Are you saying the church should do same-sex temple sealings? And my answer to both of those questions is no. I'm not saying either one of those things. I'm saying I trust the Lord, and I know the Lord loves his LGBTQ children. And we now know and accept as a church that they do not choose their orientation. Their orientation does not change. And their gender identity does not change when they pray hard enough. You know, the terrible, terrible quote from Miracle of Forgiveness from Spencer W. Kimball, how, you know, of course this can change. How do you know the door will not open until you have pounded on the door until you're bloody? You know, it's, we have changed. We will continue to change. Aaron Sherinian is one more step in that direction and a remarkable step that I wouldn't have anticipated. I did not think that this is how we would get a step towards greater inclusion. But the Lord surprises us and, and I believe he will continue to surprise us. And it just flabbergasts me that the 46.5% who answered no in this poll think that they're somehow more righteous and more faithful than the 53.5% who said yes. Because the 53.5%, uh, are saying, look, we'll do whatever the Lord wants us to do. And if the Lord wants us to more fully embrace our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, Yes, of course we'll do it. I don't understand why that's even remotely controversial. Do you?

No, I agree. I— you've articulated again a lot of my thoughts and feelings on this subject. In fact, you've covered some things that I was thinking about before we did the podcast. Yeah. You know, I joined the church when I was 16, and in my experience, which is very clear to me, The church did hold a very firm position on, you know, same-sex attraction and homosexuality. It was completely opposed to that. I was taught that as a young man, as a missionary, we had very clear guidelines about interviewing. In fact, we were told by President Dunn, Ella Jacobs and I were knocking on doors in Dunfermline, and we did report to President Dunn that we'd met an homosexual couple on the door. These are the words that we used at the time back in the '80s. And President Dunne was very clear that we don't teach people like that, we walk away. And we've walked away from a number of doors where we thought at the time as missionaries that those individuals are homosexual, that they had no place in the church. The church had been very clear and very firm on its position over the years that it opposes such activity or relationships behavior of that kind. And again, Elder Packer, look what he said here. He said, uh, we teach the standard of moral conduct, conduct that will protect us from Satan's many, uh, substitutes and counterfeits for marriage. We must understand that any persuasion to enter into any relationship that is not in harmony with the principles of the gospel must be wrong. From the Book of Mormon, there is again, it's enshrined in doctrine, right? From the Book of Mormon, we learn that wickedness never was happiness. Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are born tendencies, tendencies, inborn tendencies towards the impure and unnatural. Not so. And then the infamous question comes: why would a Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, he's our Father. And again, we fast forward, uh, skipping many, many references to the church maintaining its very direct position. You reference miracle of forgiveness. We talked about proclamation of the gospel. There's countless references to the Chibai church leaders maintaining its very fixed and firm position opposing, um, uh, same-sex attraction. And then we read, and it's very important to share this actually, the latest statement, uh, on same-sex attraction that the church has in terms of position. And I'll read it, it's important. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges that same-sex attraction is a sensitive issue that requires kindness, compassion, and understanding. Again, I'm quoting from the church website here, Jim. The same-sex attraction section of thechurchofjesuschrist.org reinforces the reality that the words of one Latter-day Saint scripture, God loveth his children, 1 Nephi 11:17, and seeks to help everyone better understand same-sex attraction from a gospel perspective. Here's an interesting, uh, state, uh, part in that statement, uh, which is very different, has changed significantly. He says here the church does not take a position on the cause of same-sex attraction. In 2006, Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, quote, the church does not have a position on the causes of any of these susceptibilities or inclinations, including those related to same-gender attraction. The reality is it did, Jim Bennett, prior to that.

It absolutely did.

Absolutely did. I know that. I taught that. I was told, I was trained to think like that as a bishop. Feelings of— it says, it goes on here, feelings of same-sex attraction are not a sin, President M. Russell Ballard said. Let us be clear. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that the experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such, such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them. With love— he goes on to say— with love and understanding, the church reaches out to all God's children, including those with same-sex attraction. There's more to the statement, you can find it online on the church website. And so I see this as a seismic, a small, medium, I'll say medium seismic event. I'm trying to rank it in terms of seismic activity. I think it's like a 5 or 6.0 on the Church Richter scale. It is significant, it is strategic, it is encouraging, it is welcome. And it's another step to your point in the right direction. And the church knows, Jim, it knows it's on the wrong side of history on this issue and other issues, but certainly in this one it is. And it's increasingly isolated, Jim. We know that, we see that. It's lost the fight. My goodness, it fought tooth and nail over the years to try to influence, you know, policy legislation in the United States, not elsewhere, anywhere else. You don't see the kind of resources that the church has committed to opposing these issues anywhere outside of the United States, certainly not here in Canada, certainly not in the UK, elsewhere, et cetera. But in the United States, you know, the church follows and gets directly involved in the politics. It's lost the fight. It's a civil rights issue. The question now, I think, you know, if I'm a fly on the wall there, if I was in those meetings, I, I suspect that they are talking about, well, look, we've lost the fight. We have to embrace this. The question now is how do we do it? What's that strategic plan, that positioning, that tactical, those tactics that you have to deploy in order to strategically reposition the church away from all that embedded and fixed and firm unchanging position of doctrine and principles that the brethren have built a concrete fence around, an iron fence that this is our position. You're with us or against us. It's black or white. The church doctrine never changes. God never changes, and the doctrine will always be the same. How many times have we been taught that the doctrine never changes? God never changes, otherwise he would cease to be God. I think I've heard that many, many times. Well, the reality is God does change, and the reality is that the church is changing, and thank goodness. You said very well, you know, we're a church that believes in revelation, and revelation continues to pour, you know, to come to the mouthpiece of God. That's a fundamental tenet of the church. That is essential to the fundamental of the church, You know, we're not in an apostasy anymore. We have the claim that we're the only true living church upon the face of the earth. President Nelson is the mouthpiece of God. God is very much involved in the church. And the prophet speaks on behalf of the Lord, who is very active in sending. And the prophet receives constant revelation every day, every week. It happens. The heavens, quote, are open, end quote. And revelation continues to pour through the mouthpiece of God. And so is this revelation from God? I think it is, I hope it is. And so this is another step in the right direction to address the rights of LGBTQ people. And the other point that you made, a really good point, of course, is, you know, if you plot the trajectory of this, going forward? If you were to put this in a graph, that'd be great to see this in a graph, you would plot this forward. You can tell I'm a bit of a project manager here. Where does this lead? Does that lead to further policy changes? You know, what about the rights of LGBTQ individuals within the church to access the blessings of eternal marriage, or to be sealed to the family? Can, can they be sealed to the parents in the temple? Can they go into the temple? Physically and receive a recommend to go into the temple and be sealed to their parents as a gay individual. Um, you know, I, I, yes, I think the, you know, if, if we follow the, the logic of this and these changes over, you know, over the coming decades, you know, years, perhaps a decade, or I think it's going to happen quicker than we think, by the way. I think the next 50, 50 You've said that the church looks, compared to Joseph Smith, the church is a very different organization, right? Compared to the time when you and I were serving in missions back in the '80s, look how much the church has changed in the last 30, 35 years. And if we could plot those changes going forward, I think the next 10 to 15 years is gonna usher in even more change that we would say, 10, 15 years ago when we talked about this, there's no way we would've seen this happening back then. But in the next 15 years, I anticipate significant change, in particular on this issue, and rightly so. It's long overdue, and thank goodness common sense is prevailing. And to protect the rights of LGBTQ individuals, it's important that we have a principle and policy of equality and fairness. And again, quoting the globe, And he says it very clearly. And I'll finish my comment on this by quoting the scripture here, 1 Nephi 11:17, God loveth his children. And I take from that all, Jim Bennett, all of his children.

Amen and amen. I just want to add two things. We're coming up on the end here. At one point you said in that God changes. And I would push back on that to say God does not change, but what his imperfect children understand about him changes. When people say doctrine never changes, I think they are confusing doctrine with truth, because I don't think truth changes. Absolute eternal truth. I think there is such a thing, and I think it is unchanging. And I think human understanding of absolute eternal truth and divine reality is infinitesimal. It's tiny. What our understanding of God's perfection and of the bedrock truth that leads and guides the universe is just indescribably tiny. And our doctrines reflect our understanding of that truth. And when we get more light and more knowledge and we understand that truth better, our doctrines change to reflect that. That's why I always say there is such a thing as false doctrine. There is no such thing as false truth. And I think where people get into trouble is when they equate that the church— it comes back to this idea of infallibility. The church can never make a mistake. And so clearly we have never taught a false doctrine. And that's nonsense. We've taught a number of false doctrines for a long period of time, and we shouldn't be surprised by that. The Bible teaches a number of false doctrines. Dan McClellan has taken a lot of heat in his podcast over people who get mad when he points out that the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible explicitly endorses slavery. You know, we know that slavery is bad, slavery is wrong. And yet we have in the language of God endorsements of slavery and sort of management of how slavery should be, should be, should be handled. You know, so I don't think Slavery is a creation of God. I think that all of the changes that are necessary that have brought us closer to God are not that God has changed, that God now suddenly realizes slavery is bad. It's that God has been waiting for us to realize that slavery is bad. And I see the changes in the church with regard to LGBTQ people. I mean, I hate the term same-sex attraction. Because it tries to sort of isolate this part of a person's sexuality as if it's some kind of a disease, some kind of a foreign object. And the reality that we are slowly beginning to understand as a church, and I think that the world has understood for a while now, is that that's a basic integral part of who we are. Our sexuality is, is very much a part of who we are. And on a very basic level. So, I mean, so that's a little bit of a quibble, but I get so frustrated with church members who insist doctrine can't change. And then when you point out moments where doctrine has changed, they insist, well, that wasn't really doctrine. It was policy. It was something else. And it's like, why not just embrace the reality that we are imperfect people who do not fully understand the mind of God, and that our doctrines, we hope, reflect the mind of God, but when we find out that they don't, we embrace the new light? I mean, Bruce R. McConkie, in, in one of the most candid moments of his life after the 1978 priesthood revelation, when confronted with all of the garbage that he had said about race prior to that time, finally said, "Forget everything I ever said. We were operating with a limited amount of light and knowledge, and it was contrary to the light and knowledge that has now come into the world." You know, you very seldom get moments like that, especially from someone like Elder McConkie. But, you know, so, so that's the only thing that I would push back on. And I want to end with a story. So I've told the story, I think, of my uncle that I lived with when I went to college. His name was Howard Anderson. He was the stake president of the Los Angeles, California stake. And he at one point was conducting a a support group for people in his stake who were gay. And the LGBTQ acronym didn't exist back then. Transgenderism really wasn't on anybody's radar in the church. So this was for gay and lesbian members of the church. And it became so popular that Elder Ballard came to him and told him to shut it down. And Uncle Howard said to him, all right, I'll shut it down if you can promise me that when I get to the other side, The Savior will, will say it's okay that I abandoned these people who were under my stewardship. And that was enough to get Elder Ballard to back down. But then they released him. They released my Uncle Howard within months of that. But that isn't the story. I've told that story before. The story I want to tell is the story of there was a guy in the LA First Ward. The LA First Ward was the singles ward in Los Angeles. The bishop was a man named Bob Reese, and Bob Reese reminded me of this story when I talked to him. There was a gay man in his ward who had a partner, and gay marriage was not on anybody's radar back then either, but he was living with another man, and this was his life partner, and he was dying of AIDS. And he came to Bishop Reese and said, I'm dying of AIDS and my partner and I are not intimate anymore and I want to go through the temple before I die. And Bishop Reece said, I can see no reason why you shouldn't. And he went to my Uncle Howard and says, I've signed off on a temple recommend for this man. And my Uncle Howard said, I can see no reason why you shouldn't. And he also signed off. And this man went to the temple and spent, and spent much of the last months of his life, as long as he was healthy enough to get out of bed and get to the temple, he spent it in the Los Angeles Temple. And my Uncle Howard got a call from some— from a bishop who said, I'm getting reports from members of my ward that you have given a temple recommend to this man. Do you realize this man is a homosexual? And members of my ward are very, very concerned. That you have let a homosexual into the temple. And my Uncle Howard said, well, could you please give me the names of the members of your ward who are complaining so I can bring them up on church discipline for not sustaining their leaders? Because I know who this man is. I have signed off on his temple recommend. And if you're not willing to sustain me in that decision, then it sounds like your members need to have some church discipline in order to do that. I don't think Howard— I think he was bluffing because the bishop backed down very quickly. But Howard Anderson— and this is over 40 years ago— Howard Anderson realized 40 years ago that this is the direction we need to go, and he was shut down, up, down, and sideways to do that. And Howard Anderson passed away about 10 years ago. And I think would be astonished and delighted by the amount of progress that we have made in the time since his passing. I mean, it's been a very short window. I'd say that all these positive changes ironically have happened in the wake of Proposition 8, which, as you point out, represents the church's loss. The church has lost on this issue in every way it is possible to lose. And so going forward, how do we deal with that? And I think going forward, I am optimistic and I am hopeful. And Aaron Sherinian gives me an additional measure of hope. But he's not the only thing that gives me that measure of hope. What gives me a measure of hope is the reality that God lives and that God's hand is in this church. And that eventually the weaknesses of his children will not stand in the way of his purposes being done. So that's my summation. And I've become— we've just gone over the hour, so I think we can leave it at that. Do you have any parting words?

I have nothing to add to that at all. So I just want to again thank you for leading us on this conversation. And I just want to wish Aaron Bennett and his family the very best and success in this, in this new role. I'm sure he'll do. From what I've heard about him from you, Jim Bennett, he's an amazing individual, and I think he'll do extremely well. And I think it's a good, a good day for the church, actually. So I want to give credit to the church because this is a good— whoever made that decision, well done. You got it right.

Amen. So with that, we will leave you with this episode, and we look forward to seeing you next time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim.