1946–2025
Doctrine, therapy, political campaigns, and the November 2015 policy
20 sources, ordered by evidentiary weight — primary and contemporary first, then documentary editions, then the argument. 13 of them are held as full text in the Mormon Corpus; the other 7 are reached only as quotations inside works that are held, and are marked.
The Miracle of Forgiveness, chapter "Crime Against Nature"
Spencer W. Kimball
The foundational mid-century Latter-day Saint text treating homosexuality as sin, sickness and something curable.
"To Young Men Only" (general priesthood session address, later a Church-distributed pamphlet)
Boyd K. Packer
The 1970s teaching on homosexual advances given to every Latter-day Saint male twelve and older, including the sentence 'I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it.'
"Effect of Visual Stimuli in Electric Aversion Therapy" (PhD dissertation, Brigham Young University)
Max Ford McBride
The design and scale of the BYU electric aversion therapy study: seventeen male subjects, fourteen completing, supervised by D. Eugene Thorne.
The Seventh East Press (1981–1983)
Dean Huffaker and others
Contemporary student-press reporting on the BYU 'purge of '75,' the counseling-center shock treatments, and how gay students were identified and referred.
"The Family: A Proclamation to the World"
First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
The doctrinal statement on marriage and gender that every later political and disciplinary action is built on.
"Preserving Traditional Marriage and Strengthening Families" (First Presidency letter to California congregations)
First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The exact instruction given to California members — to 'do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time.'
Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 1, sections 6.7.3 and 16.13 (November 2015 revisions)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The actual policy language: same-sex marriage as apostasy requiring a disciplinary council, and the bar on blessing and baptizing minor children of such parents.
"Becoming True Millennials" (worldwide devotional for young adults, 10 January 2016)
Russell M. Nelson
That a president of the Quorum of the Twelve publicly characterized the November 2015 policy as revelation received by President Monson and sustained by the apostles.
"First Presidency Shares Messages from General Conference Leadership Session" (Newsroom, 4 April 2019)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The exact language of the reversal, including that same-gender marriage 'will not be treated as apostasy for purposes of Church discipline.'
Sunstone, news sections of issues 077, 118, 141, 142, 146, 150–152, 155, 158, 161
Sunstone Education Foundation
Near-contemporaneous reporting on the Proposition 22 and Proposition 8 campaigns, the BYU honor-code clarification, the Soulforce protests, the Oaks–Wickman interview and the 2010 reaction to Packer.
B. H. Roberts Foundation archive (mormonr) research records on LGBTQ topics
Locates and excerpts the 2011 Cameron accounts, Evergreen's self-description and its 2014 merger into North Star, the 2015 Utah compromise coverage, the 2019 conversion-therapy statements, the 2020 General Handbook transgender section, and the 2020–2022 BYU episodes.
"Two Great Commandments" (general conference, October 2019)
Dallin H. Oaks
The Church's own post-reversal framing: love of neighbor and obedience held together, 'a fine line between law and love.'
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33, no. 3 (Fall 2000) — Quinn, "Prelude to the National 'Defense of Marriage' Campaign"; Rees, "In a Dark Time the Eye Begins to See"; Olaiz, "Gay & Lesbian Mormons"
D. Michael Quinn, Robert A. Rees, Hugo Olaiz
The 1990s political history, the Packer pamphlet controversy, the Stuart Matis case as it was reported at the time, and Affirmation's own account of itself.
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 49, no. 2 (Summer 2016) — "The LGBTQ Mormon Crisis: Responding to the Empirical Research on Suicide" and Knoll's supplementary analysis
Michael Barker, Daniel Parkinson, Benjamin Knoll
The most careful statement of the case that Latter-day Saint context is linked to LGBTQ youth suicide risk — including the authors' own admission of what the data cannot show.
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 50 (2017) — Anderson on canon and extra-canonical sources; Cook, "An Examination of the LDS Position on Homosexuality"; Menlove; Gustav-Wrathall
The handbook language as quoted with section numbers, the mass-resignation count, and a member-side chronicle of the policy's first year.
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vols. 54–58 (2021–2025) — Gustav-Wrathall on excommunication; Burns and Lewis on transgender experience; Prop 8 and BYU queer history; reviews of queer Mormon essay collections
How LGBTQ and transgender Latter-day Saints describe the 2020 General Handbook, the aftermath of the policy years, and their own relationship to the Church now.
BYU Studies Quarterly: Dyer et al., "Religion and Sexual Orientation as Predictors of Utah Youth Suicidality"; Goodman and Frost, "Constancy amid Change"; Oaks, "Going Forward with Religious Freedom and Nondiscrimination"
Justin Dyer and others; Michael A. Goodman and Daniel Frost; Dallin H. Oaks
The countervailing suicidality findings from an 86,346-youth Utah sample, the institutional reading of Petrey, and an apostle's own account of how the Utah compromise was negotiated.
FAIR Answers wiki: "Homosexuality and the Church of Jesus Christ," "Mormonism and politics/California Proposition 8," "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," "Mormonism and gender issues/Transgenderism"
FAIR (fairlatterdaysaints.org)
The strongest faithful defense, and — because FAIR reproduces documents in order to answer critics — the verbatim text of the Packer passage, the 2008 First Presidency letter and the campaign finance tallies.
"Feet of Clay: Queer Theory and the Church of Jesus Christ" (review of Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay), Interpreter 43
Gregory L. Smith
The apologetic case that leaders consistently condemned behavior rather than identity, and that Kimball's 'cure' meant behavior, not desire.
LDS Discussions, "The Larger Implications of the LGBT Reversal" and "Thank You, President Nelson"; MormonThink, "History of LDS Politics"
The critical camp's argument that a revelation reversed within forty-one months is evidence about how revelation actually works, plus the critical account of Prop 8 money and the FPPC penalty.
