Do you happen to know whether a person who is “straight” and whose parents have never been involved in same-sex relationships would be allowed to be baptized if the person agrees to follow the law of chastity but openly disagrees with the view that gay marriage is a grievous sin? My understanding is a person does not have to agree with every purported doctrine to be baptized, just certain key doctrines. Is that right? I’m trying to understand whether the requirement to “disavow” (whatever that means) the practice of homosexual cohabitation only applies to those who have been in an affected family. Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this.

Most lawyers usually like to use defined terms (words that start with a capital letter and have a very specific defined meaning) and I do think one of the drafting problems we’re experiencing with this policy is that the lawyers who drafted it (that’s my working assumption) could not use defined terms and had problems turning their defined terms into handbook English. Otherwise, we’d have some type of defined term for “child” and we would know exactly what that meant.

So, as a hypothetical, suppose I am 50 years old and not a church member. My father who is 75 years old is cohabiting with another man. I have not lived with my father in the last 30 years and he was not in a same sex relationship when I lived with him. Yet, as the natural child of a parent who is currently living in a same sex relationship, it appears I would need a stake president to request permission from the first presidency for me to be baptized. Is this right?

Also, contrary to what this post (and others) seem to suggest, the 1st Presidency and Quorum of 12 are comprised of very intelligent, thoughtful, well educated, compassionate, balanced, and reasonable men. We have only to examine their teachings and great personal sacrifices for others (their fruits) to know this. Any other group of men with their public and private service records would be honored.

Collectively they have a vast amount of experience in law, politics, health, social welfare, business, education, and many other things, as well as in religion. They are not uninformed, unaware, out of touch, or ignorant. Anyone who suggests such a thing risks exposing their own ignorance.

Finally, they have the keys to this authority. If they don’t, what are we concerned about? If they do, they have the right to exercise those keys. If those keys were not given by God, again, what are we concerned about? If there were given to them by God, I suppose God is the only one that can dictate their proper use. If we believe God did not bestow these keys on these men, we have nothing to say. If we believe He did bestow these keys on them, our questions and concerns should be directed to God. Keep in mind, though, I’m pretty sure God knows what he’s doing.

The present policy for baptism requires only the consent of custodial parent(s), and I expect that in practice many bishops seek the consent of the custodial parent who is an active member of their ward but often neglect to call the other parent (and may or may not know if they have custody rights, may not even know who they are, etc.).

I can see a law firm presenting the option that provides the best shield and I can see a client sometimes picking that option without thinking through all of the ramifications (and then needing to “clarify” later).

To paraphrase what Kevin Barney is saying on BCC, we have a “bright line rule” with no exceptions instead of a flexible policy where bishops use discretion (and get consent). I think we need the latter.

I expect some of the concerns are that we sometimes get “consent” from people who have no idea what they are agreeing to. When parents agree to a name and blessing, do they really understand that they will have monthly HT/VT visits and there is an expectation that the child be baptized at age 8? Perhaps there is a concern that a father might consent to a baptism (let’s say he gets a small break on alimony) and then a few years that gay father is telling the jury he was somehow tricked into the consent and “I had no idea they were going to teach me child X and Y about me.” I assume that that fact pattern doesn’t scare the Church with a Utah or Idaho jury, but a California jury scares them to death. To be fair to the Church, they have been unfairly targeted in litigation before, so the paranoia is somewhat justified.

Again, to clarify, I’d be much happier is we used the type of consent standard Julie (104) suggests. It’s so difficult for me to believe that the Church thought through the types of issues raised by Julie (OP) that I’m forced to conclude that they went for the option that provided maximum protection without thinking through it. Hopefully there is a bit more “studying it out” in the minds going on now.

Ben (76), I wouldn’t have chosen the words “morally reprehensible” but I understand the sentiment and I have grave concerns about this policy as written.

RT (79), the really cynical view is that if the Church is legally a stranger to the child (i.e. the child is officially not allowed to be a member of the Church), then the gay parent will only be able to sue their ex-spouse, not the Church. To be clear, I’m not saying that the legal explanation I summarize above makes a ton of sense (I know I don’t know enough about the issue to give the Church competent legal advice) but it does strike me as the “least bad” of the various explanations floating around out there that attempt to explain the policy.