A pox on the PoX policy, ten years on

November 5 marks the 10^th anniversary of the Exclusion Policy, which expanded the definition of apostasy to include gay marriage. Yes, committing to a same sex partner was committing a sin worse than adultery, rape, or murder.

Same-sex transgressors were to be excommunicated; their children were ineligible for baby blessings or baptism. The policy’s announcement was followed by resignations, bad press, and suicides. Appropriately, the policy of exclusion came to be known as PoX.

PoX was rescinded in 2019, within four years, light speed in LDS time. Dallin H. Oaks, the man who announced the reversal “effective immediately” is now the president of the Church.

In his selection of counselors last month, Oaks skipped over the ailing 84-year-old apostle Jeffrey Holland, who infamously accused BYU leaders of “friendly fire” for allowing a graduation speech in which a valedictorian came out as gay. Instead, Holland urged faculty and administrators to take up muskets in the Church’s defense. (I’ll trade the war metaphor for sports and say Holland made an own goal). 

Instead, Oaks chose the relatively junior D. Todd Christofferson, who has a famously gay brother. But I don’t think this portends a softening of the Church’s rigid stance on sexuality and gender, let alone an apology for it. In picking Christofferson, Oaks also passed over apostle Dieter Uchtdorf, widely known for his messages of love and tolerance.

In 2015, Christofferson was the leader tapped to defend the PoX policy. One of the relatively few personal stories he’s shared is how his father skipped lunch for a year in order to afford a machine so his ailing wife could continue to iron his shirts. In other words, it’s worth making sacrifices to maintain traditional gender roles.

In his book, historian Taylor Petrey describes how Oaks pushed the Church to advocate for a legal definition of marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman. The 1995 Proclamation on the Family is a fruit of his strategy, and that fruit has proven bitter for many LGBTQ members. (BTW: The Proclamation allows for some exceptions to a mixed-gender marriage following traditional gender roles given “death, disability, or other circumstances.” That’s hardly affirming if your circumstance is being queer. Also, in 2019, Oaks made clear “circumstances” didn’t apply to trans people. Again he focused on definitions, saying gender meant biological sex at birth.)

The Exclusion Policy was prompted by the 2015 US Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationally. At the time, LDS-prophet Thomas S. Monson was a fragile 88 year-old with questionable mental fitness. Petrey cites PoX as one of four policy crises the Church brought on itself under very geriatric prophets. (The others are the priesthood ban under David O’McKay, the September 6 purge under Ezra Taft Benson, and the dismantling of the church history division under Spencer W. Kimball.)

I agree that PoX was a catastrophe. But I see a bigger culprit than geriatric leaders. The problem is a religious leader assuming the authority to define an individual’s relationship to gender, God, or spouse.

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