Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons

What price do Mormon families pay for being a peculiar people?

Does Mormonism Promote Happy Families? Newsweek Readers Say No

by Jason Clark
November 2005

With a bride and a groom happily posing in front of the Salt Lake Temple, the main illustration accompanying an October 17 Newsweek article on the Mormon faith suggests that Mormonism promotes happy families. But three of the letters to the editor published in the following issue (October 31) suggest exactly the opposite—that Mormon families are under a lot of stress and that they often see family ties weakened and torn apart.

"Having left the faith, I am now labeled unworthy and have been barred from attending the wedding ceremonies of six of my siblings, whom I dearly love," wrote Rob Packer from West Hollywood, Calif. "How exactly does that strengthen family ties?"

"There is no mention of families torn apart when a family member leaves the church," wrote a couple from Seattle, "no mention of nonpracticing Mormons being barred from their children's weddings in temples. There was no mention of the millions the church has spent to defeat gay-rights legislation or the church's fight against the Equal Rights Amendment. There was no mention of the shunning still being practiced against those who leave the teachings or any mention of the low status of women in the church."

"Likewise, there was scant mention of the Mormon Church's blatant racism throughout history," the letter continued. "However, the church, I suppose, should be congratulated. Any organization that has had a history based on racism, sexism and homophobia, yet continues to grow, has supreme power."

M. J. Ogden, professor of economics at Weber State University, suggested in his letter that the LDS Church, with its emphasis on "'multiply and replenish,'… produces economic strain on families that has resulted for the third straight year in the nation's highest rate of personal bankruptcy."

"Overcrowded public-school classrooms struggle against the country's highest teacher-to-student ratio," he added, "and the Mormon-dominated state legislature seems strangely reluctant to adequately fund public education, though only one state, Mississippi, spends less on the education of each child."

"Factor in the nation's highest rate of prescribed antidepressants, unusually high rates of divorce and teen suicide, and you start to wonder if, as the popular Mormon hymn concludes, "all is well, all is well."