Can You Be Gay and Mormon?

It's one of the most-searched questions about the faith, and the internet answers it with everything except the actual teaching. So we went to the source — the Church's own doctrine, policy, and published materials — and the answer is clearer than almost anyone expects. Yes. And the line the Church draws between attraction and conduct is the key to understanding how.

By Todd Noall · Mormonism Explained · July 2026 · 14 Minute Read

THE SHORT ANSWER

Yes. You can experience same-sex attraction, describe yourself as a gay Mormon, and be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in full standing. The Church teaches that the attraction itself is not a sin and not a choice; what its law of chastity addresses is sexual conduct — and that standard is identical for every member, in every orientation, married or single. A gay Latter-day Saint living that standard holds callings, holds a temple recommend, serves a mission, and — for men — holds the priesthood. That's not an exception. It's ordinary membership. The honest cost is real too, and we name it plainly: the Church does not perform or recognize same-sex marriage, so the covenant path asks a gay member either a mixed-orientation marriage or lifelong celibacy. Both halves are true at once — the full welcome and the heavy ask — and anyone weighing this deserves to hear both.

What to Know — The Short Version

  • Attraction is not a sin. Stated by the Church since 2012, in its own voice: "The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is."
  • The Church answered this exact question in 2016. It renamed its site "Mormon and Gay" because "a person doesn't need to choose between these two identities."
  • One law for everyone. The law of chastity binds every member identically — gay or straight, single or married.
  • Full standing is real. Callings, temple recommend, mission, priesthood — ordinary membership, not an exception.
  • It's a population, not a thought experiment. Roughly one in ten current Millennial members identifies as LGB in the best representative survey.
  • The research finding nobody quotes: across four life paths, resolution — not the path itself — best predicts wellbeing.
  • The cost is real too. No same-sex marriage in the Church; LGBTQ members leave at roughly four times the rate. We own both facts.

Two flat answers circulate online — "the Church condemns gay people" and "there's no conflict at all." Both fail the evidence. What follows is the documented version.

What We're Actually Answering

A Question With Three Answers

"Can you be gay and Mormon?" is really three questions wearing one sentence. May you — does the doctrine allow it? Do people — does anyone actually live it? And should you — how do the people living it fare? Almost everything written on this subject answers only the first, and usually badly, because it treats a checkable question as a culture-war prompt. We're going to answer all three, in order, from the Church's own materials, the best representative survey of American Latter-day Saints, and the peer-reviewed research program built specifically on gay and same-sex-attracted members. The three answers converge — and the third one contains a finding that neither side of the internet argument tends to quote, because it doesn't flatter either of them.

The Pivot Everything Turns On

Attraction Is Not Conduct

The Church teaches that feeling attraction to people of the same sex is not itself a sin and is not a choice a person makes. Its published materials on same-sex attraction are explicit: members who experience it have done nothing wrong by experiencing it. What the Church addresses is behavior — specifically sexual behavior — and the standard it applies there is the law of chastity. VERIFIED — CHURCH SOURCES

This is the pivot the whole subject turns on. A great deal of writing about gay Mormons quietly assumes the Church condemns the person. It does not teach that. It distinguishes the enduring reality of who someone is from the specific question of sexual conduct — and it treats the first with, in its own words, kindness, inclusion, and respect.

Not a Rule Written for Gay Members

One Law for Everyone

The law of chastity holds that sexual intimacy belongs only within a marriage between a man and a woman. Its most important feature in this conversation is that it is universal. A heterosexual single adult is asked to live it. A widow is asked to live it. A member in a straight relationship outside marriage is asked to live it. The standard for conduct is identical across every orientation and circumstance.

That universality reframes what is often described as a burden placed uniquely on gay members: the Church asks of a gay member what it asks of any member not married within its covenants — that sexual intimacy wait for that marriage. What differs is not the rule but how the rule lands. And that is where honesty requires naming the cost (§08).

Ordinary Membership

What Gay Members Can Do

A member who experiences same-sex attraction and lives the law of chastity is a member in full standing. VERIFIED — POLICY Concretely, that member can be baptized and confirmed and remain in full fellowship; hold callings, including teaching, leadership, and youth callings; hold a temple recommend and worship in the temple; serve a full-time mission; and — for men — receive and exercise the priesthood.

None of this is a special exception. It is ordinary membership. A gay Latter-day Saint living the same standard of conduct asked of every unmarried member is not on probation and not a second-class participant.

Figure 1 · Full standing, itemized — the same terms as any member

✓

Baptism, confirmation, and full fellowship

✓

Callings — teaching, leadership, and youth service

✓

Temple recommend and temple worship

✓

Full-time missionary service

✓

For men — receiving and exercising the priesthood

Source: General Handbook; churchofjesuschrist.org Gospel Topics, "Same-Sex Attraction." Conditions identical to any member: living the law of chastity.

How We Got Here

Forty Years of Change: The Arc

The doctrine on conduct has not moved. Nearly everything around it has — and the arc is documented, dated, and worth seeing whole, because it explains why answers written in different decades contradict each other. Mid-twentieth-century Church rhetoric treated homosexuality as a curable condition and often as chosen. That framing eroded in stages: the 2007 pamphlet God Loveth His Children counseled compassion and acknowledged attraction may persist through mortality; in December 2012 the Church launched mormonsandgays.org, stating for the first time in its own institutional voice that individuals "do not choose to have such attractions" and that the attraction itself is not a sin; and in October 2016 it relaunched the site with a deliberate rename — from Mormons and Gays to Mormon and Gay — explaining that "a person doesn't need to choose between these two identities — one can, in fact, be gay and live faithful to the teachings of Christ." Read that again: the Church answered this article's exact question, affirmatively, in its own publication, a decade ago. The 2015–2019 policy episode — covered fully in our fact-check — sits inside this arc as its most painful chapter and its most instructive: instituted, grieved, and reversed.

The Teaching Evolves

Figure 2 · The documented arc, 2007–2019

2007
God Loveth His Children — "Attraction is not a sin"
Dec 2012
mormonsandgays.org launch — "Attraction is not a sin"
Nov 2015
Policy instituted
Oct 2016
"Mormon AND Gay" rename — "doesn't need to choose between these identities"
Apr 2019
Policy reversed

Doctrine on conduct: unchanged across the arc. Framing of the person: transformed. Sources: churchofjesuschrist.org; contemporaneous AP/NPR coverage.

Does Anyone Actually Live It?

The Numbers: A Real Population

Now the second question: does anyone actually live both identities? The best representative data says yes — at scale. The Next Mormons Survey, the landmark national study of four generations of current and former Latter-day Saints published through Oxford University Press, found that among current Millennial members, about 2 percent identify as gay or lesbian and 7 percent as bisexual — roughly one in ten. Against a U.S. membership in the millions, that is not a rounding error or a thought experiment. It is tens of thousands of people, sitting in pews, holding callings, answering surveys, living the question this article asks.

And here is where we show you the number a promotional article would hide. The same body of research shows LGBTQ people are heavily overrepresented among those who leave: a 2023 representative survey of the Mormon Corridor found 4 percent of current members identify as LGBTQ against 18 percent of former members, and Jana Riess, the Next Mormons author, wrote frankly that fully active LGBT Millennial members were difficult to find. Both facts are true at once, and our thesis needs both: the combination is livable — a real population proves it — and it is costly, because a larger population has found it wasn't livable for them. Any article that gives you only one of those numbers is selling you a side.

Figure 3 · The population — and the honest counterweight

All three bars read against one 0–20% scale.

Current Millennial members identifying as LGB (Next Mormons Survey)

~9%

2% gay/lesbian + 7% bisexual

LGBTQ share: current vs. former members (B.H. Roberts Foundation, 2023)

Current members

4%

Former members

18%

Both facts carried on purpose: a large living population inside the Church, and disproportionate departure. The question is livable — and costly. We claim only both.

The Research Nobody Quotes

The Four Paths — and the Finding

Third question: how do the people living this actually fare? It turns out there is a dedicated, peer-reviewed research program on precisely this population — the Four Options studies, led by psychologist Tyler Lefevor, himself a queer Latter-day Saint researcher, with collaborators spanning the belief spectrum from Church-affiliated therapists to former members. INDEPENDENTLY CONDUCTED Its core dataset: 1,782 gay, lesbian, bisexual, and same-sex-attracted people raised in the Church, compared across the four lives they actually build — single and celibate; single and not celibate; married to an opposite-sex spouse (a mixed-orientation relationship); or partnered with the same sex. Published across the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, and The Counseling Psychologist.

Figure 4 · The Four Options research design — and its central finding

Single &
celibate

Single &
not celibate

Mixed-orientation
marriage

Same-sex
relationship

RESOLUTION predicts wellbeing — not the path

N=1,782 (Lefevor, Beckstead, Schow, Raynes, Mansfield & Rosik, 2019; Lefevor et al., 2020). No mental-health difference between "SSA" and "LGBQ" identity labels.

Two findings matter most here, and neither flatters an internet camp. First: no single path won on everything. Each option carried real satisfactions and real costs — relationship-status dissatisfaction, for instance, ran lower for members in mixed-orientation marriages than for singles, and lower still for those in same-sex relationships — and the differences were smaller and more textured than either advocacy narrative predicts.

Second, and this is the finding we built this article around: in Lefevor's 2020 comparison of members who label themselves "same-sex attracted" versus "LGBQ," the people who did best were those with resolved identities — consistently engaged with their faith or deliberately disengaged from it — while the unresolved middle fared worst. Between the two labels themselves? No mental-health difference at all. The variable that predicts flourishing isn't which identity wins. It's whether the person makes peace between them.

The same research programme is the backbone of our study of whether gay Mormon kids are safe in the Church, where the youth data is treated at full length.

No Pretending

Where the Tension Is Real

An article that stopped at the welcome would not be honest, and would not be credible. The law of chastity is universal, but it does not fall on everyone the same way. A heterosexual single member who keeps it holds open the possibility of a marriage the Church will solemnize. A gay member who keeps it does not: the Church does not perform or recognize same-sex marriage. So the covenant path, as the Church defines it, asks a gay member to choose between a mixed-orientation marriage and lifelong celibacy.

That is a real and heavy cost, and many gay Latter-day Saints describe it as the central difficulty of their faith lives. The honest statement is this: the Church affirms that gay members belong, fully, while asking of them a standard that — because of what it withholds, not only what it requires — is harder for them to live than for most. Both halves are true at once, and a member weighing this deserves to hear both.

In a Church Member's Own Words — Spencer Thompson's Account

The belonging described here is published by the Church in the first person. In its official magazine, the Liahona (Oct. 2021), Spencer Thompson recounts years of therapy, prayer, and feeling like he didn't belong at church — and a turning point in which he came to view his experience with same-sex attraction "as a gift, an opportunity to grow closer to the Savior." His account does not present the path as easy, and it is offered as one member's testimony — not a template for every gay Latter-day Saint. But notice what it is: a resolved identity, in exactly the sense the Four Options research found predictive of flourishing — told from inside the faith.

Precision About Terms

A Note on Words — and on Transgender Members

Church materials have historically preferred "same-sex attraction" to "gay" as an identity label, though leaders acknowledge that many members describe themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and that doing so is not a transgression — and the Four Options data found no mental-health difference between the two ways of self-describing. This page says "gay Mormon" because it is the phrase people actually search; where precision matters, the survey research measures sexual orientation (LGBQ) specifically.

Guidance for transgender members is a distinct subject and, in several respects, more restrictive — 2024 Handbook updates tightened it — and it deserves plain treatment rather than a footnote: it gets that treatment in our companion piece on the Church's LGBTQ stance.

The Record at a Glance

So — Can You Be Gay and Mormon?

Yes — and it is the rare internet question with three independent lines of evidence behind the answer. Doctrinally: attraction is not a sin, the standard is universal, and full standing is real — the Church's own site has said since 2016 that no one must choose between the two identities. Demographically: roughly one in ten current Millennial members identifies as LGB — tens of thousands of people living the answer. Psychologically: across 1,782 lives studied, no path is universally best, and the strongest predictor of flourishing is resolution — making genuine peace between faith and sexuality, in whichever direction. The cost is real: no same-sex marriage in the Church, a heavier ask than most members carry, and departure rates that prove the weight. We went looking for the complicated answer everyone promised. What the record gave us was simpler and harder than the argument: the feeling is not the sin, the standard is the same for everyone, the door is open — and the people who flourish are the ones who stop living in the unresolved middle. That's the record. Check it yourself; every source is on the last page.

At a Glance

Quick Answers

Is being gay a sin in the Mormon Church?

No. The Church states the attraction itself is not a sin and not chosen; the law of chastity addresses conduct, for every member alike.

Not a Sin Church's Own Words

Can a gay Mormon hold a temple recommend or serve a mission?

Yes to both — on the same terms as any member living the law of chastity; men living the standard also hold the priesthood.

Yes Ordinary Membership

How many gay Mormons are there?

In the Next Mormons Survey, ~2% of current Millennial members identify as gay/lesbian and ~7% bisexual — roughly one in ten, tens of thousands of people.

A Real Population

Does the Church allow same-sex marriage?

No. This is the honest cost: the covenant path asks a mixed-orientation marriage or celibacy — stated plainly in §08.

No The Honest Cost

What does research say about gay Mormons' wellbeing?

The Four Options studies (N=1,782) found no single life path best for everyone; resolution — peace between faith and sexuality, in either direction — best predicts wellbeing.

Resolution Not the Path

Are gay Mormon kids safe in the Church?

The best representative data says yes — lowest suicide-attempt rate of any religious group measured. See our full data investigation.

See the Data Study

Sources & Companion Studies

  1. "Same-Sex Attraction" Gospel Topics; General Handbook; churchofjesuschrist.org
  2. Jana Riess, The Next Mormons (Oxford University Press, 2019); B.H. Roberts Foundation 2023 survey
  3. Lefevor, Beckstead, Schow, Raynes, Mansfield & Rosik, "Satisfaction and Health Within Four Sexual Identity Relationship Options," J. Sex & Marital Therapy 45:5 (2019); Lefevor et al. 2020 comparison
  4. Spencer Thompson, "Same-Sex Attraction and My Journey from Shame to Joy," Liahona, Oct. 2021
  5. Companion articles: /mormon-lgbtq-policy-suicide-claims · /lgbtq-mormons-and-suicide

If this topic is heavy for you

Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, US), any time. Church resources: churchofjesuschrist.org/get-help. You belong.

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