Alison, Liz, and Rebecca interview Anaya Gayle—lawyer, ex-Mormon, and former BYU assistant dean. They discuss the power and influence the church wields and life for LGBTQ+ students at BYU, as Anaya shares her experience inside the insular LDS community.
Background
Rebecca Markert:
Welcome to We Dissent, the podcast with secular women attorneys discussing religious liberty issues in our federal and state courts, and our work to keep religion and government separate. I'm Rebecca Markert with the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Liz Cavell:
And I'm Liz Cavell, also with the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Alison Gill:
And Alison Gill with American Atheist. And in today's episode we're going to be speaking with Anaya Gayle, an attorney who previously worked and was deeply involved with the Mormon church. In particular, Anaya was previously an assistant dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. We're excited to interview Anaya to learn more about how this huge and influential religious organization operates, what issues they involve themselves in and all their deep and dark secrets to the extent she can share them, of course, within the bounds of confidentiality and legal ethics. So Anaya, welcome to the show.
Anaya Gayle:
Thank you. I'm so pleased to be here.
Alison Gill:
Can you tell us a bit more about your legal experience first with the Mormon Church and BYU, and then what you do now?
Anaya Gayle:
Yes, I can. And I think it's helpful to start with a little bit of information about the church itself. The primary thing I think to understand is that in the church, men are given what's called the priesthood, and the priesthood is considered the power of God on Earth. Women are not given the priesthood, but participate in priesthood ordinances through which they are given certain blessings and certain obligations and make certain covenants. But they do not officiate in any of those. It all has to be a priesthood leader. It is believed that priesthood leaders receive revelation directly from God relevant to the congregation that they have stewardship over. So for example, there is a prophet in the Mormon church who receives revelation for the entire church. And the prophet has two counselors as well as what's called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. They are considered apostles of Jesus Christ as were apostles from the New Testament.
And so those folks receive revelation for the entire church. Then the church is broken up into regions and what's called a stake. And then a ward, a neighborhood congregation, the stake encompasses a larger area within a city or state, and then you move up from there. So any of those leaders over a stake or ward receive revelation for their congregation. And then in many family situations, it is believed that the father receives revelation for the family. So depending on how folks are, how orthodox they are or how lax they are, there are often situations where in a marriage and in a family, a woman is deferring to her priesthood holding husband, and there's always this kind of sense of, you know, for example, single women, there's sort of a pity for them because they don't have the priesthood in their home. And then there's this sort of unstated but illicit belief that these women don't have a direct connection to God.
Alison Gill:
That's really fascinating. Yeah. I'm curious, I mean we hear a lot about sometimes when there's revelations, this idea of infallibility and yet I believe the church has sort of stated positions and gone back on them for many pretty famous turnarounds on some major issues. So is there an idea of infallibility or is this sort of revelation error prone?
Anaya Gayle:
Well, I think the infallibility piece is why the church is seeing a large exodus of its members, particularly given some of the policies and revelations that have come recently and then were rolled back very soon after they were handed down. The way that members sort of justify that in their mind is that we believe in ongoing revelation. So just because there was one revelation that said one thing earlier, the new revelations that say something completely different later are what control.
Rebecca Markert:
Can they contradict each other? Like one priest says, oh, I had this revelation and a different priest and a different household says, oh, I had this revelation that contradicts that one. Does that ever happen?
Anaya Gayle:
I mean, on a household basis it's hard to know unless you're each family, but certainly there is this concept that families can receive revelation for their own family and for their children. And in the larger sense, the revelations in importance and level of importance sort of flow down. So the prophet has end-all be-all say on anything, the apostles after that, and then more local leaders coming down to your local congregation, which is typically a ward. If it's a very small congregation that's called a branch. So it does flow in that way. You should never have a local leader who has a revelation that is contrary to something that's been taught by the prophet or the apostles.
Rebecca Markert:
I see, I see. Thank you for that explanation. My knowledge and education about the Mormon church did come from the musical, the Book of Mormon but also one of the very first books I read for pleasure after law school was John Krakauer's book Under the Banner of Heaven, where I really learned a lot about the history of the Mormon church and the United States. How big is the church outside of the United States?
Anaya Gayle:
Wow. I would have to look up those numbers, but I do know that our membership outside of the United States has well surpassed the membership in the United States.
Rebecca Markert:
Interesting.
Alison Gill:
Interesting. Returning back to my question, can you tell us a little bit more about your legal background and what you do now?
Anaya Gayle:
Yes, I certainly can. So I actually came to law after being an actor and director and having a career in theater for about 10 years. I went to law school believing that God had told me to do so and attended law school at Brigham Young University. Previous to that I had a bachelor's degree from BYU, I had a master's degree from BYU. And then I was attending law school at BYU as well. I was married, I have five children, and it certainly seemed much more feasible. In fact, BYU was the only law school I applied to because I didn't know how I would uproot my entire family to say I'm going to law school. So I attended law school there, graduated in 2011 and started working in a corporate law firm. Within three years. I received a call from the dean of the BYU law school at the time, asking if I'd be interested in applying for a job as an assistant dean. At BYU law school there are administrative deans and academic deans. The academic deans are considered associate deans. I would be an administrative dean, an assistant dean, and I would be specifically tasked with the responsibilities for professional development placement, helping students learn how to be a professional in the legal situations that they were about to go into. While I was in law school, I spent a summer interning with the Office of General Counsel for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And then since leaving the law school, which was in 2017, I do mostly commercial real estate.
Alison Gill:
Did you teach classes at all while you were at BYU?
Anaya Gayle:
I did. I taught, of course, professionalism classes, classes on applying for and, and getting jobs, interviewing, that sort of thing. And I also taught a class called interviewing and counseling, which was about the practical aspects of being a lawyer and having a client come into your office and how you proceed through that initial interview and counseling process.
Alison Gill:
Okay. So you mentioned that you acted as a legal intern with the church. Can you talk a little bit more about that experience?
Anaya Gayle:
Yes. One of the missionaries that had taught my parents, my parents were converts to the church but came from a very strong Christian background. So he had taught them back when my older brother and sister were alive, but I was not yet. So it had been a couple of decades before I reconnected with him and said, I'm in law school, I have no idea what I'm doing. Could I come intern at your office? And so he arranged for me to come be an intern for him. And the church has students from BYU that circle through multiple internships with the church. They will send them out to other countries where they intern with what are called area legal counsel, or they work here in a Salt Lake City office. I worked here at the church headquarters.
Alison Gill:
I think for those of us who are outside the church and not as familiar with it, it's kind of a black box. There's a lot of things that we don't really understand about the church and how it operates. And so I'd like to ask you a bit more about that, especially how is the church structured, and I know since you have such strong ties with BYU, can you talk about its relationship with BYU? How does that work?
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah, of course. So the church has had for a long period of time sort of a separation between what they would call the corporate operations of the church and the religious operations of the church. And technically, for example, members pay a tithing of 10% of all of their income. Those tithing funds are technically supposed to remain within this religious world, whereas land investments, corporate investments, corporate endeavors would all remain in the corporate world. There was a change in that probably 10 or 12 years ago, for example, they had a bookstore, they still have a bookstore called Deseret Books where you can get all kinds of religious materials, books, visual aids, jewelry, you name it, it's there. And that was run separately as one of their corporate concerns, but then they ended up bringing all of it together under one umbrella. I'm not sure what the entire corporate structure is at this point, but there has been historically an effort to keep those separate. Whether that's really been the case or not is difficult to really determine because there aren't many people that are privy to all of that information.
Alison Gill:
Unlike other nonprofits as a church, they don't have to disclose their assets.
Anaya Gayle:
Right.
Alison Gill:
You know, I think a lot of groups and even religious groups are more forthcoming with their assets than maybe the Mormon churches. Would you say that they're pretty private about that information?
Anaya Gayle:
Extremely private about that information. I mean, recently, as many of us know, there was a whistleblower who came out and said that in one fund the church had over a hundred billion dollars in assets. That's considered to be a significant underestimate of what they actually own and control. Many of us believe that's closer to $200 billion and within ten years, almost any kind of pundit would agree that they will likely be up to $250 billion.
Alison Gill:
Amazing. And this is in the religious side or the corporate side, or both?
Anaya Gayle:
Not many of us, I would say almost none of us understand how the two sides interact and you know, we all know money's fungible, and how is it that they actually keep religious funds separate from their corporate funds? I think that's a black box for almost anyone in the church. And I would say almost with a hundred percent confidence, it is men who hold that information and not women.
Alison Gill:
I see. You know, it's interesting, I think a lot of churches that receive monies from governments open themselves up to sort of audit requirements, even though they're not technically imposed in the law generally as like they're in other nonprofits. So I'm curious, you might not be aware of this, but does the Mormon church receive significant funding from the federal or state governments?
Anaya Gayle:
No, not that any of us are aware of. And I doubt they would ever do that. I mean, they have coffers deep enough to fund anything they want to, so I don't think there's any interaction in terms of receiving funds from government entities. That does not mean that the church does not at times become involved in government or political issues. I don't know what their, how they might financially support folks. I don't think that they do. They've denied that they do, but they certainly become involved in the conversations around really critical political issues.
Alison Gill:
Interesting. I would say the Catholic church is well funded too, and they went out of their way to take strong advantage of the paycheck protection program during the pandemic. I don't think that opens up audits requirements, but I'm curious if the Mormon churches did that as well.
Anaya Gayle:
I mean, I think there'd be no reason for them to rely on that kind of money. And I think they'd probably, my understanding and my experience would be that they would probably stay out of that. I think there's also a significant difference in that the Mormon clergy are completely unpaid. It's volunteer only. And I should caveat that that applies to folks in their local congregations primarily. There are higher level priesthood callings that a lot of members of the church believe are also volunteer, but they are not. The prophet and apostles receive benefits such as homes, income. There are a number of what are called mission presidents who have stewardship over the several hundred, maybe thousands now of missions out in the world. They also receive benefits such as homes and some income. So it is a lay clergy in terms of local sense. But when you get higher up in the levels of the church, there are certainly salaries and benefits that are exchanged.
Alison Gill:
It seems like it'd be a full-time job at that level. So it's not surprising.
Anaya Gayle:
Yes, it is a full-time job, however, there is not ever a public acknowledgement that any of them are paid, which is why I would say the majority of the church believes that they are unpaid and volunteering their time.
Alison Gill:
I see. So going back to BYU, does the church own BYU, does it heavily influence it?
Anaya Gayle:
Yes.
Alison Gill:
What's the relationship?
Anaya Gayle:
The church controls Brigham Young University. There's of course, like any university, a board of trustees, and on that board there are always members of the Twelve Apostles. There are in the leadership of the church a few token, I think women who lead women's organizations, but they don't really have any authority, they're just a kind of reference group. They don't receive revelation for the other women's organizations on down the church, but they are kind of put out there as, look, we have a few women and I think one or two of those women will sit on the board of trustees. And certainly any decision by the church would trump any decision made by BYU directly.
Alison Gill:
It's interesting, I mean, what would happen if a woman claimed a revelation? Would it be heresy? I mean, you mentioned having a revelation about going to law school earlier, so I guess I'm, I'm curious, do women get revelations at all or are they just considered not as important as men's?
Anaya Gayle:
No, yes. Well, no and yes. <Laugh>
Alison Gill:
<Laugh>
Anaya Gayle:
So it is a church that believes strongly in personal revelation as well. However, women do not receive revelation for congregations. And my experience in my service in the church as a leader of many local women groups is that if a woman asserts her own revelation over her group, that is still subject to a bishop or a stake president saying, "yeah, that's okay," or "no, that's not okay." So there is this idea that people receive personal revelation and that they can receive revelation for the people they're serving. And yet in those contexts and in those roles, women's revelation is certainly subject to whether a priesthood holder approves or agrees with that revelation.
Alison Gill:
Interesting. Well, this relationship with BYU, I'm curious, I've seen some criticism mostly from professors and students at BYU that there's some, I don't know to call it like spying on professors or like I don't know, asking students to sort of tell on professors that don't toe the line and there's some limitations in academic freedom. Is that your experience? Maybe you could talk about it a little bit.
Anaya Gayle:
Yes, that is for sure the experience. I suppose I'm a little reticent to agree with the spying.
Alison Gill:
Okay.
Anaya Gayle:
I think there are students who report on faculty members or on other students based on their own sense of what is appropriate or not appropriate. And then most of the pushback on faculty would come from their public academic endeavors. If a, for example, if a faculty member writes in any way something that is against the church or pushing back on a church policy, that is going to result in a very serious conversation between that faculty member and their department chair or someone on up the line. And there have been faculty members who have been dismissed from the university and excommunicated from the church for the things that they have written and said,
Alison Gill:
Wow, that must have created kind of an oppressive atmosphere in some cases.
Anaya Gayle:
I think a lot of folks there feel that it is academically oppressive. There are of course faculty members that take a viewpoint and a stand that is not congruous with what the church would teach, but if they want to maintain their jobs, they keep that under wraps and very private for the most part. I know of several women professors primarily who really have to watch their step in terms of how much they say, how much they do, and they've learned to really carefully navigate an extremely political, extremely religious situation that I think makes it difficult to really feel like you have autonomy over what you're doing, how you're interacting with students, and certainly over what your academic pursuits are.
Alison Gill:
Are the professors all members of the church or is there variation between some who are and aren't? And I have the same question about students actually. Are people there generally Mormons?
Anaya Gayle:
Yes, they're generally Mormons. There can be students who come that are not members of the faith. They still have to get what's called an ecclesiastical endorsement, which is a requirement of application and is required on an annual basis after you're in the school from an ecclesiastical leader that basically says they are worthy, they're going to live by your honor code standards, and we can endorse them for enrollment. And even if they're not members of the church, they do have to live by that honor code, which includes a promise to keep the word of wisdom, which means they give up coffee and they give up alcohol for the time that they're in school. However, if you've been a member of the church and you've left the church, then you are not allowed to be admitted into one of the church schools. I believe that's still the case. That may have changed recently, but that has been traditionally the case. Same thing with a faculty member. If you've been a member of the church and left the church, you're not going to be brought on as a faculty member. But there are faculty members, not a large percentage at all, who are not members of the faith.
Rebecca Markert:
How big is Brigham Young?
Anaya Gayle:
Also a statistic. I would have to look up , but it's large, I would say. I don't even wanna guess at this point. I think probably 40,000 students, perhaps more than that.
Rebecca Markert:
Wow. No, it's a big school. Yeah.
Anaya Gayle:
And they come from all over the world. I mean, especially folks in the church who are raised out in what Mormons refer to as the mission field, which essentially means outside of Utah. It feels like a sort of mecca for those folks to come and really be reinforced in their religious beliefs, to be surrounded by folks who have the same beliefs and the same values. And so we get a large population coming from outside of Utah, but also worldwide coming in and wanting to have that experience of feeling very included within this kind of exclusive LDS community.
Alison Gill:
Speaking of inclusion, can you talk about this Office of Belonging? I'm curious, you flagged this on our email communication, so I wanted to highlight it for folks. It's really fascinating.
Anaya Gayle:
Yes, I'm happy to talk about that. This evolved from an honor code controversy near the beginning of the pandemic, so late 2019, and there had been language in the honor code that said that homosexual behavior was not appropriate and would be a violation of the honor code. Late in 2019, there was a revision to the honor code language, which applies not just to BYU, but to every school that's owned by the church. So BYU, BYU Idaho, BYU Hawaii, BYU Business Co–, or not BYU, but the LDS Business College, which I think they've renamed since then, but any school that is owned and overseen by the church this honor code applies to. So there had been a change in that to remove the, basically the word homosexual. And when the change was made, students on all of these campuses celebrated, queer students came out, they were on videos and there were photos of them holding hands, kissing, showing that they were gay, lesbian, trans, all you know, every kind of person within the queer spectrum. Within a number of days there was a statement from the church that said, this change in the language does not mean that we are going to accept romantic or sexual behavior from folks who are attracted to the same gender, which was an uproar really, because then these students had come out.
They had technically violated the honor code. And so that was a very tumultuous time and very scary for a lot of those students. Just recently, I think in August of this year, they've changed the honor code again to clarify that living a chaste life means you don't engage in any same sex romantic relationships of any kind. After all of that controversy, and a lot of pushback on the idea of an honor code office, which does still exist at BYU. They are in charge of enforcing the honor code, and they also take hearsay for lack of a better term. They will investigate almost anything that a student comes and reports to them, whether it's something that the student's roommate said, something that they did, whether it was something they heard in class, they are free to report all of that.
And then the honor code office decides what to investigate and what to enforce and how to enforce it. So out of that controversy comes this Office of Belonging, which talks about everyone belonging. And I think it's a very interesting term for them to choose, because part of the language of Mormons is to say, I belong to the Mormon church. I belong to this faith. And so that idea of belonging is saying, okay, you're here with us. However, the office does not talk about diversity, equity, inclusion. I don't think there's any way they could because their policies right now exclude every LGBTQ+ member of the church. We are all set on the outside of the fringes by virtue of the fact that being who we are is considered a sin and a violation of doctrine that will keep us from achieving what we call eternal life, which is being in heaven, you know, after we die, for lack of a better term.
Alison Gill:
It's almost an anti-diversity office in a way. I've been looking through some of these guiding principles and policies and it's sort of about reinforcing the honor code and the beliefs of the church. And I guess I'm curious what the office actually does, but notice one of the things they point to as a guiding principle is avoiding secular ideologies and concepts that divide, polarize, and victimize. And if I had to guess, I would probably say they're thinking of things like gender ideology and critical race theory and things like that. Is that pretty accurate?
Anaya Gayle:
Absolutely. That's absolutely accurate. And anything that would bring into question any of the church's policies or doctrine. So again, this idea of belonging is not so much of an embrace of who you are, where you are as much as saying you belong and here is how you belong.
Liz Cavell:
That's epic Orwellian wordplay.
Anaya Gayle:
Yes.
Liz Cavell:
You're giving a feel for this Anaya about, or as you tell the story of the honor code controversy. But I'm just so curious, just trying to picture a college campus even of devout Mormons of primarily 18 to 25 year olds. Is the atmosphere one of students sort of strictly adhering to the honor code? Or is it one where the culture is that we know that students are queer here and it's kind of a don't ask, don't tell, or is it something where like every queer student at BYU, even though there's 40,000 plus students, really has to be closeted? What is the culture like for actual students? It is so hard to picture such an orthodox environment on a college campus of tens of thousands of students, even if they're Mormons.
Anaya Gayle:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I would say overwhelmingly the culture is a culture of oppression and folks hiding from who they are in order to keep their academic standing. Now, that doesn't mean that queer folks don't find allies. That is increasing, I think. And during this controversy with the honor code, it was the first time I have ever seen on the campus a demonstration where people were out with signs and it looked like some kind of pride celebration, because they really don't allow demonstrations unless they're vetted first with the office of the president and given approval to do that. So that was extremely unusual. Most of the students I engage with and I try to mentor and find as many LGBTQ students at, particularly at the law school as I can, are very scared that if anything comes out about who they are, about their boyfriend or their girlfriend or their plans for transitioning, that that is going to strip them of all of their academic work to that point.
And that is part of the power that the honor code office has. If they make a decision that someone has violated the honor code in such a serious way as to recommend that the person be kicked out of school, they can also strip them of all of their credits and everything that they've earned to that point. So there's definitely a sense of fear now that being the underlying kind of foundation, there are a number of students who feel like they have been called to be very active in advocating for the LGBTQ+ community in the church, and they feel like if they, pursue and fulfill that calling, that the church will eventually change its policies and ideal ideolog regarding the queer community. I personally think, I mean there are multiple issues with that. If the church did change their policy, obviously for those of us who lived closeted for 40 plus years, that's extremely painful to say, you lived your life this way and now nobody else does.
Which, you know, I'm glad nobody else would have to. But it's also, I think it's extremely unlikely. I mean, the church has planted its flag, it has this proclamation on the family that says marriage is between a man and a woman that says the man is there to provide and protect and the woman is there to nurture, basically nurture children. They talk in that as well about gender being an eternal identity and purpose. And so that would be a huge rollback for them. They have said this is a fundamental tenet of the doctrine and a fundamental belief of the church, and that these policies are fundamental to folks being able to progress towards this eternal exaltation. Were they to rollback I think that would be very odd. But there are, there are a few students who I think exhibit extraordinary courage to try and advocate for change. And they believe they've been called of God to do it. And so they have a belief that their actions will lead to that.
Alison Gill:
Interesting. There has been some, I don't know, movement in the church on these issues, and I'm just thinking of all the other issues. The church has done a complete 180 on including acceptance of black believers and bigamy for one. I mean, there's been so many issues that there's been a complete change on shift away from doctrine. It's hard to say. It's impossible at this stage, isn't it?
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah. I mean, I think you look back, going back to the Book of Mormon musical, right, God changed his mind about black people and extending the priesthood to all worthy men. On the polygamy front. We don't, we, the Mormon church does not practice polygamy currently on the earth. However, they still believe in polygamy. So for example, the ceiling ceremony is kind of the pinnacle priesthood ordinance in the church, and it is an ordinance performed in temples. If a couple comes that is not yet married, it serves as their civil marriage and their eternal marriage, which is something the church believes in, that once you're married to someone, you're married to them eternally. Men can enter into multiple ceilings with multiple women. Women can only enter into a ceiling with one man. So there still is that belief on polygamy, even though in Utah, the practice of polygamy was stymied by federal law.
So in terms of the question of rolling back on this issue, I just think it's more problematic because there was never kind of this latch onto, for example, men of color can't have the priesthood. It was just kind of a practice that evolved as the church evolved that men of color, well, specifically black men were not given the priesthood. And then in the late seventies there was a new revelation saying, no, all men should have the priesthood. And there's evidence that that change came through a lot of internal advocating and folks who were more liberal in their thought moving up in leadership in the church, and of course outside pressure. So, you know, there is that change, but it was not a fundamental tenet of the doctrine. Marriage between a man and a woman is a very fundamental tenet of the church. And so I think rolling that back will either take more time or more effort, or it will take them seeing sort of this large exodus of members really based on those policies remaining in place, regardless of the large amount of evidence to say that those policies hurt families and hurt individuals.
Rebecca Markert:
I feel like it's very similar to the Catholic church too. People are leaving in droves and it seems like this issue, especially among young Catholics, is so divisive and a lot of the reasons that people are leaving the church, I feel like in order for the church to survive, they have to change their belief on LGBTQ issues. And I would think that that sort of external threat to the church would have somebody have some sort of revelation that maybe this is now okay. But I don't know how, I don't know the numbers of the LDS church versus the Catholic church and things like that, but I just see like there is this generational change that I think churches just have to deal with in order to survive this next generation and the younger people that are coming along.
Liz Cavell:
Is there a survey data Anaya, what's the temperature of just Mormon people when it comes to acceptance of LGBTQ identities and lives?
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah, there are numbers, but can we, can I go back to Rebecca? Your key question before you got into Catholicism and the similarities was?
Rebecca Markert:
I don't know if I had a question or if I was just sort of tacking on. It just seems like the dealing with changing attitudes and changing demographics Oh, regarding LGBTQ communities has to be dealt with in some way by not only the Catholic church, but also the LDS church. If this is something that's driving people away in order for the church to survive, I would think, and maybe you would agree that they have to kind of come up with some sort of revelation that allows them to believe that there is a way to have a same sex marriage that is divinely good, or whatever you call it.
Anaya Gayle:
Right. Okay. What that brings to mind for me is this memory. One of the men I worked with said that he believed the same sex marriage issue would be the division of the wheat and the tares, which is a scriptural reference. The wheat being the worthwhile helpful grain and the tares being the weeds that have to be separated out from the wheat before the wheat can be used. I would assume, and I would believe that that's probably a very strong belief held by many members of the church that this issue is the beginning of that sorting of the wheat from the tares. So those folks who are leaving the church based on this issue or just based on, well, most of them are based on this issue, but whatever, it's based on feminism, women advocating for the priesthood, LGBTQ issues. The church considers them tares, they consider them the pieces of the harvest that can be thrown out as opposed to the folks who stay faithful, who are the wheat.
I look at it and think, surely at some point this exodus has to make some changes. And I think there have been changes, if not doctrinal, certainly cultural changes. When I was still in the church, and I've talked with my partner about this, we actually were in the same congregation and raised our kids in the same congregation, but we didn't have this concept of what's called now a cafeteria Mormon. Like they go to church, they pick and choose, they do what they wanna do, but they don't follow all the rules. When we were very active in raising our families, it was obedience, obedience, obedience. And if you weren't active then you were inactive or sometimes referred to as a Jack Mormon. Right. So I think those types of things are changing. I don't know that that's gonna lead the church to change these policies immediately because they still can count these folks in their membership.
They still can rely on them for donations, for tithing, for supporting folks in their congregation who are disadvantaged. So yes. Yes, I agree with you. For the church to survive, it seems like there needs to be some serious changes made. The problem is they've made this such a key part of their doctrine. I don't know how as a church do you navigate that, even if you were to say, oh, there's new revelation and we can have same-sex marriage that, you know, people can be sealed in the temple. It's just such a huge issue. I don't know how they roll it back. It'll be interesting to see how they proceed. For sure.
Alison Gill:
I think it'd be interesting to talk about some of the conflicts that we have seen or issues that have arisen within the church and how things have changed over time. I think the first thing most people are aware of when they think of the Mormon church and LGBTQ people is Prop 8 in California. Were you involved with the church then? Maybe you can talk a little bit from the perspective of what you saw happening and, and some of the criticisms.
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah, you bet. I started law school in 2008, which was in the middle of all of the Prop 8 debates and, and political activities. We were very encouraged in the church to support Proposition 8. This was one of, I think what the church would say, very few sort of general political issues in which membership itself was encouraged to do all they could to prevent same-sex marriage from becoming legal. I was in law school at the time and just couldn't reconcile that stand with the idea of loving one another. And I also felt this need to figure out what their legal justification was for this. Hmm. Because I thought, you know, if we really drill down on this, are we just left sort of reeling back on our heels and saying, we only believe this because this 80-year-old man told us that this is what's important and that God has revealed it to him.
Certainly there has to be something concrete on which this is being based. So in all my classes I would look for something. I never, I didn't really see anything that was formally presented to us. And so eventually towards the end of my second year, maybe the beginning of my third, I thought, okay, I'm gonna write a paper and I'm gonna write it from this perspective that same-sex marriage should not be legal because that will force me to find the justifications and the cases and all of those things. And the paper focused on distinguishing same-sex marriage from the holding in Loving v. Virginia, which was the case that said that all miscegenation statutes or statutes preventing folks from marrying someone in another race, that that case didn't apply to same-sex marriage. What I found was that there was no legal justification whatsoever. Most of the arguments in favor of same-sex marriage were based on social and child development propositions or conclusions that were really not even well tested at the time and it was the worst thing I ever wrote. But in some ways the best thing, because I clearly understood there was no justification for this stand except for a very traditional, very old white man who lived in a traditional marriage whose wife took all care of all the things at home saying, this is our stand on this. And that was something that was really key to leading me out of the church. It was also the time when I was doing my internship with the Office of General Counsel in the church. And without saying too much about it, obviously because of confidentiality concerns, it was obvious that the church was working with many other organizations to support them in whatever way necessary to continue to advocate for Proposition 8. It was a key turning point, I think for me, and it was a big deal in the church.
There were some well-known members of the church who blatantly opposed Proposition 8. And that became a story in and of itself because it was like, oh, are they gonna get excommunicated? Are they, how can they do this and still claim to be members of the church? So it was definitely a big issue, but I would say the majority of the church was just following what the prophet asked them to do. And it was certainly the minority saying, forget this. I'm not doing that. And making their own decisions. There is so much control from the time you're a child over what you're allowed to believe what you're taught, what you're taught about, who you are, that you're just raised and become an adult who really has difficulty at times determining what your own thoughts and opinions are. And as soon as they start doing that, it's sort of believed that they're on their path outta the church, towards apostasy.
Alison Gill:
Is there a general culture that people are sort of expected to send their children to BYU or is there more flexibility people can go wherever because it just seems like another step in the idea of controlling people's intellectual development, you know what I mean?
Anaya Gayle:
Yes. So BYU is simply not large enough to accommodate all of the applicants. They have a huge number of applicants every year, and a very large number obviously don't get in. I don't think there's pressure to send students to BYU or to another affiliate school. I think it's more an appreciation of being able to feel like you're sending your child somewhere where they will continue to be nurtured within this faith. For example, Southern Virginia University was founded by some members independently, but it's still seen as a really great Mormon school for people on the East coast to send their kids to because it's still immersed in the faith even though it's not officially owned by the church.
Alison Gill:
So continuing on this LGBTQ track we were on a minute ago, another thing that the church is sort of famous for being a proponent of is conversion therapy. And it can be a really hard issue to talk about, but I'm curious if you saw a lot of discussion of conversion therapy, if it's something a church still supports. I think there's been a lot more awareness generally speaking across the country about what conversion therapy is. And many states have passed laws banning it, not of course in religious settings because they can't do that under the First Amendment, but among licensed practitioners. I'd like to hear your thoughts on where the church has been and where it's going on that issue.
Anaya Gayle:
Encouragement to engage in conversion therapy is certainly part of the church's history. There are certainly many people from my generation who, by their parents or by their church leaders, were forced into a conversion therapy plan. And you can hear from them how damaging that was to the rest of their lives. In many cases, it has speculated that some of those practices led to folks taking their own lives. Of course, it's very difficult after there's been a successful suicide attempt to understand what has happened because you don't have the person there to talk to. But that's been something that has been a common thought and a path that a lot of people go down. I would say the church's official stance now is that they do not support conversion therapy, but that does not mean that that trickles down through all of the leadership. Certainly in Utah, there still are bishops and other local leaders who will encourage folks to participate in programs that have historically utilized conversion therapy as their primary method in counseling LGBTQ youth. I would say the church's line on that right now, having been out for about six years and not following things closely in that time. But I would say the church's stance on that now is that we love all of our LGBTQ+ members, but they may not engage in romantic relationships without violating the law of chastity.
Which is a law in the church. It's a covenant and it's an important one.
Alison Gill:
I see. Interesting. There has been some positive development, as we mentioned a moment ago, there's been some changes that, for example, they now allow baptism of children of same-sex couples in the church. And also Utah was one of the first red states, I should say, to pass an LGBTQ inclusive non-discrimination law. And it has a lot of religious exemptions, but the church was pretty instrumental in getting that passed is my understanding. So at least there's some effort to try to engage with these issues in a positive way. I'm curious about your thoughts on these developments.
Anaya Gayle:
I would not necessarily use the words positive.
Alison Gill:
<Laugh>.
Anaya Gayle:
I think on the surface they seem like progress. But for example, the housing discrimination statute, the church was highly involved in that because BYU has housing rules that require students to live in what's called BYU approved housing. And so they could not have an anti-discrimination statute that applied to the housing that they were making their students accept as their college housing. And so in my view, the church, they were involved in that one. It was an easy kind of thing to support. It was not saying that these relationships are acceptable, right? It was just saying everyone should be housed. But two, and maybe more importantly in my view is that they wanted to be sure that every exception they needed was written in so that they could maintain these requirements for students to live in housing where they're not allowed to engage in any romantic relationships or sexual behavior before marriage or between folks who are of the same sex.
So that I think arguably yes, it's positive and it looks positive from the outside when you dig a little deeper, I'm not sure. It seems like there's possibly some kind of nefarious motivation for that. The baptism piece, there was never in the handbook anything about baptizing or not baptizing children of same-sex couples because it just wasn't a situation that arose. In 2015, there was a new policy that was issued by the church under revelation that said that children of same-sex couples could not be baptized until they were 18. And when they were 18, they had to disavow their parents and say that they were apostate from the church.
This was one of the first big moments of exodus from the church. People just saw that and could not believe that you would put a child through. I mean, even if you're trying to raise a child in a congregation in this church, how do you explain when all the other children are getting baptized at eight and your child is not? Right? And even if the child themselves wanted to be involved in the church, it separates them because they have these evil, sinful parents. And that's beside the point of even when they are able to get baptized, they have to disavow the people who have raised them and call them an apostate.
Alison Gill:
Unbelievable.
Anaya Gayle:
I don't know what church thinks that that is a loving or accepting policy. So there was so much pushback on that. And there have been multiple folks who have said that that led to a peak in youth suicides in Utah around that time. Again, it's almost impossible to quantify that because you don't have the kids still here. And they may not have all come out to their parents and their parents may not want to even look into whether this an LGBTQ issue or may not even have that in their scope. But this was a very significant policy, very hurtful to the LGBTQ+ community in the church and really signaled a change from what had what was previously not regulated. So within four years, there was a new revelation given to say that children of same-sex parents could be baptized with their parents' consent.
That to me is an obvious rollback in response to what the members of the church had, how they had responded to the initial policy. And of course at that point it was extremely hurtful as well because you have all of these lives that have been lost and all of this pain and suffering that that really imposed on folks that had gone on for those four, four and a half years, something like that. So allowing baptism seems progressive, but it's really just a change from a very restrictive and hurtful policy that was only issued a few years prior to that.
Alison Gill:
Yeah, thanks for clarifying that. That background is super helpful, I think, to understand what's really happening here.
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah.
Alison Gill:
Originally the Southern Baptists had this sort of reputation of supporting church state separation and were helpful making it an important policy throughout our culture. And the Mormon church in the same way has a similar reputation. Now, I would say the Southern Baptist has very, very much moved away from that except for groups like the Baptist Joint Committee, for example, which are fantastic. But I'm curious, does the Mormon church still retain some vestiges of supporting church state separation? Or now that there's been so much more control over, I don't know, places like, like Utah for example, the church has a lot of influence in the state. Has that opposition atrophied? I'm curious about your perspective on that.
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah, I think the church fundamentally asserts this separation between church and state, but the more we get into kind of statutes and laws and rules to protect against discrimination, the more their exercise of their religion interacts in those government actions and with government folks. In Utah specifically, which is a small microcosm, it's very difficult to separate the church's official interaction in government actions because overwhelmingly, our government representatives are white Mormon men. And even many of the women who are in our legislature or who are mayors are faithful members of the LDS church. And there's no way to divorce their church membership from what they're doing politically and in terms of their public service. So in Utah, the church influences everything, even if not formally. They certainly influence it through their membership having such a strong grip on all of the political areas in the state.
Outside of the church, I would say, I would say yes, they certainly have this separation of church and state, but that does not mean that they don't meet with state leaders. It does not mean that they don't have photos printed of themselves with state leaders, they're always clear around election time that they don't endorse one candidate over another. But some of that is more illicitly expressed through the folks that they will meet with and the folks that they are seen publicly with. For example, if you see a member of the Twelve Apostles with a certain politician, then the automatic assumption is, "oh, that must be a good politician. And this apostle is with them, so I'm going to vote for them."
In terms of money, though, I'm not aware of any government money that flows in, even though the church encourages advocacy, particularly in the freedom of religion realm, which again butts right up against government action in a lot of cases, I don't think they are at all obvious about trying to blend those two worlds. They wanna be sure they maintain the appearance and be able to exercise their rights as a religion.
Alison Gill:
Do you think some of that comes from the early persecution of the Mormons? When the Mormon religion was started there was persecution, and I'm curious if that was part of the reason for the concern around church state separation?
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah, I mean at one point Joseph Smith who founded the church was going to run for president. But once the Mormons were really chased out of the east and the Midwest where they'd had some pretty strong footholds and came to Utah, which was a territory at the time, I think they became very insular and very much like our religion is our government. Brigham Young was the governor. I'm not sure what the leader of a territory is, but he was the leader of the territory. He led Utah to statehood. And so all of those issues were very blended. And I would say probably this development of separating church actions from the government actions evolved over time as we, as we saw evolution in the interpretation of what freedom of religion means under the Constitution and what it means to keep church and state separate. I think it's something that's evolved over time. And I think at this point they are very interested in being seen only as a religion. They don't obviously engage in government debates or matters except as I said with Prop 8. And I think they make a lot of effort to say to their membership, we're not trying to influence you politically. You, you do what you want. However, that's all in the context of their religion.
Liz Cavell:
One of the links you sent as we were prepping for the episode, and you alluded to it earlier, the BYU controversy on the honor code change that removed homosexual behavior from the list of things prohibited. And then like a few weeks later kind of clarified that, "oh no, all of that behavior is still prohibited by the honor code." And one of the links you sent was a big news story about how the US Department of Education was investigating BYU under Title IX. The reason I'm bringing it up is because we've talked on this podcast a lot, often we talk about pretty nuts and bolts and technical legal stuff. And I do think this controversy and the involvement of the Department of Education, although I'm sure it didn't go anywhere, was a really good illustration of something we've talked about before, which is religious exemptions, especially to Title IX.
We talked about the Bostock decision and how that was so great. And progressive Gorsuch, big progressive hero of the show. Voting with progressives to say that sex includes sexual orientation under Title IX. So schools that are subject to Title IX can't discriminate on the basis of sex means they can't discriminate on the basis of LGBTQ status. And then there was just sort of this big gaping, but, in the opinion that was like, but it remains to be seen for another day, what religious exemptions might undermine this whole entire opinion. And I feel like it's exactly a situation like the one that you linked to us, which is BYU being investigated for sex-based discrimination under their honor code. I'm sure the policy of BYU is that we are religiously exempt from those provisions of Title IX. So the Department of Education can't do anything about it. And I'm assuming that that investigation led to no action by the Department of Education, but I'm just curious about your thoughts on that.
Anaya Gayle:
Yeah, there was no action that I'm aware of, and my understanding is that there was no action on it. BYU and the church have slates of lawyers that work for them either on a volunteer basis or as their actual general counsel who are researching and working consistently on freedom of religion issues. And they're very smart, very experienced lawyers and are very good at responding to these kinds of investigations or questions in terms of holding pretty fast to freedom of religion, one of the arguments that we hear a lot is that these students agree to come to BYU, they agree to live by the honor code. They're not getting into something that they are not already aware of. That leaves out the fact that BYU'S tuition is so low for students who are members of the church and even for students who aren't members of the church, because it is subsidized.
And we have been told this specifically, it is subsidized by tithing funds. The school is supported by church funds and it's a very low tuition. There's an advantage to that, which is that it gives some folks access to education that they wouldn't otherwise have. There's also another layer on that, which is a lot of parents in the Mormon church will only help pay for school if their child attends a church owned university. So you can say that it is the student's choice to say, "I'll agree to this honor code," but in lots of instances it kind of isn't given their social and familial pressures. They may not have a lot of choice about where to go to school, and then they find themselves, of course, agreeing to this honor code because they have to in order to get into school. And then they're in the situation of either hiding who they are, trying to advocate at risk of their entire academic career to that point, or most of them I think, muddle through the best they can. But the ones I talk to do not come through that experience without some pretty traumatic emotional and mental scarring.
Liz Cavell:
I bet. I was curious, Anaya, when you were talking earlier and you just mentioned it again, we were talking about the culture at BYU. Obviously these students are taking immense risks if they're living lives as out gay people or even advocating for LGBTQ equality on campus. Is this a part of the honor code that students would be aware or have the feeling that it's enforced? Like it's not some archaic law on the books, but you know, nobody ever enforces it. Like do students get kicked out of school for being investigated and found to be living an openly gay life with a same sex partner?
Anaya Gayle:
I can't imagine that they wouldn't get kicked out of school. They would be reported by someone if no one ever reported them to the honor code office and the honor code office never became aware of it possibly, but it certainly would be a huge risk because it is living in direct conflict to the honor code. So they would say, you agreed to abide by this and you're not. And living in an authentic relationship that aligns with someone's orientation is a sin in the church. So they also, again, remember, they have to get their ecclesiastical endorsement every year, which if you're a member of the church, has to come from your bishop. And so your bishop has to attest every year. Yes, they're living the covenants of the gospel. Yes, they're coming to church. Yes, they're in good standing. And I can't imagine that there are many situations. There may be a few in which a bishop who's aware of someone who is living with their partner or spouse who is of the same sex that they would sign that endorsement. People being kicked out of the university are expelled. That's not public information. The honor code obviously doesn't publish it. And so we really don't know unless someone goes through that experience and then becomes vocal about it. So it's difficult to know how many people may have had to go through that, but it certainly is a very real risk. It's not something that's like, this is our archaic and no one pays attention to it.
Liz Cavell:
Yeah. Well, just on that note, one of the other things that sort of gave me a shudder in the honor code and at the bottom of the list, which part of the Honor code is keeping other Mormons accountable to the Honor code, which I really read as being a willing informant on other students. And I wondered how much that really influences what the culture is like. I know you, you didn't like the spy word, but the idea of like, you're kind of always being watched by other students and part of the honor code and the Covenant is that you're keeping other students accountable.
Anaya Gayle:
I don't feel like BYU as an institution itself is probably spying on people, but certainly they rely on reports from other students. So if, for example, you have a student who is trying to date someone of the same sex on the down low, right? And their roommate realizes that this is happening, the roommate can go and report that to the honor code office, and then the honor code office would typically call the student in to have a conversation and start an investigation. It's a very much, folks can be out, but they cannot be engaged in any kind of same sex conduct. So it becomes a really fine line, I think, to walk. If you try to be a student who's out and advocating on behalf of the rights of LGBTQ plus folks, why else are you doing that except to help facilitate folks being in authentic relationships within the confines of the church. So yes, there's a very large risk, and I would say the majority of students that are part of the community on the BYU campus are just tamping that down until they're able to graduate.
Alison Gill:
You talked a little bit about, Liz, about Title IX, and I think it's worth mentioning that there's a very broad religious exemption built into Title IX, which basically says Title IX does not apply to an educational institution which is controlled by religious organization if the application of Title IX would not be consistent with the religious tenets of such organization. So it's almost a complete sort of carve out for religious schools like BYU, and it's been interpreted fairly broadly by the Department of Education and the court. So it's not surprising to me they didn't follow up with this investigation because it's fairly trivial for BYU to show probably that it's because of the tenets of the Mormon church that they're imposing this rule.
Anaya Gayle:
That's right.
Rebecca Markert:
Much of the work that we do is based in public schools, at least at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The vast majority of the complaints we receive about state church violations occur in the public schools where we have teachers praying with students and things like that. Earlier we were talking about the huge influence that the church exerts over things in Utah, and there are probably a lot of state church violations happening in public schools in Utah, and I just don't know how blatant those are, or if you have any–
Anaya Gayle:
Oh, they're blatant.
Rebecca Markert:
I would just be interested to hear your take on that and if there's any way to curb those violations.
Anaya Gayle:
In my personal experience, taking my kids and going to their school events, for example, over the holidays, they'll sing all Christmas songs and not just all Christmas songs, but songs specific to the Mormon church. We have a lot of children's songs, and there would be the, the children's organization is called Primary, so there would be a lot of primary songs being sung. There is often, if, if not always, I would say outside of the Salt Lake City area, an assumption that the students are members of the church. And there is often mention in the classrooms about church beliefs or scriptural references. And I remember turning to my husband and saying, this is a violation of church and state. He's like, it is? And someone asked me how we stopped it, and I said, we need to have someone with standing to challenge what they're doing. And in a lot of these, especially smaller communities around Utah, if you have someone that is not part of that religion, they are so isolated and so marginalized that I think trying to make a challenge like that for them would seem almost completely overwhelming. So in Utah, there is definitely that sense of mixing church and state, not necessarily endorsed by the church, but just nobody does anything about it.
Liz Cavell:
It's like a theocracy. I mean, I know it's more complicated than that. As you described very eloquently earlier, you know how much of it is just the government leaders themselves are LDS church members, and it's not the institution itself necessarily, but it is government officials being guided completely by their personal religious beliefs in government action in its most distilled form. We see it in the public schools, and we get complaints all the time from Utah public schools and just municipal and local government action in Utah. It's so hard to tackle for the reason you just mentioned through litigation, but just in general, it really does seem like the most intractedAmerican theocracy.
Anaya Gayle:
I would agree with that.
Liz Cavell:
Yeah. It's such a concentrated area with such a dominant religion. There's nothing quite like it elsewhere in America.
Anaya Gayle:
I would agree with that. And I would say it extends into Idaho very strongly into Arizona at this point in certain points of California. It's like you take a small strictly religious community and just multiply it out across multiple states.
Rebecca Markert:
It also seems that they're just very sophisticated in what they do. Just going back to our discussion on Prop 8, I started at FFRF in 2008. A lot of the complaints that we received about their involvement in that initiative in California, it was hard to challenge those types of things because, you know, we didn't have the funding stream, we didn't have the paper trail that sort of explained what exactly they were doing. And also, it's just such an insular community that, you know, these public school violations in Utah, it feels like when we hear about them, there's no response or there's just no political will to actually do it. But at the same time, they're also out there saying that they respect a separation of church and state, and they don't want to get involved in these political issues. Prop 8 was one of maybe two in their history that they've really gotten involved in. It's just, it seems really hard to penetrate.
Anaya Gayle:
I think that's exactly right. They are very sophisticated. They enlist the assistance of multiple people who have had, you know, stellar careers in multiple areas. They call them as missionaries, and have those folks contribute their knowledge and experience and skills without compensation of any kind. And so it is a very sophisticated organization. They engage in a very sophisticated way, and they've become very good at walking this line between religious freedom and equality essentially.
Alison Gill:
I think we should probably end there. Thank you so much, Anaya, for taking the time to speak with us today and for giving us your perspective and insights on BYU and the Mormon Church. We really appreciate it.
Rebecca Markert:
Yeah, this was a fascinating discussion.
Anaya Gayle:
Of course. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Liz Cavell:
That's it for today's episode, and if you don't already, please be sure to check us out on our socials, Twitter or X, Facebook and Instagram. You can also find us online we-dissent.org. We'd love to hear you're enjoying this show, so please also remember to leave us a review. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Liz Cavell.
Alison Gill:
I'm Alison Gill.
Rebecca Markert:
And I'm Rebecca Markert. Thanks for listening. We Descent is a joint production of the Freedom From Religion, Foundation and American Atheists. It is hosted by attorneys Liz Cavell, Alison Gill, and me, Rebecca Markert. Other production support comes from Greta Martens. Audio Engineering provided by Audio for the Arts based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Thanks for listening.
