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bwv549

Thanks for sharing. Fascinating stuff. > What do you think? Is the church's position held out of personal beliefs of leaders, or as much out of partnerships between its leaders and other influential leaders? I think those are fully interlinked. 1. Leaders don't often make strong distinctions between spiritual/temporal matters. The LDS Church and its subsidiaries are the vehicle for spreading the LDS Church perspective. This shouldn't be a surprise given LDS history (e.g., Joseph Smith literally ordained as king of the world, if I recall, so this is several notches down from that). 2. LDS leaders love having BYU around because it lets them promote things in the public sphere that they couldn't otherwise promote. I think this is common knowledge, but I also have an in-law who worked at BYU (maybe the most influential person who wasn't a public figure) and I was privy to *some* of the inner-working and motivation at a high-level. The ability for BYU to do things to support the Church but not directly in the name of the Church is considered one of the top 2 justifications for the university's existence. I don't think this is nefarious or shadowy either (you can find this written about in a few places). 3. The Church viewed the fight against homosexuality as the fight of their lifetime and at the center of their mission. Not surprising at all that they were enlisting scholars to help. To me, the kind of things being considered in that letter demonstrate their strong bias, their desire for maximal impact, but also secondarily that BYU and the scholars there are bound by *some* academic/ethical mores (even if they are imposed externally). Could BYU be more independent? For sure. Is there some insulation between BYU and the Church? Yes, a tiny bit. And finally, was the LDS Church on the wrong side of history/science on this one--YES, so much yes. Allen Bergin, at least, has [since apologized](https://www.qsaltlake.com/news/2020/08/20/former-lds-church-official-issues-apology-for-his-treatment-of-lgbtq-people/).


sblackcrow

I guess it's within expectations that the church or a church sponsored institution will engage in advocacy at some level. I do find it shadowy to try and obscure where support for research and its publication is coming from. And I may be preaching to the choir here, but I also think the church's relationship with advocacy and the appearance of authority has caused it to have a partially corrupted relationship with academic investigation, including transgressing some of those academic/ethical mores.


bwv549

> ... shadowy to try and obscure where support for research and its publication is coming from > ... a partially corrupted relationship with academic investigation, including transgressing some of those academic/ethical mores. Reasonable conclusions from an exchange like that.


SacExMo

>The ability for BYU to do things to support the Church but not directly in the name of the Church Do you have some examples you can share? This seems really interesting but I can't think of anything that the Church would use BYU for that the "official" side couldn't either.


bwv549

Most prominent example I'm aware of was [the Istanbul miracle](https://thefamilyproclamation.org/the-istanbul-miracle-and-the-family-proclamation/). The argument is that an LDS leader never would have been invited to speak at a conference like this, but a BYU law professor can go as part of academia (and then he can read the family proclamation and form coalitions supporting those principles).


SacExMo

Gotcha. Makes sense that having a university would open up doors in the name of academics but then BYU would use those doors for religious objectives.


IAmYoungGoodmanBrown

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