Question: Were Joseph Smith and other nineteenth century Mormons not strenuously opposed to same-sex acts or intimacy?

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Were Joseph Smith and other nineteenth century Mormons not strenuously opposed to same-sex acts or intimacy?

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Critics claim that Joseph Smith and other nineteenth century Mormons were not strenuously opposed to same-sex acts or intimacy, and that the modern Church's opposition to homosexual conduct is a later aberration.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]

Answer

The evidence does not suggest that nineteenth-century Mormons regarded homosexual acts with anything but abhorrence. Attempts to prove otherwise seem largely founded on agenda-driven writing and a distortion of the historical evidence.

Historian D. Michael Quinn's book, Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example is almost solely responsible for this claim. Quinn's methodology and conclusions are shoddy, and have been severely criticized by LDS and non-LDS historians.

The FairMormon Answers Wiki contains an analysis of this book's claims, with links to further reviews and resources: here.