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Show 90 male homosexuality, bestiality, and "certain kinds of fornication," all of which merited the death penalty. Clark explained that he mentioned these things "merely to show that Israel lived under a code that would not tolerate any such doctrine as that the sex-urge was a natural one and to be gratified just as the urge of thirst and hunger."! His disapproval of the sexual "urge" reflected the church's position justifying sex for procreation rather than erotic expression. Traditionally, however, Mormon theology rej ected a metaphysical dualism elevating spirit over flesh and the notion that sexuality derived from sin. Instead, Mormonism was based on a spirit-matter continuum and the principle of men and God as co eternal, allowing for divine sexuality and belief that human spirits were begotten "upon the same principle that we reproduce one another." Clark's objection to the idea of sexuality as natural contravened the spirit-matter continuum in Mormon theology, although even in the context of polygamy, early church doctrine promised the greatest rewards to those who controlled their urges? In addition, the idea of spirits in the preexistence procreating like humans conferred divine status on I reproductive sex to the exclusion of other forms of desire. By the early 1960s, LDS leaders treated homosexuality less as an abstraction addressed through scripture and more as a modem, real-life phenomenon requiring vigilance and intervention. In general, Mormons girded themselves against the 'One Hundred Twenty Seventh Semi-Annual General Conference ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5-7 April 1957, archives, historical department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City. 2Klaus Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 168-9. |
