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Show 250 institution was. In their cyclical history, Mormons had pivoted between insularity and worldliness, separatism and assimilation, but in the 1960s church leaders combined insularity with global aspirations. However, their efforts to impact the world without being impacted by it was a difficult feat at best. The "correlation" movement fostered conformity in Mormon belief and ritual, but the LDS missionary program and BYU brought diverse people into the fold and to Utah, including many gays. At the same time, LDS leaders tried to influence public policy on homosexuality while avoiding scrutiny of how the church treated Mormon gays. Exposing that treatment thus became a weapon of choice for local gays. Church leaders in the 1950s had kept quiet about homosexuality until public events forced the issue, but the reverse occurred in the 1970s. The church's proactive, public stance against homosexuality provoked gays to respond, drawing unwanted attention to the church's methods and hindering its ability to control Mormon homosexuality as an internal matter. Just as events in the late 1950s forced LDS leaders to break their silence about Mormon homosexuality, the church's 1977 endorsement of Anita Bryant's campaign prompted local gay activists to end their silence about Mormonism. Their focus evolved from a generic oppression to the specific abuses of the LDS Church, just as Mormon leaders had shifted from vague scriptural prohibitions of sodomy to explicit attacks on "perverts" and "homos" in the 1960s. Homosexuals as scapegoats, or in the words of some scholars, "folk demons," helped LDS leaders consolidate their power against the attenuating effects of unwieldy growth and anti-authoritarianism. To use scholar Michael Cobb's phrase, homophobia |
