In a video produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a lesbian couple has described how they fell in love and got married but then divorced in order to rejoin the faith.
One of the women—Courtney—describes how she had always struggled to reconcile her sexuality with the teachings of the church.
“I did everything I was supposed to do because I was hiding a secret, my lesbian orientation. It literally tore my soul to pieces growing up because I knew the church was true but I knew that a core piece of who I was in direct opposition of my belief,” she says in the clip.
“Satan lived in this secret and the less I talked about it, Satan took up more space. For me, it was a life or death situation. Stay in the church and be depressed or leave and find some release.”
She left the church and married her partner Rachelle and had little contact with her family until her sister’s wedding—which she says was a turning point.
“We were able to start mending a lot of hurt feelings on both sides of the fence,” she says.
In the months following, after speaking with Mormon missionaries, Courtney says she “felt the pull to come back to church” and her partner Rachelle—who did not grow up in a religious household—decided to join her.
However, the momentous decision meant legally separating—the pair filed for divorce on New Year’s Eve last year.
“We know that our Heavenly Fathers plan for us is better than our own,” says Courtney.
Rachelle adds: “The reason I met Courtney wasn’t for us to get married, it was for us to do that together and be introduced to Gospel.”
The comments have been disabled on the Youtube video but ex-members of the Mormon church have discussed it on a.
“I was so sad for them,” one person writes.
"When she started crying, I knew Mormons would believe (and she must, too) that it was because of the HG [holy ghost] and what the sacrifice is purchasing for them in the next life.
“I saw it as agony and mourning over what they gave up. She is mourning her loss.”
Last month, a teacher at a Mormon university for posting a pro-LGBT+ post on her Facebook page.
The church also with the Boy Scouts of America earlier this year after the organisation announced it would be accepting transgender members.
