Jeffrey Nielsen is founder of the Democracy House Project, and a published author. He is also a philosophy instructor at Westminster College, Salt Lake City; and Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah. He is perhaps best known for being both a supporter of gay marriage and a practicing Mormon.
In 2006, Nielsen was a visiting lecturer of philosophy at Brigham Young University (BYU). After submitting an editorial to the Salt Lake Tribune that challenged the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), BYU's sponsoring institution, on same-sex marriage, Nielsen received a letter from Daniel Graham, the head of the Department of Philosophy, stating that once term classes ended, his contract would not be renewed. In the editorial, Nielsen criticized the church's support for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage.
BYU instructors and employees contract themselves to not criticize the LDS Church as a condition of their employment. [1] Nielsen was subsequently released from his duties in his local church congregation as well.
After his dismissal from BYU, Nielsen obtained positions teaching philosophy at Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah.
Nielsen was educated at Weber State University and Boston College. At Boston College, he was a Teaching Fellow where he taught courses in logic and critical thinking, the history and philosophy of art and science as well as in ethics and epistemology. He has also taught in the philosophy department at Brigham Young University, where he taught courses in the ethics of leadership, reasoning and writing, as well as in the history and development of science. His teaching focuses on issues in ethics, moral decision-making, and democracy.
Nielsen is the author of the book The Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organizations . His most recent initiative has been to found the nonprofit Democracy House Project. The Democracy House Project is an educational initiative using his peer-based model to teach political literacy.
Boyd Kenneth Packer was an American religious leader and educator who served as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2008 until his death. He also served as the quorum's acting president from 1994 to 2008, and was an apostle and member of the Quorum of the Twelve from 1970 until his death. He served as a general authority of the church from 1961 until his death.
David Oman McKay was an American religious leader and educator who served as the ninth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1951 until his death in 1970. Ordained an apostle and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1906, McKay was an active general authority for nearly 64 years, longer than anyone else in LDS Church history.
Jeffrey Roy Holland is an American educator and religious leader. He served as the ninth President of Brigham Young University (BYU) and is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Holland is accepted by the church as a prophet, seer, and revelator. Currently, he is the fourth most senior apostle in the church.
Karl Gottfried Maeser was a prominent Utah educator and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served 16 years as principal of Brigham Young Academy. Although he was not the first principal of the Academy, he is considered its founder. The Academy later became Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1903.
George Henry Brimhall was president of Brigham Young University (BYU) from 1904 to 1921. After graduating from Brigham Young Academy (BYA), Brimhall served as principal of Spanish Fork schools and then as district superintendent of Utah County schools, finally returning to BYU. In April 1904, Brimhall became president of the school, which had become BYU in October 1903. As president of BYU, Brimhall helped institute the collegiate program, departments for specific subjects, and an emphasis on religious learning.
All homosexual sexual activity is condemned as sinful by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its law of chastity, and the church teaches that God does not approve of same-sex marriage. Adherents who participate in same-sex sexual behavior may face church discipline. Members of the church who experience homosexual attractions, including those who self-identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual remain in good standing in the church if they abstain from same-sex marriage and any homosexual sexual practices or sexual relationships outside an opposite-sex marriage. However, all people, including those in same-sex relationships and marriages, are permitted to attend the weekly Sunday meetings.
Bruce Clark Hafen is an American attorney, academic and religious leader. He has been a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1996.
Fred Emmett Woods IV is a Brigham Young University professor of Latter-day Saint Church History and Mormon Doctrine, an author specializing in Mormon migration and the Globalization of Mormonism.
Ronald Kent Esplin is the managing editor of The Joseph Smith Papers project and the former director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University (BYU).
Arnold Kent Garr was the chair of the department of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University (BYU) from 2006 to 2009. He was also the lead editor of the Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History.
Randy L. Bott is a former American professor of religion at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, United States. He taught classes on missionary preparation and the Doctrine and Covenants, and wrote doctrinal and motivational literature about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ellis Theo Rasmussen was an American professor and dean of Religious Instruction at Brigham Young University (BYU). He helped produce the edition of the Bible published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1979.
William Henry Chamberlin Jr. was an American Mormon philosopher, theologian, and educator. His teachings and writings worked to reconcile Mormonism with the theory of evolution. He taught philosophy and ancient languages as well as science and math at several Latter-day Saints (LDS) institutions including Brigham Young University in the early 20th century. He was one of four educators at Brigham Young University whose teaching of evolution and attempts to reconcile it with Mormon thought, although strongly popular with students, generated controversy among university officials and the LDS community. Chamberlin has been called "Mormonism's first professionally trained philosopher and theologian."
The 1911 modernism controversy at Brigham Young University was an episode involving four professors at Brigham Young University (BYU), who between 1908 and 1911 widely taught evolution and higher criticism of the Bible, arguing that modern scientific thought was compatible with Christian and Mormon theology. The professors were popular among students and the community but their teachings concerned administrators, and drew complaints from stake presidents, eventually resulting in the resignation of all four faculty members, an event that "leveled a serious blow to the academic reputation of Brigham Young University—one from which the Mormon school did not fully recover until successive presidential administrations."
Wesley Parkinson Lloyd was an American college administrator in several universities including Brigham Young University and the United States International University. Lloyd was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served an LDS mission. He taught at Rexburg High School and after, worked as a principal of seminary. After receiving his master's and doctorate degrees, Lloyd worked at multiple universities, including BYU, the United States International University, and California Western College. In his personal life, Lloyd married Lucille Murdock in 1926 and had three children. He died on March 7, 1977, at the age of 72.
Students identifying as LGBTQIA+ have a long, documented history at Brigham Young University (BYU), and have experienced a range of treatment by other students and school administrators over the decades. Large surveys of over 7,000 BYU students in 2020 and 2017 found that over 13% had marked their sexual orientation as something other than "strictly heterosexual", while the other survey showed that .2% had reported their gender identity as transgender or something other than cisgender male or female. BYU is the largest religious university in North America and is the flagship institution of the educational system of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —Mormonism's largest denomination.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been involved with many pieces of legislation relating to LGBT people and their rights. These include playing an important role in defeating same-sex marriage legalization in Hawaii, Alaska, Nebraska, Nevada, California, and Utah. The topic of same-sex marriage has been one of the church's foremost public concerns since 1993. Leaders have stated that it will become involved in political matters if it perceives that there is a moral issue at stake and wields considerable influence on a national level. Over a dozen members of the US congress had membership in the church in the early 2000s. About 80% of Utah state lawmakers identied as Mormon at that time as well. The church's political involvement around LGBT rights has long been a source of controversy both within and outside the church. It's also been a significant cause of disagreement and disaffection by members.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the first decade of the 2000s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 2010s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Below is a timeline of major events, media, and people at the intersection of LGBT topics and BYU. Before 1959 there was little explicit mention of homosexuality by BYU administration.