1. Taylor G. Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020).

2. Merriam-Webster, s.v. “queer theory (n.),” accessed October 14, 2022, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/queer%20theory#h1. For a more technical definition from the author, see page 10. Queer theory is related to other critical theories. For more information, see James Bohman, “Critical Theory,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/critical-theory.

3. In gender studies, gender essentialism is “the belief that males and females are born with distinctively different natures, determined biologically rather than culturally,” Oxford Reference, s.v. “gender essentialism (n.),” accessed October 14, 2022, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095846595. Church leaders reference eternal, not simply biological, differences regularly, as will be discussed below.

4. Nikki Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (New York: New York University Press, 2003), v.

5. William B. Turner, A Genealogy of Queer Theory (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000).

6. Illka Niiniluoto, “Realism in Ontology,” in Critical Scientific Realism (Oxford: Oxford Academic, 2003), 21–41, https://doi.org/10.1093/0199251614.003.0002.

7. See Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (1887; New York: Random House, 1967).

8. Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 78.

9. Gary Gutting, Foucault: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 47–48.

10. For a detailed summary of different atonement theories, see Peter Schmiechen, Saving Power: Theories of Atonement and Forms of the Church (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005).

11. For interesting approaches to these issues, see Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 3, 5th ed. (1957; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); Dietrich von Hildebrand, Ethics (1953; Steubenville, Ohio: Hildebrand Press, 2020).

12. See, for example, Teresa Robertson Ishii and Philip Atkins, “Essential vs. Accidental Properties,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/essential-accidental/.

13. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990; New York: Routledge, 2002), 185–89.

14. The key question seems to be this: What does it mean for some human trait or characteristic to be “essential”? The basic outlines of a response to this question were elaborated by Aristotle long ago. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle casts virtue (understood in a certain way) as a human possibility which, though not inevitable, is part of our nature: “Neither by nature, therefore, nor contrary to nature are the virtues present; they are instead present in us who are of such a nature as to receive them, and who are completed through habit.” Aristotle, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 26. In other words, humans are the kinds of beings who are, by nature, capable of virtue, whereas other creatures and objects (for example, rocks) are not capable of virtue. Even more to the point, it is in the nature of humans that they are completed by virtue—they become what they truly are when they become virtuous through repeated action. At the same time, humans can (and often do) fail to be virtuous, and human agency influences whether we reach our potential or not. Of course, Aristotle’s account will face the same (or perhaps more) difficulties that other accounts of virtue face, but the basic point is that variation need not destroy essence. A certain plasticity seems inherent in the human condition, but this plasticity neither destroys the idea of human nature nor the idea that humans are fulfilled by living up to certain ideals. It is possible to acknowledge the ways our thinking is mediated by language and history and still believe that words refer to something beyond the play of discourse. See Christian Smith, What Is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 119–219. Martha Nussbaum argues that many desirable qualities have the same structure as gender according to Butler: “Come to think of it, justice, understood as a personal virtue, has exactly the structure of gender in the Butlerian analysis: it is not innate or ‘natural,’ it is produced by repeated performances (or as Aristotle said, we learn it by doing it), it shapes our inclinations and forces the repression of some of them. These ritual performances, and their associated repressions, are enforced by arrangements of social power.” Martha C. Nussbaum, “The Professor of Parody: The Hip Defeatism of Judith Butler,” The New Republic, February 22, 1999, accessed October 12, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody.

15. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 4.

16. Phillip L. Hammack, David M. Frost, and Sam D. Hughes, “Queer Intimacies: A New Paradigm for the Study of Relationship Diversity,” Journal of Sex Research 56, nos. 4–5 (2019): 559.

17. Richard Burnor and Yvonne Raley, eds., Ethical Choices: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy with Cases, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1–7.

18. “It is one thing to say that we should be humble about our universal norms, and willing to learn from the experience of oppressed people. It is quite another thing to say that we don’t need any norms at all.” Nussbaum, “Professor of Parody.”

19. For example, see Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005); Judith Butler, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-political Bind (London: Verso, 2020).

20. Jane F. Gilgun, “The Four Cornerstones of Qualitative Research,” Qualitative Health Research 16, no. 3 (March 2006): 436–43, https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305285338; Jane F. Gilgun, “Deductive Qualitative Analysis and Family Theory Building,” in Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research, ed. Vern L. Bengtson and others (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2005), 83–84.

21. Laura Walker, “Interracial Marriage in the United States (1850–2017),” Towards Data Science, December 12, 2019, https://towardsdatascience.com/interracial-marriage-in-the-united-states-1850-2017-d6dfc3678e07.

22. All general conference searches were done using Corpus of LDS General Conference Talks, 1851–2020, https://www.lds-general-conference.org/; Scripture Citation Index, https://scriptures.byu.edu/; and Periodical: Conference Report, https://scripturetools.net/periodicals/conference-report?lang=eng.

23. It should be noted that some scripture verses indicate that some ancient authors also viewed others through prejudicial lenses, whether because of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, economics, or other factors.

24. Examples often spoke of the oneness of man, that God is the father of all of us, that all are alike (often quoting or paraphrasing 2 Nephi 26:33), that all are called to be saved, that all have equal rights, that all humankind’s spiritual nature is that of God’s children, and so forth. Several of these statements came from individuals for which we also have record of more racist statements, including Brigham Young (May 1871), Charles Penrose (April 1880), George Q. Cannon (April 1879, October 1880), and Orson F. Whitney (April 1928).

25. David O. McKay, in One Hundred Fifteenth Semi-annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1944), 78.

26. Petrey consistently refers to Church leaders creating and exercising new forms of power through their discourse regarding race, gender, and sexuality, but it’s not clear whether he believes they are consciously actually exercising agency in these decisions. See pages 52, 60, 65, 101, 174 and 215 for examples.

27. For some representative examples, see Brigham H. Roberts, in Seventy-fourth Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1904), 14–20, https://archive.org/details/ConferenceReports1900s/page/n753/mode/2up; Orson F. Whitney, in Ninetieth Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1920), 119–24, https://archive.org/details/ConferenceReports1920s/page/n119/mode/2up; James E. Talmage, “The Eternity of Sex,” Young Women’s Journal 25, no. 10 (October 1914): 600–604; James E. Talmage, “The Eternity of Sex,” Millennial Star 84, no. 34 (August 24, 1922): 539–40; John A. Widtsoe, A Rational Theology as Taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1932), 64–65; and the numerous other statements since “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” was given.

28. For a brief review of how the term has been used in the Church, see Terryl L. Givens, Feeding the Flock: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Church and Praxis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 117–121.

29. M. Russell Ballard, “The Sacred Responsibilities of Parenthood,” Ensign 36, no. 3 (March 2006): 29. See also Gordon B. Hinckley, “I Believe,” Ensign 22, no. 8 (August 1992): 6; L. Tom Perry, “Fatherhood, an Eternal Calling,” Ensign 34, no. 5 (May 2004): 71; Henry B. Eyring, “Women and Gospel Learning in the Home,” Ensign 48, no. 11 (November 2018): 58.

30. Cree-L Kofford, “Marriage in the Lord’s Way, Part One,” Ensign 28, no. 6 (June 1998): 12.

31. Spencer W. Kimball, quoted in Dallin H. Oaks, “Priesthood Authority in the Family and the Church,” Ensign 35, no. 11 (November 2005): 26.

32. Several of these statements from general conference date to the late 1800s. One later example is the conference address by Joseph F. Merrill in April 1946, where he taught, “A Latter-day Saint marriage is a union of two equal partners, obligated to build a home where mutual love, respect, trust, fidelity, tolerance, patience, and kindness are some of the essential operating factors.” Merrill, in One Hundred Sixteenth Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1946), 29, https://archive.org/details/ConferenceReports1940s/page/n1793/mode/2up.

33. In an effort to indicate an actual change in the moral and spiritual seriousness of same-sex attraction, Petrey seeks to make the case that the Church did not consider same-sex sexual sin as overly serious by referring to the case of Joseph F. Smith, the presiding patriarch to the Church, who was released from his calling but not excommunicated as a result of purported same-sex sexual behavior, while Richard R. Lyman was excommunicated for adultery (62–63). However, as anyone who has ever presided over a disciplinary council can attest, the outcome of a disciplinary council is determined by far more than one variable and hence is not sufficient grounds to judge the doctrinal severity of the issue at hand.

34. Petrey does bring to the different constructs the fact that Latter-day Saint discourse claims an eternal reality, such as his reference to James E. Talmage’s claims that sex (meaning male and female sex) is eternal (42). But such claims are regularly dismissed or problematized. This would not be a problem if the same approach were taken for the more nonessentialist Church leader dialogue that makes up the majority of the book—thus showing the complexity more fully and giving the reader more information with which to analyze the meaning of the discourse.

35. Andrew Sullivan, “The Nature of Sex,” New York Intelligencer, February 1, 2019, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/andrew-sullivan-the-nature-of-sex.html.

Daniel Frost

BYU Studies Publications