NEW YORK — In a rollback of long-held secrecy, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released a combined version of its handbook of instructions, merging policies formerly reserved only for church leadership with guidelines for all members and updating various stances on moral issues.

Several changes relate to LGBTQ people. Same-sex couples engaging in sexual activity are now frowned upon by the church no more than unmarried, heterosexual couples engaging in sexual activity. Same-sex marriage is not approved, but it is no longer listed as an act of apostasy, and is also no longer listed as a behavior requiring a disciplinary council, now renamed to membership council.

LGBTQ students at Brigham Young University celebrated by kissing on campus after the handbook change prompted the church-owned university to remove its “homosexual behavior” prohibition from its honor code, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The rule banned “all forms of physical intimacy” between two individuals of the same sex.

The church teaches a belief in ongoing revelation to prophets and apostles, which means doctrine can and does change because “the church is true and living. It can change,” Elder Anthony D. Perkins said in a statement on the church website. Perkins is the executive director of the church’s Correlation Department, which oversees the creation of the handbook. 

“Having a handbook that is largely digitally delivered allows us to update it as new revelation is received as the church goes in new directions as part of its worldwide growth,” he said.

A new section on transgender people says the church will allow members identifying as transgender to be baptized, confirmed and take sacraments, and they can update their preferred names and pronouns in the church records. But the church discourages transgender-related surgeries and transitions and several restrictions apply to members who have undergone these surgeries. Baptism of a transgender person who used surgery to transition or dresses according to a new gender is prohibited for example.

Many members parsing through the handbook and comparing it to past records posted their findings on social media.

“Regarding gender and transgender individuals, what's most important to the church is that one's gender always remains consistent with one's biological sex at birth,” Dr. John Dehlin, creator of the popular Mormon Stories podcast, said on Facebook next to screenshots from the handbook. “This is the church's gender-based ‘line in the sand,’ and that is what must remained fixed for a transgender Mormon to remain in good standing.”

Those with same-sex attraction, the church’s term for gay and lesbian, but adhering to chastity may serve in the various callings of their gender like heterosexual members. Though baptism of children of same-sex-married parents was previously prohibited, that prohibition is now omitted and left unclear.

Language prohibiting coffee, tea and illegal drugs seems to allow marijuana use under legal circumstances.

Procedures for reporting sexual abuse remain much the same from an update in October 2019. If they discover abuse happening, including to children, church members and leaders are instructed to consult with higher-up church leaders and call different regional helplines run by lawyers for the church and then report to police when legally required. Child protection activists have criticized these policies for years.

Abuse of children and spouses and rape are now included in a list of actions requiring a disciplinary or membership council meeting with a bishop.

Eternal polygamy remains a church teaching as well. Polygamy was allowed only in the early history of the church and has been outlawed for most of its history. But the church does teach “celestial plural marriage” — that a man in good standing, after the death of his wife or a divorce, may remarry with the promise that he will claim each of his wives in heaven.

Excommunication is now termed “withdrawal of membership.”

“And that means, in a phrase, that the Church is true and living. It can change,” Elder Perkins said. “Having a handbook that is largely digitally delivered allows us to update it as new revelation is received as the Church goes in new directions as part of its worldwide growth.”

While policies about doctrine and behavior have been public for members for years, the church has previously heavily protected the restricted portions of the handbooks. Many links to and posts containing parts or all of the guides eventually disappear from the Internet as the hosts face repercussions. Links to old handbooks, sometimes only versions that include garbled html code, can be found on forums like Reddit.

The oldest handbook dates back to an 1899 guide for how leaders should handle tithe money. Throughout much of the twentieth century, most members didn’t know handbooks existed unless particular problems arose and their bishop temporarily lent the book to them. In 1998, the handbook was split into two: one for church leadership including local ward leaders that was restricted only to them and one for all members.    

In 1999, the LDS Church sued a non-profit and their leaders Jerald and Sandra Tanner for publishing parts of the 1998 handbook reserved for church leadership on their website, including procedures for excommunication. Utah Lighthouse Ministry offers guidance to people who want to terminate their LDS church memberships, particularly on how to remove their names from church records to prevent calls and inquiries from the church that feel like harassment to some.  The Tanners had acquired the handbook from a floppy disk in their store’s mailbox, left by an anonymous man.

Though the case could have set precedent for fair use of copyrighted material online, Jerald, who died in 2006, had been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The Tanners agreed to a settlement in November 2000.

“With the invention of the Internet they [the church] have faced the problem of people getting leaked copies of the handbooks and spreading them to everybody so I think the church realized it’s a losing game of trying to sit on these things,” Sandra, now 79 and an evangelical Christian, said.

The church has made greater efforts in recent years to address critical questions about its doctrine, history and founder Joseph Smith. A podcast released in January 2020 explores Smith’s spiritual revelations from church historians’ perspectives, and the website includes letters, manuscripts and even court and land documents from the church’s early history.

Pushback to the church’s historical record flared in the 1960’s-1970’s, with photocopying technology that allowed researchers to share information easier and a growing evangelical movement.

“I think they just gave up and wanted to get rid of the publicity of having secret manuals and stuff but the question is are we really getting all the instructions of what’s given to a bishop?” Sandra said.

Meagan Clark is the managing editor of Religion Unplugged. She previously reported retail and economic news for International Business Times, and her bylines have appeared in several Indian news media like Indian Express, the Wire and Scroll.in as well as the Dallas Morning News near her hometown.