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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Thanks to @TheBookOfAllan, I decided maybe Twitter slapfights about fantasy authors might not be Too Online to talk about here. I mean, let's face it, the nerd quotient here is pretty damn high. On the rare occasions I write a top-level post, it's usually about the intersection of Culture War squabbles and hobby drama. So -

First They Came for the Fantasy Authors

Brandon Sanderson, in case you don't recognize the name, is a best-selling fantasy author. In impact on the genre today, he's probably second only to George R. R. Martin. He famously finished Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and he churns out new books at a rate that makes Stephen King look lazy.

(I have read quite a few of his books, and find them reliably entertaining, but Sanderson is a mediocre writer whose schtick is rigorously-defined magic systems and world-building, to the point that his books sometimes read like LitRPGs, and a big overarching cosmology called the "Cosmere" that unites every one of his series into his own personal MCU.)

Sanderson is also a Mormon. If you've noticed we're in the Culture War thread, you might have an inkling where this is going.

From time to time over the years, some LGBT folks have taken a run at Sanderson over his religion. In 2007 or so, he wrote a blog post offering a sort of milquetoast apologetic, basically saying he was totally cool with The Gays but he also believed in the divine revelations of his church so gay marriage is still a no-go, mmkay? He's been under continual pressure by fans to "update" his views, and he kind of has, saying he continues to "learn and grow." He's tossed a few gay and trans characters into his stories, and he's even written a FAQ: How Do You Feel About Gay Characters?. However, he remains a practicing Mormon, continues to tithe to the LDS, and has very carefully never actually walked back the belief that homosexuality is a sin.

So how has he avoided getting the Orson Scott Card/JK Rowling treatment? Well, for one thing, Sanderson is a genuinely nice guy who is affable with everyone, loves his fans, is very encouraging of new authors, and most importantly, generally avoids any kind of culture war and does not get into Twitter fights. He's got legions of defenders, and most of them accept his bland statements of tolerance and acceptance. It's pretty obvious that he does not personally dislike gay people, and I'm sure he would be thrilled if the LDS elders announced tomorrow that they just received a new revelation from God that He's totally cool with The Gays.

For most people, this is sufficient. There are people who are zealous and dogmatic about everything their church teaches, and there are those who clearly struggle sometimes with a religious doctrine that conflicts with their personal feelings. Most people recognize that everyone wrestles with cognitive dissonance, think "live and let live" is good enough, and if they like Brandon Sanderson despite disagreeing with his religious beliefs, they'll recite "no ethical consumption under capitalism" or "how to be a fan of problematic things."

Most people, but not Gretchen Felker-Martin.

Gretchen Felker-Martin is a transwoman with a single published book: Manhunt. If you wanted to create a hostile caricature of an unpleasant leftist conflict theorist who checks every stereotype, you'd have a hard time finding a better archetype. Think trans Arthur Chu with a foothold in SFF.

Manhunt is about (caveat - I haven't read it, this is what I gathered from reviews) a plague that turns all cis men into feral zombies, and in the post-apocalypse, brave stunning transfolx battle for survival against cismen and TERF hordes. (Yes, seriously.) They also harvest testicles for hormones or something, there's a ton of graphic rape and murder, and also apparently there's a throw-away line about JK Rowling being burned alive in her mansion.

Manhunt was published by Tor, which also, incidentally, publishes Brandon Sanderson.

So, a few days ago, Felker-Martin posted this tweet. (ETA: Hilariously, Twitter's new "added context by readers" feature is now defending Sanderson. I wonder how enraging that is to Felker-Martin?)

In itself, this would be hardly a skirmish in the Culture War. Trans woman doesn't like a Mormon author, wants to cancel him, writes stupid Tweet. It looks an obvious move to try to kneecap a rival, but Felker-Martin probably bit off too much to chew this time and has mostly been mocked for presuming to have some sort of gatekeeping role in deciding who SFF will "tolerate."

But - the reason I wrote this is because I've seen the Sanderson criticism take off a little bit, more than in previous attempts. His haters are really trying to give it legs. The Midnight Society, for example, is a woke satirist who is actually, pretty funny most of the time with really on-point skewerings of SFF and horror authors (except when taking obligatory swipes at JK Rowling by portraying her as a slithering snake hissing about Jewssss and transsss), and this tweet started out great (a completely deserved send-up of Sanderson's tropes) before shifting to an unsubtle signal-boost of the discourse started by Felker-Martin.

Twitter and Reddit seem to have an awful lot of "Hey, did you know Brandon Sanderson is a Mormon?" threads. (It is amazing to me that there are people who've been reading his books for years and had no idea - he does not make it a secret, and also I guessed by the end of the first Mistborn trilogy that the author was a Mormon without knowing anything about him.)

You can see all the usual arguments being recycled: "Should we cancel all Mormon/Catholic/Christian authors then?" (Felker-Martin: "Unironically, yes.") "It's just his personal belief, has nothing to do with how he treats gay people." ("But he TITHES and that means he is funding the LDS's Anti-Gay Death Camps!")

So woke fandom tried to take a scalp and overreached (this time), because while Tor is pretty darn woke, they're still not going to drop one of their biggest cash cows. Yet.

Can You Cancel a Bestseller?

Not literally, no. But can you hurt even a big name? Yes.

JK Rowling is still mega-rich, still a best-selling author, still beloved in most of the world. Yet I'm sure it does sting, even if she never says so publicly, that she and her books will never be celebrated again without an asterisk, that Harry Potter fandom tries to put her name in small print if at all, that she will never be reunited with the stars who she saw grow up and considered friends, until they were forced to denounce her. (Though in Emma Watson's case, it doesn't seem like much forcing was needed.)

They might not be able to Voldemort Brandon Sanderson, but being turned into a homophobic villain who is reviled by fandom and no longer invited to conventions would definitely hurt him. More cynically, Felker-Martin might know that Sanderson was too big a target, but that much smaller Mormon (and Catholic and Baptist, etc.) authors might be intimidated.

(Which makes me tempted to say, "Okay, now do Muslims," but there are only a handful of Muslim SFF authors I know of. The most famous is probably Gwendolyn Willow Wilson, an American Karen who converted to Islam and writes the Ms. Marvel comic book series. Saladin Ahmed wrote a few fantasy novels and also the Miles Morales Spider Man. Amal El-Mohtar is very in with the woke Hugos crowd. All of them apparently believe that Mohammad was totally cool with The Gays. It will be interesting to see if an actual tradcon Muslim ever tries to break into the industry.)

This specimen is who Tor threw some of its authors under the bus for? And by that I mean when Tor was going woke, around the Sad/Rabid Puppies time it did push out some mid-list authors, and fired (then later quietly re-hired) one of its staff who went a bit too far with the two-minute hate stuff.

Gretchen is the sort they wanted to represent, now they have her* and I wish them joy. I can take or leave Sanderson's writing (mostly leave it, to be blunt; his prose is too cardboard for me and 'rigorously worked out magic systems' while they may be good are too much 'baseball stats' oriented for me to enjoy in fantasy, I don't want to be mentally rolling dice and looking up tables as I'm reading). But that he's a Mormon who believes in his faith and hasn't adopted the liberal progressive Unitarian Universalist version of Christianity? How shocking! It's always immensely amusing to see the people crying about being persecuted and oppressed starting up their own Crusades and Inquisitions and heresy-hunts and witch-burnings for not falling in line with the new orthodoxy.

Rowling at least is now relaxed enough to just laugh at the terrible Twitter attacks, which drives them even crazier trying to get her.

*Someone in their forties who never grew out of the "ooh Abby from NCIS is so cool, I wanna be her!" phase. Anyone who describes themselves as "a professional cenobite" has no fucking clue. They swiped that from the Hellraiser movies of course, the whole goth-witchy vibe (the patheticness), but while Clive Barker was raised Catholic and knew what he was doing with that term, our person here is only a poseur, someone desperately copying last year's look and trying to break in to the world they've been writing freelance criticism covering. They're a Real Author now (just like they're a Real Woman) and of course the first thing our neophyte 'literally who' does is attack big names in order to get coverage and publicity. Because they certainly don't have the talent to make it on their own merits, and the publishing world is so increasingly dog-eat-dog that new authors have to be massive sellers fast, or they don't survive. Tor may tolerate Gretchen as "see how diverse and inclusive we are!" for a while, but unless they start earning, they'll be quietly let go. And they know it, which is why the preemptive posturing on the trans angle - "fire me as an author and I'll claim it was because I'm trans and that will be bad publicity for you!"

It's always immensely amusing to see the people crying about being persecuted and oppressed starting up their own Crusades and Inquisitions and heresy-hunts and witch-burnings for not falling in line with the new orthodoxy.

I mean given the examples you yourself invoked of what Christianity itself did I am not sure there is much of a leg to stand on. Christianity was the underdog and was persecuted, rose to power, did its own persecution in turn and now some of the groups it doesn't like/thinks are sinful have banded together and are repeating that cycle and doing something similar to it (though without yet launching actual crusades or priest burnings I suppose). I guess it's darkly amusing in a schadenfreude kind of way. Live by persecution, die by persecution?

In other words if a church says a group is sinful, they can't exactly be surprised when that group isn't well predisposed to them, and that if said groups gets the chance may well choose to try and reduce the power and influence of the church and its followers. Sure maybe in an ideal world LGBT groups and the like should take the high road and forgive and forget, but given Christianity itself struggles with getting its followers to do that, I'm not sure that is anything we should actually expect.

And specifically with Mormon's its not as if they didn't mostly do an about face on race:

"In 1978, apostle LeGrand Richards clarified that the curse of dark skin for wickedness and promise of white skin through righteousness only applied to Indians, and not to black people.[3]

In 2013, the LDS Church published an essay refuting these ideas, describing prior reasoning for the restriction as racial "folk beliefs", and teaching that blackness in Latter-day Saint theology is a symbol of disobedience to God and not necessarily a skin color."

So politically I think you could see the LDS reversing their stance on homosexuality at some point (assuming you think the racial reverse was done for pragmatic reasons and not because God told them to) so it makes sense to put pressure on them to become more "correct".

So politically I think you could see the LDS reversing their stance on homosexuality at some point (assuming you think the racial reverse was done for pragmatic reasons and not because God told them to) so it makes sense to put pressure on them to become more "correct".

Hey now, lets not exclude the idea of God buckling under the social pressure to become more "correct".

Low-effort swipe.

I don't think this will convince you, but when Brigham Young started that policy he explicitly stated that at some point it would end.

I don't think this will convince you, but when Brigham Young started that policy he explicitly stated that at some point it would end.

He did. Specifically, he stated this:

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of anyone of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race—that they should be the “servant of servants;” and they will be, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree. How long is that race to endure the dreadful curse that is upon them? That curse will remain upon them, and they never can hold the Priesthood or share in it until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof. Until the last ones of the residue of Adam's children are brought up to that favorable position, the children of Cain cannot receive the first ordinances of the Priesthood. They were the first that were cursed, and they will be the last from whom the curse will be removed. When the residue of the family of Adam come up and receive their blessings, then the curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will receive blessings in like proportion.

Young and subsequent prophets treated it as if the doctrine had been established by Joseph Smith. From George Q. Cannon:

I had a conversation very early in life with President John Taylor, who told me what the Prophet Joseph had said upon this subject.

I related it to-day to the Council. He told him that the seed of Cain could not hold the priesthood, and that they would be debarred from the priesthood until Abel should have seed who could come forward and receive the priesthood. Cain had killed Abel, and he had died childless.

And from Joseph Fielding Smith:

Ham, through Egyptus, continued the curse which was placed upon the seed of Cain. Because of that curse this dark race was separated and isolated from all the rest of Adam's posterity before the flood, and since that time the same condition has continued, and they have been 'despised among all people.' This doctrine did not originate with President Brigham Young but was taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith .... we all know it is due to his teachings that the negro today is barred from the Priesthood. -The Way to Perfection, pages 110-111

This is not to claim that Smith was the actual originator of the doctrine—he made a few statements that could be interpreted that way, but the best-supported historical view indicates a shift from neutrality on slavery to an anti-abolitionist stance around 1836, followed by a firm commitment against slavery from 1842 to his death in 1844, with a few ordinations of black people to the Priesthood during that time. Rather, the point is that the question was treated by 19th and 20th century LDS leaders as settled doctrine, established by Joseph Smith and not to be undone until perhaps the Millennium.

Church leaders after Young treated it as settled and unambiguous doctrine well into the 20th century, most memorably during this 1947 exchange with Dr. Lowry Nelson, signed by the entire First Presidency of the church:

From the days of the Prophet Joseph even until now, it has been the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel. Furthermore, your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and White races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now. God's rule for Israel, His Chosen People, has been endogenous. Modern Israel has been similarly directed. We are not unmindful of the fact that there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this area, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine .

While I don't disagree that an about-face on homosexuality would be a more difficult change to fit within LDS theology, my impression is that active members tend to understate the apparent permanence and seriousness of the doctrine banning black people from temple ordinances and the Priesthood and the significance of the 1978 reversal. It was much more than a simple, expected policy shift.

Sure, there's quite a lot of nuance to it which I didn't really want to get into with somebody who may not put any effort into the conversation. I'll start with some apologetics, but note that what I'm trying to do is not cast your statements into doubt, but rather try to establish that this really wasn't that large of a policy change for the church, especially compared to something like homosexuality. Feel free to skip them entirely; I'm sure you especially have read a lot of this stuff before.

Begin time-wasting apologetics

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of anyone of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race—that they should be the “servant of servants;” and they will be, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree. How long is that race to endure the dreadful curse that is upon them? That curse will remain upon them, and they never can hold the Priesthood or share in it until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof. Until the last ones of the residue of Adam's children are brought up to that favorable position, the children of Cain cannot receive the first ordinances of the Priesthood. They were the first that were cursed, and they will be the last from whom the curse will be removed. When the residue of the family of Adam come up and receive their blessings, then the curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will receive blessings in like proportion.

Worth noting that this is near-certainly not actually a direct quote, though it was at least accurate enough to not (as far as I am aware) have been called out as inaccurate. There were at least three transcription process involved:

  1. From the speech to shorthand notes

  2. From shorthand notes back to a full transcription

  3. From there to a published version

I don't expect much (or really any) inaccuracies from #3, but #1 could have enormous inaccuracies and I'd expect #2 to at least get a few words and wordings wrong. The reason I bring this up is because small differences in wording can (from our modern perspective) drastically alter the meaning of the text in ways that may not have been caught by contemporaries. As is, it essentially implies that every single non-black man must receive the priesthood before a single black man can. With small differences to the wording, it could easily mean something like "each other race will receive the priesthood before the black race" which essentially matches what actually happened. In other speeches Brigham Young mentions Abel's children, so either he's contradicting himself or the transcription is incorrect in one place or the other.

Of course, Brigham Young (probably) said plenty of other things along those lines, so I'd not be surprised if the wording was essentially correct.

I had a conversation very early in life with President John Taylor, who told me what the Prophet Joseph had said upon this subject.

I related it to-day to the Council. He told him that the seed of Cain could not hold the priesthood, and that they would be debarred from the priesthood until Abel should have seed who could come forward and receive the priesthood. Cain had killed Abel, and he had died childless.

Not only is this fourthhand (Joseph => John Taylor => George Q Cannon => us and the council), but it directly contradicts some of Smith's other actions and contemporary church doctrine. Either Smith contradicted his own teachings by ordaining black men with the priesthood, or he taught about that after making those "mistakes". The former obviously doesn't make sense, and the latter doesn't either, given his actions towards the end of his life. Also, D&C138:40 and 51 essentially outright states that Abel was resurrected 2000 years ago, so if anything it is highly unlikely that he hasn't yet had any children.

End time-wasting apologetics

While I don't disagree that an about-face on homosexuality would be a more difficult change to fit within LDS theology, my impression is that active members tend to understate the apparent permanence and seriousness of the doctrine banning black people from temple ordinances and the Priesthood and the significance of the 1978 reversal. It was much more than a simple, expected policy shift.

Does it matter how permanent and serious those doctrines appeared, or how serious they actually were? We could argue in circles forever about public opinion towards those matters, but I think it's clear that policy had been moving in that direction for decades. In 1954 President McKay created a special committee of the 12 to study the issue, and they concluded that it had no scriptural basis. That same year he began to loosen restrictions--starting with making it so white South Africans didn't have to prove their lineage, and ending in 1965 with applying that same principle to black people in Brazil. At some point McKay apparently became convinced that the matter was policy rather than doctrine, and thus could be changed with the appropriate revelation. The church statement released in '69 implied that the policy was subject to change with wordings like "Until God reveals His will in this matter."

I don't claim it was just a simple, expected policy shift, but at that point it really should have been. If church members and leaders had been educated on their own doctrine, not only would the change have been expected but it probably would have happened years earlier. Heck, just look at actual church policy in places like Brazil and you can see the change coming.

Not only is this fourthhand (Joseph => John Taylor => George Q Cannon => us and the council), but it directly contradicts some of Smith's other actions and contemporary church doctrine.

Like I said, my point in mentioning it was not to present it as evidence for Smith's actual actions and beliefs, but to indicate how church leaders thought about the doctrine at the time.

It's easy in retrospect to conclude that the doctrines weren't actually as serious as they appeared, but the argument proves too much. While the ordinance/priesthood ban was in place, everyone understood the scriptural basis—including McKay:

“I know of no scriptural basis for denying the Priesthood to Negroes other than one verse in the Book of Abraham (1:26); however, I believe, as you suggest, that the real reason dates back to our pre-existent life” (The Church and the Negro, 91)

It was referenced regularly by LDS apostles and seventies in that context. From the 1948 Pearl of Great Price commentary:

“But the greatest curse of all that came upon Cain and his descendants was that they were “cursed as pertaining to the Priesthood,” that is, the entire lineage “could not have the right of Priesthood” (verses 26-27). From the foregoing scripture we learn that Ham, the son of Noah, preserved the curses of Cain in the land. Since Ham was a son of Noah, it is quite definite that he did not have a black skin and was not a descendant of Cain. But the scripture seems to indicate that the wife of Ham was a descendant of Cain and through her the curses were preserved (verses 21-25).

It was serious enough as doctrine that church leaders at the highest level were unified in reprimanding members like Nelson for considering interracial marriage or the notion of racial equality ("We should like to say this to you in all kindness and in all sincerity that you are too fine a man to permit yourself to be led off from the principles of the Gospel by worldly learning. You have too much of a potentiality for doing good and we therefore prayerfully hope that you can reorient your thinking and bring it in line with the revealed word of God.")

As social and political pressures mounted, as with polygamy, the leaders saw increasing reason to reexamine their views and shift doctrine. But it was a shift: it wasn't a sudden discovery that the view had no scriptural basis and that it was simple policy, but a gradual change of rhetoric and emphasis that culminated in the reversal of what had been seen as firm doctrine "never questioned by any of the Church leaders [...] from the days of the Prophet Joseph." The task was not to educate church leaders on their own doctrine but to build a new doctrinal framework that allowed something that had been overwhelmingly seen as repugnant, but which society's views were rapidly shifting on, to be overturned. The 1954 committee, 1965 shift in Brazil, and 1969 statement were all part of this gradual process of framework-building.

It's not my business anymore what the LDS church does with homosexuality. I recognized no personal interest in men at any point while I believed, and during that time I supported its stance on the matter and saw an unambiguous difference between the overturn of the temple/priesthood ban + intermarriage revulsion for black people and a theoretical reversal of doctrine on gay marriage. Now, from an outside view, I find the difference less persuasive. I wouldn't say it's probable, exactly, but it seems wholly plausible to me that as the views of members change and as social pressure mounts, a gradual work of framework-building will begin that culminates in a situation where something like... was it Tom Christofferson who tried to theorize that gay people might enter the second degree of glory in the Celestial kingdom? Where something like that becomes consensus.

This will only be intensified by the growth of new technologies like IVG, with potential to allow gay couples to have natal offspring. LDS theology as it stands is poorly equipped to handle the prospect of a child who genetically has two fathers or two mothers. In the past, as social views have shifted and new technology has entered the arena, the faith has gradually shifted. Changes in the rhetoric and understood etiology around homosexuality have shifted from the unambiguous and harsh language of Kimball and Packer in the 70s and 80s to more cautious and conciliatory words from modern leaders. I have no idea where it will end, and like I said, it's not my business. But the priesthood/temple/intermarriage change was a serious doctrinal shift that had cautious groundwork laid for it over the course of more than thirty years, and the church has taken that approach enough that I don't discount the possibility that it will happen again.

I agree completely with the facts in all but your last two paragraphs. You say a lot of things that are technically true, but together paint IMO a very misleading picture of the history of the change. Stuff like this:

But it was a shift: it wasn't a sudden discovery that the view had no scriptural basis and that it was simple policy, but a gradual change of rhetoric and emphasis that culminated in the reversal of what had been seen as firm doctrine

honestly strikes me as manipulative rhetoric. Firstly, because I just argued that it took place over the course of decades, and here you imply that I claimed it was a sudden discovery. Secondly, because "a gradual change of rhetoric and emphasis" is the natural result of a gradual shift in leaders' opinions, but here you insinuate that it was more of a tactic by church leaders to soften the blow when the doctrine was changed. If you truly believe that church leaders' beliefs shifted over time, then their rhetoric and emphasis should naturally shift at about the same rate. In the following sentence you practically confirm this take:

The task was not to educate church leaders on their own doctrine but to build a new doctrinal framework that allowed something that had been overwhelmingly seen as repugnant, but which society's views were rapidly shifting on, to be overturned.

This is a natural result of the process of educating church leaders (including the prophet) on their own doctrine. Or, if you don't think this was always the doctrine, how do you explain the black members who were ordained with the priesthood? If you do think this was always the doctrine, and Young essentially reversed it, then church leaders must necessarily "build a new doctrinal framework" as part of their education process because clearly their old one was flawed. It didn't account for things like prophets making mistakes, or policy changes, though the Bible and early church history are replete with examples of both of these.

Similarly, your sentence:

As social and political pressures mounted, as with polygamy, the leaders saw increasing reason to reexamine their views and shift doctrine

places the blame for the change on social pressures, when they had already been shifting doctrine in that direction for decades due to other important factors, such as the difficulty of verifying one's genealogy and the lack of eligible church leadership in many developing countries. So again, I think this statement is technically true, but somewhat misleading.

I think there are essentially three positions you can take here:

  1. The church is not true

  2. Young made a mistake instituting the priesthood ban

  3. Young was correct to institute the priesthood ban, meaning that Smith was wrong to ordain black people

I suppose there are other positions but we won't waste time with them. I hope you'd agree with me that church leaders earnestly believe in their faith and must choose between #2 and #3. However, no matter which option they go with, one of their beloved prophets made a pretty big mistake. Our own doctrine has forever been very clear about the importance of continued revelation, but they seemed reluctant to accept that, which is why I frame the gradual process they go through as their own education.

So, I also agree that they had to "build a new doctrinal framework", but it was their own framework they were building, and one which had been present in the church from the beginning. They weren't developing some new rhetorical strategy to manipulate members into sticking with the church as culture changed around them, as you imply (but never state). TL;DR: An implication that the church is inventing a new doctrine to stick with the times must address the fact that the doctrine was practiced in the early church, and you've failed to do so. I apologize if I'm being a bit hostile here, but you're a better writer than I am, and these implications (which may come across as charitable to you) come across as subtle, tricky rhetoric to me.

was it Tom Christofferson who tried to theorize that gay people might enter the second degree of glory in the Celestial kingdom? Where something like that becomes consensus.

I assume you mean practicing gay people here, since gay people can achieve that and exaltation. I'd prefer to frame this differently though, since we really don't know all that much about the different degrees of glory. Will the church ever come out and say that homosexual behavior is not a sin? I think not, and I'd be willing to bet on it, but I don't imagine you'd be willing to bet on a statement like that resolving within our lifetimes. I'd take a bet giving it 1% odds of happening within the next 50 years, but then all my money is locked up the entire time for a 1% reward. I find it more likely that the church undergoes some kind of hostile takeover than that they do that of their own accord.

At best, they could maybe de-emphasize how much of a sin it is and focus on compassion, a process they've already undertaken and which is complete for similar situations (such as people who never marry).

This will only be intensified by the growth of new technologies like IVG, with potential to allow gay couples to have natal offspring. LDS theology as it stands is poorly equipped to handle the prospect of a child who genetically has two fathers or two mothers

Is it? I feel like any doctrine that would have a hard time dealing with this would have a harder time with basic adoption.

Anyways, I've spent this whole time responding to you rather than making my own points, and I recognize that that can be pretty exhausting to deal with. Suffice to say that commonly-reviled policy changes such as polygamy and the reversal of the priesthood ban IMO have quite good scriptural and doctrinal support, and did long before they happened too. I find that discussion much more useful than arguing over what church members of the time thought, because I also believe that the idea that "church leaders and members can be misled" is quite well-supported doctrinally as well.

Edit: I apologize, I think I've been uncharitable here. I just think the "church leaders bent to the public will" theory needs to grapple with the inconvenient fact that their decision genuinely seems to be the correct one based on contemporary doctrine alone.

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