LDS Leader on Same-sex Attraction

In a Sunday sermon in downtown Salt Lake City, high-ranking Mormon leader Dieter F. Uchtdorf preached a message of tolerance to the more than 200,000 Utah Mormons, saying that "God loves all his children" and that he expects everyone to do the same.

The widely rebroadcast remarks represent one of the first instances of someone of Uchtdorf's stature in the 14 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints addressing the issue of same-sex attraction.

Uchtdorf, second counselor in the governing First Presidency, approached the topic in the wake of Boyd K. Packer's comments earlier this month in which he decried the idea that people "cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural."

Uchtdorf's remarks, on the other hand, are more in line with LDS spokesman Michael Otterson's recent condemnation of the bullying and harassment of gays.

"Many questions in life, including some related to same-gender attractions, must await a future answer, even in the next life," Uchtdorf said, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. "Until then, the truth is, God loves all his children, and because he loves us, we can trust him and keep his commandments."