Summary: Much LDS discourse has discussed homosexuality to consider its causes, give pastoral advice to LDS homosexuals, or to encourage a change in our attitudes towards practicing homosexuals. Taking on a suggestion from Alan Michael Williams, Petrey attempts to speculatively explore how Mormon theology might accomodate non-heterosexual relationships, in the hope that our sealing/family doctrines might make more "soteriological sense" for the emerging diversity in families.
He admits few LDS will believe there can be any reconciliation between homosexual relationships and church doctrine, and while they may be right, this is debatable. He suggests that we consider homosexuality not in terms of desires or practices, but in terms of relationships, such as we do for her heterosexuality (eternal marital relationships). Petrey believes this should be acceptable since some LDS heterosexual couples are celibate (physical incapacitation): marriage should not be reduced to sexuality.
Much resistance to accepting homosexual relationships comes from weakly supported LDS beliefs regarding celestial reproduction through sealed male and female couples. Petrey points out "theological tension" between beliefs in spirit birth and the eternal nature of intelligence. Some views of spirit birth employ a sexual edge to them (requiring something supposedly biological from the mixed-sex pairs), while others are more metaphorical and are likely disconnected from reproductive organs. Petrey thinks that the former views are pitiful, suggesting it must lead to a strong commitment to biological literalism (spirit babies gestasting for nine months in celestial female wombs). Besides this, Petrey believes it is strange that resurrected, celestial bodies should give birth to spirit bodies instead of ones like their own. If mortal bodies produce mortal bodies for their children, should not celestial bodies produce celestial bodies for birth? Petrey also suggests that each stage in our progression does not seem to require birth through other's bodies, such as in the case of the resurrection. Hence, we should not assume that moving from the intelligence stage to the spirit child stage required a biological birth, but instead a loose "organization" from matter that we may consider symbolically as a birth, as in the case of baptism. God's embodiment should not make us assume that God must engage in a sexual union to produce life. The creation of life on the earth, Eve from Adam's rib, and the virgin birth suggest otherwise. Thus, we might imagine reproduction for same-sex partners. With women, it becomes more problematic if creation is a priesthood function and women do not currently possess the priesthood. Eschatological reproduction set aside, what about the problem of same-sex partners being unable to "multiple and replenish" the earth in the here and now? Petrey notes again that there are mixed-sex partners that cannot fulfill this command and still consummate their relationships, and if afterlife procreation is not like mortal procreation, he thinks the inability to procreate here should not be a censorship for sealings. All couples should have the responsibility to provide for and rear children, but this can be done through adoption and reproductive technology.
While sealing often involves biological kinship ties, Petrey notes that the kinship ties have not historically been biological or for reproductive couples. By examining different culutures--African American, rural Chinese--we see kinship models that are not based on a father-mother-child paradigm, so it is not unique to same-sex relationships. Sealings for same-sex couples could provide ritual legitimization for existing social relationships, while also priviliging unions of long term filiation (marriage). Before 1894, Mormons sealed themselves to church leaders regardless of their blood/reproductive relationships, and this also established an alternate way of establishing kinship. The focus was not on sealing genealogical chains, but on uniting humanity into one sacred fellowship with the most righteous acting as the rulers. This older form of sealing helps us imagine same-sex relationships in a gospel sense. Woodruff's shift towards sealing in genealogical chains still provided for members to be sealed to Joseph Smith, but he paved the way for the emphasis of sealing to be about the ordinance and not getting sealed to the "right person(s)." Currently, adopted children are sealed to others they are not biologically/reproductively related to, so there is no sense of exclusivity to those relationships even amongst sealings now. Petrey notes how in rare circumstances children born into the covenant can be adopted by others and then sealed to the adoptive parents (he is personnally aware of one instance). Next, he thinks that since children born in the covenant maintain their "birthright" regardless of parents cancelling their sealings, the importance is not biology, but the sealing itself. With biology/reproduction being replaced with spiritual kinship, same-sex couple sealings are less jarring theologically.
The concept of an "eternal gender" is an important issue in this discussion, as gender is used in church literature as a means of normatively guiding behavior for and spelling out the inherents traits of the gendered person. It is often argued that same-sex marriages could cause "gender confusion." Petrey tries to investigate what eternal gender means in the LDS Community to address this allegation of "gender confusion," but finds the term lacking in ready-made distinctions. He tries to analytically break down the term's use in LDS discussion into the following: the morphological bodies of males and females (their sex), the sense of identity corresponding to those bodies that includes sexual desires, and the social roles assigned to those bodies.
(1) Gender as Sex. It isn't clear how "gender confusion" could emerge from same-sex relationships if it is about bodies or one's eternal marker as being a male/female (male/female bodies persist regardless). The sexes could be fixed, but the particular configuration of relationships could also be changeable. However, Petrey doubts whether there is a "natural" sex division, which may really be politically motivated to establish ideological goals. His evidence for this doubt is that intersex persons resist the sex binary, and some scientists like Anne Fausto-Serling have suggested that there are more than 2 sexes. Furthermore, Petrey struggles to discover what it is about our sexes that is eternal. If gender refers to body differences, what body differences persist from a person's premortal existence to be considered eternal? Sex is part of one's contingent genetic makeup. What reason is there for assuming that one's genitalia (or whatever else one wants to specify about a particular body that makes it male or female) is an eternal/fundamental part of one's physical make up and not some other characteristic that is non-sexually related? Also, if the physical characteristic was present in the premortal self, what function did it serve (such as the genitalia)?
(2) Gender as Sexual-oriented Identity. Petrey describes gender identity as is some sort of proper/balanced relationship between sex, gender and desire. Confusion here would seem to claim that homosexuality leads men/women to be effiminate/masculine as they have incorrect desires, which they shouldn't have. Petrey finds this claim unsatisfactory. First, there is the problem that what is masucline/feminine varies culturally. Next, if this gender identity is eternal, it isn't clear why children must be taught and encouraged constantly what their gender identity is. Petrey thinks this view is incompatible, asserting that if gender is performed/developed, then it is not naturally possessed.
(3) Gender as Social Role. In this area, the assertion of "gender confusion" seems to be that one partner in the same-sex relationships is failing to conform to his/her proper eternal gendered role that one's sex has inherent traits to help fulfill (such as women being more nurturing, which is supposed to help them be better mothers). Petrey again criticizes this position for failing to observe the wide variety of difference in such roles between men/women across cultures. When it comes to church policy, Petrey admits same-sex relationships to challenge the 1 presiding, but both equal paradigm in current heterosexual marriages as advocated by the church. In a male same-sex relationship, who presides over the other? Or with 2 women? Yet Petrey doubts whether father/mothering roles can make sense eternally, since it is not clear what they were in the premortal life. How were males breadwinners or women mothers?
One last criticism that Petrey discusses is the charge that homosexual relationships encourage gender separatism. He thinks this charge falsely assumes that the only valuable mixed-sex interactions can happen in marriage/procreation. He believes this is not the case.
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