“We are grateful for the continuing efforts of those who work to ensure the Respect for Marriage Act includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.” The church’s remarks come after the act’s sponsors added an amendment to the House-passed bill exempting religious organizations, including faith-based universities, from providing “services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.” Neither could the act be used to alter the tax-exempt status of any organization.“As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of religious freedom together with the rights of LGBTQ individuals, much can be accomplished to heal relationships and foster greater understanding.” Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, was “heartened to see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publicly take this stance today.” He added: “Despite differences we may have, we can always discover common ground on policies and laws that support the strengthening of all families.” Williams also stressed that while the latest version of the act “clearly acknowledges and protects the diversity of American religious and other beliefs, it does not do so at the expense” of its aim of “to safeguard marriage equality.” Allison Dayton, founder of the Lift and Love foundation for LGBTQ Latter-day Saints, said the church’s message is “huge.” “It answers, once and for all, the question, ‘Can members of the church support same-sex marriage?’ The answer is yes, and the church does, too [as long as it’s outside of the faith],” Dayton said.“This news is an enormous relief to families of gay children who can now comfortably shower their gay children with the same love and support they give their straight children who marry.” ‘A dramatic reversal’ Taylor Petrey, a religion professor at Michigan’s Kalamazoo College and author of “Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism,” called the church’s statement “a dramatic reversal of previous teachings.” Dating as far back as the 1970s, he said, the faith has combated efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, which it framed “as a threat to children, churches and the nation as a whole.” These efforts reached a crescendo 14 years ago when the church put its members and its money squarely behind California’s Proposition 8 to oppose same-sex marriage.Mason told The Associated Press, meanwhile, that the move is “part of the church’s overall theology essentially sustaining the law of the land, recognizing that what they dictate and enforce for their members in terms of their behavior is different than what it means to be part of a pluralistic society.” In 2015, for instance, when a Kentucky county clerk, citing her Christian faith, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Latter-day Saint apostle Dallin H. Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court justice, spoke out against her decision.“Courts are ... ill-suited to the overarching, complex and comprehensive policymaking that is required in a circumstance like the current conflict between two great values,” Oaks, now a member of the governing First Presidency and next in line to take the church’s helm, said in a landmark speech a year ago at the University of Virginia."