Church Spokesman Doug Anderson, December 3 2019: ¹

“The church’s position on this issue [Equal Rights Amendment] has been consistent for more than 40 years”

Excerpt from a March 1980 Ensign article, ‘Frequently Asked Questions about the Proposed Equal Rights Amendment’:²

What would be the impact of the ERA on homosexual marriages?

In hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Paul A. Freund of Harvard Law School testified: “Indeed if the law must be as undiscriminating concerning sex as it is toward race, it would follow that laws outlawing wedlock between members of the same sex would be as invalid as laws forbidding miscegenation [interracial marriages]” (Senate Report 92–689, p. 47).

Passage of the ERA would carry with it the risk of extending constitutional protection to immoral same-sex—lesbian and homosexual—marriages. The argument of a homosexual male, for example, would be: “If a woman can legally marry a man, then equal treatment demands that I be allowed to do the same.” Under the ERA, states could be forced to legally recognize and protect such marriages. A result would be that any children brought to such a marriage by either partner or adopted by the couple could legally be raised in a homosexual home. While it cannot be stated with certainty whether this or any other consequence will result from the vague language of the amendment, the possibility cannot be avoided.

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Excerpt from a Statement from the First Presidency, ‘First Presidency Reaffirms Opposition to ERA’, October 1978: ³

“From its beginning, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has championed the rights of women in our society. We recognize that there have been injustices to women before the law and in society in general. There are additional rights to which women are entitled. We would prefer to see specific injustices resolved individually under appropriate specific laws. We firmly believe that the Equal Rights Amendment is not the proper means for achieving those rights because:

“a. Its deceptively simple language deals with practically every aspect of American life, without considering the possible train of unnatural consequences which could result because of its very vagueness—encouragement of those who seek a unisex society, an increase in the practice of homosexual and lesbian activities, and other concepts which could alter the natural, God-given relationship of men and women.

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Excerpt from an address By Boyd K. Packer, January 8, 1977:⁴

We cannot eliminate, through any pattern of legislation or regulation, the differences between men and women.

There are basic things that a man needs that a woman does not need. There are things that a man feels that a woman never does feel.

There are basic things that a woman needs that a man never needs, and there are things that a woman feels that a man never feels nor should he.

These differences make women, in basic needs, literally opposite from men.

A man, for instance, needs to feel protective, and yes, dominant, if you will, in leading his family. A woman needs to feel protected, in the bearing of children and in the nurturing of them.

Have you ever thought what life would be like if the needs of men and women were naturally precisely the same?

What would it be like if they both naturally needed to feel dominant all of the time, or both naturally needed to feel protected all of the time?

How disturbed and intolerable things would be.