The Family: A Proclamation to the World
Based on Wikipedia: The Family: A Proclamation to the World
A Church Draws a Line in the Sand
In September 1995, Gordon B. Hinckley stood before thousands of Latter-day Saint women and read aloud a document that would define his church's stance on family, gender, and sexuality for decades to come. He didn't mince words about his purpose. This proclamation, he said, was meant to "warn and forewarn" the world.
That phrase alone tells you something important. This wasn't a celebration. It was a battle cry.
The document he read—formally titled "The Family: A Proclamation to the World"—has become one of the most influential and controversial statements in modern religious history. It's only the fifth official proclamation in the entire history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the LDS Church or the Mormon Church. That rarity alone signals how seriously the church's leadership viewed the cultural moment they were responding to.
What the Proclamation Actually Says
At its core, the proclamation makes several sweeping declarations about human nature and family structure. Let's walk through the major claims, because understanding them precisely matters for understanding everything that followed.
First, the document asserts that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God—not merely permitted or encouraged, but divinely commanded. The family unit, it says, stands at the very center of God's plan for humanity.
Second, and perhaps most distinctively, the proclamation makes a claim about gender that goes far beyond biology. It states that gender is "an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." In plain English: the church believes you had a gender before you were born, you have one now, and you'll have one forever. Gender isn't a social construct or a biological accident. It's eternal.
This connects to a uniquely Latter-day Saint theological concept. The proclamation references a "premortal realm" where human beings existed as spirit sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents before coming to Earth. Note that plural—Heavenly Parents. While most Christian traditions speak only of God the Father, Latter-day Saint theology includes a Heavenly Mother, though she's rarely discussed in official church discourse. The proclamation quietly reinforces this distinctive belief.
Third, the document establishes clear role divisions within families. Fathers, it says, are to "preside over their families in love and righteousness" and bear responsibility for providing life's necessities and protection. Mothers are "primarily responsible for the nurture of their children." The proclamation immediately softens this by adding that fathers and mothers are "obligated to help one another as equal partners" and that "disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation." But the core framework remains: different roles for different genders.
The Hawaii Connection
Why September 1995? The timing wasn't coincidental.
Two years earlier, in 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court had issued a groundbreaking ruling in a case called Baehr v. Lewin. The court found that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples might constitute sex discrimination under Hawaii's constitution. The case was sent back to lower courts for further proceedings, but the implication was clear: Hawaii might become the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.
The LDS Church was paying close attention. In 1997, just two years after the proclamation's release, the church filed a legal brief in that very case—now renamed Baehr v. Miike—urging the Hawaii Supreme Court to reject same-sex marriage. The proclamation's text was included in that brief as evidence of religious belief.
This pattern would repeat. When California's Proposition 8 came before voters in 2008—a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution—Latter-day Saints were among its most visible and organized supporters. The proclamation served as their theological touchstone. Church members donated an estimated twenty million dollars to the campaign, and the church itself coordinated volunteer efforts through its congregations.
Not New, But Newly Official
Here's something curious about the proclamation: it didn't actually introduce any new teachings.
Everything in the document—the emphasis on heterosexual marriage, the gender role distinctions, the warning against sexual relations outside marriage—had been standard Latter-day Saint teaching for generations. The church characterized the proclamation as "a reaffirmation of standards repeatedly stated throughout its history."
So why issue it? Why go to the trouble of drafting an official proclamation, one of only five in church history, to restate existing beliefs?
The answer lies in what scholars call the "crystallization" of doctrine. By putting these teachings into a single, official, beautifully formatted document—suitable for framing and hanging on living room walls, which millions of Latter-day Saint families have done—the church transformed scattered teachings into a unified creed. It became something members could point to, quote from, and rally around.
Boyd K. Packer, a senior apostle who would later become president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the church's second-highest governing body), went further. In a general conference address, he suggested the proclamation "qualifies according to the definition as a revelation." This was significant. In Latter-day Saint theology, revelation from God through prophets carries the highest possible authority. Packer was suggesting this document belonged in that category.
The Question of Authority
Understanding how the proclamation was created helps explain its weight within the church.
In 2017, Dallin H. Oaks—then a member of the First Presidency, the church's three-person highest leadership body—gave a talk suggesting the text was composed solely by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. That's fifteen men, each of whom Latter-day Saints consider a "prophet, seer, and revelator."
This matters because of how authority works in the LDS Church. Statements from local leaders can be disputed. Statements from general authorities carry more weight. But statements from all fifteen prophets, seers, and revelators acting together represent the closest thing the church has to an infallible pronouncement—at least, an infallible pronouncement that hasn't been formally added to the scriptural canon.
The proclamation occupies an unusual space in Latter-day Saint practice. It's not scripture—it hasn't been formally canonized through the sustaining vote of church members, the process by which the church adds to its standard works. But it's clearly more than a policy statement. It's been discussed in countless general conferences, the church's semiannual worldwide broadcasts. It was featured in the church's 2008 worldwide leadership training meeting. For practical purposes, it functions as binding doctrine.
Global Reach
The proclamation's influence hasn't stayed within Latter-day Saint circles.
In 2014, the Vatican hosted an unusual gathering called Humanum: An International Interreligious Colloquium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman. The conference brought together religious leaders from multiple traditions to discuss traditional views of marriage and gender. Pope Francis was there. So was a Muslim theologian named Rasoul Rasoulipour.
What's striking is that speakers from these diverse traditions quoted from or cited the LDS proclamation. A document created by a church that many Catholics and Muslims would consider heretical was being used as a shared reference point for traditional family values. Whatever theological differences separated these communities, they'd found common ground in opposing what they saw as a cultural drift away from heterosexual marriage and traditional gender roles.
This ecumenical adoption of Latter-day Saint language represents something new in religious history. For most of their existence, Latter-day Saints have been religious outsiders, viewed with suspicion or outright hostility by mainstream Christianity. The proclamation became a bridge—a way for the LDS Church to position itself as an ally in a broader cultural battle.
The LGBTQ Response
Not everyone found common ground. The proclamation has been a source of deep pain for LGBTQ Latter-day Saints and their families.
The Human Rights Campaign, one of America's largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, has pointed to the proclamation as evidence that despite softer rhetoric in recent years, the LDS Church maintains significant barriers for LGBTQ members. The church has indeed told families not to reject children because of their sexual orientation and instructed members to treat LGBTQ individuals with love and compassion. But the proclamation's definition of marriage and its claims about eternal gender leave little room for same-sex relationships or transgender identities within the church's theological framework.
The practical consequences are significant. Members who enter same-sex relationships may face church discipline, potentially including excommunication—though the church notes that discipline is administered locally and practices differ geographically. Those who identify as transgender face their own set of challenges navigating a theology built on the premise that gender is fixed and eternal.
The church has issued statements attempting to thread this needle:
The Church recognizes that those of its members who are attracted to others of the same sex experience deep emotional, social and physical feelings. The Church distinguishes between feelings or inclinations on the one hand and behavior on the other. It's not a sin to have feelings, only in yielding to temptation.
This position—sometimes characterized as "love the sinner, hate the sin"—asks LGBTQ members to maintain lifelong celibacy if they wish to remain in good standing. The church frames this as difficult but achievable, promising that those who "stay faithful to the Church's teachings can be happy during this life and perform meaningful service in the Church."
For many LGBTQ members and former members, this framing is itself the problem. Being told your deepest feelings for connection and intimacy are acceptable only if never acted upon can feel less like compassion and more like a lifetime sentence.
The Accountability Clause
One section of the proclamation often receives less attention but carries significant weight: its warnings about consequences.
The document states that those who commit adultery, abuse their spouse or children, or fail to fulfill family responsibilities "will one day stand accountable before God." It then broadens the warning dramatically, declaring that "the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."
This apocalyptic framing—linking family structure to prophesied disasters—helps explain why many Latter-day Saints view debates over marriage and gender as existentially important rather than merely political. If you believe the breakdown of traditional families will literally bring divine calamities upon nations, compromising on these issues becomes unthinkable.
The proclamation also calls on citizens and government officials to "promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society." This explicitly political charge has shaped Latter-day Saint civic engagement for three decades, from Hawaii in the 1990s through Proposition 8 in 2008 and beyond.
Temple Promises
To fully understand the proclamation's significance for practicing Latter-day Saints, you need to understand something about temples.
Unlike regular Sunday meetinghouses, which are open to anyone, Latter-day Saint temples are reserved for members who hold a "temple recommend"—a certification that they're living according to church standards. Inside temples, members participate in sacred ordinances, including marriages that are called "sealings."
A temple sealing isn't just a wedding ceremony. According to Latter-day Saint belief, it binds a husband and wife together not just "until death do you part" but for eternity. Children born to sealed couples, or sealed to their parents through a separate ordinance, are likewise bound to their families forever.
The proclamation references this directly: "Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally."
This is why family structure matters so intensely in Latter-day Saint theology. It's not just about this life. It's about the eternal nature of family relationships in the afterlife. A same-sex marriage, in this framework, isn't merely discouraged—it's seen as incompatible with the temple ordinances that enable eternal family bonds.
Thirty Years Later
The proclamation was issued in 1995. Nearly thirty years later, the cultural landscape it was responding to has transformed beyond recognition.
Same-sex marriage is now legal throughout the United States, following the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Public opinion has shifted dramatically; what was once a majority position against same-sex marriage has become a minority view, particularly among younger generations. Transgender visibility and rights have moved from the margins of public discourse to its center.
The LDS Church, for its part, has adjusted its tone while maintaining its doctrinal positions. Church leaders speak more often about compassion and less often about calamity. The church has supported some nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals while seeking exemptions for religious organizations. It has created resources for families with LGBTQ members, emphasizing that these individuals should remain loved and welcomed in family life.
But the proclamation remains. It still hangs on living room walls in Latter-day Saint homes around the world. It's still referenced in general conferences. Its text hasn't changed by a word.
Whether you view it as inspired prophecy or discriminatory doctrine—or something more complicated than either—"The Family: A Proclamation to the World" remains one of the most significant religious documents of our era. It crystallized a particular vision of family, gender, and sexuality at a precise cultural moment, and it continues to shape the lives of millions of people three decades later.
The warning Hinckley delivered that September evening in 1995 was directed outward, toward a world he saw drifting from eternal truths. But the proclamation's deepest effects have been internal—defining who belongs fully in the Latter-day Saint community, who must struggle at its margins, and what it means to build a family that will last forever.