Podcast of Two Gay Latter-day Saints Address Controversial Topics While Defending Church of Jesus Christ

Skylar Sorensen and Preston Jenkins are two gay members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After seeing how things are trending in the online world today, they decided to take action and create a podcast where controversial topics are addressed and discussed through the lens of those who willingly sustain and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Skyler Sorenson, the original creator of the podcast said in Episode one:

In an online era of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where many members seek to overanalyze Christ’s gospel to justify sin, we’re going to attempt to make sense of all of this and figure out how we can lower the temperature while discussing matters that deeply matter to each of us. 

It’s almost like the nuance of the matter and the complexity of human relationships are just both ignored, favoring instead the black and white thinking of “if you disagree with my choice or think it’s sinful you can’t love me as a person.”

In one of their podcasts titled “Love My Choice” found below, Skylar and Preston talk about the false belief that we must completely accept someone’s behavior as correct if we are to truly love them.

Preston shared a powerful experience he had with a bishop when he was having a particularly tough time reconciling his orientation and membership in the Church. His bishop pointed him to 2 Nephi 2:6 in the Book of Mormon where it teaches that Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth. His bishop then gave him the invitation to look for the many examples in the scriptures where Christ exhibited both the grace and the truth, such as the example of the woman caught in adultery.

From that time on, Preston has seen the value of being like Christ and finding a good balance of being full or grace and love towards others, while at the same time staying faithful to the law and truth of God. He explained:

It’s really hard to find that balance. We see people who are all grace and it’s just “love and support and do whatever you want” and it’s all grace and no truth. Or you get people who are all truth and no grace and they tend to be the overzealously intense and sometimes hurtful and untactful people. They may have said something that is true, but they were a jerk about it, or it wasn’t the time and place and they weren’t very gracious about it. Christ had that balance. He was full of both grace and truth.

Preston also shared an experience with close gay friend who reached out to him for advice when he wanted to start dating a man. He asked Preston if he would be going against what was right and Preston said, “Yes, you know you are.” It was the first time that this man had a friend share with him the truth, as the chorus up to that point had been, “Be you, love is love, etc…”

As Preston goes on to share, he was able to share the truth with this friend because they had establish a relationship of kindness and grace beforehand. Good friendship consists of extending grace but also being able to share the truth in a tactful way when the time is right.

When asked what led to the creation of this podcast, Skylar said one of the reasons was that he’s “seen many podcasts and Latter-day Saint “influencers” veer too far on the side of condoning activity contrary to the gospel and felt there was a need for content with LGBTQ+ members unapologetically standing up for the principles of the gospel.”

We encourage you to seek out this podcast and listen to the experiences of our LGBTQ friends and family so that we can better minister to their needs and demonstrate that grace and truth that the Savior did.

You can find a link to Sklyar and Preston’s podcast here > Sit Down with Sky and Preston