SALT LAKE CITY, UT—Found in a dark and sticky part of the Bishop’s Handbook, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has officially ranked same-sex kissing and hand-holding as greater moral offenses than the widely known heterosexual “soaking” loophole, a practice where penetration occurs but movement is supposedly minimized, rendering it, according to extremely creative interpretations of doctrine, “not really sex.”
“We understand that some young men and women struggle with temptation and may seek certain…strategic accommodations to remain pure in the eyes of the Lord,” said Elder Richard A. Dunworthy, a senior member of the Quorum of Those Who Decide These Things. “But two men or two women holding hands with interlocked fingers while affectionately kissing? That’s a direct affront to God’s plan.”
When asked what policies the church has regarding trans individuals, the church leaders, who believe in Gods, Ghosts and Gold Plates said they do not believe trans people exist.
The updated guidelines, reportedly drafted during a 14-hour emergency meeting following the sighting of two gay BYU students breathing the same air in the same building together, clarify the Church’s stance on what it calls “egregious public displays of abomination.” While heterosexual couples engaging in ‘heavy petting’ ‘soaking’ and, well, ‘full-on intercourse’ may still receive ecclesiastical counseling at worst, same-sex couples engaging in something as reckless as linking pinkies in public could face harsher disciplinary actions.
Church leadership emphasized that this decision was made after “careful prayer, fasting, and a thorough re-reading of Leviticus, but ignoring the parts about shellfish, pork and the allowed modes of slavery.”
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BYU Honor Code enforcers received praise for having already enforced the new policy since the beginning of the school’s existence without any need for direction. Meanwhile, heterosexual students engaging in soaking can continue seeking forgiveness through the well-established method of staring at a Greg Olsen painting until they can no longer feel aroused, at least until next Sunday’s check in.
As news of the policy spread, reactions from the LGBTQ community ranged from outrage to uncontrollable laughter. “I don’t know whether to be insulted or impressed by the sheer mental gymnastics at play here,” said BYU student Jacob Monroe, who was recently chastised for resting his head on another man’s shoulder with no space to fit a Book of Mormon in-between. “Honestly, the only real crime here is that soaking is sex, just without the badly-needed exercise.”
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