I keep seeing speculation about various legal reasons why the LDS church needed to implement its new exclusionary policy. Here's this lawyer's opinion (although I don't practice family law, and this isn't legal advice): THOSE REASONS MAKE NO SENSE.
The rationalization always goes something like this: (1) LGBT people are using (or will soon use) the legal system to attack the church; (2) the church wants to avoid potential legal liability for turning a child against his or her parents; (3) the church can't admit that this is the real reason, because it'd be a PR disaster; (4) but I'm smart enough to have sussed it out; and optionally (5) cut church leaders some slack because you're not a bigot if you're doing what your lawyer said you had to.
Taking these points in order: First, same-sex marriage has been legal in many states and countries for years now -- if the church was worried about attacks based on legal same-sex marriage, it acted very late. Also, the church has a bit of a persecution complex from that time when Joseph Smith was assassinated and we were forced to flee to Utah, but it now enjoys a firm, established, respected, and legally protected position in society. There aren't that many credible threats, and frankly, it demonizes LGBT people more than a little to believe that there are.
Second, the idea is usually that the church would be in some way legally liable if a child is raised as a member of a church that turns the child against at least one of his or her parents by preaching that same-sex cohabitation is wrong, grievously sinful, etc. But anyone who wants to be baptized, confirmed, ordained, or recommended for missionary service is most likely going to church and hearing the same things. How is it any better to tell them, additionally, "oh, you can't even be an official member of the church, and also your mom and her wife are apostates"? How does that turn the child against the parents any less?
(There are other theories about how we have to clarify what we believe for some legal reason, but they similarly fail to explain how the change improves the legal situation. The Family Proclamation might have been drafted 20 years ago for legal reasons, but the church's actions since then have already made its teachings abundantly clear.)
Third, it's hard to imagine a worse PR disaster than now. If the church admitted some sort of legal necessity, it'd probably be more sympathetic, not less.
Fourth, isn't the most straightforward explanation for church leaders calling something "apostasy," rather than just "sin," that they believe it is leading church members away from the truth? I'm not interested in an extraordinary conspiracy theory about the church's secret legal reasons that it can't publicly admit, without extraordinary evidence.
Lastly, I really don't care that much about trying to prove that church leaders had good intentions. I assume that they did; I have every reason to believe they are people of good will. But people of good will can still do things with hateful effects, and it's the effects of this policy that worry me far more than the motives. Also, "we had to do this hurtful, exclusionary thing to protect our right to do this other hurtful, exclusionary thing" isn't really an argument that is going to change my mind about whether your motives are good.
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