Progressive Mormon Carol Lynn Pearson - Advocate for Feminism and LGBTQ Rights | Ep. 1708

Carol Lynn Pearson spent decades warning the Mormon Church about its looming collision with LGBTQ rights and feminist theology while remaining stubbornly, inconveniently inside its cultural orbit. Her 1973 memoir Goodbye, I Love You chronicled her marriage to a gay returned missionary long before most Latter-day Saints had vocabulary for such conversations. Yet as she explained to John Dehlin on a recent Mormon Stories Podcast episode, she has never fully abandoned the faith of her pioneer ancestors. Instead, she occupies a liminal space that irritates both orthodox believers and secular exiles alike: an agnostic who still prays, a critic who still claims the title Mormon, and a poet who insists that God is not male.

Background: Pioneer Stock and Prophetic Warning

Pearson’s