Mormon church now allowing children of LGBT parents to be baptized

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church, will now baptize children of parents who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, the church announced Thursday. In 2015, the church stopped baptizing children of LGBT couples until they turned 18 and disavowed same-sex relationships.

Church leaders announced the policy change in a statement during the church's 189th Annual General Conference. Children of same-sex couples may now be baptized at 8 years old.

Under the new policy, the church will no longer view marriage between members of the same sex as "apostasy," which had made same-sex couples subject to excommunication.

"While we still consider such a marriage to be a serious transgression, it will not be treated as apostasy for purposes of Church discipline," the church's leaders, known as the First Presidency, said in the statement. "Instead, the immoral conduct in heterosexual or homosexual relationships will be treated in the same way."

The new policies do not "represent a shift in Church doctrine related to marriage or the commandments of God in regard to chastity or morality," the leaders said. "The doctrine of the plan of salvation and the importance of chastity will not change."

The church was founded on April 6, 1830, by Joseph Smith in Fayetteville Township, New York. Smith claimed to have received spoken messages from the Christian angel Moroni and published the Book of Mormon. His successor, Brigham Young, led 148 Mormon followers to settle in Salt Lake City in 1847. Today, the Church has nearly 17 million members.