LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, in an image taken from television, speaks in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live."
LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley was in good spirits Sunday evening during a one-hour interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," televised from inside the church's Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
During his fourth such exchange with King, Hinckley returned again and again to the importance of the traditional family, which he described as the basis for all Mormon theology.
The 94-year-old leader, considered a “prophet, seer and revelator” by the 12-million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also bantered playfully with King, who is Jewish but married to a Mormon.
When King asked him to describe heaven, Hinckley replied that he “wasn't conversant with that.” To that King retorted, “Call me. I'll probably be there before you.”
King also asked if Hinckley attended many funerals.
“Yes,” he said, “for all my friends who jog.”
The wide-ranging interview bounced among topics such as the war in Iraq (“I don't see this as Christians against Muslims. . . . Terrorists are misguided. They do not represent the great body of Muslims.”) to Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr. (“He's a good man. I think he'll be a good governor.”) to the religion of President Bush (“I like a president who prays.”) to his own politics.
“I vote for a man, not a party,” Hinckley said, adding that he has voted on both sides of the political aisle.
The interview also touched, if only superficially, on hot-button issues such as homosexuality, women's rights and the church's relationship to blacks.
When asked about the church's opposition to same-sex marriage, Hinckley said, “We are not anti-gay, we are pro-family.”
He said the church has compassion for gays.
“We know they have a problem and we want to help them solve it,” Hinckley said, but the LDS Church still expects homosexuals to live chaste lives like any other unmarried members.
Responding to a question about the church's discrimination against women by excluding them from its all-male priesthood, Hinckley boasted of the faith's Relief Society, which is among the oldest women's organizations in the country.
He did say, however, that the rise in women working outside the home has contributed to societal problems such as “latchkey kids” and gangs.
Although the church did not allow blacks to hold the priesthood until 1978, it's doing “wonderfully” with blacks today, Hinckley said.
He dedicated one of the faith's temples in Ghana earlier this year and expects to dedicate another one in Nigeria next year.
“Will there ever be a black prophet?” King wondered.
“There could be,” Hinckley said.
King also asked the LDS leader personal questions about his role as a prophet.
“Is it ever a burden?” King wondered.
“Sure, you feel inadequate sometimes. There are vexing problems. But everything works out,” Hinckley said.
At the end of the exchange, King told his audience that Hinckley had given him a genealogy of King's family - complete with immigration papers for his parents, maps of their ancestral towns, copies of newspaper clippings about his father's funeral and many details the talk show host had never known.