SALT LAKE CITY — In the past two years, Nathan Kitchen has revealed to his five children that he’s gay, gone through a divorce with his wife and grappled with how to stay in a religion that doesn’t condone his lifestyle.

Now comes the toughest task: Telling his children he could be kicked out of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints if he someday marries a man, and warning his two youngest, 11 and 15, they might be barred from serving a mission under new church rules.

“It’s almost like they now have to choose between a gay father and a church that they love,” said Kitchen, a 47-year-old dentist from Gilbert, Ariz. “This is almost too much to bear.”

The changes to the Mormon handbook — disseminated this week to local church leaders around the world — say being in a same-sex marriage warrants ousting from the religion and that children of gay parents must wait until they’re 18 and disavow homosexual relationships to be baptized.

The revisions triggered a wave of anger, confusion and sadness for a growing faction of LGBT-supportive Mormons who were buoyed in recent years by church leaders’ calls for more love and understanding for LGBT members.

Mormon officials said the goal was to provide clarity to lay leaders who run congregations. The religion has long been on record as opposing same-sex marriages, church spokesman Eric Hawkins noted.

In a video interview posted late Friday night on a church website, Mormon leader D. Todd Christofferson said the changes were prompted by questions that have risen since the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage legal throughout the United States.

He said the church considers same-sex marriage a particularly egregious sin that requires mandatory church discipline.

“There was the need for a distinction to be made between what may be legal and what may be the law of the church and the law of the Lord,” said Christofferson, a member of the religion’s governing Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “It’s a matter of being clear. It’s a matter of understanding right and wrong. It’s a matter of a firm policy that doesn’t allow for question and doubt.”

Christofferson said the revisions are meant to protect children from being torn between their parents’ teachings and those of the church. If they choose to be baptized as adults, there’s time for an informed and conscious decision, he said.

The new rules stipulate that children of parents in gay or lesbian relationships — be it marriage or just living together — can no longer receive blessings as infants or be baptized around age 8. They can be baptized and serve missions once they turn 18, but only if they:

• Disavow the practice of same-sex relationships.

• No longer live with gay parents.

• Get approval from their local leader and the highest leaders at church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

The church views these acts as promises to follow its doctrine that bind people to the faith.