[For a different perspective on this topic, see this post.]
As a gay Mormon, I consistently struggle with the Church’s stance against homosexuality. Prior to December 6, 2012, the Church took an ardent position, based on the revelations of the late President Gordon B. Hinckley, that homosexuality was a “choice” and that an individual could suppress this “choice” and choose a life that was pleasing to God. This has affected hundreds of thousands of LGBT Mormons throughout the world who have been forced to live in relative obscurity, suppressing their innermost feelings and damaging themselves psychologically.
The Church’s teachings have directly required LGBT Mormons to suppress their innermost thoughts and desires and have consistently marginalized us to be less than who we are. As of December 6, 2012, the Church is now encouraging members to love one another and include themselves in dialogue regarding same-sex attractions (SSAs).
The “ordained” terminology that the Church has forced upon us is asinine. With a disturbing promotion of their own ideology, the Church abandons us with their first steps toward inclusion by refusing to use the moniker “LGBT” which has identified the community since the beginning of gay rights movements in the United States. The use of SSA instead of LGBT marginalizes the community and invalidates it by using a different set of words entirely for the purpose of making an effort to denigrate the life that we live.
The Church released a new website called “Love One Another”. This website, located at mormonsandgays.org, illuminates the Church’s conflicting position on homosexuality and how the Church seeks to embrace its LGBT church members. The issue that it does not highlight is the fact that the Church continues to disfellowship, excommunicate and downright humiliate its LGBT members as a facet of its everyday being. It also fails to acknowledge one of its core questions before baptism into the church, “Have you ever been in a homosexual relationship?”
If the Church is truly seeking full inclusion of LGBT members, it will stop denigrating the community. It will stop embarrassing its faithful members through humiliation and disfellowshipping. It will stop asking if a potential candidate has been in a homosexual relationship prior to becoming a member. It will support LGBT members with every ounce of its being and it will stop requiring members to seek counseling for their same-sex attractions.
In an effort to help change the Church, I will participate in dialogue, as I have for the past few months. I will help change the face of the Church and I will help mold it into what an “inclusive” church should look like. I hope that, despite our setbacks, the Church will truly listen to its LGBT members and begin to loosen the reins that it has proverbially set upon our backs for decades. I hope that it will continue to see that we are people, too, and that we deserve not to be marginalized, but to be loved, just as anyone else does. I hope that one day, we will all be able to set ourselves in temple and seal our children and our marriages before God. I hope that the Church will see that God made me just as He made everyone else. I am not an agent of Satan, I am a human being — I just happen to love men.
-Andrew Markle
[For a different perspective on this topic, see this post.]
Thank you, Andrew for your well written thoughts. I want my church that teaches about an intimate relationship with Christ to be at the forefront in accepting the LGBT community as themselves. To welcome them into their congregations, with the partners of their choice. To see them as healthy and normal. To embrace them with love. And this did not do that.
Andrew:
Thank you for your post. I hope the day will come when everyone is welcome in LDS chapels regardless of our sexual orientation. While I see the new website as nothing more than damage control for the church’s antigay activities in a changing world, the website will generate discussion and I think that discussion will move us forward. The church must change going forward if it is to retain any sense of relevance or importance in the world we live in.
Thank you Andrew for your words. It is true that it is not an “attraction” like a consumer choice of something you might find yourself thinking of purchasing in a retail store…”should I or shouldn’t I?” It is a core element of ones internal being, connected to their heart, mind, physiology and spirit. While the church likes to say it is opening a “dialogue or discussion” there is no place on its new site for comments or blogging, so how can one call it a conversation if it is only going one way? In-fact it is only promoting its own narrow minded beliefs recycled to look compassionate, while still calling them “sinners” and telling them they are not normal. It is this kind of thinking that has led hundreds of kids to attempt or kill themselves, and is responsible for much pain and suffering among GLBT persons and their families. I suppose we are supposed to be grateful for their back handed crumbs? How can we be whole if we are not allowed to BE whole? The church likes to act as if not acting on your “SSA” for GLBT is the same for straight people who are not married, but the fact is, they CAN marry and they are allowed to hold hands, kiss and hug at church and in Social Settings, can you imagine that for GLBT?
Human Rights. It’s a struggle within religion too.
You should be able to live with someone you love – in every way. Sexually, daily, eternally, and spiritually.
You have the right to expect to participate in a religion fully. Sometimes we have to let go of tradition to learn a better path. Sometimes it’s painful because we are bred to be obedient and to be straight and narrow.
God holds us all in His hand. He will understand. He will guide you. May he bring you peace and comfort and fill your life with people who can appreciate the real and honest you.
The Church’s opposition did not start with GBHinkley, rather his tenure was the beginning of change within the church in regard to their discussion and treatment of the whole topic. In fact Hinkley’s statements were quite loving compared to those of past church leaders. The idea that acting on one’s sexuality as a separate issue from sexuality was a vast improvement from the days when I was coming up in the 70’s and 80’s when even acknowledging homosexuality even without acting on it would frequently be enough to start church discipline. And the generation before mine saw the church and BYU blackmailing gay students to submit to electro shock therapy.
The real damage being done by the LDS church (and others like it) are the messages that lead gay members to forget who they truly are. When people are told that they are garbage they will often behave like garbage. When people are told that God no longer loves them they will behave like lost souls. When people are told they have destroyed their family unit then they will distance themselves from that family. And when people are told they are hell bound they lose their moral compass. I believe that there has been a fundamental shift within Mormondom over the past decade in which the membes and leaders have slowly started to realize that you can’t feed someone negative messages all of their youth and expect a good out come. I do not believe we will ever see a gay temple marriage, but for the church to instruct its members to love their gay friends and family is a major shift that is going to result in fewer kids hearing that they are unloved and hell bound and garbage. I think we need to give credit where it is due.