Important Announcement, Really

Please Read:

Earlier this month some Mormon PFLAG mothers of gay children gathered for a luncheon date. The luncheon stretched out to almost four hours as these mothers talked about what the Mormon Church’s active support for California’s Proposition 8 was doing to their families and to their loyalty for the church.

While these mothers have tried to give their church leaders the benefit of a doubt with respect to their church’s policies, the church’s recent public support of the California Proposition that would take away the civil rights of their gay children seems to have been a tipping point.

They want to do something to show their support for their gay children and for the larger gay community. At the mothers’ urging, Salt Lake City PFLAG, Equality Utah, the Pride Center, the Inclusion Center, Affirmation, and the Human Rights Campaign have joined together and scheduled a candlelight gathering for all supporters of our homosexual friends and neighbors this Sunday evening, November 2nd, at the Salt Lake City Library plaza at 6:00 p.m.

The gathering is open to the general public, gay, straight, Mormon and non-Mormon alike and is intended to be a positive pro-community show of support and inclusion of our gay brothers and sisters. There will be a short program featuring Millie Watts, Katherine Steffensen, and Linda Barney. Candles will be provided for everyone following the program and we will join together in a short procession around the city block of the library.

Please spread the word and encourage your friends and families to be there. This event is free. Everyone sympathetic to gay civil rights should be there. The sponsoring groups foster equality for all people. Having a large number of participants will be an eye opener to many who honestly believe our numbers are few. Let’s join with our gay friends and show them that they are valued and equal members of our community.

WHAT: Candlelight gathering

WHEN: This Sunday evening, November 2nd, 6:00 p.m.

WHERE: The Plaza of the Salt Lake City Library, 200 East 300 South

PLEASE BE THERE!

NEWS RELEASE, OCTOBER 29, 2008

I hope you all can be there; and spread the word, online and in person.

As Dr. Watts explained it to me, It won't be a church bashing session; it will be an event to focus on what we have here in Utah. We all need to heal, and feel some sense of community here. Even some of those out to legally harm our families are suffering with the split and backlash in response to the LDS push for Prop 8.

Personally, I've been feeling less and less part of my home state, I do not feel my family is welcome here, and you've all heard me whine about maybe moving (aka retreating). In short I know I need this, and, regardless of whether or not Proposition 8 passes or fails, we'll all need the warmth that will be there Sunday night.

If you are coming (and you are :-) ), be sure to tell me and we can meet up, have a blog reunion. Maybe Edgy won't stand us up again.

Evergreen Supports Proposition 8

It seems Evergreen, a conversion therapy group for LDS gays who "want to diminish their attractions and overcome homosexual behavior", has come out in support of Proposition 8, article here.

For some reason, this is a more difficult attack on my family and union to absorb than the others.

I suppose it's because, sure, I feel like there should be some camaraderie, or at least the practice of the golden rule between people put into the same social categories if even by chance. My gut tells me they should feel like my brother in that societal way. Even if their religious education tells them there's something wrong with them, even if what brought me the indescribable joy of family is something that torments them, that they need to "diminish" and "overcome", even then my reflex is that they should feel, more than most, it's wrong to try to legally harm my family. It is, after all, the same thing that motivates us.

Or is it? Or are we aliens to each other and this gets to me uniquely for no reason?

I don't know.

They are SSA and I'm gay. They are trying to "overcome" what I cherish in the impetus of my family and my children. To them I am sinning, and to me, now, with this action, they are sinning. Why do I expect it to be different?

Really, neither of us means the same thing when we say we are gay or SSA. When I read some of their accounts of illicit affairs, living their past "gay lifestyle" and so on, they may as well be writing about their life as a 1st century Native American. It's not my lifestyle. It's been a long while since I've been in the closet; I can hardly remember even the thought I should have that particular self-overcoming struggle. No wonder when I, not too long ago, used the word gay a moho told me he found the mere term "cheap"; I truly am not what they are or were.

And, though they will be assumed to know, they have no idea what it's like to be gay for me, to be a father defending his family against such a goliath in my civil life as the LDS church. For me being gay, alone, doesn't mean a thing. It's not about troubling desires or sex or supernatural fears; it's a bland fact, along with my handedness and hair color. But being gay in Utah has another aspect, one we almost forgot when we lived in Ca and didn't have children. Being gay, to me, is an issue of health insurance, zoning ordinances, being treated as a family by law, protecting my kids from the kids being taught by the LDS church our family is "non-ideal" (all this stuff).

Maybe we're really not nearly the same creatures at all, and my reflex towards camaraderie is 100% misplaced, irrational.

I do know Evergreen's advocacy here will be used with special effect to argue for Prop 8, because we share that same something in the public's eyes. They will be misused as experts, and they know it. They know a gay man speaking out against our families is particularly effective. Simply, no one can be used against you more effectively than "one of your own".

Before I end, let me just weight in on a couple things said, executive director of Evergreen, David Pruden (because I know you'll read and care about what a random gay guy with a blog thinks).

"marriage between a man and a woman "is central to the gospel plan of salvation" because "the sacred nature of marriage" is closely linked to the ability to conceive children."

Fine, make it so in your faith and in your churches and in your home, but not my home. That's no excuse to treat us and our children with inequality in the government we must share.

""Those who favor homosexual marriage contend that 'tolerance' demands that they be given the same right to marry as heterosexual couples. But this appeal for 'tolerance' has a very different meaning and outcome than that word has meant throughout most of American history and a different meaning than is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ,"... Tolerance as a gospel principle means love and forgiveness of one another. In today's secular world, the idea of tolerance has come to mean condoning or accepting something - even if it is contrary to your values or beliefs." "

I'm sorry but BS. I don't care about your tolerance or 'tolerance'.

You and your leaders seem to keep using this argument to conceal the fact that it is your morality on the line here. I care that we get equal treatment from our shared government, that we aren't punished for others' faith about supernatural laws, that we are treated the way most all people and families want to be treated. Keep your acceptance, tolerance, condoning, and forgiveness as it is. Let me be clear: you are a stranger. I do not care how you feel about my family or any other; I care about how you act, how you hurt other people in your political actions.

I mean, I don't agree with or condone your religion, but just imagine what happens in a world where the majority imposes that belief on you. It's happened before and can happen again; we should be working to be sure it doesn't happen to anyone, regardless of our faith or lack thereof.

Anyway, another day, another piece moves in this sad game. Eh, I can't wait for Christmas. I certainly know what I'm asking as an early present to the family: to keep our legal marriage license and the possibility of moving back to the Golden State. If only Santa was a resident of California.

Finishing up the Tool Belt

Before I file away that talk by Elder Petersen about race issues within the LDS church, I just noticed and want to add to that post a couple other tools used back then, which are now being put to work in the marriage/Proposition 8 fight.

Towards the end Elder Petersen writes (my emphasis):

"If a boy or girl comes to me claiming to be in love with a Chinese or Japanese or..."

In both cases of couples of unconventional race and sex, it's important to question and cast doubt on the love. It can't be real human love; it's claimed love or "love" in quotes (for example). Often I've seen modern anti-gay rights activists say something like "gay men don't really love each other" or compare gays to co-dependent sexual or substance addicts, even if they praise the same orientation towards men or women when found in another sex. Ironically, it's very important for them to deny love, and they will do a lot of work to make sure gays, even if they are their children, treat their path to love as more of an addiction, or a sad condition with which they're inflicted, than what it is for every other human: the source of some of the best and most selfless human feeling we can experience. Love, sadly, is made the enemy.

Lastly, I noticed the attempt to pretend to be the victim of your victim was used back then too.

"If they were to achieve complete absorption with the white race, think what that would do. With 50 million negroes inter-married with us, where would the priesthood be? Who could hold it, in all America? Think what that would do to the work of the Church!"

In this unfortunate PR game, if you're on top, you must try to take the authentic and right human sympathy from the families being harmed in real ways for yourself. You're the one being harmed, not the guy you're trying keep from better protecting and providing for his family, not the family you won't even condescend to call a family.

According to this member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the LDS church would collapse if they allowed integration with blacks. The church is in threat and at stake here. Similarly, the LDS church says today their religious freedom is at stake by the laws treating same-sex headed families with equal rights and responsibilities. They even used misrepresentation of the Catholic Charities of Boston case to try to take on the role as victim, in their latest press release on the topic. LDS author Orson Scott Card, for another example, makes this method into an art form; I almost feel sorry for his loss of ability to treat my family like second class citizens... almost ;-).

It'd odd that you could hit a man, fight to legally hobble his family in a way you'd never want your family to be treated, and then complain about the threat to you and your rights when someone tries to stop you. Nevertheless, this is one more tool that seems to be effectively used, or at least popularly used in history to justify discrimination.

Different Century, Same Tools

I was up at the library looking for editorials on race and came across a 1954 speech given at BYU by Mark Edward Petersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS church. I found an online copy, here. I recommend those interested in the LDS leadership's thinking on gay civil rights issues take a look. The reasoning used today, if not the category by which discrimination is made, is strikingly familiar and telling.

To warn his audience, Elder Peterson starts out by quoting a black politician who indicates that there should be no law against interracial marriage, and even states they're prevalent in... any guesses?

That's right. Europe, a region, according to the last LDS press release supporting Prop 8, now being troubled by the anti-family effects of gay marriage (pff, as if).

After he's done with the quote he goes on:

I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after. He is not just seeking the oppor[t]unity of sitting down in a cafe where white people sit. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. From this and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that, we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that they used to say about sin, "First we pity, then endure, then embrace."

Isn't it striking how the issues change, doctrine changes, but 50 years later the tools of justification remain the same? Today, gay people don't want equal rights; they want special rights, and they want to marry right along with us and for us to embrace them and their sin. By tolerance and love they mean for us to embrace sin.

You can see the modern conservative LDS reaction to people like Carol Lynn Pearson at the end there. It takes such tactics to get people to excuse away the Golden Rule, harden their hearts, and do wrong to their neighbors--family even--against their conscience. Every abrahamic faith doing harm, from the inquisitions to modern killings of gays by Islamic governments, has ironically used something like Isa 5:20 to justify their cruelty, and we see such used here to justify racial segregation and anti-miscegenation ideas.

The same old message is that you can hurt those others, and their families; it's okay, good even. God approves. Elder Petersen even goes on to say it's for the children, as they do today with gay marriage. Oppose marriage for the children cursed, literally in this case, by living under their parent's union.

Elder Petersen then talks about the Chinese and how good they are for not wanting to marry white people, unlike black people. A similar tactic is used when people argue it's okay to hurt gay and lesbian headed families because they've convinced some LDS gays to be celibate or single. Why can't you be good, like them? Like the Chinese, they obey supernatural law, and that means you should too.

In this speech we, of course, see a lot of declarations about how the supernatural works, the plan of salvation, and the use of eternity to justify injustice. God segregated the races and His law "is eternal" and He is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" and He is "fair to all" and "will meet us according to what we deserve". Familiar, right? Just do what we men teach you; it's the only right way; it'll work out.

Elder Petersen quotes Joseph Smith to prove some races, like those coming from Africa, were sinners in the preexistence (we know this because we treated them as slaves) and thus our cruelty and laws of segregation are justified. God made people with certain attributes, based on the indelible quality of their spirit, and placed those spirits in certain races (or sexes), justifying our poor treatment of those who'd violate His segregation in interracial union (or not violate his segregation in same-sex unions).

The best thing about claiming and believing you have evidence from the supernatural or know what God really means has to be that you can justify about anything with magical thinking. Some people, including yours truly, can trigger that special spiritual feeling for just about anything in the freedom of their own mind. You can pose laws and use complicated worldviews that rival any book by Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. Black people can be segregated because of some great ethereal war, spirits are either boys or girls, and Xenu killed a bunch of people in a volcano making some feel depressed and others feel same-sex attraction (if you're a Scientologist :-)). Opponents who value skepticism and evidence are powerless against your authority and faith. How frustrating it must have been to be a black man in Utah back then.

Elder Petersen even goes on to say black people should be grateful and thankful. "In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life" God still lets the black man have some chance, even though they are "cursed as to the priesthood". "He will go there as a servant, but he will get a Celestial resurrection".

Similarly, gay men should feel grateful, not sad or upset with church leaders. Gays are bound by the same rules as everyone else. Black men are too and are facing the consequences for their pre-existent sins in Petersen's day, sins for which white men would be equally punished. Gay men can have a celibate life, and get their reward by marrying a girl with whom they'll have that sort of purposeful intimacy afforded by orientation, later, in heaven. Be grateful for what the leaders offers you in this life, and for what they promise in eternity. And, really, who can beat eternity? It's the infinite trump card and there's no doubt why most every faith picks it up and promotes it, and why most every skeptic of most every faiths is at a disadvantage for their epistemological restraint.

To top it off Elder Petersen uses the old "some of my best friends" tactic. He isn't hateful to black people; he feels love for them; he feels good about how he treats them and that matters (if only to him). He would even "be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it", just as you'll hear some express their generosity for letting gays even have freedom from incarceration, or capitol punishment (I last heard that one from a local LDS radio host). We should be grateful for such love, right? Elder Petersen even has a black friend, brother Hope. Just like LDS author, Orson Scott Card, who, because he works in the arts (of course...), has a lot of gay friends, friends he regards as defective and fights to keep their families from equal rights.

I'm sure, though, Elder Petersen may have had such a friend, and maybe Mr. Card does too. I'm sure some black friends back then meekly forgave such men; they, after all, had faith they and others like them deserved it. Personally I'd not choose even "to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car" with such a friend, but to each his own.

He Concludes:

Now what is our policy in regard to intermarriage? As to the Negro, of course, there is only one possible answer. We must not intermarry with the Negro.

On the upside, magical thinking is not based in the stark facts of an outside world; only the mind needs be changed. Nevertheless, a supernatural worldview does best when it feels like an assuring, comforting, and immovable foundation, and so they are notoriously difficult to change on a scale smaller than a generation. But it doesn't have to actually be immovable. In fact, it can't be immovable or the worldview will fade away with all the thousands of other dead faiths of human history, as the LDS faith would likely have if it did not change with regards to race (or maybe even polygamy). They can change by generations and do; adherents will forgive and membership will grow.

Today, it seems the LDS church only advises against interracial marriage, here:

“We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally, and of somewhat the same economic and social and educational background (some of those are not an absolute necessity, but preferred)...”

(Though, "some of those are not an absolute necessity"? If only some aren't then which ones are necessity? Is there still an "absolute necessity" to keep from marrying some races, as Petersen claims, or is it class?)

But now look at how long that change from absolutely against to advising against and granting the priesthood took on race, and then consider how quickly the LDS church is moving on same-sex marriage in comparison. Just 4 years ago they were against any legal recognition of same-sex unions. Today they are still against "marriage" but now "The Church does not object to rights (already established in California) regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights..." That's not yet equal rights for our families, but I couldn't have imagined the LDS church of my youth ever taking such a liberal stance on gay rights and so quickly.

Still, sure, there's a good ways to go and a lot in the way. I've mixed feelings to find the same tools repeatedly used to block that path to equal rights. It's annoying that such tactics still live on to have any effectiveness in the hearts and minds of people today, but, to the credit of the LDS people, it's comforting to know such tools have eventually failed, as they should.

Irreversible

After we got home I caught up on recent events. One editorial of note from Sunday's paper was an editorial about gay suicide by Carol Lynn Pearson, a vocal and prolific LDS and gay LDS advocate. You can read the editorial here.

I'll not go into the details of it all. Others have and many (ironically most of them on the anti-gay relationships side) are doing enough online to prove her tragic point. Heck, as if to highlight the willful blindness to the harm, in the same paper that day this editorial, "Don't Bother Us," appeared asking gay groups to "just leave us [the LDS church] alone."

I wish they could ethically do so, Douglas. I really and deeply wish you would adopt a live and let live approach and that we then could in turn. But you show no signs of slowing down, right? If anything, with the Proposition 8 fight, you and the LDS church leaders are stepping further into the most intimate and important relationship in my life and my children's lives. I can't just stop bothering you.

In fact, considering what most gay men and women around here go through, I'm not even slightly sorry you feel put out.

Anyway, I got distracted. What's newly eating at me with this editorial, is the fact that Carol refers to a gay suicide in my sphere of influence, a gay man who killed himself while working where I was working.

I haven't hid my orientation at work for over a decade. If a person's orientation would come up in a conversation with a heterosexual, it will come up with me. Everyone close enough to me in my work environment to see my desk would see pictures of my family. But that's it. I didn't wear a rainbow rhinestone lab coat, or anything. I can count a substantial conversation about being gay at my work maybe once per year, when someone felt comfortable enough with me to ask me.

The thing is, the thing that I've been trying to put out of mind for the past couple days is that I probably knew this young man, not well enough to know his name, but certainly his face as we'd pass in the halls or occasionally sat in on the same seminars. But work was work, no place for being vocally out. I wasn't about to create a gay support group for my traditionally conservative area of the campus, put up fliers, or make a point of coming out to strangers in a strained, unnatural way. Maybe I should have, though.

It's just such a train wreak for some gay men. This article took me back to the first gay suicide I personally encountered, and, while I consciously know I don't hold even a fraction of the same blame in this case, I still feel that guilt through the associations and reflex of memory. I know it would be some sort of sad savior complex to feel I could have saved this young man too, if only I'd been more out, if only I asked more about the lives of those around me... But I keep going back to the fact that, from outward appearances, I could have seemed to young gay men working around me like yet another damning, anti-gay bigot (and there were those in our area). I could have appeared like yet another person in their world who'd look down on their "vile afflictions," when I am really one of their brothers. That tiny sliver of a possibility is far too much of a possibility.

Anyway, if anyone wants to know why gay issues become a life's work for some people, such irreversible events and what if's are reason enough. Thank you Carol Lynn Pearson, for trying to get in the way, for being a bother.

A Note to the LDS Church

The LDS church has put out more info on their hope to limit marriage to heterosexually headed families, Here. Thanks for pointing me to it MoHoHawaii (or maybe I should be mad at you; I've not yet decided). I'll jump right in.

"The Church does not object to rights (already established in California) regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the family or the constitutional rights of churches and their adherents to administer and practice their religion free from government interference."

That's not advocating for equal rights and it's smartly worded so they can wiggle out of any one of them, but there's a big step for them there. I'll give them much credit for that.

Only four years ago, during the Amendment 3 debate (an amendment which took away marriage and any other "substantially equivalent" rights), they had a chance to speak up for these rights and say exactly this. They only spoke up for denying marriage and added:

"any other sexual relations, including between persons of the same gender, undermine the divinely created institution of family."

The message sent was clear, they knew what their followers heard and they were just fine with letting the enforcement of denying all those other rights stand. I am grateful they have made this step towards "Christian obligations of love, kindness and humanity toward all people".

"The Divine Institution of Marriage"

There's not much to say about the supernatural points, save that we all have different knowledge about the supernatural and it should not be used to impose law on others and limit the rights of those to practice their faith, or lack thereof. We may as well argue about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

In that section though, I would find it interesting to know how they choose their research. Out of all the research on families out there, much of it on children of same-sex parents, they have 4 (!) references, and make the logically fallacious comparisons to single mothers, quoting from what seem to be the weakest and most biased sections of any research, the discussion. This is a total misrepresentation of what's out there and I'd love to know how such was defended (or if it needed to be).

"Tolerance, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Freedom"

"Those who favor homosexual marriage contend that “tolerance” demands that they be given the same right to marry as heterosexual couples."

This is a case of you just not listening, or putting up straw men.

Search my blog, or isocrat.org for "tolerance." This isn't about "tolerance" or your love; this is about men and women trying to protect their families from your real world attacks. I get that when you feel you are God's representatives, it can color your vision. There are many other Gods with representatives on this earth though. I'm sure you're fine people, but you are strangers. I don't care how you feel about me, if you can tolerate me, if you "condone" my family, or how good you feel in still loving me despite my "sin". This whole "gay marriage is all about getting my approval" angle is really weird. I do care, though, about how you concretely affect my children and my husband, and the many other families I know you are advocating harm towards with your political actions.

Aside: Isn't quoting Jesus a bit problematic when you're tying to mobilize a huge group against equal treatment of our families? You think same-sex relations are evil, right? Even assuming you're right, yes, Jesus did say "go and sin no more"; he also said "resist not evil." I don't agree with Him here either, but trying to put Jesus' seal of approval on a huge political action campaign against a large group of people who just want equal treatment from their government, well, even if that could possibly be a posed as a fight against evil, it strains the imagination. WWJD, indeed.

"We can express genuine love and friendship for the homosexual family member or friend without accepting the practice of homosexuality or any re-definition of marriage. "

I'm glad you can, really. But surely you can see that, while it means something, it's not much to know a stranger out to legally diminish my family feels love. There are historical accounts of the love felt for the sinner when they were being tortured and burned to death for "sodomy". Simply, your love doesn't mean much when your actions might annul my marriage. I really want to know if you can you see that. (as if anyone is listening :-))

As for religious freedom, I'm right with you. But your beef is with anti-discrimination laws, not marriage. No one, for example, is forcing the catholics to marry divorced couples. If a church isn't taking public money, they should even be able to discriminate against mixed race marriages, and I don't want the government in religion any more than you do. But look, you pulled this pendulum, over the decades, strongly towards your end and hurt a lot of gay people in the past, and I get that you may be afraid if you let go it may swing too far in the other direction. I want it to stop where I have my family with equal treatment and you have your religious freedom, no more and no less. We could work together to that end, instead of trying to pull each other off our footing.

"Other advocates of same-sex marriage are suggesting that tax exemptions and benefits be withdrawn from any religious organization that does not embrace same-sex unions."

So? Let them suggest; you know people suggest all sorts of crazy things. I can't hold it against you that people suggest the Levitical death penalty be put in place for homosexuals, right? Again, this is not about marriage, but anti-discrimination laws.

"Thus, if same-sex marriage becomes a recognized civil right, there will be substantial conflicts with religious freedom. And in some important areas, religious freedom may be diminished."

What I don't get is this. Two churches perform a wedding, and the government looks into the sexual anatomy of those involved and decides to recognize only one church's union but not another's. You don't see that as religious discrimination? Is it because you think they aren't "true" churches? What if the government did that to your weddings? You are free to perform your weddings how you like. No church synagogue or mosque has been forced into same-sex unions. It is fear mongering to suggest otherwise.

"How Would Same-Sex Marriage Affect Society?"

"“It won’t affect you, so why should you care?’ is the common refrain."

Really, it is?

"The experience of the few European countries that already have legalized same-sex marriage suggests that any dilution of the traditional definition of marriage will further erode the already weakened stability of marriages and family generally."

FULL STOP. Why no reference here? Why no data? It seems very suspicious, as though you know what's there and didn't want to share anything but innuendo. Look at the data right from their censuses and try to tell us this again. I have to hope you aren't simply counting on the average person not looking further into this, because that above statement is fiction, to put it kindly, and if you honestly are studying the issue, carefully, as you say, you should know that.

"there are many practical implications in the sphere of public policy that will be of deep concern to parents and society as a whole. "

I'm all ears, to read about what my concerns as a parent should be.

"When a man and a woman marry with the intention of forming a new family, their success in that endeavor depends on their willingness to renounce the single-minded pursuit of self-fulfillment and to sacrifice their time and means to the nurturing and rearing of their children."

Great, you've given one way in which man-women marriages are just like man-man marriages. Of course, you don't mean to insinuate otherwise, and demean our families, right? Gosh I hate PC language.

"Societal recognition of same-sex marriage cannot be justified simply on the grounds that it provides self-fulfillment to its partners, for it is not the purpose of government to provide legal protection to every possible way in which individuals may pursue fulfillment."

Sadly, you are either not listening to us, or misrepresenting us, and in a piece meant to "reduce misunderstanding".

"By definition, all same-sex unions are infertile, and two individuals of the same gender, whatever their affections, can never form a marriage devoted to raising their own mutual offspring."

So? If you think raising, loving, and nurturing children who aren't similar to you in their genetic code is some sort of weakness, I guess we truly do differ in our moral codes.

" It is true that some same-sex couples will obtain guardianship over children"

Some? In Utah, of cohabitating same-sex couples, we're talk about 40% and that number has certainly grown since the 2000 census. Only 49% of all marriages are currently raising children. Let me put that in other terms; Utah, with our anti-adoption for gay couples and anti-marriage equality laws is 3rd in the nations when it comes to the percentage of cohabitating same-sex couples raising children. You are trying to minimize and misrepresent our families. You are, ironically, treating the fact that we have children and will keep becoming parents in greater numbers as a minor consideration here.

"Traditional marriage provides a solid and well-established social identity to children. It increases the likelihood that they will be able to form a clear gender identity, with sexuality closely linked to both love and procreation."

Then you should be advocating legal marriage for the parents in our families too.

"By contrast, the legalization of same-sex marriage likely will erode the social identity, gender development, and moral character of children."

At least you admit you don't know. You do know, though, you start out talking all nice, and then you go and insult the moral character of a man's child. Do you think we're somehow a wildly different sort of humans than you? That we wouldn't notice? You didn't mean it like that? Are you going to retreat and go back to "there's just something missing, neither good nor bad"? Spin it as carefully as you like but you can't both be the good guy and the bad guy here; these children and their parents hear you loud and clear, even if you're counting on others to make excuses for and ignore such tangled messages.

As to your other concerns about our children. Much, and I mean a lot, of research has shown no difference in their "gender development". You found some research to quote above; why not here? And what do you mean by "social identity"? Do you mean they may correctly identify they are children of same-sex parents, just as other children correctly identify they are children of LDS parents? Such words, not defined, come off in the imaginations of your followers as all sorts of crazy things; they teach their children such things and those children go to school with my children. Do you see that? When you're vague most followers fill in the voids in a way that most demeans our children.

Oddly, I both hope you know and don't know that.

"As just one example of how children will be adversely affected, the establishment of same-sex marriage as a civil right will inevitably require mandatory changes in school curricula."

You mean not only may gay people have equal treatment, but their children in our schools may be given consideration too? Come on. My kids' class read and Tango Makes Three (without us asking) last year as one of many books. Yes, right here in Utah. It was one book in hundreds, and such inclusion has nothing to do with legal marriage and everything to do with humane treatment of all children, and creating an environment where all children can feel comfortable enough to learn reading writing and arithmetic without bigotry getting in the way. Is the LDS church against that? What, in schools are they actually against? You have to be specific. True, if you're not, there's less room to change doctrine when you need to, but your followers will often assume the worst otherwise.

People, even gay couples, will simply have children regardless of the government's okay. Those children should be able to talk about their family at school too. There is only one way to make them and your growing problem here disappear, but if you want to know what an actual society's erosion and collapse looks like, you just try to take our children from their homes.

" Finally, throughout history the family has served as an essential bulwark of individual liberty."

Well... Eh, the irony and de-family-ing of our families just gets too thick towards the end there to go on.

Anyway, the sad part is I'm sure the author of this felt, deep in the cockles of their heart, they were showing "love, kindness and humanity toward all people." They felt such white-on-white warmth even when insulting other's children, and cherry picking and misrepresenting the research, of which they choose a very tiny amount (though enough to fool the casual reader that science was on their side).

I know I went off half-cocked here and may regret pressing publish in an hour or two. But, eh, I've got to go and want to stop feeling distracted by this, I'll feel better doing something too :-).

At least they are moving their position a step towards civil unions. It's just frustrating. Frustrating and sad.

A Note to Affirmation

Sure, I know, Affirmation, we haven't interacted much and so who am I to chime in, right? Nevertheless, if you didn't see coming what came back to you from the LDS church in reaction to your press conference yesterday, someone needs to bring this dynamic to your attention. Maybe you did and just went on anyway; I don't know.

I get where you're coming from, I think. It'd be frustrating to have my anxiously awaited meeting with my religious leaders postponed indefinitely, even as the same church is finding much time and effort to make bold political moves against our families in California. And you're right, "You can't just walk in and say, 'Hi, President Monson, here we are.' " I'm sure it's frustrating, to have that wall in an area so important to you.

You are also right to think "six or 12 months can be an "eternity" in the lives of individuals struggling to resolve their sexuality and their faith." You feel that urgency; I do too. In that time, yes, another kid may kill themselves and you feel, even if you know it's naive, you can help that, if only they'll listen. I know such feelings, how they motivate, but also how they can blind us to sad political realities and push that time out even further. You feel it; you feel like it has to be done yesterday. But they don't. To them, they aren't harming people and so there's no urgency for them to change, and this imbalance of drive can be used against you.

Please, now, tell me if I'm off base here, or if the media misreported what has occurred. But fact is, you are weak and they are strong. You are, on average, unpopular, and they, well, for many here, are the most moral, most compassionate, and simply super awesome organization on this entire planet. What I don't get is how you could think you could still hold your meeting without them and not be effectively slapped down, and in that very useful rhetorical style we Utahns possess.

The members of the LDS church didn't hear your concerns. Of all you said, both sides only got a tiny sound bite on the news I watched (KSL), and the LDS church's statement fit into a sound bite and they knew best how to use it. All the members heard was their church tell us, in effect, that Affirmation doesn't care about gay issues as much as the church does. It sucks, I know, but it doesn't matter how wrong you feel that is. Affirmation doesn't think "issues surrounding same-gender attraction deserve careful attention." Affirmation would rather go for shallow "public posturing." That was the message they got out to the masses, and they did it through your efforts. Like facing some judo master of PR, your momentum was used against you.

I hope I'm not coming off as harsh, and, no, I don 't direct, know how to, and wouldn't want to direct a large group such as Affirmation. I may be completely ignorant here, and hope to be told if I am. It just seems you jumped right into the losing role of this PR game. Why? Does it just seem that way and there's a reason to which I'm blind? Did you not see this coming? Did you try to head off this likely response in your news conference and it just didn't get reported? Am I totally off base in thinking it'd just be best to have stuck with your sunstone speeches and cancel the Monday "meeting"?

Yours confusedly and, maybe, somewhat accusingly (but you'll forgive that, right? :-)),
Your brother in Same-Sex Attraction,
UtahCog

Gaynerations

Generational changes have been on my mind of late. Being a Utah (ex-)Mormon boy, of course, one cannot go too far back, on all sides of my family, before running into pioneers and polygamists. I see my last name comes from a Jacob, baptized into the LDS church in 1833. By his daughter's account he was married to 4 wives, the last 3 marriages performed by the president of his church. He was arrested for polygamy, "went through the persecution of the saints, and knew the pioneer life in its raw."

But it’s not more than a generation after those pioneering progenitors that hints of homosexuals start popping up—The man who never married and is photographed next to his mother looking much too dapper for his time and place, or the woman with no children but a number of sister wives. All that, of course, is speculation; gays were very well hidden back then. There were no gay people in the good old pioneer days, just as there are none currently residing in Iran.

The first gay man I can indirectly verify in my family has to be my great uncle Jack. Sad story, that. I’m sure I benefited for his tragedy in the way it softened my now departed grandfather, the man who baptized me; still, it’s very sad to think of the life of gay men back then. From Jack I can pick out a bunch. There are a handful of gay aunts, uncles, and cousins. Some are out and open and others are quietly gay. One still feels the need to call his partner his “business” partner in their small town. He still lives under some of the pressures that my great uncle faced, but has found a compromise that works for him. They are almost all, in that generation before me, still somewhat skittish about talking of their orientation, even though they’ve made it apparent.

And no worries, I’m not outing anyone. I’ve enough family that to say some are gay is next to saying there’s a gay man somewhere in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (not that I'm saying I know one of those too... [cue ominous minor organ chord]).

When I came out, I knew none of this, of course. I thought I was the homosexual in state of Utah. It was about a couple years after I came out to everyone when family began coming up to me to express our similarity. Some would come out somberly, with a hand on my arm, and a difficult paragraph about their experiences. Something like, “I know what you’re going through. I have cancer too.” Others just let it blurt out with a joke. One just laughed and said after dropping vague, confusing hints all day, “You didn’t think you were the only one in the family, did you?” as if I would have been egotistical enough to imagine that (Err… I did imagine that I was, though).

To the point, I'm glad they're their, as family, in my genealogy. But, as gay family, I was never given the opportunity to learn from them, until after I had my coming out trials settled and didn't need help, particularly from those still, sadly, much more closeted and scarred than I was.

Now, regarding the next generation, I am an uncle more than 30 times over and have many younger family members of other sorts. They all know I'm gay; they all know Rob and I are married, and that their cousins have two dads. And I know some of them are gay too, even if they don't, yet. Some of them are just now old enough to head off to missions, get married, and, it turns out, come to terms with their orientation.

I'll leave even gender out of this, just in case, but the first relative of that next generation has recently come out to our family. I think I imagined helping them through those tough times in a way I wasn't helped, but it didn't work out that way. They struggled on their own, and then came out to my parents, and eventually us. I was heartened to be told we were a big help, just by us being here and paving the way in the family, but still I was a bit sad they didn't think they could come to me sooner.

When I think on it more, though, I don't think I would have either, even if I knew of my gay relatives. Some fights really have to be your own, and in that state you don't really want influence as you don't really know where you should end up. At least I could be there at the finish line. They asked to join us for their first Pride festival a couple weeks ago, and they did with our whole group, which included other family, friends and some mohos. I hope it wasn't intimidating.

Anyway, where was this going? I'm not sure. Something about generations?...

Eh, I'm tired having been kept up most of last night with one of my kid's foot stubbornly pressing on my ribs... Anyway, it will be interesting how the rest of that next generation handle their orientation; the fact that they are now entering gay adulthood gives new urgency for me in my [gulp] activism. Also, I'd pay big bucks to read the genealogical accounts of my generation 200 years from now, from the perspective of our great great grandkids. I wonder if Jacob and his four wives ever imagined I, their progeny, would be thumbing through his life story... and posting about it on my blog, with my husband at home taking care of our two children?

Probably not...

Another Step

Affirmation has, after decades of trying, been given an audience with the LDS church.

Article here.

“ SALT LAKE CITY - After decades of silence, Mormon church officials have agreed to meet with a gay Mormon support group that has sought to forge understanding between the faith's leaders and its gay members.

In a letter received last week, leaders of Affirmation were invited to meet with Fred M. Riley, commissioner of Family Services for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Harold C. Brown, the agency's past commissioner.”

Add this to the Danzig thing and I’m again wondering if the rumors be true? :-)

Regardless, I’d not expect much to come out of such a meeting, on the surface. In such things, change nearly always happens discretely and slowly, in the background, mainly for the reasons I posed back here. But this, the willingness to just talk with such a group, is a good sign that the new LDS president will bring church members one step closer to a more humane treatment of their gay neighbors, both in the church and in politics.

Here's to hope that I'm reading the tea leaves correctly :-).

A Change in the LDS Church?

There can be a good deal of cloak and dagger in the gay Mormon world, for obvious reasons, but much of the info that gets to me goes through the grapevine; it’s stuff that needs to be taken with a grain of salt. So when a LDS friend of Rob’s tell him that she has personally had a long talk with Monson just a while before he became President Monson and that she feels assured that he’s committed to slowly, but greatly improving the lot of gay men and women in the LDS church… well, it sounds fishy. It’s not that she’d lie but that she could have heard what she wanted; I don’t know her well enough to tell.

One thing has been on my mind, though. Danzig. Remember the LDS pressroom response to the Danzig controversy? It seemed kind of strange and out of character, but this was what really stuck out:

In his Tribune letter-to-the-editor, Mr. Danzig said he “was troubled that my church requested I violate my own conscience to write in support of an amendment I feel is contrary to the constitution and to the gospel of Christ.” In reality Church leaders had asked members to write to their senators with their personal views regarding the federal amendment opposing same gender marriage, and did not request support or opposition to the amendment.

The Church “did not request support or opposition to the amendment.” Now anyone paying attention would know that the LDS church in reality :-) has made it clear that they want members to support such marriage-banning amendments. Consequently, this statement, a response to a news story, caused some to experience a good deal of incredulity. It seemed to some like a disingenuous, or at least silly denial. But I don’t know.

The LDS church did most of that past encouraging of members to politically act against our families before this new presidency.

The problem for religions is that they benefit greatly by being the rock, the unflinching and assuring word of truth, but they also have to eventually change with new human moral discoveries. If you pay attention to, say, the Catholic Church, it takes a good deal of evidence to get anything near a mia culpa out of them, though. Most of the time a religion must use clever interpretations of their past actions and lawyerly arguments to both change and maintain that they never did, or to change but maintain that the change was already in the works; it was the unalterable plan of God all along for things to be one way back then, but another way now. That way they both evolve to survive and give that hard-to-find comfort in stability, in Truth.

So, what if there is a less PR-motivated explanation to this Danzig response? Is the church now trying to tell members they are not requesting that they support such legislation against our families? If so, does the change have something to do with the new President? Maybe it’d be putting too much weight into hearsay, but this could be seen as a change for the better, instead of a PR dodge.

Eh, I’m not putting much stock in it; it’s just been something on the mind.

Danzig’s Dissent

A brief detour…

This was in the paper today:

LDS Church disciplines musician

Peter Danzig , A member of the orchestra at temple square, wrote a letter in support of Jeffery Nielsen. Nielsen wrote an editorial expressing his conscience regarding the LDS church’s opposition to marriage for gay couples and was subsequently let go from his job as a BYU professor (I’m honored to say I’ll probably see the man tonight, if history is a guide). Back to Danzig and his wife (from the article):

“Within a week, LDS officials contacted Danzig with concerns about the letter. They suspended him from the orchestra and for the next year, he and, ultimately his wife, defended their loyalty, faith and actions. No amount of persuasion or pleading could convince these ecclesiastical leaders they meant well. Ultimately, the Danzigs moved out of their Levan house and, in December, resigned their membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rather than face excommunication.”
…
“ Initially, Mary Danzig thought it was all a big misunderstanding. But soon, her own devotion to the church came into question. She, too, felt unwelcome in the orchestra. Her parents wrote letters to church authorities, begging for an audience or at least some understanding. They were unsuccessful. "I felt like my world had come crashing down when Peter told me he might be excommunicated," said Mary Danzig, at the time a member of the Primary Presidency in her ward. "What would happen to my family in the eternities, in our community, in our extended family? I found myself coming completely unglued every Sunday. I spent a great deal of time hiding in the bathroom crying with my little girls."

Sad, and disappointing to be sure.

I can’t help but contrast this with the guy I know in a similar position in the church but higher. He’s one of the wealthier men in the valley and he keeps and supports a wife, children, and a hot young boyfriend (who is also in the LDS church and has a wife and kids). Everyone who knows them knows the situation; they flaunt their affections in front of their wives (don’t care they?), and at the local gym they are all over each other for all to see. They’ve seemingly gone out of their way to make their situation clear and this has been going on for years, but have they ever been disciplined? Has he even been suspended from his position in the church? No, he’s still there, probably because he’s never outright said the words to a church leader (though he has to others), and he’s never said it in an editorial. He’s probably never expressed his conscience when his conscience said the LDS church has, like any other institution, made an occasional error. Heck, he’s probably never even thought the church could be wrong here and is just waiting for God to get rid of his "SSA" in the celestial kingdom, where his family and the family of his lover can just be good friends. I bet he’d even stay in line and stand against marriage for gay couples, and so he stays, but people like Danzig go.

Okay, I got heated :-). I began writing before I cooled down.

People like Nielsen and Danzig are rare in humanity, and they are bound to take bruises and bumps for it. Many people know what’s right, but they second guess, put things off; they don’t want to rock the boat, particularly if it’s the boat in which they float, such as their church. Most people are good cops, and, sure, that’s where I tend to fit too. But the others, like Danzig and Nielsen, these are the people who take the scrapes from clearing the path for change. Ironically, these folks in the church threatening them will likely be the guys who unintentionally encourage the rest of the congregation, those with a twitching conscience, to finally stand up and pave that same path, to eventually follow the full golden rule in equality for families such as mine.

Why Do I Modify Your Noun?

These gay debates do have their quirky little bits, don’t they? There’s one I have a hard time understanding and, if anyone can explain it, it’s this crowd.

Is a person solely attracted to men and who is also a man dealing with 'Same Sex Attraction' and/or is he a 'homosexual' or 'gay'? Why does it matter?

First, I do understand ‘gay’ can mean to some that a same-sex relationship is occurring, though it doesn't to my mind. I also understand there are reasons of faith for which that word may be rejected for something that sounds more clinical, like a medical condition. I’m wondering more about nouns vs adjectives:

From the recent interview with Elder Oaks and Wickman of the LDS church (my bold):

“I think it’s important for you [a hypothetical gay child] to understand that homosexuality, which you’ve spoken of, is not a noun that describes a condition. It’s an adjective that describes feelings or behavior.”

Or from the LDS web site, here:

“We should note that the words homosexual, lesbian, and gay are adjectives to describe particular thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. We should refrain from using these words as nouns to identify particular conditions or specific persons. Our religious doctrine dictates this usage. It is wrong to use these words to denote a condition, because this implies that a person is consigned by birth to a circumstance in which he or she has no choice in respect to the critically important matter of sexual behavior.”

I see a couple mohos who are "wrong" in this regard ;-). Anyway, how one can decree such a word to be only an adjective by doctrine seems kind of surprising, but, that aside, I’ve a hard time understanding why anyone would attempt this at all? Even going with the LDS view of homosexuality, why shouldn’t we have a name for people struggling with “SSA”?

The dictionaries I have certainly do not agree with the above statements, but it’s stranger than that. Take, say, the word “Dentist”. It’s a noun referring to a condition of a person, one who practices dentistry, but it in no way implies that a person is “consigned by birth to a circumstance in which he or she has no choice in respect to the critically important matter of behavior”, right? The same goes with the word “southpaw”, or “diabetic”? In fact, there is less evidence that being left-handed is consigned from birth than there is for homosexuality (detailed here, here, and here). Southpaws choose their behavior, but, also like gays, not how it feels. Regardless, they still get a noun, right?

I also thought maybe it’s just because they see being gay as a negative and that somehow makes us not want to have a noun for it (why? I don’t know). But then we do have nouns for murderers and kleptomaniacs, and I’ve never heard the LDS church advise against using other such nouns.

So what’s the deal here?

That aside, my take: I think this whole area of classifying gays had been tainted by old prejudice long before even the term “homosexual” was coined (1892, according to my dictionary of etymology). Gay people aren’t precisely attracted to their same sex. They are people attracted to a particular sex, regardless of their own sex, just like most everyone else in the world, and their feelings of attraction are far from abnormal in humans. They are quite ordinary.

The rare part is that attraction in the mind to a particular sex is found in that particular physical anatomy; it takes both that aspect of the mind and the shape of the body to be called gay. But if one altered the physical body of a gay man and left his mind intact, say, by the supernatural or super science, he’d not suddenly become a lesbian (No offence my lesbian friends, but I don’t understand ya ;-)); he’d still be attracted to men. His mind, the person a gay man is psychologically, is an androphile, juts like most women. His material body is another matter.

Even the term homosexual (as a noun), I think, somewhat allows the commonness of the attraction to be concealed behind the material, so as those experiencing it may more easily be ill treated. Otherwise how can you both promote and punish the consequences of the attraction at the same time, and not appear to be inconstant and harsh to people for the geometry of their inborn anatomy? It’s just much easier to vilify “homosexuals”, than “androphiles who are shaped in a certain way” :-).

BYU, Honor Codes, and Police Cops

I wrote a post a while ago about social change that came from a chance talk with a leader in the Black community, and I didn’t expect it to be much more than something I wanted to remember, here.

To sum up, this woman explained to me that all social movements with minorities seem to have their good cops and bad cops. The bad cops are outrageous and demanding; they do stuff like try to get arrested and other theatrics (fake funerals, you know the stuff...). The good cops are much more reasonable; they see the other side and give it credit. And “The Man,” well, he’s motivated by the bad cop, but can never appear to give in to such tactics. Even if they do give in, in reality, it has to be for another reason to their minds. And that’s why the friendly good cop is so useful. The powers that be will talk to the good cop, feel much more like he’s one of them, and can compromise and change for the good cop. And that’s how societies change to treat minorities fairly, despite the differences in strength.

It strikes me that the recent change in the wording of the BYU honor code may be an example of this woman’s theory. There was no way a group like Soul Force, or any big out and proud gay group was going to get anything on its own. No way. But such groups are part of how the world for gays, all gays, has changed. By decades of social progress, there can now actually be visible good cop gays at BYU; they are, in fact, our fellow bloggers. As long as they are modest in their steps and stay in bounds, they can group together and be heard and effect positive change. This would not have been a decade past.

But where this woman’s idea deviates from the depictions in crime dramas is in the fact that the players here are absolutely sincere. These good cops don’t honestly want, say, me to be able to attend BYU, with my husband and kids in approved housing (No worries; neither do I :-)). They don’t want to be able to walk the campus with their arm around the man they love (unless they’re lesbians, I guess… what a world! :-)). They are in opposition to the bad cops. They are even motivated to speak up in order to show those in power they’re not all bad cops, and are also invested in downplaying the effect of the bad cops on their mutual audience. Let me be clear, these reactions are both done without any duplicity but they are both important parts in this machine. The machine doesn’t work without them.

I know the good cops do it in good faith because this is the role in this theory I naturally fall into with regards to other gay issues. I’m not a fan of hate crime law; I’m all for a person’s right to teach that I’m an abomination; I don’t want there to be, say, hiring quotas for gays, or some other stuff I’ve heard of. I don’t like protests and I’m more of a bridge builder when I interact with elected officials. I recognize in this event with BYU my hostility towards my bad cop’s actions, and I recognize my past assurances that they don’t represent me and that it’s absolutely not the bad cops playing a constructive role. I too am by nature in this role which I must assume is why I, not a member of our bad cops, have the positions I do, and have had the hand in the positive changes I have had. Simply, looking back, I can now see how this idea may have played out in many instances in my life as a reluctant activist.

The thing that strikes me here though is how out of our hands it really is. I’ll not step over the line I see in the sand. Neither will this group of gays at BYU. Nevertheless, we bring the other side closer to our line, in play with the bad cops. Sometimes we bring them so close that another group of good cops, once bad :-), will help our culture past our line. To me, that’s kind of what’s happened in certain countries where preaching that gays are abominable has become a possible legal issue. In those countries I’d feel obliged to try to pull society back, but it went where it went, for good and bad cops more radically gay than I.

Like it or not, the LDS church took a small step here, and there are more than a few members who do not like it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned to keep always in mind about our opponents, it’s that they ain’t stupid; pay attention to what exactly sets them off. They can see what this can mean for the future of gays in the church as well as anyone, despite official reasons about the change (which I do certainly think the BYU officials believe). If you listen to them, it’s clear, it doesn’t matter to the opposition if this is only a “clarification”. The clarification, they know, makes gays more comfortable and open, and they know that any group of even loosely-organized gays on campus, even slightly open and unafraid is a problem.

But these gay students, regardless of where they draw that line in the sand on gay behavior, moved the line for their culture. And now I can’t help but bet they will move it further in the coming decades, even if inadvertently. Knowing the bounds, more gay people will be more open. More people on campus, from students to faculty, will actually see gay neighbors, students, and friends. They will follow their lives to celibacy, to marriages and families with men or women and note how they work out. They will watch the real life version of these blogs, and be affected. And the students of BYU will become the leaders of the LDS church.

Think about it, there’s a very good reason these angry folks wanted gay kids on campus to not be seen or heard, or given any audience or consideration or clarification, no matter the issues or the gay student’s strong testimony or obedience. Obedience is not the point for such folks, as they know the power in what will come from comfortable gays of any sort on campus. Eventually, there’ll be a new group of good cops; there may already be. Even though the current group may adamantly disagree with them, the current group has now merged into next generation’s “The Man”. The line in the sand has been moved behind their wants, to include them, but they did move it that much closer to the next group’s wants as well.

I now wonder if this was as much a concern for folks who helped with this change as it can be for me. I wonder if they agree with this view from my vantage point of the situation. So, if anyone involved cares to tell me… :-)

Edit: I see Soul Force is taking some credit for this, on A Changing Countenance’s blog, here. They need to keep their motivation up too. I’m beginning to feel I need to track that woman down again and take in more for her ideas :-).

Ex Com

In chatting, the topic of our current official relation to the LDS church came up. I hadn’t really thought of the implications of what occurred in regards to that topic, but now, thinking on it, it’s an odd story and I have to wonder what it says about the changing LDS policy regarding gay members.

My religious history is spelled out, here and here. Though I’ve left many modes of belief behind at finding them unsupportable, official counting from the bureaucracy of each is a different matter. The LDS church counted me as a member for most of my life, starting from my baptism, and officially counted me in their statistics even when I was holding other faiths.

I didn’t give it much thought, until the marriage debate heated up, and the LDS church began instructing members to act politically against equal rights for our families. We began to feel uncomfortable being counted as members. I mean, to be counted as a member of a group now acting against your home feels wrong for all sorts of reasons, not to mention not believing in its most basic claims, and we simply couldn’t abide by it.

R first tried to do it himself. He sent in our letters, explaining why exactly we wanted to be removed, and nothing happened. He sent another set and got some sort of dismissive reply (I wish I could remember the wording, but alas...). After some runaround on the phone, we gave up.

If I remember correctly, from there we put ourselves out in the media, speaking out against legislation. Regardless, it was no secret before then that we were gay and living together to anyone, not to our families, our neighbors, or our ward. Our Bishop was, in fact, R’s mission companion’s father and he knew well of us there. Yet, no hint of concern was shown anywhere by the church, and seemingly no desire to excommunicate us at all, even once we went from privately gay to activist gay.

Eventually the leadership did it again, and called on members to vote against our families, and that was it for us. We couldn’t be counted as part of a political force aimed at us. This time we did some online research on how, exactly, to be removed as members and found that certain specific items had to be done. It was some Baptist group that had the instructions. They were oddly complicated, but R put the right letters together, with the right wording, and sent them to the right place… But that was not the end of it.

We were asked if the Bishops could come visit us, and we agreed; we kind of knew and liked the guy. So he came. Though such a meeting is actually unnecessary to be removed, we wanted to be cordial.

At the door he was visibly uncomfortable but very pleasant. He came in and small-talked for a while. Then he asked why, exactly, we wanted out. I assumed our reasons would be more than apparent, but we explained it anyway, plainly and respectfully. But at that, he tried to talk us out of leaving. We were two gay men who had been together for a decade, live together in his ward, and speak out for equal rights for our families, and he didn’t want to let us out. Unexpected.

In asking around, I’ve known gay men who’ve been excommunicated for far less of a "gay lifestyle", but many years ago. Although I do know some gay men around these blogs were recently disciplined for their same-sex sexual activities, the cases involved breaking vows, and so I'm left a bit unclear. But it seems something must have changed, and for the better, right?

It actually became a sort of haggle with the local Bishop. He eventually talked us down from excommunication and into something else, the name of which I can’t quite remember (removal? I’ll have to find the paper.). In short, the way he explained it, we’d not be counted as members anymore, but we’d not be excommunicated, meaning, as he pointedly stated, there’d be no disciplinary action if we ever wanted back in.

Anyway, it was a solution we could both live with, though the more aggressive side of me was admittedly let down (I kind of wanted my day in court! If for nothing other than curiosity :-)).

At that we were all happy and we went back to small talk. As he left he expressed his regret for the situation and told us to call him if any of our neighbors gave us any trouble (really, unthinkable as our neighbors were great, but we very much appreciated the gesture). Again, we do very much like the guy, for obvious reasons, and I too wish the circumstances were different, but they are what they are. I was left feeling sorry for the tough position he was in.

So I guess, officially, with regards to the LDS church we’re not really Ex Coms; we’re now just like most of the world, nonmembers and potential converts ;-).

In thinking back on it, I’m struck by the LDS church’s reluctance to excommunicate two open and vocal gay men, such as us, R even being a returned missionary. I wonder if our experience is typical or rare. How much of it was in the hands of local management? It took significant effort to simply not be counted in their statistics, and they really didn’t want to take any steps. Who knows? For us there’d still be the fact that we don’t believe many of the claims of that particular faith, but maybe in our lifetime some families headed by gay couples will be welcomed and accepted in the LDS church, as is, without splitting up. Maybe we’ll show up at the next sacrament meeting with kids in tow and a bag a cheerios to test the waters ;-).

I don’t know, but this seems to be a positive and perhaps recent change in the LDS reaction to gay members, doesn’t it?

Matchmaking Advice

We’ve this friend, a great guy. He’s adopted a couple children, biological siblings, out from an abusive home and he is amazing with them; his parenting skills make me envious. He has gotten them past some horrible trauma, and into being a couple of great, loving, and well mannered children, not to mention adorable. Even on the superficial scale, he’s quite a catch, very handsome.

But he’s single; he can’t find the right guy. I guess single dads have a tough time finding eligible and interested partners in the gay community. Seems many gay men have assumed they couldn’t have family and have stopped thinking about it or making their life conducive for it. If his idea of a date is a $200 dinner followed by clubbing, and would never step into a Jungle Jim’s, he’s not much of a catch.

Then when you find, of that 50% men, 5% gay population, a guy willing to make a family, you still have to weed out which ones you couldn’t see bringing into your children’s lives, even if you do like them… Well, you get the idea, if people like R and I don’t start early we end up with a pretty small pool.

In thinking of who I’d play matchmaker with, or what advice to give him, it hit me. Gay men of the world, listen up. I have some important advice. :-)

Find yourself a Mormon man, if you can.

[Blatant but positive prejudice based on my experience mode]

1. They come conditioned, experienced, and willing to build families. They’ve changed their infant sibling’s diapers. They’ve often dealt with more than five kids at a time, and have strong parental ethics. Throw those baby books away; while I was the last of my siblings and not as experienced, R (and our “practice baby”) taught me all I needed to know.

2. They are principled guys. Of course there are exceptions, but most have had ethics drilled into them from early on and they’d never think of cheating on you.

3. This may be seen as a negative; I don’t see it that way, but they aren’t much for partying. For goodness sake, don’t give them any liquor before they know how to manage it ;-). But, if you don’t like clubs, and would rather go to a movie or for a hike, they’re your guy.

4. If they’ve been on a mission, great. Last week I got bo po gee (sp? :-)), one of my favorites, and I often come home to a shabu shabu the likes of which you cannot get in any Utah restaurant. My man speaks Korean, does yours?

5. Sure, you may have a rough road with their family at the get go, but once that’s done, (and it will end) you’ve got some great in-laws and a strong extended family, people you’ll come to love.

[/Blatant but positive prejudice based on my experience mode]

Now, please, don’t steal another’s husband, be that another a woman or man, and certainly don’t find a guy in the closet or still thinking being in a gay relationship is a sin; that’ll be nothing but trouble.

But find yourself a Mormon man, if you can. They’re great.

For those interested

Facing East (which I missed [grumble]), was the topic of Radio West a couple days ago, with Pearson being interviewed.

I get them on podcasts, and those may be found here (seems their mp3 link isn’t working but it's on that page too if they get it up and running soon).

It’s quite an interesting reflection of many of the topics discussed by my fellow bloggers. Difficult stuff.

Facing East

I just learned we’ll be attending the play, Facing East, by Carol Lynn Pearson, this month.

“FACING EAST is a world premiere parable for our place and time by noted LDS author Carol Lynn Pearson.

Ruth and Alex McCormick are an upstanding Mormon couple reeling from the suicide of their gay son. In FACING EAST, they are stuck between the comfort of their faith and the unfamiliarity of their new reality when they encounter their son’s partner, Marcus, for the first time”

One could read more on it from this link.

We’ll be attending with a group primarily composed of PFLAG parents (Yep, it’ll be voluntary emotional punishment). I’m sure I’ll leave the play in quite a mood.

My parents actually told us about it and invited us after themselves being invited by PFLAG. I wonder if it seems odd, though, that my parents never joined PFLAG when I came out. I never even knew anyone involved in the organization until the Amendment 3 debate. I think my parents and I both thought PFLAG was only for families in turmoil. What would we want with it?

Our opinions changed after R and I participated in a panel discussion. A bunch of PFLAG parents were there, and we were to discuss being parents ourselves. The grandparents came along to take care of the twins, then barely toddlers. We gave the short version of our lives, and answered a bunch of the typical questions.

Afterwards, a group of parents came up to us to give their regards, all wonderful, friendly people. One woman stood out as soon as I saw her approach. She waited behind the others, and once she reached us, she congratulated us and went on about how beautiful our family was.

She then got to her point by asking what she could do to help her son into a monogamous lifelong union. I should have known to be more careful by the emotional signals she radiated. But I wasn’t careful; I assumed too much. My initial response, which I now regret intensely, was some weak generic answer: “Be there for him. Make sure he knows nothing changes but the sex of the person he loves by his being gay--not your love, your support, what’s right in a relationship... Make clear why you think monogamy and family is important, regardless, for all relationships.” And so on. I even gestured to my parents and accredited them with why I have the family I now had. Once I got off my soapbox, I could see I’d done her wrong.

She paused and looked at our boys over playing with my parents, with the look of a person about to cry, emoting the great effort it took to hide her emotion.

“My son,” she finally said, both loosing it and catching herself at that comma. She then explained, speaking quietly and matter-of-factly, trying to keep decorum, but it was clear she was trying; every word was pregnant with urgency. It was as though she didn’t want to scare us off, but knew her problem deserved hysteria. It did.

She said she knew her boy was gay from very early on in his childhood. By the way she once saw her faith, she was zealously against the “sin”, but still loved her “sinner”. She had decided to wait to see what he’d choose; having taught him homosexuality was evil. Eventually the kid told her what she already knew, a couple years prior to that day, and she was prepared. She took a tough love stance, wanting him to try to change in therapy, and forbidding any contact with other gay kids.

That drove a wedge between her and her son and he subsequently hit back. He left the home for days; went through boyfriend after boyfriend… The “gay lifestyle”. Evidently, their once loving mother-son relationship devolved into a cycle of tit-for-tat of emotional punishments, and a once model son became an angry, self-destructive stranger.

A couple month before our meeting she had a dramatic change of heart, a moment of clarity as she put it. She knew she was wrong about her past morality, and choices, and was now going to PFLAG meetings, apologizing, wanting to help, and ready to accept her son’s orientation. But the boy wasn’t changing, wasn’t letting her back in either. Her guilt was palpable, but her son, evidently, wasn’t ready to put down his arms.

Why, exactly? I can guess but I wished he could have been there.

Once the situation became clear I apologized over and over for my rude and careless assumptions, but by the end I was left with that familiar helpless feeling, wanting to fix it but not knowing how. She could see it on my face.

I don’t know how parents can help their child get from that point B to point C, once point A has passed. I suggested they get professional help, and that a couple months were probably too short of time to heal what had occurred between them. I told her of others we know, now parents in long-standing relationships, who’ve made that change, and put that past behind them. Their once hostile parents were now happy grandparents, some even living with their son’s family in their old age. While I certainly know why they did choose the slow family life, I only knew how by guessing.

She gave an undeserved “Thank you”, complimented our family again, and made her way back into the crowd. At that, a very pleasant experience became one of the most somber and humbling of my adult life. I think of her and her son often, along with all the others.

I find myself wanting at least another hour with her, thinking of new ideas, angles. I wanted to talk to her son, tell him to let it go, “She’s you mother!” and so on, and I wish I’d thought of getting her number. Maybe it did work out in the end, and all it took was a couple more weeks of assurance for him to forgive and stop being such a smuck. That’s what I’d prefer to imagine, but I want to know.

Anyway, I realize now all families with GLBT members have a reason to be in PFLAG. It’s not just for families in turmoil; as long as parents such as that woman are frantic for help, it’s for all our families. I wish my parents and we could devote more time.

Oh yes :-), off the tangent, my impressions of the play should be forthcoming, for those interested.

Common Ground

Thinking back as to why I was so struck by the blogs of gay men married to women, I think a large part of it was the bizarro world similarities I kept encountering, despite our significant differences. I almost identify with this group in ways I do not as often with the average gay man.

1. -- We’re both quietly resented by those in the (minority) extreme camps of our own activist groups. The far anti-gay camp sees the orientation alone as a reason to dislike another, or worse. In the other camp, married monogamous gay couples raising children are “mimicking their oppressors”. Why would anyone, particularly gays, ever want to be “tied down”, to be “subservient” and surrendered to their spouse and children? If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

2. -- Regardless of #1, we are both used like currency by our respective activist groups. The “ex-gay” advocates put up a happy gay man and his wife of 10 years, and we put up an even happier gay couple and their entire family of 20 years, and on and on goes the gay arms race… I'm not against it, as it serves some of my aims, and I think both sets of “poster boys” can serve people looking for possibilities, but it can feel dehumanizing.

3. -- We are both called selfish for wanting our marriages; us for not wanting the norm and them for wanting it. But are we any more selfish for this than anyone else? We may be directed to our unions by different paths and personal desires and sacrifices, but we both want to commit to, take care of, and be responsible for a person we love and the families we’ve built… selfish.

4. -- We are both told we’re selfish for raising children, “playing dice with their lives” or “conducting a dangerous social experiment”. Sure there are exceptions, but is there any more common an example of selflessness than parenting? Any place in human lives where they’re more typically willing to give everything and expect nothing but the other’s health and happiness? Even when things go wrong, people error, and families fail, are they to say the child should never of had life, or their parents? I have a hard time understanding how a bit of anatomy or a sexual orientation, can so easily blind people to good, healthy, happy families, but even those that don’t run smoothly are precious. Really, if they cared about children they’d be trying to help, instead of insult and undermine their homes with law or encouraging husbands to leave their wives.

5. – We are both told we must be unhappy. For me, this one ironically and generally comes from a culture with double the average use of chemical antidepressants in the nation. It also comes from folks that are the source of all the major hurdles in my life today and most determined to harm what I love (for our own good :-)). So, how to counter the impeccable “stop hitting yourself” line of reasoning? Eh, who cares to, when your far happier than most people you know, and the person using it isn’t actually concerned for your happiness? There’s hardly a way to talk people out of their expertise on our lives, as it’s near a matter of faith for both sides.

6. – The love for our spouses is questioned and disbelieved. We’ve all heard it, too many times. “Gay couples don’t love each other. Instead, they are addicted to sex, to the gay lifestyle. Their sex and intimate relationships are an expression of psychological disease or past traumas. Compensating for failed masculinity? An oppressive mother? Molested as a child? It couldn’t be love!” Essentially “Gays don’t feel like we do for our families”, and how dangerous is that? On the other end, some gays claim gay men can’t ever love a woman. "They’re just caving in to social pressure, creating loveless “marriages of convenience” so they can fit in…" I’d encourage such critics to read their blogs; if their love isn’t apparent in their struggles and determination, we must not agree on what “love” means here.

7. -- I think the greatest similarity I feel with most these gay men married to women is in our role as parents and committed spouses. That’s simply something you can’t explain to someone who isn’t, and particularly to someone who doesn’t care to be. I think many gay men simply don’t understand what fatherhood does to a person. They don’t really understand what motivates me, or these gay men with wives and children (If they only knew how quickly I’d sell out gay causes if they worked against my kids, I’d never be invited anywhere :-)). But it makes perfect sense to me to give up pieces of yourself for them, and be floored if you loose them in the slightest if your orientation can't be ignored. I worry some in the gay community can treat these connections far too callously and casually, just as the anti-gay movement has done to our families and unions for decades. Sad how that happens.

8. -- Others?

Anyway, maybe when our radical activists are at their impasses, we married gay men have the best hope of finding the common ground.