You may
know them as an easy group to hate: the Mormons. And yes, we can all
laugh at their protective underwear, their beliefs that Joe Smith actually found
the tablets in Palmyra, New York, (think that was where), their history of
polygamy. They do, however, some things very well. They work damn hard and did
make the desert bloom; they respond quickly in natural disasters; they take
care of their own.
And their
church is their lifeline. They are, in a sense, still living out that trek from
New York to Nauvoo, Illinois, (another “think that was where”) to Salt Lake
City. Yes, they have arrived, they have made a home, but they haven’t stopped
clinging to one another; the desert mentality of each member being crucial in
the survival of everybody still lives in their psyche. For others, church is
church; for Mormons, church is their life.
Which is
what made it such a compelling story in movies, plays, and fiction. There was Joe Pitt
in Angels in America, there was the movie Latter Days, and now, there
is an upcoming documentary about a Mormon family with a thirteen-year old gay
son. And predictably, Mom goes through shock and disbelief and questioning and
ends, finally, at some kind of acceptance.
Well, that
seemed like something interesting, especially since the mother had gone door to
door in California in 2008 campaigning for Proposition 8.
And speaking of which, was there any truth to the belief that the church was
backing off “defending” traditional marriage?
Having
spent 45 minutes on the church’s new website,
I can tell you—it’s a definite maybe. Mormons and Gays dot Org is the name, and
yes, I’d call it Gays and Mormons, but that’s a quibble. And the church is
quite clear in where it stands:
The
experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The
attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do
not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them.
With love and understanding, the Church reaches out to all God’s children,
including our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
In
the Catholic Church, which teaches the same thing, this is called the “you can
be a bird, but you can’t fly” doctrine. And the site bangs the drum on love,
listen, have compassion, have hope, let’s have a dialogue. Just no screwing.
So then I
had to listen to the Elder Dallin
H. Oaks of the Twelve Apostles on “What needs to change.” Oh, and prepare
yourself for a jolt—the Elder is:
1.
white
2.
elder and
elderly
3.
male
Hey—if
you need to lie down to absorb that, it’s perfectly fine.
He looks,
in fact, like the worst combination of a mix between my old high school
principal and Ike
Eisenhower. And his message? Here it is:
Same gender
attraction presents many issues and questions in society at large. These
include what causes it, whether it is subject to change in kind or degree, and
whether, or the extent of which, laws like marriage should accommodate it. Our
discussion is limited to two related questions we sometimes hear in The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What does our doctrine teach us about how
family members and church members should treat one another when one of their
members is struggling with some of these issues, and how can we help members of
the church who struggle with same-gender attractions, but want to remain active
and fully engaged in the church?
This same
topic was discussed with all of the general authorities of the church in April
of 2012. We will not discuss any of the multitude of other issues and
questions. There is so much we don’t understand about this subject, that we’d
do well to stay close to what we know from the revealed word of God. What we do
know is that the doctrine of the church, that sexual activity should only occur
between a man and a woman who are married, has not changed and is not changing.
But what is changing and what needs to change is to help our own members and
families understand how to deal with same gender attraction.
The church,
you see, got slammed over Proposition 8; the public relations were a disaster.
What had seemed like a conservative but hardworking group ended up looking like
spoilers and haters. And their efforts weren’t inconsiderable: Mother Jones
magazine states
that at the height of the Proposition 8 campaign, there were 77 people
working full time on the issue in Salt Lake City. Oh, and they kicked in 20
million bucks on it, too.
Right, now
on to Ty’s story, from the video
posted on the website:
Well, it
wasn’t an issue for him in high school, because he still had to do his year of
missionary work. But after he got home, it was time to get married, start a
family. And why was it that he didn‘t want to get close, physically, to any of
these girls? Was he gay? He began dating men.
He goes through
several spiritual crises, always ended up with a huge and wonderful revelation:
God is love. Be with Him, stay in the church, let Him into your life. He keeps
struggling and struggling and decides to ask the question, being prepared not
to receive a question. And the question? Is there a family in his future? Must
he go alone through life alone?
Know where
this is going?
We see
pictures of his wife; we see pictures of their home; lastly, we see pictures of
their adorable baby boy.
You’ll know
my reaction. The picture I saw was of a church that had put one of its
children through years of unnecessary, almost capricious, spiritual hell. And
that through the message of Ty’s story—and he’s utterly sincere, by the
way—will put a lot of other gay people through the same ringer.
The
Huffington Post reported
that the church is making connections, reaching out, rethinking. “There’s been
a tectonic shift somewhere,” a church member says. The money—always a good
barometer for measuring the social pressure—for defeating marriage equality
bills is drying up.
I grew up
in a time when homosexuality was illegal, when cops were raiding gay bars, when
it was routine to talk trash about fags and queers. I now deliver food
periodically to my husband’s mother; she strolls into the plaza and reads names
for me. The world has changed. I understand Ty’s longing to have a family, I
came to realize how much I had missed only recently, when I saw Raf’s nephew
matter-of-factly dawdle his daughter on his knee. I stole away and bawled for
the children I’d never known.
I chose a
husband and no kids over a wife and kids. But I think all of us—the Catholic
and Mormon churches as well—need to get here: you can have a husband and
kids.
