Benefits of being seen

Watch this TED talk. It's fantastic. There are a whole bunch of ideas in this 20 minutes to delve into and dissect and explore. There's one (maybe two) in particular though, that I want to explore in this post. The first is that in order to feel loved by and connected to other people, we have to allow ourselves to be seen. Althought I probably wouldn't have articulated it in this way when I started coming out, I realize now what that gave my coming out momentum was the love and connectedness I began to feel. I've never seen Pleasantville, but I think the movie probably provides a good visual. Everything changes from being in black and white to color. I was pretty much an island before and had a difficult time connecting with very many people. If someone expressed their love to me, I didn't believe it.

That brings me to the other idea I wanted to explore, the idea that those who have a strong sense of feeling loved and belonging have a strong sense of worthiness and vice versa. Worthiness is a word that I believe is used in Mormon culture in a way that has bastardized both it's meaning and many people's sense of self worth. It becomes a tool in creating islands out of people. People who don't feel worthy, have a more difficult time feeling connected to and loved by those around them. I think this is particularly true with gay Mormons.

The church has definitely softened some on the gay issue over the years and become slightly more nuanced in their approach, but there is still a disconnect between what the official church stance is and how it plays out in individual congregations. There's even some level of disconnect at the highest levels on what the stance is, as evidenced by the difference between Packer's recent conference talk and the edits that followed in the published version of his talk and the church's press release that was a response to the HRC's petition.

All of that is beside my point though. My point is that even though the language of the church's stance has changed to say that it isn't a sin to be attracted to the same gender, the reality is that it doesn't necessarily play out that way at the "street level." Some parents and local church leaders still encourage dating and marriage of the opposite sex. Others might not overtly encourage that, but might more covertly do it by encouraging gay members to work on diminishing the attraction or by asking them not to associate with other homosexuals. The official words say that it's not a sin to have a homsexual orientation, but the actions say please pretend like this isn't your reality.

Taking it a step further and tying in the first paragraph, the actions ask gay members to remain hidden and not seen, which in turn actually hinders so many gay members from being able to fully connect with and feel loved by those around them. I realize this isn't every gay members' experience, but I think it's a pattern that has been repeated enough to tell us something is wrong with how we're currently doing things.