the spirituality of gayness

Last week, Kendall was sharing quotes from past LDS general authorities or other leaders on the topic of homosexuality on the Far Between Facebook page.  Some of them were older doozies like this one from Ernest Wilkinson, who was the president of BYU  for twenty years in the 50's and 60's and felt the need to address the topic of homosexuality during a devotional with the student body:

If any of you have this tendency and have not completely abandoned it, may I suggest that you leave the university immediately after this assembly; and if you will be honest enough to let us know the reason, we will voluntarily refund your tuition.  We do not want others on this campus to be contaminated by your presence.  ("Make Honor Your Standard" BYU Speeches of the Year. 1965-1966, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1966, p. 9)

There is also this passage from a talk Boyd K. Packer gave at the priesthood session of conference in October 1976.  You won't find this talk in the online archives of general conference talks though.  Mostly because it is one hot mess:

I repeat, very plainly, physical mischief with another man is forbidden.  It is forbidden by the Lord.  There are some men who entice young men to join them in these immoral acts.  If you are ever approached to participate in anything like that, it is time to vigorously resist.  While I was in a mission on one occasion, a missionary said he had something to confess.  I was very worried because he just could not get himself to tell me what he had done. 

After patient encouragement, he finally blurted out, "I hit my companion." "Oh, is that all," I said in great relief.  "But I floored him," he said.  After learning a little more, my response was, "Well, thanks.  Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way."  I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it.  You must protect yourself.  (The talk in its entirety can be read here.)

The story seems a little incomplete, like Elder Packer is leaving out some details, but it sounds like a missionary punched his companion after he made some unwelcome advances and Elder Packer thanked him for doing so.  I share these quotes just to illustrate how the response to and treatment of homosexuality and homosexuals themselves seems to have largely come from a place of fear and discomfort, at the expense of those who have and do thoughtfully try to find a space for themselves within the religious tradition they were brought up in and love. 

I wish I could just dismiss the quotes above as rare and isolated and from a time when we just didn't understand things the way we do now.  But try telling that to the BYU freshman who after hearing President Wilkinson's talk is afraid to open up to anyone about how he feels for fear of being seen as a contaminating presence on campus and for fear of being asked to leave the school.   Or the teenaged boy listening to Elder Packer in conference suggest that violence is sometimes the answer. If you haven't read the section on homosexuality in The Miracle of Forgiveness, you should check that out (or maybe don't). 

The problem with all of the above is that it takes a while for the culture that builds up around these comments made by these men who wield significant influence to die out or change.  It also doesn't help that comments are still being made and talks are still being given that still seem to come from a place of fear and discomfort.  (see Elder Packer's October 2010 conference talk).

The church's most recent official publication on same sex attraction is God Loveth His Children.  It's definitely much better than what President Kimball had to say in The Miracle of Forgiveness, and a lot of the language used is at least more uplifting and maybe parts of it are even empowering, but then you still get stuff like this:

It is not helpful to flaunt homosexual tendencies or make them the subject of unnecessary observation or discussion.  It is better to choose as friends those who do not publicly display their homosexual feelings.  The careful selection of friends and mentors who lead constructive, righteous lives is one of the most important steps to being productive and virtuous.  Association with those fo the same gender is natural and desirable, so long as you set wise boundaries to avoid improper and unhealthy emotional dependency, which may eventually result in physical and sexual intimacy.  There is moral risk in having so close a relationship with one friend of the same gender that it may lead to vices the Lord has condemned. 

It's slightly better, but it still seems to encourage avoidance of reality.  I'm not even sure what it means to flaunt my homosexual tendencies, or to publicly display my homosexual feelings.  I think early on I took it to mean that I needed to scrub out any part of me that might appear gay.   I realized that by following and buying into what the church taught about homosexuality left me feeling disconnected from self and others and the spirit.  There's this sense of finality to the approach.  Like we know all there is to know on the subject, so everyone fall in line.  We believe in continuing revelation, but somehow that doesn't seem to apply to homosexuality.  I think the first step of continuing revelation is opening myself up to the idea that more revelation is needed.  If I think I know all I need to know, then of course I won't be struck with new ways of perceiving and understanding things.

I much prefer this quote by Hugh B. Brown: We have been blessed with much knowledge by revelation from God which, in some part, the world lacks.  But there is an incomprehensibly greater part of truth that we must yet discover.  Our revealed truth should leave us stricken with the knowledge of how little we really know.  It should never lead to an emotional arrogance based upon the false assumption that we somehow have all the answers - that we in fact have a corner on the truth.  For we do not.

I share all of this because I listened to this fantastic exploration of gender and sexuality on the way to work this morning and it feels so much more open to possibilities and continued understanding.  It feels more empowering and inspiring.  Go ahead.  Listen.

circling the wagons in SLC

This past weekend I attended the "Circling the Wagons" conference in Salt Lake, sponsored by Mormon Stories.  It's gotten quite a bit of coverage in the local Utah media as well as some national media attention: Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune, Religion Dispatches, Towleroad, and Huffington Post.  John Dehlin posted the talk given by Kevin Kloosterman, a current bishop who flew in from Illinois for the conference on his own dime, on the Mormon Stories site.  There was some concern that his remarks were misrepresented in the Salt Lake Tribune article linked above.  I wasn't there for those remarks, but I was present when he bore his testimony at the meeting on Saturday.  I found him to be very sweet and engaging.  He was incredibly brave to do what he did. 

I really enjoyed Carol Lynn Pearson's talk.  She does a terrific job of inspiring and also not being proscriptive about what is the correct path to follow.  She talked about Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey and compared it to the journey of the gay Mormon.  This youtube clip does a pretty good job of explaining the Hero's Journey.  I thought it was incredibly wise of her to tap into a big metaphor that allows itself to be accessible to a broad audience. 



One of the great things about conferences like these is seeing people you don't get to see often enough, meeting people you've been getting to know online and meeting new people altogether.  I got to meet a long lost cousin this weekend.  He contacted me after reading this post about my namesake.  We both are descendents of my great great grandfather, who I am named after.  We descend from different wives though.  Anyway, it was a great surprise to meet him this weekend. 

I also ate some great food while I was there.  If you live in SLC and haven't eaten at Mazza, go there right now.  I also ate at Aristo's for the first time for my friend Dan's birthday on Friday and it was also delicious.

circling the wagons

If you are in Salt Lake City this coming weekend (November 4-6), the Mormon Stories community is hosting a conference for LGBTQ and SGA Mormons.  Go here to register and get more details about what specifically will be happening each day.  There will be presentations by Carol Lynn Pearson, Bill Bradshaw and others.  Whether you are in the process of sorting through the reconciliation of your sexuality with your spirituality for yourself or are a friend or family member wanting to know how to support someone you love, I think there will be some helpful information. 

we were here

WE WERE HERE (trailer) from David Weissman on Vimeo.

Last weekend I saw the documentary We Were Here about the outbreak of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco.  It was a last minute decision to see it and it ended up being an excellent decision.  One, because the director and producer of the film ended up being there for a Q&A afterwards and two, because the film was really fantastic. 

It kind of amazes me that there isn't a whole lot of talk or exploration of the AIDS outbreak in the media nowadays.  Maybe there is and I just haven't seen it, but it seems like it's a story that we're not really talking about or processing.  During the Q&A, the director said that he has many friends who have said they don't want to watch it because they don't want to unearth the immense amount of pain and fear that was so prevalent at the time.  There was one man in the audience who had lived in San Francisco during the outbreak and he commented on how healing it was to watch the film, to have that story given a voice in a very sensitive, thoughtful and respectful way. 

It also occurred to me how much the story of the rise of SF as a gay capital of the US should resonate like crazy with Mormons.  It's the story of a people who were rejected by their families and friends, who left home and gathered in one place where they felt like they could more safely be themselves.  One of the reasons the Mormon pioneers were persecuted was because people were very uncomfortable with the way early Mormons tried to redefine marriage.  (Also, I think one of the guys interviewed for the documentary and who appears in the trailer bears a resemblence to President Monson.)

It's not playing in many cities, but I'm sure you'll eventually be able to get it on Netflix, etc.  Go here to see where and when it's playing and then go see it.

things seen and things to see

my personal epiphany, my revelation

Tuesday was National Coming Out Day.  I haven't been one to make grand sweeping announcements about my sexuality, probably because my experience of coming to terms with my sexuality in the context of my spiritual identity has been a sacred one.  I knew early on, probably mostly subconsciously, that not everyone would appreciate my reasons for accepting and embracing my experience of attraction or my reasons for sharing my truth with others, so at first I only shared with those I loved and trusted.  I think subconsciously I knew I needed to be able to gradually metabolize what I was experiencing in a safe space, cultivating my own comfort and confidence in self, before sharing my experience of who I am with more than just a safe and close circle of friends and family. 

As I stated earlier, that process has been a sacred one.  The amount of love and spirit that has flowed into my life as a result of opening myself up to others has been completely life altering in unexpected ways.  I experienced a lot of fear and self doubt, disconnect from self and others and from God as a result of keeping myself safely concealed in a dark and isolated closet.  I experience my attraction to men as a very real and natural part of myself, certainly not something I chose.  In trying to shut down that part of myself, I didn't realize how much I was disconnecting myself from...myself.  I learned early on not to trust my feelings or my instincts because I quickly observed from the culture I grew up in that what I did feel wasn't appropriate. It quickly became very easy to start doubting any other feelings or instincts I had, and that's where the disconnect from self began.

From there the disconnect spreads from relationship with self to relationships with others.  Life becomes a game of not letting anyone get too close, for fear that they'll discover the secret.  If you're really determined to keep the secret, you distance yourself from anything you might naturally find enjoyment in for fear of it being percieved as "too gay".  No one is able to know the real you because you've become so disconnected from yourself that you don't even know the real you. 

The disconnect from self and from others naturally leads to a disconnect from the spirit or whatever you find speaks truth to your soul.  I believe my relationship with my Father in Heaven is heavily informed by the quality of my relationships with those around me.  Feeling a detachment from self and others naturally leads to feeling a detachment from God and from truth. 

So I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that when I decided to acknowledge and accept and embrace the truth of my existence and lean into the dissonance, that I would feel more connected to self.  More connected to friends and family.  More connected to the beautiful gift of personal revelation.  That incredible gift that helps me understand who I am and what I'm capable of.  The truth is though, that outpouring of the spirit is the opposite of what I expected.  The irony is that I was actually already experiencing the worst case scenario that I thought would follow if I accepted and embraced my sexuality as a God given part of me.  I was already living what I was afraid of.  A disconnect from the divine.  Little did I know of the beauty and love, resonance and rhythm that would flow into my life as a result of embracing what I feared. 

The real beauty of my experience is that it isn't just my own and it certainly doesn't just belong to the homosexual.  It's a narrative that belongs to all of us.  As Jay Michealson quotes Olive Elaine Hannant and Chris Glaser in this absolutely beautiful piece from Religion Dispatches, "Coming out is a personal epiphany, a revelation" "a rite of vulnterability that reveals the sacred in our lives--our worth, our love, our lovemaking, our beloved, our community, our context of meaning, and our God."

pathological altruism

I love this article from the New York Times about pathological altruism.  It reminds me of when I was first called as the ward mission leader in my young single adult ward.  I wasn't too stoked about the calling because I've never been too stoked about missionary work.  If someone approaches me with questions about Mormonism, I'm happy to answer them, but I realize that sometimes it's just an intellectual pursuit on the part of the other person and not necessarily someone shopping for a new religion.  People at work often come to me with their questions about Mormonism because they know I won't consequently try to get them to come to church with me, and they know I won't be offended by their questions.  They also know that I'll be honest with them about things the church does or has done that I don't agree with. 

Anyway, when I was called as ward mission leader, there were two girls who were baptized right around the same time.  The elders were really gunning for a baptism and sort of pushed things through before the girls knew what they were committing to.  They never came back to church after getting baptized. 

There was a concerted effort to bring them back.  Phone calls and texts were made, treats were delivered, surprise visits were made.  They still didn't come back.  At a ward missionary correlation meeting (or whatever they're called) I suggested that maybe we should just leave them alone.  In the real world, if I try to pursue a relationship with another person, be it romantic, platonic or otherwise, if I don't get any kind of a response from the other person (if they seem to be avoiding me), I figure they need some space and I back off.  I couldn't understand why the same shouldn't apply to these girls.  My suggestion wasn't very well received. 

The article I linked to calls it selflessness run amok.  I think it's more like selfishness masquerading as selflessness.  We are certain that what we are doing is in the person's best interests, but we fail to stop and consider how much of what we are doing is to benefit ourselves rather then the person we think we're helping.  Sometimes we're trying to assuage our own guilt, or avoid facing our own doubts, or take your pick of any number of ulterior motives.  The tricky part is that we're not always conscious of our motives.  We can be very good at deceiving ourselves about what our true motives are. 

how to shave your groin

This past weekend I was telling a coworker friend about this documentary:



I meant to email her the link to the above trailer, but I copied and pasted the wrong URL, and instead I sent her this:



She was obviously confused and responded to my email with "How to shave your groin??"  I was embarrased for about two seconds and then I started laughing uncontrollably.  I called to explain to her that I sent her the wrong link and had to leave her a message, but all she got in this voice mail was a bunch of laughing, wheezing and I think I even snorted once. 

I had been watching the groin video just before I pulled up the Tabloid trailer because a friend had posted the following video on Facebook and you know that thing when you watch videos on Youtube and it recommends other videos and maybe it recommends one with a hot shirtless dude in the shower and so you click on it to watch it?  That's what happened.  And then with all these videos up, I grabbed the wrong one to send to my friend. 

discuss this

My friend Christina send me this article from The Atlantic and it got me thinking.  I have to admit, I've never fully felt on board with the whole "born this way"  as an argument for gay rights.  My reservations have mostly come about because I think stating it that way simplifies sexuality into something binary - either you're gay or you're straight - and I don't think that's the way it works.  I suppose that's why the letter Q seems to have found its way into the alphebet soup (LGBT) used to describe those who experience something other than pure heterosexuality (whatever that is).  It makes me wonder what it would be like to have lived 100 years ago when these terms and labels and categories didn't really exist, at least not like they do today.  It's nice be able to categorize and label things, but I think it's too often used as a tool to separate others who aren't like us and see them as less than.  I think all these labels also serve to limit what we can understand about who we are and how we experience our sexuality. 

The author of the article doesn't like the "born this way" argument because she believes that it shouldn't matter whether she was born that way or chose to pursue her attraction to women by having a same sex spouse.  She says that to her, by using that argument, it sounds like we are saying that if I could, I would be different but I can't.  In the end, it shouldn't matter if it's purely genetic or choice or some mix of things we don't yet understand.  People should have the right to be with who they want to be with.  I get that and I agree with her. 

But then I also kind of groan inside, because she talks about how for her it has been a choice.  She seems to experience a much greater degree of fluidity or flexibility in her attractions than I do.  She says she has dated both men and women and has felt and can feel enough attraction to men that she could probably make marriage to a man work.  My groaning comes because I think of the people who will read that who aren't able to see nuance, and who might project her experience onto others (like me) who don't experience the same degree of fluidity or flexibility and say, "See!  It is a choice!"

I enjoyed her brief exploration into how a same sex marriage challenges traditional gender roles and how those roles operate in a heterosexual marriage. There are those who would identify this challenge as a threat to "traditional" marriage.  I think that this challenge provides a helpful contrast though.  I think the differences in the dynamics of a same sex marriage could challenge traditional gender roles in a helpful way that could actually strengthen heterosexual marriage.  (As an sidenote, I think it's entertaining when people feel the need to identify who is the man and who is the woman in same sex relationships.)

What about you?  What do you think about the article?

(Oh, I also found the Homosexuality in Perspective study to be interesting as well.)

the point of power

I'm friends with Eckhart Tolle on Facebook.  Well, maybe I just "liked" him.  Either way, he addresses me as friend in this post from today, so I'm saying we're friends.  Anyway, this is what he had to say today:

Dear Friends,
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said: "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you".  In other words: freedom consists in finding the point of power, which is always in the present moment.  It also means: how you respond to what happens is more important than what happens.
With love
Eckhart

Or as I've said before on here, content doesn't matter, it's how we hold it that does. 

Have you ever made flirty eyes at a complete stranger?  I think you should try it.  I just got back from lunch in the mall and I crossed paths with a cute black man who smiled at me and I smiled back.  We both did the over-the-shoulder glance back after crossing paths and smiled again.  He went down the stairs and was walking a floor below me, but could still see me one level up and the flirty eyes continued.  It might be the perfect way to ease back into a work week after a three day weekend.