Three and a half years ago I was just beginning to leave the comfortable shelter of strict orthodoxy and fall down the rabbit hole of . . . actual church history given by Bushman, et al. In the middle of this process I ran across the It Gets Better video created by USGA at BYU featuring current students bearing their testimonies and describing their experiences being gay and mormon.
For the first time I considered what it would be like growing up gay and mormon from their perspective; I heard the pain and the self-loathing and the confusion and the desperation and I crumbled inside. What a tragedy with no solution. At that time my husband was serving in the bishopric and I tried to talk to him about the video. After an interesting discussion I was able to get him to promise to watch the video one day, at his own discretion.
A few weeks later he returned from an area priesthood leadership training meeting; the General Authorities had been trained over General Conference weekend recently and had been given assignments to return to their areas and train local priesthood leaders that there is no difference between sexual sin. Sexual activity outside of marriage and adultery are all on the same level of seriousness of transgressions whether it was heterosexual or homosexual. The local priesthood leaders were then told that if any of them doesn’t agree, or if their recoil or think that homosexual sin is any worse than heterosexual sin they were to repent – that those feelings were from Satan (to be disgusted by homosexuality). My husband came home from training and was almost bursting at the seams to let me know that I would have loved the training meeting he just got home from. After he told me what they’d been instructed I felt hope; I felt that I could almost shout from the rooftops that “It gets better!”
Seeing how the church’s understanding and treatment of LGBTQ+ issues has evolved over the years [see footnotes 1 & 2] from electroshock therapy at BYU during the 1970s, to believing it wasn’t “real” and counseling gay men that they were confused and once they got married to a woman and had sex they’d realize they weren’t gay, or to the most recent www.mormonsandgays.org website statement that ” individuals do not choose to have such attractions” . . . I hope you’ll forgive me that I’m a little reticent to fully back any current position by any of our leaders on this issue from any time frame, current and past. Especially since my most recent understanding was that the training coming down from Salt Lake City three years ago was that there is no difference in sexual sin.
My current understanding is that we don’t know much about this issue as it relates to the eternities and we certainly don’t understand how the LGBTQ+ experience fits into the Plan of Salvation. Since we believe there are still many great and important things remaining to be revealed pertaining to the Kingdom of God . . . and we don’t know what those things are and if or when they will come . . . I’m hesitant to double down on heteronormativity and retrench and quite literally adopt exclusionary practices at the table of Mormonism.
This past weekend I felt quite literally if I were wrestling with an angel. I care about my friends I’ve made over the last few years who are affected by this new policy. When they hurt, I hurt. In a comment I made on my own facebook page on Friday I said, “I am not interested in your testimony or your justifications or your condemnations or arguments about this policy. The only thing I’m interested in is making sure my LGBTQ+ friends know that I love them, I accept them, and I want them here.” One of my most spiritual experiences I had this past year was manning the Free Hugs booth from Mormons Building Bridges at the Idaho Falls Pride Celebration. It was my privilege to witness the transformation that came over people who had never heard a Mormon say those words to them, I felt like I was watching grace in action. Acceptance is a powerful thing – it is THE most important thing an LGBTQ+ person needs in their life to help safeguard against suicide according to the Family Acceptance Project [3]. I feel at a loss for words of what to say to my friends other than that, so I’ll echo the opening words of the video above:
“I know you expect me to say it gets better; but if I’m going to be authentic, I can’t say that. I don’t know where you are in your life right now; I don’t know what experiences, what pain you’ve gone through. And I don’t know for sure if it will get better.”
But I hope it does. In the last few years there have been a lot of steps by the church that have given me hope. This past weekend has felt like we fell off a cliff. Here’s to hoping that we get back up and start walking again, and that from this vantage point it gets better. If you need to find another “hospital” to help heal from the injuries of the fall; totally understandable. Hopefully one day it will get better and we will be able to trust these words from Pres. Uchtdorf again:
Some might say, “I don’t think I could live up to your standards.”
All the more reason to come! The Church is designed to nourish the imperfect, the struggling, and the exhausted. It is filled with people who desire with all their heart to keep the commandments, even if they haven’t mastered them yet. (Come, Join With Us; Oct 2013 General Conference).
[1] Evolving Views on Homosexuality, Times & Seasons
[2] Timeline of Mormon Thinking About Homosexuality, Rational Faiths
[3] Family Acceptance LDS Booklet, San Francisco State University
Wheat & Tares 
Typically, a hospital is where you heal from injuries, not get hurt over and over again.
And yet, here we are.
The latest spin: New Mormon edict on gays is a ‘policy,’ experts note, and LDS policies ‘come and go’
They may be walking it back.
I saw that headline emphasizing it is a “policy.” To me that’s been obvious from the beginning, so I’ve been baffled at the virulence of its defenders. Would they have been as up in arms telling me to play follow the leader when “Homemaking” was changed to “Enrichment” and then to “Relief Society”? (If so, I’m an apostate because I kind of preferred “Enrichment.”) Was the previous absence of this policy wrong? So why is its presence right? Are the wheat and tares being similarly separated over the policy of annually rotating ward schedules? If so, just burn me already for wishing I could keep the 11:00 block forever.
Policy vs. doctrine and pleading ignornace is how they finally spun backing out of the Ban on Blacks, let’s hope it’s a replay for the Ban on Gay’s Kids! What a bigoted church!!!
Laurel,
Anyone who likes the 11:00 block of church is wrong, morally.
Jackie Biskupski, who will likely become Salt Lake City’s first openly gay mayor, says one of her first goals is to meet with officials from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to discuss new church policies regarding same-sex couples and their children.
There are reports swirling that Elder Perry had blocked this and his death allowed it to go forward. If true (even if it is not, the requirement of unanimity probably indicates the same), that reveals the attitudes of folks like Pres. Uchtdorf, Pres. Eyring and Elder Holland. Very disappointing.
#7 Yes given Packer’s death this policy however it came about undresses Q15 displaying their collective asses.
Steve, I think you may be jumping to conclusions regarding Pres. Uchtdorf, Pres. Eyring and Elder Holland. In Greg Prince’s David O. McKay biography, Elder Hugh B. Brown of the First Presidency was frequently the voice of reason while hardliners Harold B. Lee, Delbert Stapley, and Mark E. Peterson frequently tried to keep racist policies in place. Brown, despite his status in the First Presidency, really had to do some maneuvering to keep Lee, Stapley, an Peterson at bay. It could very well be the case that Uchtdorf is just too junior to keep people like Oaks and Nelson from doing stupid things. Remember that the Q12 president leads when the prophet is incapacitated, and if Monson is suffering greatly from dementia, it could very well be that Oaks and Nelson, as the most senior Q12 are throwing their weight around to implement bad policies, just as Lee overpowered Brown (and Joseph Fielding Smith, who was Pres q12 under McKay.)
Quinn (Extensions of Power) has some interesting quotes about senior Q12 members coercing junior members into abiding their wishes and pretending to have a united front. Remember that in 1969, q12 voted to rescind the black ban, only to have Lee return and rescind the vote. It’s hard to know what’s going on behind the scenes.
I hadn’t heard that Perry quashed some of this stuff, but if true, Perry is sorely missed.
Here is part of a policy statement from the Mormon Mental Health Association:
“These [leaked Handbook of Instructions] changes hold harmful implications for LDS LGBT members and their families. In spite of the ongoing efforts of the LDS church to stop marriage parity since the 1990’s, many LDS LGBT members have tried to stay engaged in the faith of either their religious upbringings or personal conversion. This has been extremely difficult, as the only option the Church has allowed for an LGBT member to be considered ‘worthy’ or ‘righteous’ and fully engaged in religious practice, is sexual and even emotional celibacy. The LDS community has struggled with high rates of suicide and homelessness among their LGBT youth, a long history of reparative therapies where many members have unsuccessfully tried to change their sexual orientation at the cost of emotional wellbeing, mixed-orientation marriages that have a much higher likelihood to end in divorce, closeted members that suffer from the emotional turmoil of secrecy and shame, and high likelihoods of disciplinary actions such as excommunication if a member engages in any ‘LGBT behavior.’ Because of these practices and policies, the LDS Church has not been a safe haven for LGBT members physically, emotionally or spiritually. And now our concern for the emotional well-being of their children and families is largely exacerbated. ”
The full policy statement issued just this week is available at http://www.mormonmentalhealthassoc.org/positions
This is a courageous but necessary statement for them to make. I know the Brethren will not accept any of our reactions, thoughts or experiences with the fallout of their official decisions but I dearly hope they will attend the official professional assessment of the people who will have to deal with the damage they are doing to vulnerable, flesh and blood people.
Thanks, MH for giving me a shred of hope to cling to regarding Uchtdorf. I’ve been reeling from feeling betrayed by him in particular.
Just to back up MH – In my last ward we had a church news reporter in RS. She made it very clear at one point that if two apostles give conflicting statements, the more senior apostle’s statement overrides the junior apostle’s statement. Seniority is a big deal, and I’m not sure being a counselor in the First Presidency would honestly matter when dealing with arguments among the Q12.
Laurel: I too prefer the 11:00 block.
MH and others,
I doubt that someone as senior as President Uchtdorf was overruled by anyone except President Monson. However, I think that he would defer to others if they have superior understanding and expertise in the area.
This leads me to believe that either there is a big problem that we do not see, but that the Q15 judge to be profound enough for this major policy change, or that this is a legal preventative measure. If the second, Elder Oaks could be very persuasive indeed.
Uchtdorf is exactly in the middle (8th) of the current 15 apostles. This list shows Packer, Perry, and Scott, but the order is correct. http://www.ldsfacts.net/apostle1.htm
Oaks and Nelson have been apostles for 31 years each (62 years combined), compared to Uchtdorf’s 11.
Thanks for describing your experience in learning about this policy, Kristine. It follows mine exactly. I felt like we were making progress as a church in accepting LGBT people, and then, as you say so well, we fell off a cliff.