Happy Hear Year! It’s been a while since I’ve written to you all. I hope this reaches you doing well and keeping on track with your New Year’s Resolutions. I didn’t make any this year, so I guess I get to avoid that traditional disappointment. But, that has been replaced by other levels of disappointment for me lately, particularly with the church and its continued treatment towards sexual orientation and gender identity minorities within the church and the greater community.
I think it’s only fair that I set a precedent about my remarks and the perspective that I have nowadays. I don’t identify as Mormon anymore – culturally or spiritually. Over the course of these past several years, as I’ve realized the degree of incompatibility between being a practicing homosexual is with Mormon theology, I’ve decided to separate that from what I can change versus that which I can’t. I have complete control over who and what I associate myself with, and separating myself from the Mormon Church has enabled me to forge new directions in my life, be happy, and actually make decisions based on my interaction with this world and not on what some ancient, mythological text prescribes for me.
I now have a more atheistic and pragmatic view of the world. I don’t claim to know any one particular aspect of religion or God is true, or even untrue. I’ve done my own studying and pondering on the LDS church and religions as a whole through discussions, publications and opinion on others. I’ve sat up on friends’ couches talking into the wee hours of the night, talking about their experiences growing up Roman Catholic, Episcopalian (the conservative-edition), and how their churches claim the same stakes Mormons do – the one, true church with the most complete understanding of God’s will and intent.
Surely the Mormon Church isn’t the first to lay claim such authority. Such claims of absolute authority cannot pass rational thought or reason. I mean, if it’s merely a contest of who’s been around the longest, the Mormons would practically come in last place, since they’ve only been around for less than 200 years. But as most of us know, the Mormons have sure done a good job of turning up the level of crazy over those short 200 years. In any case, I digress a bit, but at least you have some more understanding of the lens in which I view the church, religion and the world with these days.
So, I heard that Jay E. Jensen made the following remark during a CES Devotional on the 8th of this month. He reportedly said, “the adversary seeks to deorganize [sic] and to destroy, especially families, as evidenced today by abortion, divorce, and same-gender marriage.” That’s right, gay marriage is going to destroy families, along with abortion and divorce. When I saw this quote, I just had to go and see this for myself, but conveniently lds.org does not have the print edition of this talk available at the time I wrote this, and I just couldn’t stomach the idea of watching the video broadcast. So if that quote is factually inaccurate, I will stand corrected.
However, this is practically what the church leaders have been saying for decades. We may as well prepare for the end of life as we know it if gay marriage is legalized. Giant cracks will form in the ground. Planes will just drop out of the sky for no reason. And perhaps it will literally rain fire from the clouds. Never mind that it is now legal in 6 states in the United States plus the District of Columbia, and legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa and Sweden. It’s been that way for a while now, and my flights home on January 1st stayed in the air for the appropriate amount of time and were quite pleasant.
OK, I’m being quite flippant with those examples, but perhaps you get my point. If you need more examples of how evil gay people are according to the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I will be happy to provide you with several examples. Please contact me directly or leave a comment.
I don’t buy into this idea that allowing gay people to marry is going to destroy civilization. So far it hasn’t, and it isn’t going to anytime soon. But each time these bigots get up on their bully pulpits and spew their bile in the disguise of religious council, there are several questions that I would like to ask them. Truthfully there are no answers, but if their claims are to be true, surely they must be able to answer them:
- What exactly is the threat that exists to society if gays are allowed to be married?
- If marriage is the means to which children are brought into this world and raised, should infertile people or those who have decidedly chosen not to have children also be prevented from marrying?
- What will change about your marriage to your current spouse if two men or women get married to each other? Will you suddenly love your wife/husband less or feel that your marriage means nothing to you anymore?
- Are you aware that two people can be legally married without setting foot on religious property or having any clergy involved in the ceremony?
Eventually it would be nice if these bigots would stop blaming gays, abortion or other people’s divorces for the so-called downfall of society. Rick Santorum has built a political career of making extremely hateful comments that are at a level beyond comprehension. If you are unfamiliar with what he’s said, spend a little time on the internet searching for articles related to him; I’ll spare you the details. But, why is it that people continue to enable bigots like Santorum? To me, the answer is clear: religious intolerance, such as that demonstrated by Mr. Jensen or Boyd K. Packer, Dallin Oaks, and several others have given them all authority to hate and pass judgment without hesitation. They think it is perfectly acceptable because they’ve positioned themselves as the most holy of men on the planet. Therefore, they must be the most correct.
I don’t buy it. I haven’t bought it for several years now. Anyone who has a claim on the absolute truth (or even the greatest amount of truth) is operating under a cloud of delusion so thick they wouldn’t be able to see their own hand if it were right in front of their face. And, they are equally as blind to the damage that causes around them: gay people killing themselves due to modern-day torture at the hands of bullies; transgender people chased out of bathrooms, or kids being thrown out of their homes and into a life on the streets, reduced to begging for spare change, eating out of dumpsters and possibly selling themselves for drugs or alcohol … we have an academic level (and some, a practiced level) knowledge about what this does to people. But, those who preach this vile hate don’t give a two-shilling shit about what happens to any of these “lesser” people. To them, every gay kid that kills himself or is kicked out of his or her home is pure collateral damage to the greater, eternal plan. They have no answers to the questions I proposed earlier, because they want to continue to feel superior in their position and justify their prejudices. What’s even more disgusting is that the politicians do it for the right dollar figure. They’re whores! They’d sell their own mother’s soul down the river if it got them an extra million bucks for their re-election effort. And, you shouldn’t buy it either.
How quickly Mormons forget that not long ago they were on the side of the oppressed. In fact, it was so bad for them they felt the only choice was to flee the United States and head to the Utah Territory, outside the official borders at the time. It started not long after Missouri Executive Order 44, the extermination order. In the order, it was cited Mormons “attitude of open and avowed defiance of the laws,” and they should be “treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or drive from the state if necessary for the public peace – their outrages are beyond all description.” Yet today, they make a very similar argument against gay people: we will destroy families with same-sex marriage. Remember? The victim has now become the oppressor in this case. But don’t point this out because they don’t want to be reminded of such terrible times in their own history – they are very defensive about being reminded of how they were perceived due to their practice of polygamy and the reasons why it was practiced. But I’m not going to get into that here. Just know, they were once also an oppressed people for what could be considered strange practices. You’d think we would have a touch more sympathy from Mormons in general. But, we don’t. Quite the opposite, in fact.
People like this are offensive to me, religious or otherwise, and they should be to you as well. They practice exactly the opposite that Jesus Christ taught in the New Testament. The behavior is decidedly un-Christian – even the simple, great principle of “Love thy neighbor” (Matthew 19:19) is cast aside for a more popular belief. The best illustration of this was spoken by political commentator Bill Maher on one of his “Real Time” episodes: “Martin Luther King gets to call himself a Christian, because actually practiced loving his enemies.” He continues, “But, if you rejoice in revenge, torture and war … you cannot say you’re a follower of the guy who explicitly said love your enemies and do good to those who hate you” (ref. Matthew 5:44).
I would ask that you consider your sources when listening to talks such as Jensen’s, or anytime Packer or Oaks get up and spew hate from any pulpit. Be wary of politicians who talk in circles or change subjects to confuse those around you. Know that you are a good person, exactly the way you are. You can pursuit happiness as promised in happier parts of the scriptures (if that’s what you believe), and you can have a wonderful, fulfilling life without the constraints of those around you who would otherwise seek to take your liberty and choices away from you. Take off the blinders that others would thrust upon you. Seek to live an authentic life in 2012. Know there are people out there who will accept you unconditionally for who you are; where being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is the least alarming thing you could possibly say. Hopefully I will get to see you again at the conference in Seattle this October, or even possibly before. Here’s to a happy and healthy start to the year. 