Disavowing Family: The LDS Church, Gay Marriage and the Sins of the Fathers

My definition and appreciation of what a family truly is has changed immeasurably since I formally resigned my membership in the LDS Church four years ago. For the better. 

I now enjoy far richer relationships with my children than I ever thought possible when I was an active Mormon. The bonds that we share are not based on rituals and rote teachings but on genuine relationships characterized by unconditional love, acceptance and respect.

Unfortunately, the Mormon Church persists in insisting that was is genuine is artificial and that what is artificial is authentic. Yesterday, news broke that the Church is instituting a new policy that denies its rites and rituals to children of same-sex parents. 

I was immediately reminded of how I felt upon learning that my former stake president had told my daughter, in the middle of a temple recommend interview in advance of her upcoming marriage, that she could love me (even though I am gay), but she could not act on that love by supporting me in any way. In other words, she had been told something similar to what the Church tells gay people: "It's okay that you're gay. But you cannot act upon *it*." And what is "it"? Love.

My children are directly effected by this new policy. Though half of them have already left the LDS Church, our four younger children are still taken to church by their mother, and I have an adult son who remains active in the Church. If that son decides to go on a mission, he will now - in the language of the new policy - need to "specifically disavow the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage," and his request to serve will then have to be approved by the First Presidency of the Church. In other words, he will have to denounce me and my husband Mark and will be stigmatized, not because of his own actions, but because of mine. 

In Biblical terms, the sins of the father will be visited upon the children.

The same will be true of my younger children should they remain in the Church and wish in the future to receive what faithful LDS believe are ordinances necessary for salvation.

How sad is it that children be forced to pay the consequences of what the Church deems to be a parent's sin? I am past anger. I am even past disillusionment. I am just sad for what the Church continues to do to families. I am sad that it continues to disavow and turn its back on love. I am sad for my son, and I am sad for the pain that this new policy has already caused my other adult children (and you, too, Nathan). To them I say, carry on in love. Follow your path. Live your truth. Be proud of who you are. I love you.

Christmas at the Broom-Koepke Household

Tuesday night was magical. This past Christmas was the "best" ever. Of my whole life. All ten of my children and all of my three grandchildren were in town for Christmas, and nine of them were at our family Christmas party on Tuesday night. I had not celebrated Christmas with one of my children for four years and another for five years. I won't go into all the details, but I'll simply say, "Believe in Christmas Magic," for I experienced it this past week, especially Tuesday night.

All these photos were taken by our daughters, Rachel and Hannah

Our son Adam painted an oil painting - his first - based on a picture of Mark and me riding up to the Col de la Croix de Fer in the French Alps.

The Great Canadian American Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays about which I have been ambivalent over the years. When I was quite young, the extended Broom family would gather on that day. Then, my grandpa died, my grandmother moved away and then we moved away. We then had Thanksgiving on our own. The last time was in 1970, for my parents separated the following summer.

After that, Thanksgiving was greatly reduced in importance in our family. My father moved to Ohio, and some Thanksgivings, particularly when I was in college, would find me and my little sister on the road to or from Ohio. And so it continued until my mission.

Presbyterian Church in Fort Langley in continuous use since its construction in 1885

My most memorable Thanksgiving was probably the one I experienced while on my mission in France. It had been arranged that my companion and I would travel from Brest to Rennes. Another couple of elders would travel from L'Orient, another city in Brittany, and we would meet the six sisters from Rennes at the chapel there. 

Fortunately, the sister missionaries would be taking care of most of the meal. I would bring a pumpkin pie, and (fortunately, as it turned out) another elder would bring an apple pie.

A few days before Thanksgiving, one of our "investigators" fell out of a second or third story window in his dodgy apartment in an old part of Brest and died. We were contacted and asked to conduct the "funeral." There were two other mourners - Jacqui's sister and another friend. It was raining. Jacqui was buried in a wooden box. We had witnessed the placement of the body in said box. It was one of the most depressing days of my life to that date. 

The pumpkin pie? I decided I would bring a pumpkin pie, even though there was no such thing as canned pumpkin in France or frozen pie shells or even Crisco shortening. I had found a recipe at a member’s house in Nantes that was based on French ingredients, so I decided to give it a try. I didn’t know at the time that one could make a pie crust from butter – all I had ever been exposed to were Crisco crusts – so I went to a market and bought some lard to make the crust. Then I bought a pumpkin to cook up. It was a disaster.  The crust tasted terrible, the pumpkin filling was all stringy and the spices were weird. Like I said, thank goodness for the apple pie from L'Orient.

Out for a walk

Nathan and Hazel

After I came home from my mission, I got married and moved to Vancouver. I learned that Canadians celebrate their Thanksgiving the second weekend in October because - as someone once quipped in a talk in our student ward in Vancouver - "most Canadians don't have much to be grateful for in late November." 

There were extended family get-togethers for Canadian Thanksgiving - as well as other holidays  - during the ten years we lived in Vancouver. And I was grateful for the opportunities these get-togethers presented for our older children to play with cousins and to experience aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-aunts and -uncles, etc. 

But when it came to American Thanksgiving, there was always an element of artificiality. I worked on Thanksgiving. Yes, we could have a turkey dinner in the evening (thankfulness to my former wife for preparing the meal), we could try to "keep the tradition alive" for my children. But it wasn't the same.

Hazel and her daddy, Cary

And that's the message for this year's Thanksgiving. It isn't the same. But yet it is gloriously wonderful. Two gay dads with our son come to celebrate the holiday in Canada with our daughter, her daughter and her husband. It isn't "traditional" in any way. (But who decides what "tradition" is?) But you know what? We get to cut through the crap and simply enjoy a meal together. So what if the side dishes come from Honey-Baked Ham and Whole Foods? So what if we don't use Great-Aunt Betty's dishes? So what? So what? So what?

Hazel wants her bow back from Papa Mark. He's reluctant to give it up.

Forget the Pilgrims and all that crap. Love is love is love. Thanksgiving merely provides the opportunity to share in that love. To bask in the warmth of authenticity.

It was a beautiful day. The Broom-Koepke-Stewart Great Canadian American Thanksgiving.

Our Daughter's Thanksgiving Tribute to Mark

We have a new tradition in our family. Every Sunday morning on weekends the Quads are with us, we walk a couple of blocks down to Sharon's Diner in Holladay to have breakfast. We know our usual waitress by name, and we are recognize as "regulars." It's so nice for the kids to have that experience - of going somewhere where somebody knows your name and where the waitress already knows what you want to drink and what you usually order.

This past Sunday, our daughter Rachel brought her camera along. She is an extremely talented photographer and videographer, and she produced a video about that morning. Out of the simple, she creates meaning and loveliness. She surprised us yesterday by sending a link to the video she had just completed. With her permission, I want to share it with friends, family and whoever else reads this blog.

This is what Rachel wrote in the email containing the link to the video:

"As you know, the song choice is the hardest. Throughout watching the footage, I couldn't help but think of Mark's diagnosis and the good news you just got on Friday. I realized when I watched the footage that the video captured a simple moment: a family going out for breakfast. But I felt like it was so much more. It captured, I think, the love we all feel for Mark, and the sense of 'family' we get from being around him. Hence why I chose the song, even though not all the lyrics apply to him (you'll see what I mean when you see it)"

Here's the video:

Thank you, Rachel.

Person vs. Product; Ritual vs. Relationship

He was so cute. I was pulling out of my parking spot at the grocery store the other day, and I saw a young father carrying his little boy toward their car.*

“Bye,” I heard in a young clear voice. I turned and saw the little boy waving at me, smiling from ear to ear. “Bye,” he exuberantly called. “Bye!” I smiled and waved back. So cute. My own children have done the same thing – waved at total strangers, pure joy on their face, not realizing that their parents would never dream of doing such a thing.

As I turned and saw the man and his son in my rear view mirror, other thoughts came unbidden into my mind. I thought about this beautiful little boy and the hopes and aspirations of his father for him and I wondered – what if this little boy turns out to be gay? How would his father feel about that?  Would the beautiful exuberance I had just witnessed be someday crushed? Would this boy be rejected by his parents?

These thoughts quickly brought others to mind. Assuming this young father to be LDS, I wondered how this little boy would be raised. I wondered if the boy would be raised to go to Primary, to learn the words to “I Hope They Call Me On a Mission,” and “Army of Helaman”; to be a Cub Scout; to be a worthy deacon; to aspire to someday serve a mission; to be taught to believe that being a faithful Church member who “keeps the commandments” and “follows the prophet” represents the summum bonum of life, i.e., the highest good, the singular and most ultimate end which human beings ought to pursue.

I thought how this boy’s parents might sincerely believe that their job in life is to mold and shape this boy, to groom and prepare him for his mission in life, to – as it were – produce a young man who would fulfill all of their dreams as faithful parents in Zion. I wondered if they might teach him – as I once did with my own children – to pray that Heavenly Father would bless him with an opportunity to serve a mission, to get married in the temple to a noble and true companion and to then raise up his own children in light and truth.

My thoughts then came back to my original question: What if this boy is gay? For that matter, what if he’s not? How would this boy’s imagined life be different if, rather than looking at him as a “product” to be “produced,” he was looked upon by his parents as a unique person who had been brought into their lives to be loved and nurtured? To be discovered rather than molded? Whose individuality, mind, heart and spirit would be allowed to blossom and grow? Who would be valued as a person, rather than a product? Who would be loved for who he is, rather than for what he is?

The summum bonum of a Mormon (or any other) parent: Is it to love unconditionally – as God does – or to teach a child from an early age that acceptance and love is conditional upon obedience and conformity? To put it another way, is it to view their child as a person, or as a product?

On a related point, I also pondered, as I had on many occasions, the rituals in the Mormon Church that purport to "seal" children to their parents. As I contemplated resigning my membership in the LDS Church in August 2011, I wondered what effect my resignation would have on these ordinances. I also felt the bonds of the faith I had always had in the temple, and I felt anxious about "breaking" those bonds.

But then, almost immediately, I realized that I was still giving credence to a belief system in which I had lost faith. How deep the roots had sunk in a system that had taught me that my relationships with my children were dependent on rituals, rather than on strong, true and authentic emotions and experiences!

I pondered how I had bought into this system, which encouraged me to subject my relationship with my children to its demands, that taught me to constantly judge my children and myself, that “ritualized” my relationships with them.

How different things would be, I mused, if my had religion emphasized that what “sealed” me to my children were not rituals in a building, but rather feelings of love and acceptance, of validation and caring, of tenderness and devotion.

I did resign my membership in November 2011. From that point, and ever since, I have vowed to seek to love my children all the more purely, without regard to the goals of any organization, not as means to an eternal end, but for the glorious persons whom they are and for the sheer humanity of doing so.  

* This post is based on two posts that were originally published on my Invictus Pilgrim blog (now closed) in August 2011.

Family: It Gets Better

This past weekend, I made a quick trip to Vancouver to visit my daughter Hannah, her husband Cary and their little girl, Hazel. Mark was supposed to accompany me, but he had to stay in Salt Lake for a cancer treatment.

I wrote about recent developments in Mark's cancer 10 days ago. A decision was made shortly thereafter to start Mark on a new therapy that, due to timing considerations, would have to start immediately. It would consist of three treatments, spaced two weeks apart, each treatment consisting of two stages. Mark's first stage of the first treatment was scheduled for last Friday and the second stage was scheduled for the following Monday. We had already booked our flights to Vancouver, so a decision was made that I would go alone, then come back a day earlier than planned so that I could be there for Mark's treatment on Monday. I am happy to say that the procedure went very well with no side effects for Mark.

So, my time with my daughter and her family was short, but oh so sweet. I've thought all week about doing a post about my visit. Then, today, I reread something I had written in my journal during the middle of my divorce. It was one of the low points, but so, so illustrative of that whole process - divorce, me coming out, the effects on our family, etc. 

My lawyer and I were waiting for the second and final mediation in the divorce which resulted in a final agreement between my ex-wife and me and, in due course, the issuance of a divorce decree. I saw my ex-wife and her attorney come in and sit in the opposite corner of the large lobby. After a few minutes, they walked over toward us. 

I had previously expressed to my ex-wife that I thought the personal animus that her homophobic attorney (whom I had dubbed "Mr. Toad," in lieu of another four-letter word that begins with "T" and ends in "D" and rhymes with "bird") had obviously shown toward me was doing her a disservice. So I was surprised, but not too surprised, when he walked up and said (among other things) the following: 

"I have been informed that you think I have a personal dislike of you because of your sexual orientation. That is not true. I feel the same way about you as I would if you had taken up with a woman, leaving your wife and ten children after 25 years of marriage."

Slam. Of all the things that were said to me and about me during our divorce process, that was the vilest - and the most improper, especially coming from a member of the bar. And it was a lie. I did not "leave" my marriage to "take up" with a man. I came out to my ex-wife, unexpectedly, when our marriage was on life support, and she asked for a divorce. There was no man with whom I had "taken up." 

Nevertheless that characterization was propagated in my situation, and it is also unfortunately the type of assumption to which people (especially those who are LDS) leap when they hear of a married man coming out as gay. I thought about this while running the recent series of posts concerning mixed-orientation marriages.

There were many times during those dark days when I wondered how many of my children I would lose. I knew our family would never be the same again, but I couldn't say back then what shape it would take in the future. I hoped it would get better, but I had no assurances then, other than my faith in my children.

But it did get better. Way better. And my recent trip to Vancouver brought that home to me - again. 

My wonderful son-in-law holding Hazel

Most of the foregoing pictures (and all the good ones) were taken by Hannah. It's hard for me to express what I felt as I saw them for the first time and what I have continued to feel as I look at them. They captured so much love - in Hannah, in Hazel, in Cary and in me. And, for me ... well, this is particularly difficult to express. For so much of my life, I have had a negative self-image and I believed so many things that other people told me about myself. These pictures, for me, give the lie to those things. 

My family continues to evolve as my children evolve. I am grateful for each of them. I love each of them. It got better, and it keeps getting better. I am truly a blessed man.