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.
I originally wrote the following post in September 2011. I am republishing it today as a tribute to John Dehlin, a courageous man who was a key figure in my life during the year after I came out. I had the opportunity to work with him and others in organizing the first Circling the Wagons conference. He has single-handedly made a huge difference in the way Mormons think of gay and lesbian people, and his work in this regard was recognized by Equality Utah when it named him "Ally of the Year."
He now faces discipline from the Mormon Church for, among other things, publicly supporting marriage equality. It is extremely likely that he will be excommunicated later today. This post is for him and for all those other souls who yearn to be free.
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“When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God.”
How often have we heard a variation of this statement, whether from a fellow members of the LDS Church, from a bishop, in a Gospel Doctrine class, from a stake president, or even in General Conference?
This statement was contained in a ward teacher message published in the June 1945 issue of the Improvement Era (the equivalent of today’s Ensign). It prompted the pastor of the Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City to write a letter to then-President of the Mormon Church, George Albert Smith, which read in part as follows:
Dear President Smith:
It has been one of the great privileges of my life to have lived for the past four years in Salt Lake City, and to have become personally acquainted with many of the leaders of the L.D.S. Church. From them I have learned many things, and the spirit of friendliness which is found in our relationships is a source of unending delight to me. It is because I have found you and the other leaders so very charitable and sympathetic that I make so bold as to write you this letter …
Last June there was delivered to my door a short religious editorial, prepared by one of your leaders, entitled “Sustaining the General Authorities of the Church.” Its message amazed me a great deal, and with the passing of weeks my distur[b]ance became very acute. It might have passed, except that several members of your Church have come to me to discuss the subject …
Permit me to quote the passages which seem to be brought most in question:
“He (Lucifer) wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to ‘do their own thinking’.”
“When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy….”
I do not know who is responsible for this statement, but I am sure it is doing inestimable harm to many who have no other reason to question the integrity of the Church leaders …
Several years ago, when I first became acquainted with the L.D.S. Church, I read extensively in the texts, and there are many passages which may be used to give a better expression to the vision and genius of your Faith. I cite but one, although there are many others which are familiar to you.
Quoting from the Discourses of Brigham Young, as Selected and Arranged by John A. Widtsoe, in the Chapter on “The Priesthood”:
“I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful that they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give their leaders did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whisperings of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not.”
This quotation from Brigham Young is a wonderful passage, and it has been on the basis of such freedom that persons like myself have grown to have a deep feeling of kinship with the L.D.S. Church. It is in keeping with the high traditions of my Unitarian background that the gains made by my fellow workers are seen as gains for us all. It is a source of regret to all of us when one stone is discovered to bar the way to deeper faith within any soul.
With an assurance of my continued good-will and friendliness,
Most cordially yours,
J. Raymond Cope
President George Albert Smith, in response to this letter, wrote the following:
My Dear Dr. Cope:
I have read with interest and deep concern your letter of November 16, 1945, in which you make special comment on “a short religious editorial prepared by one of our leaders entitled “Sustaining the General Authorities of the Church.” You say that you read the message with amazement, and that you have since been disturbed because of its effect upon members of the Church.
I am gratified with the spirit of friendliness that pervades your letter, and thank you for having taken the time to write to me.
The leaflet to which you refer, and from which you quote in your letter, was not “prepared” by “one of our leaders.” However, one or more of them inadvertently permitted the paragraph to pass uncensored. By their so doing, not a few members of the Church have been upset in their feelings, and General Authorities have been embarrassed.
I am pleased to assure you that you are right in your attitude that the passage quoted does not express the true position of the Church. Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church, which is that every individual must obtain for himself a testimony of the truth of the Gospel, must, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, work out his own salvation, and is personally responsible to His Maker for his individual acts. The Lord Himself does not attempt coercion in His desire and effort to give peace and salvation to His children. He gives the principles of life and true progress, but leaves every person free to choose or to reject His teachings. This plan the Authorities of the Church try to follow.
The Prophet Joseph Smith once said: “I want liberty of thinking and believing as I please.” This liberty he and his successors in the leadership of the Church have granted to every other member thereof.
On one occasion in answer to the question by a prominent visitor how he governed his people, the Prophet answered: “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.”
Again, as recorded in the History of the Church (Volume 5, page 498) Joseph Smith said further: “If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.”
I cite these few quotations, from many that might be given, merely to confirm your good and true opinion that the Church gives to every man his free agency, and admonishes him always to use the reason and good judgment with which God has blessed him.
In the advocacy of this principle leaders of the Church not only join congregations in singing but quote frequently the following:
“Know this, that every soul is free
To choose his life and what he’ll be,
For this eternal truth is given
That God will force no man to heaven.”
Again I thank you for your manifest friendliness and for your expressed willingness to cooperate in every way to establish good will and harmony among the people with whom we are jointly laboring to bring brotherhood and tolerance.
Faithfully yours,
Geo. Albert Smith
While I appreciate the words of President Smith, which reaffirm some of the supposed bedrock basics of Mormonism, I feel a certain amount of sadness and resignation that the spirit and mindset that resulted in that message being written 66 years ago was alive and well enough in the Church at that time to be so expressed in a Church-wide publication. I feel even more disappointment to know that this same philosophy and mind-set is alive and well and thriving in the Church today – at all levels.
I sometimes wonder whether, in the Church, there is more worship of the “trueness” of the Church than of he who is supposedly the head of it. Have Brigham Young’s worst fears been realized?
It took a woman to acknowledge that homosexuals are human.
There is so, so, so much that could be written about what leaders of the Mormon Church said during the past week about "religious freedom" and (oh yeah, we almost forgot) non-discrimination toward LGBT people. Most of that - at least by me - would be negative. But I'm not going to go there ... much.
The thing that most impressed me about all that has happened in the past week was that it took a woman - Neill Marriott, 2nd Counselor in the General Young Women's Presidency and a member of the Church's Public Affairs Committee - to say what none of the three apostles who were involved could or did say: gay people are real and they have been wronged:
"[The gay rights] movement arose after centuries of ridicule, persecution and even violence against homosexuals. Ultimately, most of society recognized that such treatment was simply wrong, and that such basic human rights as securing a job or a place to live should not depend on a person’s sexual orientation."
Two sentences. Thank you, Sister Marriott, for saying what the men couldn't (or wouldn't) apparently say. Though it is only two sentences in a sea of moralizing, at least you let us into the room.
The LDS Church recently published another anonymously-written essay on its website about Joseph Smith's marriages to girls, currently-married women and other females. The New York Times even ran a front-page (above the fold) story about it. I, along with many other Mormons who tend to be more well-read in Mormon history, was not surprised by anything in the essay. I already knew about it. But it was interesting to read the (few) comments I browsed through in various places in reaction to this publication.
Here, too, I wasn't surprised. That doesn't mean, however, that I was not dismayed and even a bit angry. Why? Because of comments left by people - a lot of whom seemed to be younger - that this was no surprise to them, that they had been taught all this in seminary (wrong) and that it doesn't make any difference. In other words, it's ancient history; move on.
The ignorance of these people is astonishing. And that's what it is: ignorance ... combined with arrogance and willful blindness. Oh, and did I mention revisionism?
I don't really follow Mormon issues all that closely anymore, but what I read reminded me of something that was (and to an extent still is) close to my heart. What is that? The revisionism that has taken place within the Mormon community (and hierarchy) - even within the gay Mormon community - concerning the Church's historic stance on homosexuality.
In this regard, I'd like to republish below a piece I wrote in August of 2012, originally entitled "Apologetics vs. Apology," that addressed this subject.
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“There hasn’t been a major change in doctrine like some people suggest.”
~ Joshua Johanson
Speaking at the recent [8/2012] FAIR conference concerning same-sex attraction
Joshua Johanson is a youngish Mormon who is married to a woman but admits – publicly and loudly – that he “has” “same-sex attraction” (SSA). A couple of days ago, he presented at the annual conference of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR) held in the Salt Lake area.
There is much that could be written about Johanson’s remarks, but I wish to focus on the sentence quoted above and some comments along the same line that Johanson left on a post I published on Main Street Plaza (MSP) over a year ago.
The MSP post generated over 160 comments, many written by Johanson (“An Inner Light”). Again, there is much that could be written about all that he and others expressed on a number of issues relating to Mormonism and homosexuality, but I want to focus in this post on only one: Johanson’s revisionist view of Mormon doctrine concerning homosexuality.
In typical apologist fashion, Johanson goes through an extensive number of rhetorical gyrations in the numerous comments he left on the post (and in his FAIR presentation) in order to advance the position that Church leaders have never condemned homosexuality per se, only the practice of engaging in lustful homosexual sex acts. He argued that Elder Packer’s infamous speeches in the late 70’s (as well as his October 2010 address) were misinterpreted by the men and women who heard and read his remarks. He does this to prove (mainly to himself) that the Church’s position on homosexuality has never changed; it was just misunderstood.
Though I don’t doubt Johanson’s sincerity, I took strong exception to his position, because to me it was revisionism, plain and simple. I summarized my thoughts in the following comment:
"I’m sorry [Peculiar Light], but I have felt a growing, very strong reaction to your comments, which have the effect of minimizing what for generations of Mormon men were deeply significant statements and teachings – teachings that altered their lives; teachings which conveyed that to have same sex attractions was sinful, dirty and (to use Packer’s recent phrase) “impure and unnatural.” I know – I lived through that era. I was there.
"So to read statements such as yours, it’s the height of apologetics: whitewashing. Denial of what really happened; what was really said. It’s deeply disturbing. Do you think that BYU conducted those electric shock therapy sessions because only homosexual *acts* were viewed as wrong? No! They conducted those sessions to try to condition responses to erotic male images. They were trying to kill same-sex attraction in their victims.
"To advance a theory now that the Church didn’t really teach what it did in fact teach, that it was all semantics, minimizes the trauma that countless men went through and are still feeling the effects of. It relieves the Church of responsibility for what it did, and it relieves the modern thinking member of the Church of responsibility for contemplating WHY the “doctrine” has changed so significantly over the past few decades …”
Apologetics vs. apology …
A couple of months ago, I received an e-mail from a guy I know who is about my age, is married (to a woman) and is gay. We have corresponded for well over a year. By way of background, he was raised in the Church, but knew he was gay. He came out for a number of years, but then met a woman with whom he felt he could make a life and “live the Plan of Happiness” (i.e., be a devout heterosexual Mormon). They got married and had children. Now, however, though he loves his wife, he feels somewhat trapped.
“I was cleaning out some old magazines and books,” he wrote, “when I came across an issue of the Ensign dated November 1980 (conference issue). On page 94 there is an article by President Spencer W. Kimball [president of the Church at that time] entitled "President Kimball Speaks Out on Morality." I want to quote some parts.”
This friend then went on to quote extracts of President Kimball’s address. Kimball, though feeble, was president of the Church when I converted to Mormonism. His books, sermons and other writings and pronouncements were extremely influential in my early days and years in the Church, as they were to countless other men of my generation who either were raised in or joined the Church during the 70’s and early 80’s.
Though I was familiar with President Kimball’s teachings, and though I have reviewed many statements about homosexuality made by leaders of the Church over the last 50 years, I do not recall reading this address that my friend referred to in his email. I want to quote from it at length because it so clearly reveals the teachings of the Church regarding homosexuality during this period, teachings which dramatically affected me, my friend and tens of thousands of other young Mormon men (and women).
“The unholy transgression of homosexuality is either rapidly growing or tolerance is giving it wider publicity. If one has such desires and tendencies, he overcomes them the same as if he had the urge toward petting or fornication or adultery. The Lord condemns and forbids this practice with a vigor equal to his condemnation of adultery and other such sex acts. And the Church will excommunicate as readily any unrepentant addict.
“Again, contrary to the belief and statement of many people, this sin, like fornication, is overcomable and forgivable, but again, only upon a deep and abiding repentance, which means total abandonment and complete transformation of thought and act. The fact that some governments and some churches and numerous corrupted individuals have tried to reduce such behavior from criminal offense to personal privilege does not change the nature nor the seriousness of the practice. Good men, wise men, God-fearing men everywhere still denounce the practice as being unworthy of sons and daughters of God; and Christ’s church denounces it and condemns it so long as men and women have bodies which can be defiled …
“This heinous homosexual sin is of the ages. Many cities and civilizations have gone out of existence because of it. It was present in Israel’s wandering days, tolerated by the Greeks, and found in the baths of corrupt Rome.
“This is a most unpleasant subject to dwell upon, but I am pressed to speak of it boldly so that no youth in the Church will ever have any question in his mind as to the illicit and diabolical nature of this perverse program. Again, Lucifer deceives and prompts logic and rationalization which will destroy men and women and make them servants of Satan forever …
“‘God made me that way,’ some say, as they rationalize and excuse themselves for their perversions. ‘I can’t help it,’ they add. This is blasphemy. Is man not made in the image of God, and does he think God to be ‘that way’? Man is responsible for his own sins. It is possible that he may rationalize and excuse himself until the groove is so deep he cannot get out without great difficulty, but this he can do …”
My friend had highlighted numerous objectionable terms used by President Kimball, but if I were to do that, the entire passage would be highlighted.
He continued:
“I could go on. This makes me sick and I started shaking when I read it again for the first time in many years. Is it any wonder so many of us fought with ourselves for so long? Is it any wonder we put on the mask and thought if we acted the way we were told to that eventually we could be cured?
“If the church really wanted to change, really wanted to heal wounds, then they would recant these types of messages and extend an olive branch to the downtrodden. Instead we just get a general "love the sinner but not the sin." Or the equally loving 'hey, you're OK just they way you are, just don't act on it.'
“Anyway, it does make me realize how hard I fought, and why I fought. I wanted to please the prophet, my prophet. In the end I was just betrayed. "I'm sorry" could go a long way towards healing old wounds, but it won't happen.”
He’s right: it won’t happen. Not only that, but it is infuriating to hear Church leaders (and members such as Johanson) soft-pedal rhetoric like that of President Kimball – a man revered within the Church as a prophet, seer and revelator – and Elder Packer and others. At the time of Kimball’s address, Church leaders – both local and general – encouraged young men who “confessed” to homosexual “inclinations” to go ahead and marry (but not to tell their prospective wives anything), claiming that once they did so and experienced heterosexual sex, they’d be cured. Now, apostles of the Church claim that this counsel was never given and that the Church is interested in protecting “the choice daughters of God.” Well, they sure weren’t 30 years ago.
There will be no apology because to do so would be to admit that President Kimball – and many other leaders recognized as prophets – were wrong. And that will never happen.
What apparently will continue to happen, particularly if left unchallenged, is apologistic revisionism.
Certain recent events in my life have turned my thoughts toward the LDS practice of “bearing testimony.”*
My introduction to this principle occurred in my very first missionary discussion when I was investigating the Church. After the missionaries had completed their presentation, they said, “I know these things are true.” I remember thinking at the time, “How do they know these things are true?” And, “What is truth?”
As I got further into the conversion process, I witnessed many more examples of this strange (to me at the time) phenomenon of people “bearing their testimony” about the “truthfulness of the Gospel.”
This struck me as strange because it was foreign to me; I did not grow up in an evangelical tradition in which one “witnessed” about Christ. In fact, the couple of times I had been exposed to this in high school, I was very uncomfortable with it. One of the things about the practice that made me uncomfortable was the unspoken expectation that, once someone else had “testified,” I was supposed to do the same. If I didn’t, there was the (again unspoken) assumption, laid on the table, that there was something wrong with me. Or if they “felt the Spirit,” there was again the assumption that there was something wrong with me if I didn’t feel it, too. (Sound familiar?)
But as I moved deeper into the conversion process and witnessed people bearing their testimonies about the truth of the Book of Mormon, the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, the restoration of the true church, etc., I felt a growing desire to “know” that, too. And as people talked about “feeling the Spirit,” and as I listened to the missionaries and others tell me that I could have my own “witness,” I increasingly found myself wanting to feel what they apparently felt.
Then came my first fast and testimony meeting. I think I had been forewarned that this meeting would be unlike any I had ever attended. They were right. But I took it in stride.
Gaining my testimony was sort of like going out and buying a nice, shiny new car. I was so proud of it, and I wanted to keep it spotless and sparkling, just like it was when I “drove it off the lot.”
Over the years, I learned that individual testimonies were each unique, sort of like automobiles: every car is different, even if they are the same make, model, year, color, etc. For even identical new cars differ slightly, and as they are driven by their new owners, they assume a unique character.
I also learned, frankly, to pretty much dread fast and testimony meetings. And I think I’m probably in pretty good company. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rolled my eyes (and I know you have, too) and/or I leaned forward in my bench, my head in my hands, wishing I were somewhere else – at least most of the time. I learned all about travel-monies, thank-a-monies, child-a-monies, the lectures, the dogmatic exhortations, etc., etc. At it did strike me odd at times how we each spent so much effort in telling each other that the Church is true and telling each other how we should “live the Gospel.”
But there were times when someone would get up and share something authentic about themselves and their life. And I would tune back in (after Sister So-and-So just finished telling us all about her trip to the Sacred Grove). They would talk about how they felt God’s presence in their lives. And it was uplifting.
But, as I have realized recently, the thing that made these anecdotes touching was not that the speakers were bearing “testimony” of anything, but that they were sharing a very human experience. Whether they realized it or not, what such people were really doing was bearing testimony of their own character and resilience in the face of (usually) difficult and challenging experiences. And that is what I found uplifting about their comments.
This is the best side of the practice of bearing testimony. There is, however, a dark side – when testimony is used as a weapon, whether through ignorance, arrogance, a desire to control, or malice.
For example, because missionaries are taught from a young age that they can invite the Spirit to bear testimony of a principle or statement if they themselves do so, many elders and sisters unwittingly (for the most part) think that, if they just bear testimony fervently and often enough, they can “get through” to people. And if people resist, they just need to do it harder.
Unfortunately, arrogance also motivates much testimony-bearing, when the idea behind it is to inform other people that they don’t know what is best for their lives, and if they’d just listen to them – the testimony-bearers – they’d “get” whatever it is that the messengers are trying to tell them.
Another BIG motivation for testimony-bearing in the Church is the desire to control the behavior and beliefs of others. This is quite often seen, unfortunately, in families, as parents use testimony-bearing as a last-ditch attempt to change or control something about the way their children are acting or thinking. It is used rampantly in youth programs through the Church, probably because youth are most susceptible to this.
The darkest side of testimony-bearing, however, is evidenced when the desire to control unites with malice. Unfortunately (I realize I’ve used that word a lot), many gay and lesbian Mormons have been the recipients of this type of testimony-bearing. You know how it goes: people close to you feel they have to “bear down” in “pure testimony” to try to get you to see the error of your ways, to try to convince you that you are a piece of s*it, but that God still loves you and you can “come back,” if only you change.
This is all done, of course, under the pretense of love. “We’re doing this because we love you. Can’t you see that?” But these same people are so busy bearing testimony of their own misunderstandings, prejudices and bigotry that they themselves become “past feeling”: they cannot feel the hurt of those against whom they are testifying; they willfully (whether consciously or not) shut themselves off from even trying to understand how their “loved ones” feel; and they debase us by telling us, and themselves, that we are under the influence of Satan (and therefore just listening to us opens themselves up to his influence as well).
And then, of course, when bearing down in pure testimony doesn’t work, there is nothing left but to shake the dust from their feet – in far too many cases (including my own) – and to leave us to “kick against the pricks.”
Such is the dark side of testimony.
* This post was originally published in August 2012 on my blog, Beyond the Closet Door (now closed). I will periodically repost some of the posts from that blog here.
I left off my last post by describing the angry feelings of betrayal that I experienced after having read Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History. It wasn’t so much that I was reading things I’d never heard of before – although there were more than a few surprises. What Brodie did is look at Joseph Smith’s history and the early history of the institution of the LDS Church (which are pretty much one and the same) from a different perspective. She told the story that chapel Mormons never heard. The other side of the story. And it was pretty compelling.
In early 2012, I read D. Michael Quinn’s two books about Mormon Heirarchy, i.e., Mormon Heirarchy: Origins of Power and Mormon Heirarchy: Extensions of Power. As was the case with Brodie, Quinn revealed a very-well researched and documented account of early Church history that was very different than the one I was accustomed to reading. Also like Brodie, there were more than a few arched eyebrow moments when I read something I’d never heard of before but that was clearly solid history.
Reading these books helped me to shake myself loose from the vestiges of belief I still had. As I expressed in my last post, my problem was that many of the core LDS doctrines – particularly those preached before the Nauvoo period – had made sense to me. The restoration argument was very plausible. The coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the doctrines it taught were plausible. Other doctrines developed by Joseph Smith were not only plausible but were attractive to me.
But as I read, the evidence mounted. And so did my anger.
Anger at the Church for deliberately deceiving its members about who Joseph Smith was and what he did during the 1820’s.
Anger at the Church for deliberately and consciously advancing one story of how the Book of Mormon was translated while history reveals a different account (the seer stone in the hat method).
Anger at the Church for concealing how early “revelations” were later changed to accommodate evolving doctrinal developments.
Anger at the Church for deliberately glossing over glaring “problems” with the Book of Mormon that were presented to the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve as early as the 1920’s (by B.H. Roberts).
Anger at the Church for deliberately concealing information about Joseph Smith’s evolving doctrine of polygamy that began in the early Kirtland period.
I could go on and on.
It was this evidence and this anger at being duped in so many ways that made it much easier for me to sever the remaining cords of belief in an institution and belief system to which I had given much of my life.
The First Vision? How could I believe in this doctrine if Joseph Smith himself described it in at least four different ways? How could I believe in this doctrine if his family knew nothing about it or about the visitation of Moroni in 1823? Rather, the evidence pointed to the fact that this doctrine, like all of Mormonism, was evolving into something quite different than it had originally been conceived of being.
The Book of Mormon? How could I believe in the divine origin of the Book of Mormon if Joseph Smith himself never preached from it and uttered his thanks to be rid of the last remaining written manuscript when it was put in a time capsule in the Nauvoo House? How could I continue to believe in it when the church that evolved in the 1830’s and early 1840’s bore little resemblance to that described in the Book of Mormon?
Joseph Smith? As the evidence mounted, I found a Joseph Smith emerging that was very different than the one depicted today by the Church. What was I to think of him?
No matter how much some of the “doctrines of the restoration” are appealing, they cannot be divorced from the poisoned well from which they originated. (And let me state that I am not interested in debating the matters I have referenced in this post. The purpose of this post is to tell my story, not to prove it to someone else.)
When I was investigating the Church in 1983, I was once told that “it’s really very simple: if the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Church is what he said it is.” In 2011-2012, I reversed this pithy little statement: If the Book of Mormon is not what it purports to be, then Joseph Smith was not a prophet. Conversely if Joseph Smith was not what he purported to be, then the Book of Mormon is – ultimately – a fraud. In both these cases, if Joseph Smith was not what he purported to be, then the “doctrines” that he advanced were not revelations from God. It’s really very simple.
That’s what I told myself in the spring of 2012. I came to a point where I told myself that I didn’t have all the answers, but I didn’t need all the answers. I knew enough to know that Mormonism is no more “true” than is Methodism, or Presbyterianism, or Catholicism, or any number of other “-isms.” In anything, Mormonism was even “less true,” because, ultimately, it is based on historical lies and deceit. No matter how appealing some of the Church’s doctrines may be, these teachings cannot be separated from the historical context in which they arose.
Thus were any remaining, lingering threads of belief I had in the Mormon Church severed … forever.
In my last post, I described how angry I became when I first started really confronting the early history of the LDS Church in November 2011. This confrontation proved to be crucial in the process of severing all spiritual, emotional and intellectual ties to the Church. What I learned is that LDS doctrines, however appealing, cannot be separated from the historical circumstances in which they arose or were formed.
Appealing doctrines?
Yes. I was an adult convert to the LDS Church, and among the reasons I joined at age 24 was because the doctrine, in the words of Joseph Smith, “tasted good to me.”
In January 2011, when I was beginning the process of coming out, I wrote a post on my Invictus Pilgrim blog that explained how I felt about some of the Church’s doctrines. The following is an edited version of that post, which was entitled “An Expression of the Divine.” I would like to stress that what I wrote almost 3-1/2 years ago was a reflection of where I then was, not where I am today.
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The title of this post comes from a statement written by artist and writer Wes Hempel, with whom I had struck up a correspondence. He had used this phrase in a discussion we were having of President Boyd K. Packer’s recent General Conference remarks. “If homosexuality is not a choice but is instead intrinsic,” Wes wrote, “the inescapable conclusion is that homosexuality is not ‘impure’ or ‘unnatural.’ Rather, it must be just another aspect of God’s creation ... [which] alongside heterosexuality … must be an expression of the divine.”
I would like to use Wes’ words to frame an articulation of some thoughts I have had recently.
I should first of all say that I was not born into the LDS Church. I encountered Mormonism shortly after I graduated from college at a time when I was searching for meaning and direction in my life. I had been raised in the Catholic Church, but had joined a mainline Protestant church when a senior in high school. Later, I had a brief but satisfying affair with the Episcopal Church. By the time I met the missionaries in 1983, I was flirting with going back to the Catholic Church.
In college, I took a number of religion and philosophy courses that both challenged and enriched the belief structure I had been raised with and which I had later added to and modified. I guess you could say that I was somewhat unusual for someone my age, in that I had devoted a lot of thought, time and effort to the study of organized religion in an effort to find my place in the world. So when I was introduced to Mormonism, several of its doctrines strongly appealed to me (not to mention its claim for absolute truth), such as the following:
The Eternal Nature of Man. Unlike any other religion or belief system, Mormonism taught that each human being is an eternal person, that before being clothed in a mortal body, my spirit had existed in a “pre-existent” state and that, furthermore, my spirit had in that state been clothed in a spiritual body. "All spirit is matter,” wrote the Prophet Joseph Smith, “but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes … This spirit element has always existed; it is co-eternal with God.”
Furthermore, Mormonism taught that, prior to being organized by God into my spirit body, the “essence” that is me existed as intelligence. “We know,” wrote Joseph Fielding Smith, “that there is something called intelligence which always existed. It is the real eternal part of man, which was not created nor made. This intelligence combined with the spirit constitutes a spiritual identity or individual.”
The Godlike Nature of Man. Closely connected with the Mormon teaching that we are spirit children of God is the belief that, because of this heritage, we possess attributes of God within our very spirits. “Our spirit birth gave us godlike capabilities,” wrote President Lorenzo Snow. “We were born in the image of God our Father; He begot us like unto Himself. There is the nature of deity in the composition of our spiritual organization; in our spiritual birth our Father transmitted to us the capabilities, powers and faculties which He Himself possessed -- as much so as the child on its mother's bosom possesses, although in an undeveloped state, the faculties, powers, and susceptibilities of its parent.”
The Dual Nature of Mortal Man. Mormonism also simply cut through the Gordian knot when it came to the age-old debate among philosophers as to the true nature of man: was the body merely a corrupting force of our “true” selves, our “spirit”, and thus something to be despised? No, answered Mormonism. We were sent here to this earth so that our spirits could be clothed in a mortal body which the spirit would, during the resurrection, reclaim and which would then be made immortal and glorified to a degree that would bring each of us eternal happiness and joy.
The Purpose of Life. Far from proclaiming mortality to be a vale of tears, Mormon scripture shouted the truth that “Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy”! (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2:29)
The Destiny of Man. Mormonism also rejected the false dichotomy of heaven vs. hell. In a blaze of light and revelation, Joseph Smith’s vision of the degrees of glory, an account of which appears in Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants (Mormon scripture), consigned the traditional Christian view of heaven and hell to the dustbin of history. Except for “sons of perdition” (which I will not address), all will be resurrected and eventually inherit a degree of glory in the eternities that is commensurate with and designed to give ultimate joy to each of God’s children.
These doctrines lie at the heart of what Mormons alternately call “The Restoration”, the “Gospel” or the “Restored Gospel.” Each term refers to truths that Mormons believe are eternal but which had been lost for centuries due to apostasy within the Christian world. These doctrines, among others, are what have led thousands, including myself, to join the Church.
The "Family" Trumps All
These doctrines, however, are given only passing reference in the Church today. To the extent they are considered or referred to, whether “in the trenches” (in ward sacrament meetings or Sunday School lessons) or from the pulpit of General Conference, they typically serve as backdrop to what in my view has become the all-important, all-consuming Doctrine of today’s Church: The Family.
The Church’s emphasis on “the Family” colors and drives every activity in and aspect of the Church, from Family Home Evening to Proposition 8 to the ordinances of the LDS temples. It is this emphasis that, I submit, has led to the Church’s historically harsh position with respect to homosexuality and its involvement with several initiatives to fight gay marriage.
I believe it is also this emphasis, coupled with the Church’s (commendable) emphasis on meeting the temporal needs of God’s children through practical service and humanitarian work, along with its corporate approach to missionary work and temple “work”, that has led to the “pedestrian-ization” of the Gospel, particularly as the Church continues to seek to be accepted into the North American mainstream.
Even though I have become disaffected with orthodox Mormonism and the mainstream church, I still believe in the doctrines I have described above. I still believe that these doctrines are like rich veins of precious philosophical ore, waiting to be explored and mined. I feel this is particularly true with respect to how these doctrines relate to the concept of homosexuality.
I’d like to issue a challenge Mormon thinkers to consider this question: If one is born gay (which I very definitely believe is the case), and if one accepts the premise that homosexuality is not some sort of biological abnormality such as Down Syndrome but rather a reflection of one’s pre-mortal identity (which I believe), then what implications do these postulations have concerning the nature of God, a gay pre-mortal identity (and how such an identity was acquired) and (perhaps most importantly) a post-mortal gay identity?
In the meantime, I wish to simply adopt Wes Hempel’s statement as an expression of my own personal creed: I was born gay, and this is not only a part of my eternal identity, but also an expression of the Divine.
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In my next post, I will explore how confronting the history of the LDS Church and of Joseph Smith allowed me sever any remaining emotional, spiritual or intellectual ties to the Mormon Church.
This is another in a series of posts chronicling my decision to formally resign my membership in the LDS Church and my confrontation with Church history and doctrine that followed my resignation.
I had submitted my letter of resignation. I had formally left the LDS Church, but I knew when I resigned that the Church, or rather a lingering - albeit tattered - belief in the Church, had not left me. As I've written in the previous posts in this series, when I resigned, I still didn't know what I believed about Joseph Smith, about the history of the Church, about the Book of Mormon, about temples, about a number of things.
Leaving Was Not Enough
I was an adult convert to the Church. I had invested 28 years of my life in believing the Mormon Church was what it claimed to be. I found that it was one thing to leave a church that I felt had turned its back on me and in which I could no longer fit; but it was quite another to stop believing in things I had ardently believed, that I had taught my children, of which I had born testimony, that had seemed so rational and so believable for so long. Relinquishing long-held beliefs was far more difficult than mailing a letter to Church headquarters.
For a while after resigning, I thought that I could just leave these beliefs behind. But merely relinquishing them somehow felt like I imagined excommunication would feel like ... in that I hadn't "acted" of my own volition, but had merely "reacted."
Relinquishment wasn't enough. I had to go back and face the beliefs and, if necessary and appropriate, renounce them, thereby paving the way (as it turned out) for healing from what the beliefs had done to me. I say "if necessary and appropriate" because I did not start out with an "agenda." I merely opened my mind, and the result followed of its own accord.
Opening My Mind
In the 28 years that I had been an active member of the LDS Church, I had never allowed myself to read anything that was even remotely "anti-Mormon." Over the years, I had read widely about the history of the Church, about Joseph Smith and about the doctrines of the Church, but all from sources that were sympathetic to the belief that the Church and Joseph Smith were what and whom they purported to be.
I knew a lot about the history of the Church. I'm not trying to be boastful, but merely state a fact. I had read virtually every "friendly" biography of Joseph Smith, including Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling. I had read biographies of almost all of the presidents of the Church as well as many other books about the history of the Church. I had believed the Brethren when they had said that "detractors" from Joseph Smith and "apostates" had been led away to write and speak untruths about Smith and the Church, both during his lifetime and later.
After all, if Joseph Smith really was what he proclaimed himself to be, and what many believed him to be, then it makes a certain amount of sense that many would seek to destroy the Prophet's reputation and cast doubt on his prophetic calling. The same could be said of Brigham Young, Smith's successor as president of the Church. The history of the Church as presented by those friendly to it made sense - in a sort of a way - and I would not entertain any notions that this history was not what it purported to be.
Starting to Read
The first book I picked up after I resigned of which I read parts was Under the Banner of Heaven. Mark had recommended it to me, but I quickly lost interest in the modern-day polygamists described in the book. What I found interesting was its depiction of the history of polygamy in the Mormon world. On 22 November 2011, I made the following entry in my journal:
“I am now reading Under the Banner of Heaven, which is basically about polygamous sects but also goes into the history of the Mormon Church. I thought I knew just about all there was to know about church history, but I read some things yesterday I had never heard of. Needless to say, they challenged my understanding and knowledge of church history. I’m only scratching the surface, I’m sure. I have quite a journey ahead of me.
“As I was thinking about this yesterday, I realized that I would never have ‘gone there’ in the past – even though I considered myself a ‘liberal Mormon,’ [at least intellectually] because it would have been too challenging. I couldn’t afford to shake my testimony – it was the one thing I clung to in order to bring sanity to my life of denial, conflict and shame. Paradoxically, it was also the one thing that tied me to my life of denial, conflict and shame.”
No Man Knows His History
Later in November, I started reading Fawn Brodie's landmark biography of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History. I well remember going into Barnes and Noble and almost feeling like I was purchasing pornography – it was so taboo. Or at least in my mind at that ime.
I had heard of her book, of course; but I had also read Hugh Nibley's rebuttal as well as other negative commentary written by defenders of the Church. It was the typical sort of stuff: slinging mud at the author, but leaving her basic message unchallenged. Brodie, however, was no "anti-Mormon." At the time she initially wrote History, she was a young historian (in the 1940's), but she would later achieve fame and recognition for her landmark biography of Thomas Jefferson.
What I read in Brodie's book infuriated me. I don't know now many times I said to Mark (who is not, nor ever has been, Mormon), "I was so gullible!" Brodie told the other side of the story that had been constantly denigrated by the Church and its various apologists. But she also told the story that was never in the official or friendly accounts because it was too damning. I felt like I had been duped. Mislead. Lied to. And I didn't like it.
This is the third in a series of posts, originally published in the spring of 2013, that chronicle my decision to resign my membership in the Mormon Church and my confrontation with Church history that followed.
It’s amazing, the power that myth has over us. My marriage to my former wife was, as I have previously described, the central myth of my life, in the sense that it gave it meaning, purpose and structure. She and I felt and believed that it was God’s will that we be together, and this belief was supported and sustained by what we viewed as powerful spiritual experiences prior to our marriage. In much the same way as the miracles of the Exodus created and sustained Israel for centuries, even millennia, these pre-marital spiritual experiences were the glue that held our marriage together and gave me the faith to keep moving forward despite considerable obstacles.
I realized as I was writing this post that there were no further powerful spiritual experiences after we married. As is the case with countless other myths, we looked back to those original experiences as definitive, regardless of subsequent circumstances. I also came to realize that had my wife and I married under “normal” circumstances, our marriage would likely have survived only a few years – if that long. We had virtually nothing in common outside of the Church, and then there was the fact that I was gay, trying (honestly, sincerely and desperately) to be heterosexual.
As I have written, the central myth of our "celestialized marriage" was supported, sustained and controlled by another myth, i.e., the truthfulness of Mormonism. I could never allow myself to question the doctrine of Mormonism and thus the truthfulness of the Church, because doing so would threaten this central myth.
So, even though I was deeply unhappy in the Church and there were many things about it that I did not like, I never allowed myself to “go there.” I couldn’t afford to shake my core testimony because it was the one thing I clung to in order to bring sanity and meaning to my life of denial, conflict and shame (as a gay man). Paradoxically, it was also the one thing that shackled me to my life of denial, conflict and shame.
My coming out was the A-bomb that dealt a critical blow to both my testimony and the central myth that had governed over 25 years of my adult life. But though mortally wounded, my internalized belief system in Mormonism clung to life. Though I had lost any belief at all in the divine calling of the Brethren (the highest-ranking leaders of the Church), there were certain things that were very difficult for me to let go of. I frankly didn’t know what I believed with respect to the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. I had no explanations of how both could not be what they purport(ed) to be.
And, not surprisingly, I found my belief in the temple sealing ordinances tenacious. The hold, the power, that the sealing bonds have on Mormons – whether currently practicing or not – is profound. Though there are many aspects of the modern “Mormon Myth,” I would submit that the concept of the eternal family lies at the center of the myth, in that it is the most powerful motivating force of the entire religion. And at the very heart of that center stands the temple, the nexus between mortals and the Gods where the sacred ordinances of eternal family creation are performed.
So as I considered resigning, I was concerned about what effect this action might have on my already strained relationships with my children. Beyond this, I was concerned – at least for a time – about the temple ordinances that had “sealed” my children to me. What effect would my resignation have on those ordinances, I wondered?
But then, almost immediately, I realized that I was still giving credence to a belief system in which I had lost faith. I realized how deeply I had become enmeshed 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 had encouraged me to subject my relationships 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 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.
And so, as the days rolled by in the summer of early fall of 2011, I examined my feelings anew. Why did I want to resign my membership? Because I felt like a hypocrite. Because I was tired of the feeling of looking over my shoulder, of receiving a letter summoning me to a disciplinary council. Because I knew instinctively that I needed to ‘throw off the chains with which I am bound,’ to use a scriptural term.
Beyond all of this, however, was the feeling of actually doing something proactively, rather than waiting for events to force my hand. Even though I still didn’t know what I believed about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, I knew I no longer wanted to be a part of the Church. I knew I needed to sever that tie in order to move on with my life.
And thus in late October 2011, I sat in front of my computer, staring at the blinking cursor. Then I typed the last line of my resignation letter.
“As I am no longer a member, I want my name permanently and completely removed from the membership rolls of the church.”
I printed out the letter, checked it for errors, addressed the envelope and left both lying on my desk. I went outside for some fresh air. The enormity of what I was doing weighed upon me. I felt physically ill. Mark, who was preparing to leave for work, was consoling, comforting and supportive. He gently encouraged me to go ahead and mail the letter right away and get it behind me to put an end to the suffering I was experiencing.
After Mark left, I folded the letter, put it in the envelope, sealed it, and stared at it for a few moments. Then, I got in my car and drove to the post box down the street. I was afraid that if I left it for the mail carrier, I’d change my mind. I got out of the car, walked over to the box, pulled back the lid and dropped the letter in. As soon as I did so, my feelings of nausea and anxiety left. I took two deep breaths, got back in my car and realized as I was driving away that I felt wonderful. I have never, not even for a moment, regretted that decision.
Even so, I still had a lingering belief in the Book of Mormon and in Joseph Smith ... I decided I would simply let this belief lie for the time being. But that was soon to change.
This is the second in a series of posts, originally published in the spring of 2013 that chronicle my decision to resign my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon).
In the months that followed my moving out of the family home, I ambivalated about the Church. Finally, I decided to move my records out of my old family ward (partly to remove myself from the jurisdiction of my former bishop and stake president), and this was a dry run at what would follow several months later. It was a big step for me; whereas my moving out of the family home had marked a physical separation from my wife and children, moving my records demarcated a spiritual separation of sorts.
Such a statement might be difficult for non-LDS readers to comprehend but would, I am sure, be totally understandable to Mormons. Why is this? Two primary reasons. First, because conscious Mormons understand the mystical and myth-ical bond that is created by the sealing ordinances of the Mormon temple, whereby husbands and wives and their children are “sealed” together so that they can be an “eternal family,” i.e., not only a family in this life but in the after-life.
Secondly, if Mormons are anything, they are a record-keeping people. Unlike other churches that sorta kinda keep track of people (in a highly-decentralized, localized fashion) who are baptized, confirmed, etc., the Mormon Church has made a multi-faceted, scientific, highly-centralized discipline out of its record-keeping procedures.
When converts are baptized, a record of their membership in the Church is processed and sent to Salt Lake City. When children are born and blessed, their names are enrolled on the records of the Church; when they are baptized and confirmed – thus officially becoming members of the Church – this is duly noted. When they receive priesthood offices, when they go on missions, when they get married – all these events are duly noted on their membership records. A family’s membership records are the physical (or, these days, the cyber-) manifestation of the mystical sealing power (of the Mormon Temple) that unites them.
In addition, one’s membership record is precisely that. Unlike Catholics or Lutherans or Methodists, for example, who can float from one parish or congregation to another without perhaps ever having to “prove” that they are such, or who can simply fade away if they no longer desire to practice their religion, the Mormon Church keeps tabs on its members. Once inscribed in the Great Book of Mormon Life (which Mormons perceive as being an earthly reflection of the heavenly Book of Life that figures prominently in the Book of Revelation), the name is forever there, unless voluntarily removed through resignation or involuntarily removed through death or excommunication.
Returning to the issue of myth, the hold, the power, that the sealing bonds have on Mormons – whether currently practicing or not – is profound, and I earlier used the term “myth-ical” deliberately, keeping in mind the following definitions of the word “myth”:
" ... a traditional or legendary story … with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature”; “an unproved collective belief that is used to justify a social institution”; “a traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society”; and, “a traditional sacred story, typically revolving around the activities of gods and heroes, which purports to explain a natural phenomenon or cultural practice.”
There are many aspects of the modern “Mormon Myth,” but I would submit that the concept of the eternal family lies at the center of the myth, in that it is the most powerful motivating force of the entire religion. And at the very heart of that center stands the temple, the nexus between mortals and the Gods where the sacred ordinances of eternal family creation are performed.
It was these types of concerns that tugged at me as I prepared to move my records, one more step away from the Mormon idyll. Even though my testimony of the Church’s modern leaders had taken a direct hit, I still felt the mystic chords of myth pulling at me as I took this step, an experience which would be repeated in a few months' time.
I had to go to my new ward to initiate the record transfer, and I knew what that would mean: a visit from my new bishop. Sure enough, he called to make an appointment and came to see me, an experience that I wrote about on my old Invictus Pilgrim blog and republished recently on this blog. He was a good man. He tried to understand, but I could tell he had totally missed the point when, after a two-hour-long discussion (half of which was spent by him trying to get me to admit that I am gay), he asked me how he could help me "get back to the temple." I sighed. I never went back to church.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to formally sever my ties with the Church and all that went with that: membership, priesthood, temple sealings, etc. I thought I could just go inactive. Then I met Mark, and all of that changed. I fell head over heels in love with him, and he with me. I felt that I had found my soul mate. It wasn’t too long before I moved in with him. I was officially “living in sin.” I was also in the middle of what was quickly becoming a very messy divorce. I had to consider the very real possibility that I might be summoned before a disciplinary council ...
I had already decided that if I was summoned to a disciplinary council, I would immediately resign my membership rather than face the indignity of investigation, judgment by people who had absolutely no connection to me, and excommunication. There was no way I would submit myself to that. But I gradually came to feel that, for once in my life, I should be proactive, rather than waiting for external forces to compel me to do something.
Thus, I found myself sitting one late October day in 2011, staring at my computer, feeling sick to my stomach. The cursor blinked. I typed the second sentence of my letter to Church Headquarters:
“I hereby withdraw my consent to being treated as a member and I withdraw my consent to being subject to church rules, policies, beliefs and ‘discipline.’”
I originally published this post on my "Joseph's Journeyings" blog (now closed) over a year ago. I have been thinking about re-posting it for some time, and recent events in the Mormon world - i.e., the possible excommunications of John Dehlin and Kate Kelly - have prompted me to go ahead and republish a series of posts addressing why I left the Mormon Church and why I joined it in the first place.
I met John Dehlin at the first Mormon Stories Conference in Salt Lake in June of 2011, an event that left a deep impression on me while I was trying to figure out how I felt toward the Church. About a month later, over lunch with John at Maddox's in Brigham City, the concept of the first Circling the Wagons Conference was born. Over the following months leading up to the conference, I learned first-hand of John's deep commitment to the Mormon LGBTQ community. I am deeply grateful to John for what he has done for this community and the impact he has had on me personally. Thank you, John.
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As I sat at my desk in October 2011, my laptop in front of me, I felt sick. My chest was constricted, my breath short. I didn’t know what I had expected, but I don’t think I expected this. I was starting to feel nauseous.
This letter is my formal resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, effective immediately.
I had wrestled with this decision for months.
I stared at the screen in front of me, the cursor blinking, reflecting upon the events that had brought me to this point …
Background
I joined the LDS Church in Slidell, Louisiana on May 14, 1983. During the past two years, I have thought deeply about why I joined the Church.
Certainly one of those reasons is that I was gay. I wouldn't have used that word back then. But I knew I was "attracted to men," and I have chosen to use the word "gay" now because I feel I need to affirm who I really was then, and indeed who I was since birth. I was gay. But I wanted a family. I believed the Church when it said homosexuality could be overcome.
A little over a year after my baptism, I entered the MTC to prepare for a mission to France. I was 25 years old at the time; I would turn 26 in my first area. It was while I was in France that I learned that "the gay" cannot be "prayed away." I realized my attraction to men was something I would likely have to deal with my entire life.
I was married to a woman within a year of returning home and set forth on a journey that would see me striving to be a faithful priesthood holder, husband and father. I held many callings along the way, including Elders Quorum President, Young Men's President, Gospel Doctrine Teacher, Executive Secretary and member of the stake high council.
Meanwhile, my former wife and I welcomed six biological children into our family, later to be joined by three children adopted from Russia and a biological surprise, my youngest son. For all the years of my marriage, until shortly before the end (due solely to an inability to pay tithing), I held a temple recommend. Over the years, I researched and submitted over 10,000 names to the temple. I was a faithful member who was striving to do all that was expected of him in order to be a good Mormon.
All of that, however, was about to change.
Inborn Tendencies Toward the Impure and Unnatural
In October 2010, I was blasted out of the closet by a conference address given by President Boyd K. Packer, the second most senior apostle in the LDS Church, the man who would – if he outlived him – succeed President Monson as president of the Church. In the midst of a talk about moral purity, Packer had read the following sentences:
“Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, He is our Heavenly Father.”
As I have written before, hearing these words set off an earthquake inside of me. Strong aftershocks came as I witnessed the uproar that followed his address and read the hateful homophobic comments that rank-and-file members of the Church wrote in social media in “support” of President Packer, such as the following post on the We Support President Packer Facebook Group:
"I love this! People try so hard to make sin acceptable and people are just giving in!!! What is next....crack head rights? Child molestation rights? Drug addict rights??? The only reason why gays fight so hard for 'rights' is because they KNOW it is wrong!!! They are just trying to make it better so they don't feel so guilty! The church is the one thing in this world still pure and we will not bend to silly stupid people getting upset at the truth!"
When the dust settled, I had left the closet forever. I realized that I was no longer willing or even able to repress who I am, that my homosexuality is a fundamental part of who I am as a person, and that I was tired of feeling guilty and dirty about it, and feeling, in President Packer’s words, “impure and unnatural.”
Prophets, Seers and Revelators? Not so much.
But that was not all. I realized that my belief in several key tenets of Mormonism had also been shattered that day. I no longer believed that the leaders of the LDS Church were what they claimed to be – inspired “prophets, seers and revelators” who spoke the mind and will of God. Certainly, I knew that Packer was not inspired because his statements had contradicted not only official Church policy, but also my own personal witness that God accepted and loved me for who I was – a gay man. (Not a man with “same-gender attraction,” but a gay man.)
Belief in this keystone of Mormonism – continuous revelation – was further eroded as I reviewed, in the weeks following Conference, what various leaders of the Church (including and especially President Packer) had said over the years about homosexuality. How could leaders claim to be inspired with respect to homosexuality when the Church’s stance had so obviously softened over the years? And if they are so obviously not inspired when it comes to homosexuality, how could they claim inspiration with respect to other matters?
The next major casualty was the entire “Plan of Salvation” – the Mormon belief structure that surrounds the key questions of life. How could I, as a gay man who has finally accepted and affirmed himself, his sexuality and his identity, possibly continue to accept this structure that treats heterosexual marriage as the ultimate goal of my eternal existence?
Furthermore, how could I possibly accept the insulting and degrading doctrine, voiced by some general authorities of the Church, that I will be miraculously “healed” of my homosexuality in the eternities (if I am “worthy”), much like a child with Down Syndrome or someone born with a physical handicap or deformity?
Beyond all of this, how could I possibly remain active in a religious organization that so obviously stood for much of what I’m not and that would excommunicate me for living the way I’m wired?
In the months that followed, my former wife asked for a divorce, I moved out, and I stopped going to church. I was ambivalent about Mormonism after having joined the LDS Church at age 24 and dedicating the next 28 years of my life to living the Mormon way of life, i.e., the Plan of Happiness (heterosexual marriage and faithful activity in the Church) and the Law of Consecration (devoting one’s entire life to the Church).
The Central Myth
I had never been particularly happy in most of the wards (congregations) of which I had been a member over the course of the previous 27 years - something I didn't really realize until after I left the Church - constantly feeling like I didn’t belong, constantly coming home frustrated from church, wondering why I went; but I had nonetheless clung to the (false) aphorism that the Church is perfect but the members are not. The Gospel is true, but Gospel Doctrine class may very well not be.
I had stayed all those years (I later realized) because the truthfulness of the Gospel was central to the truthfulness of the myth that lay at the heart of my marriage: that God had brought me and my ex-wife together and ordained that we be together not only in this life, but in the eternities. (I would later come to refer to this as my “Celestial Shotgun Marriage,” but that is a subject for another time.)
The point is, I never allowed myself to doubt the truthfulness of the Church because doing so would bring into question the central myth that had brought and sealed my wife and I together, despite our obvious differences, despite the fact that I was gay (marriage would cure me of that), and despite the fact that I detested many things about the Church. These thoughts were reflected in many passages in my journal over the past 18 months, including the following one:
"What kept me in the Church all those years was the mythological foundation of our marriage. The beliefs that we were chosen, special, yoked together by God himself - these are the beliefs I clung to, not a belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet, etc. I needed that myth to be true. It was the central pillar of my life, the thing that gave meaning (or so I thought) to my life. I clung to the Church because it supported that myth, not the other way around."
