No comment from me. What do you think about this? Read Matthew Gong's comments about being the son of an LDS Apostle. And he's gay.

https://m.facebook.com/notes/matthew-gong/birthday-letters-27-28/10158377175735021/

Two statements that are going to cause some friction in the Gong family and with the church:

" The Church’s treatment of LGBTQ people needs to change, and I can’t sit on the sidelines any more."

"My boyfriend calls me an “experience vampire.”

But there maybe a different family dynamic with Asians and their devotion or perspective to religion. If they were from Utah this would be a bigger deal. It wouldn't get said. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the coming years?

So is this guy (Gong) an actual member of the 12? I've never heard of him.

Gerritt Gong is an asshole. We saw in the leaked videos of Q12 meetings that he is servile, obsequious, a tool. Now we know that he has put his apostleship above the needs of his son. There is no way a person can truly love a gay child and remain a senior official in an organization that believes that child is defective and hence damned.

Gong should be ashamed but, like other LDS bureaucrats, he checked his conscience at the door.

Left speechless. The insight is truly monumental. This Matthew Gong. His vantage point of life is 360 degrees now and not the tunnel vision of Mormonism or of anyone else who fit a certain mold.

His story so closely parallels my own I almost feel robbed. Holding your own with that type of family--like my own--takes herculean guts of steel sometimes. I suspect he is too kind about his father. LW is more on target.

I always loved the word qu**r. Couldn't stand the word gay but had to accept it and hated rainbows. Still do.

This that he said peels the bells loudly: "The greatest gift of being qu**r is the necessity to build your own template."

Yes. This is why being gay was the best gift of my life. I ended up being one hundred percent me. Not Mormon me, or, closeted me, or afraid to be me, or some facade. Not caring if anyone likes me, me. My life is my own creation. My life as an extreme outsider that gave me a view so few have.


I will end, Brothers and Sisters, with my favorite quote that came charging to my mind as I read this qu**r son of an apostle's words:

"Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition."
--Florida Scott-Maxwell.

If my child announced that s/he were gay, queer, or a turnip, I would instantaneously sever all connections with any organization that disparaged gay people, queer people, or turnips. There is no more fundamentally moral question than one's allegiance to one's children.

At one point I interacted at some depth with Gerritt Gong; I know fairly well a couple of his family members. Gong is an intelligent and gentle man without the fortitude to be successful in the real world. He was on the fast track to a great career but then got tired and opted for Mormon celebrity.

The members of his family whom I know are arrogant, entitled, bigoted Mormons. One of them, a fairly high-ranking Mormon bureaucrat, is a liar and a cheat with a fragile ego who believes that because he is a good Mormon the ends justify the means.

I can forgive all of that. The world is full of people like them. But I cannot forgive betraying one's child. And once you get past the rationalizations, the "we still love him" equivocations, betrayal is what it is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2019 11:07AM by Lot's Wife.

What you say is why I believe this Matthew is too kind. He is giving his father a pass even as his father fights against his rights and considers himself less than.

They still claim to love us and yet they raise their hand to the square in support of those who want to harm us.

This cannot be reconciled. At the end of my life there is one thing I am sick to death of and it is this:


AGREEING TO DISAGREE.

Eff that. Big time. And that is why I wrote a scathing letter to my Area Seventy brother who never even responded. That is why I don't really enjoy going home. The lukewarm is the worst. Scald me or cool me.

“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”

Sounds like good advice in this case.

Spewing the lukewarm out of your mouth is actually the hardest thing to do.

There is a phrase for it nowadays: "Not bad enough to leave, not good enough to stay."

Sometimes I wished my family had crossed that line that made me feel it was okay to leave them in the dust. In some ways they did and in other ways they showed a lot of love. Leaves you feeling like you are in no man's land with 360 degrees of cliffs all around.

So true. It's sad they think they are so righteous when they are so cruel.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If my child announced that s/he were gay, queer,
> or a turnip, I would instantaneously sever all
> connections with any organization that disparaged
> gay people, queer people, or turnips. There is no
> more fundamentally moral question than one's
> allegiance to one's children.

This is basically (there were other things slipping off his shelf) the reason my very TBM brother resigned from the morg.

They make it impossible to love the whole person. Families can be together forever unless you are gay.

Your brother must be a fine man.

I think so now. I've not been close to any siblings so we are trying to figure this relationship out without the smarmy Mormon contrived bull.

It would be beautiful if this, of all things, were what brought you together again.




ETA: Sometimes there are things in this very difficult life that are pure light, pure serendipity, sparkling diamonds of beauty. I hope this proves to be such.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2019 02:36PM by Lot's Wife.

I hope. We're a totally dysfunctional disconnected family with a matriarch who fought to keep the attention on herself and divide her kids to get it.

I am not gay, the whole experience allowed me to be who I really am. I'm trying to think of words that would explain who I was as a mormon, but my brain is on pain pills. Ha ha ha and it is a senior brain.

But I was shattered definitely. And I came out as my authentic self instead of what they (and not just the church) wanted me to be. I was supposed to fit in a box. One of the reasons I don't get along all that well with my older sister is she tried to keep me in that box all my life. She wouldn't even allow me to talk in church or at school. We had the same friends since they were daughters of my mother's best friend from high school. She'd elbow me or whisper in my ear that they thought I was stupid. She was my bully. I had them at school, too.

Dealing with all that I did, I did have to become strong. Not like I felt strong or feel strong, but it made ME come out. And I am who I am and if others don't like it, too bad.

My life isn't the little family I wanted (like I posted last week). I live a very "interesting" life, a very unconventional life. It fits me well.

You personify fruition.

More of the Gong Show.

Very eloquent.

Here's my question: If Matthew and his boyfriend eventually marry, will his mom and dad show up?

Well that would have Elder Gong in a real pickle, now wouldn't it. I suspect the Lord would need him to be in Africa on the day of the wedding pressing people for tithing.

He could take his cue from what Oaks said---an excerpt from a really sick interview:


PUBLIC AFFAIRS: At what point does showing that love cross the line into inadvertently endorsing behavior? If the son says, ‘Well, if you love me, can I bring my partner to our home to visit? Can we come for holidays?’ How do you balance that against, for example, concern for other children in the home?’


ELDER OAKS: That’s a decision that needs to be made individually by the person responsible, calling upon the Lord for inspiration. I can imagine that in most circumstances the parents would say, ‘Please don’t do that. Don’t put us into that position.’ Surely if there are children in the home who would be influenced by this example, the answer would likely be that. There would also be other factors that would make that the likely answer.
I can also imagine some circumstances in which it might be possible to say, ‘Yes, come, but don’t expect to stay overnight. Don’t expect to be a lengthy house guest. Don’t expect us to take you out and introduce you to our friends, or to deal with you in a public situation that would imply our approval of your “partnership.”

What's an apostle to do?




The thing with this is, it's all well and good for Oaks to say the decision is to be made individually, calling on the lord, but everyone knows a good Mormon will do exactly what Oaks recommends when he says, "I can imagine that in most (read all) circumstances the parens would say . . ." exactly what oaks said because he speaks for the Lord.

Done & done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well that would have Elder Gong in a real pickle,

He needs to ask Bednar about being a pickle in a pickle.