Posted by:
Tal Bachman
(
)
Date: May 27, 2013 02:51PM
Hi Gay Mormons
I can't even imagine how wrenching it must be to try to reconcile your faith in Mormonism with homosexual feelings. And for what it's worth, while I've never had that experience, I sincerely sympathize with you.
My note here today is intended to try to help you get out of that terrible bind. I realize it might be presumptuous of me to even write it, not being Mormon anymore, or gay; but who knows - maybe something in here might help someone. You never know.
It seems to me that the crux of the struggle here is the brute contradiction between faith in a religion which teaches that homosexual activity - the natural expression of your sexual identity - is sinful, and disqualifies you from full participation, with your conviction that Mormonism is true.
In trying to resolve that contradictions, some Mormon homosexuals have essentially declared war on themselves, trying to make themselves straight. But...that is a cruel and losing battle, isn't it?
Other folks just live with the contradiction. That also can't be an optimal choice.
A third option has become very popular: pressuring the church to allow practicing gays full membership privileges. In fact, that option has become so popular, that anyone declining to support that movement looks like a very bad egg, maybe even a bigot.
But in fact, I do decline to support that effort, and as counter-intuitive as it might seem, I think you should, too. Here's why:
To pressure the Mormon church to change its policies on practicing homosexuals is to, in a roundabout but real way, continue to grant it a legitimacy which it does not have, can make no claim to, and which it should not be granted. Its total lack of legitimacy as a "divinely inspired religious organization", let alone "the one true religion in the universe", is the real point - not whatever its current policies might be at any given moment.
Let me put that lack of legitimacy in other words:
*The LDS church is not what it claims to be*.
*Joseph Smith invented his stories*.
*The Book of Mormon was not "translated" by some guy staring through magical decoding lenses attached to "an ancient breastplate", reading the (non-existent) language of "reformed Egyptian"*.
Are you hearing me? *The Mormon Church is a fraud*, founded by a charlatan - you know, like the Scientologists or the Moonies. It's invented, my friends. Completely invented. That is the point - and in the end, the only real point. It deserves to be granted no legitimacy, not even in a roundabout way...so why grant it?
My respectful suggestion to all those struggling with the contradiction between homosexual identity and faith in Mormonism is to, first, take a deep breath and get some clarity on whether you are the kind of person who wants to live in the light of truth or the darkness of lies and superstition; and then, to take a further step back to re-consider whether Mormonism could really possibly be what it claims (I recommend starting with the book "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins" by Grant Palmer).
And if - or maybe I should say, once - you conclude that the Mormon Church cannot possibly be what it claims...you will feel sorrow, but that terrible inner contradiction will vanish, and you will find yourself free to be what you are: gay, bi, straight, everything in between, all the way to celibacy.
And in that moment, you will no longer care about what sorts of sexual policies crabbed control-freak, octogenerian religious bureaucrats come up with. You won't be in that weird little Mormon box anymore. You will be outside it, seeing for what it is - something imaginary, which only had power insofar as you granted it power, like a "boogie man" who you think is in your closet, the fear of which keeps you and your little brother frozen in your bed at night.
To me, trying to pressure a completely illegitimate church to change its policies is like trying to get the boogie man to yelp out a different howl, rather than standing up, turning the closet light on, and exposing the "boogie man" for what he is: your older brother with a sheet over his head trying to control you by pretending to be something he's not. That's why I'm suggesting that a far sounder approach would be to focus on living our lives in the light of truth, and shining that truth wherever there is darkness - like, at church headquarters.
Besides, who seriously thinks that Monson - a true airhead probably not even deep enough to understand what the problem might be - is going to order a 180 on gay membership? And who thinks the angry Packer - who himself seems quite a lot like a self-loathing, repressed homosexual - is going to order the 180? While you're writing letters to 90 year old repressed homosexual cynical liars like Boyd Packer, essentially begging him to change a policy held by a religion which isn't even true, you could be living YOUR life and sharing *your* light with hundreds, maybe thousands, of other young Mormons, helping them avoid the struggles you had. You could do this by sharing the results of your church research, or your personal experiences, on blogs, websites, circular emails, podcasts, guest editorials in newspapers, etc. Stop begging these vainglorious frauds in Mr. Mac suits to let you into their sick little club. The whole thing's a fraud, and you're better than that. These people don't deserve your pleas. They don't deserve anything other than the pure light of truth shining right at them, so that all may see them for what they are, and more importantly, what they are not.
Of course, this is just my two hundred cents, and I apologize again for any presumptuousness...I just hate seeing sincere, but still misguided people pleading with these doddering frauds to give them something it is not even in their power, in the end, to take away from the pleaders, save with their permission; and it's especially hard to see this, when Mormon leaders most likely will never even make those changes anyway.
Stop begging; start living your life boldly in the light of truth; and start shining that light on Mormonism; and maybe one day, we, or our kids, won't be debating the exact nature of their policies so much as expressing surprise by how insignificant that dwindling little church has become from when we were youngsters...
Just my two cents.
Tal