Where I Was During Proposition 8

I was preparing my freshman year of college at BYU. The person I was dating, who brought me into the Church, had just come out to me as gay. If he hadn't told me the truth, there's a good chance we may have actually gotten married, so I felt that loss profoundly.

Moving beyond that was difficult and left me with a lot of unanswered questions of what would happen to him in a larger cosmic sense. He was the first person who made me realize that being gay wasn't a choice because he never would've chosen that for himself.

I felt for the first time that I was encountering something the Church and the Plan of Salvation hadn't prepared me for in any useful way. Every person I went to for help also didn't have answers for my questions, or how to understand God's place in all of this.

When I arrived at BYU, my roommate was a shy wisp of a person from California from old pioneer stock. Her stake had wrangled her into phone banking to track support of Prop 8.

I listened to her get yelled at for hours, watched as it tore away at her spirit.

I had a stronger, if not a more volatile, emotional constitution than her. One day, I asked her to please take a break and let me do it for her. I couldn't watch as the maw of Prop 8 was swallowing her whole.

"No. My leaders gave this to me. I have to do this."

Forever and forever, I will remember how that conversation changed me, the vehement rejection I felt for what I was seeing. What her local leadership in California put her through was violent, abusive, and wrong. No law, public policy, or so-called moral stance was worth that. That was the beginning of the cocktail of cognitive dissonance I've been sipping from ever since. The Church, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't come in any other flavor anymore.

Today, I support full affirmation and unrestricted fellowship for all of our LGBTQIA+ family. I'm waiting for Official Declaration 3. The Church has tried everything else, painting themselves into a similar corner they did with the racist priesthood and temple restrictions. 

Without our LGBTQIA+ folks, the Church has no future worth embracing. It will become a pawn for the religious right to continue enacting violence against innocent people. That's not what Christ would do. Church leadership is in a losing battle to present this situation in any other way to folks like me who were there, who remember how much of a needless and painful waste of resources it was.

Stop Trying to Pray the Gay Away

Rainbow Chair, Maki Yamaguchi

 

God conquering and subduing LGBTQIA+ bodies to force them to be heterosexual and cisgender is not miraculous.

That's why God doesn't do it. It's not because our Heavenly Parents don't care. They don't answer such prayers because they didn't make a mistake in the first place.

The same goes for parents who try to pray various aspects of their children's identities away.

You cannot fix what isn't broken. But you can break a lot of things, including hearts, when you force anyone to be someone they're not.

Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen.

2 Ne. 4:35

God does have the power to help us with our problems, including in miraculous ways. In the language of scripture, we have to learn to "ask not amiss." 

LGBTQ+ folks (including David Archuleta) are people to be loved, not problems to be solved.

Happy Pride to All Those Who Celebrate🏳️‍🌈

My baby sister (who is a grown adult) came out as bisexual this week on Facebook. She announced it by showing off her Pride swag from Starbucks. 

I'm simultaneously proud of her and secretly contemplating re-entering the cesspool of Facebook to destroy anyone who even looks at her wrong. She told me to stop being so overbearingly maternal towards her. She's 27. I'm trying, but I can't help it. She'll always be the Rugrat I fed macaroni and cheese to because no one else was going to do it.

Part of why she feels safe enough to do this now is because she's in a stable environment, surrounded by people who love her unconditionally. That's what every person deserves. This is what any God worth worshiping expects us all to be.

You don't know how to respond when someone comes out to you, especially in your family? Love them first. Love them always. Love them forever.

 

You don't want to feel conflicted about choosing that reaction for the people who matter to you when they come out? Then don't. It's that simple. Don't let anyone else come between you and interfere with that choice. That's not their place. It will never be their place.

 

The Church's appropriate place in this situation is to teach me how to love her the way she needs me to right now, the way Jesus does. That's how they can be supportive of the families God has ordained. Not abuse, condemnation, criticism, or rejection.

 

Anyone telling you to reject or condemn the people you love because of sexual orientation is not your friend. They don't care about you. They care about themselves and what other people think of them. They'd turn on you for a Klondike bar. Mark my words.

 

Anyway. I had rainbows trapped inside of me and had to get them out, or I was gonna explode and get them everywhere. 

 

🌈Happy Pride!🏳️‍🌈

How to Handle Missionaries After Leaving the Church

Former members of the Church. Let's talk about the frustration you feel whenever you find yourselves interacting with missionaries against your will.

Y'all hate when people knock on your door. You hate that your consent to withdraw is never respected. You hate when toxic messaging shows up uninvited.

And yes. You could choose to spread the emotional contagion around by taking those frustrations out on a couple of 18 year old strangers. You could try lashing out at the institution that has hurt you via the person who is now, and will probably always be, powerless to change the situations you're actually mad about.

And I understand the temptation. Believe me. When you've set boundaries, added your name to the ward's Do Not Contact list, or even taken you name off the records of the Church, and you still have missionaries showing up at your house. It's frustrating! Especially when you've done your best to decline politely, communicating with them as an adult by saying "The way you can serve me best right now is making sure you and others at church don't come to see me anymore."

You've done all the right things. But in the endless shuffle of missionaries coming and going, leadership changes, and unit boundary shuffling, they're still showing up.

But let me tell you a secret about being a missionary, from someone who served a mission.

Rather than wasting your energy getting angry at this situation, you could choose to occupy a permanent space in their head instead.

Do you know who haunts me still and keeps me up at night a decade later?

The people who were abused and abandoned by the Church who told me their stories. The ones who made me think, for the first time, "This isn't okay. This shouldn't be happening. They deserve better than this." Those are the moments that made me realize that as long as the Church won't serve everyone, it can't save everyone.

There was a gay man in my first area in Brazil who joined a different church after coming out to his family. We ran into him at a grocery store. We'd seen him before because part of his family was still active. He was a returned missionary. He loved God. He loved being part of a church community. And in the middle of the grocery store, he just started telling us his story.

What became obvious to me is that he never wanted to leave the Church. There was a very real part of him that still wanted to come back.

"How can I be there, being what I am?"

That question is forever carved into the side of my brain.

He did that. He changed my life forever in that moment. That was the first time I really understood what the Church loses, the harm it does, by refusing to affirm our LGBTQ+ community in full fellowship.

I cried myself to sleep that night because I wanted so badly to snap my fingers and make the Church better in this one way, and I just couldn't. There was nothing I could do for him. And he made me realize that in a way I can never deny again.

Because he chose to engage with me as a person, it gave me the opportunity to do the same with him. That interaction has permanently changed who I've become as a member of the Church. For the rest of my life, I'm different now because one former member of the Church chose to tell me his story.

Former members of the Church don't owe those who stay that emotional labor. But if you're in a situation where whatever combination of circumstances has brought missionaries to your door, it's worth remembering you have a choice in how you respond. And who knows? Maybe you have exactly the right message a young Elder or Sister needs to learn, and they can only learn it from you.

Why I'm Still Trying

I've talked quite a bit about how I've arrived on the other side of my crisis of certainty and the fuller embrace of my faith. I don't want to call this a "Why do I stay?" because that implies that I'm physically present on some consistent basis.

It's more like "Why am I still trying?"

The answer may not be profoundly feminist or original. But it's the truth. My husband and I have our own weird little corner of Mormonism that we occupy together. Our own private planet where our beliefs and experiences have a life of their own.

Because of his sense of humor, he's allergic to ever taking anything too seriously. He loves an irreverent joke. His favorite thing is when someone pops off with nonsense in sacrament meeting because he finds it endlessly funny. He goes to church, in part, to laugh at people.

As an uptight overachiever in recovery, I can't express to you how unnaturally this came to me. To me, Church was not for laughing. Church was for doing serious things for serious people who are serious because that is correct. 

So much of what bothers me about the Church experience doesn't phase him because he doesn't care at all about what other people think. I can't express to you how little he cares that there are people at Church who are openly ridiculous in what they say and do. He says to me over and over again, "They aren't why I go." What this means is our shared religious life stays largely between us. Other people aren't a part of it. It's just us, discussing thoughts and ideas together in a shared language of belief.

When institutional Church became unbearable for me to sit through, I still had him and our weird little space together. He didn't withdraw that from me. He didn't try to force orthodoxy on me. He just gave me the space to figure out my own inner world and shared in it with me.

I've seen a lot of cases where Mormonism becomes another thing that pulls a couple apart when one of them chooses to distance themselves from the institutional Church. My husband never did that to me. He didn't let that happen to us. He went through it with me. I'm not the same person I was when we got married. I will probably never be that person again. He didn't view that as some violation of some contract we had. I don't owe him that. Change is part of the messy business of being human. He'd be the first person to tell you that.

I don't want the version of Mormonism that doesn't believe in science or vaccination, endorses insurrection, disrespects women, and turns a blind eye to racism and the torture of LGBTQ+ people. I want the version of Mormonism that exists in my home, where none of that is welcome. I want to inhabit the version of Mormonism that lives in my husband's heart, where respect, equality, and good sense are paramount. Where nobody is ever a second-class citizen, least of all me. 

Why do I believe there is a future in the Church I'm willing to try for? Because I see it, fully embodied, in the person my husband already is, and in the person he's becoming. 

In our home, we don't have to wait for some unknowable future to see it. It's already here.

Lighting the Y on Rainbow Day

Let it be absolutely clear to everyone who is watching the fallout from the Rainbow Day Y Lighting last night.

Brigham Young University cares more about the non-existent harm to a letter in the dirt than the active discrimination of its own LGBTQ+ students.

When Christ taught about cleansing the inner vessel, whited sepulchres full of dead men's bones, and priests and Levites who leave people to die on the side of the road, this is what he was talking about. (Matt. 23:25-27, Luke 10:25-37)

If you can't see that, don't bother calling yourself a Christian.

You may think you know Christ, the man who ate with sinners and publicans before the whole who needed no physician, but make no mistake:

He does not know you. (Matt. 7:21-23, 9:10-13)

What you have done to the least of these, your LGBTQ+ brethren, you have done unto him.

We are not just commanded to love our neighbors, we are commanded to do so with "love unfeigned." (D&C 121:41)

This thing y'all keep doing where you say you love all people, but call police on them for being visible behind their backs? That doesn't make you a disciple. It makes you a liar.

Healing Political Divides within the Church

I'm not saying this post at Segullah on healing political divides withing the Church is wrong. I'm saying it's an incomplete picture of how to achieve what this post author is asking for for failure to acknowledge that there's more to these divisions than a difference of opinion.

"I think LGBTQ people are all going to hell" is not an opinion. "Black people in America are violent thugs who deserve what they get" is not an opinion. They are bigotry, by definition. They are the rejection and devaluing of people for who they are, which inevitably lead to violence.

My inability to get along with people at church because of that bigotry is not a moral failure on my part. My disillusionment and feelings of betrayal at discovering how many people at church feel this way is valid. The problem here is not my refusal to be patient with or accept people who think this way. This isn't a political difference of opinion. Whether or not people deserve respect is not a political difference of opinion. It's a moral failure that requires real institutional action.

A necessary aspect of the unity this post calls for is genuine repentance within the Church, individually and from the institution as a whole. The rejection of old attitudes, the issuance of apologies, and a sincere commitment to changes in behavior. Unity without repentance is unacceptable. Tolerance is not a virtue when there are individuals in our community who are still actively being harmed and we are doing nothing to stop it. 

That's not what being a real Christian looks like.

Also, let's resist the urge—and I would even call it a temptation—to think that these divisions will be easy to heal from.

 

If we ever start to think that, it's because we're oversimplifying the problem and failing to acknowledge how hard trust is to rebuild once it's lost.

#GiveThanks

I'm grateful for my brother-in-law, who is Very Gay and still came to the temple on our wedding day, despite all the emotional complications that come with waiting outside, just because he loves his mother and brother that much. And I am pissed beyond measure that I probably won't get to be there for his wedding because of COVID-19. 

I want to show the same loving, unconditional support to him and his husband he showed to us. But I honestly don't know what to give him that even begins to compare. I don't have anything, no gesture I can even think of to offer, that compares in what that cost him. Nothing in my relationship with him comes at that kind of price for me. 

And I didn't even have the decency to understand that at the time. 

I do now though.

I'm grateful for every person, especially every LGBTQ+ person, who shows up for their family with the dignity and grace that they're so often denied. 

Sometimes, the rest of us are lucky enough to have you, to be changed by your goodness.

 

"If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out"

My LGBTQ+ friends and church family: 

I'm sorry the institution that brought us together continues to reject you, willfully misunderstand you, and persecute you. I'm sorry for your pain. In whatever way it helps, I'm the Church too. There's always room next to me.

And I swear to God, if any of you conservative, follow-the-prophet-off-the-edge-of-a-cliff, don't-say-Mormon-it's-a-slur-now types have something to say about it, I will unhinge the underpinnings of your entire worldview until you're as broken and lost as you've made LGBTQ+ people feel.

My words are so feeble to express the anger in my heart for the people I love, and how sick to death I am of them being hurt by bullies in pews and suits. 

Beware of the evil behind smiling eyes and faces. That's what prophets taught me. 

That's what these policies of exclusion and punishment are.

 

Our Heavenly Parents are not defined or constrained by the smallness and frailty in us. No one can separate them from the love they have for their children. They will love and bless with arms outstretched, unceasingly. This changes nothing in the kind and heart of any God worth worshiping. 

This is what I know to be true. I have felt it testified to me in every interaction I've had with the LGBTQ+ community. 

This prejudice, this refusal to yield to affirmation and acceptance is not of God. This is human fear and failure, pure and simple.

I made covenants to serve God, not men. These policies are the words of men, and they will crumble to dust and be silenced forever when we finally arrived home in Their presence. 

That's the hope and faith I'm leaning on today: that God is great when we are not.

Observations on Intersectionality

I've seen criticism from people that members of the Church who stay don't do enough to confront the harmful treatment of LGBTQ+ folks, both inside and outside of the Church.

Some food for thought who find themselves asking why church members don't do more to improve the situation for LGBTQ+ people.

Most of the people I know, myself included, who care enough to be outraged by the Church's treatment of LGBTQ+ people are women. 

What institutional influence do they imagine women have in the Church that they're not already using on behalf of LGBTQ+ people?

I used to think I could stay and change things. Then I realized the Church is a very big place, with most of the power concentrated in the hands of a very few men. The only thing I could do, the only power afforded to most women, is to reason with people who choose to ignore me.

I don't say this to belittle the struggle with LGBTQ+ members. I say this bluntly because it's true. Women in the Church can't give something they don't have. All we can do is talk to our husbands privately and hope they listen. Just because you don't see these conversations taking place doesn't mean they don't happen. But I cannot stress to you enough how little what we say matters at all. There's no position of strength for us to lift from.

Every woman I've ever seen try has been ostracized, has ultimately left the Church, has been excommunicated, or lives with the ongoing anxiety that they will be.

If you know how to convince the average man in a leadership position to listen and do the right thing, please tell me your secret. I'll go back to church this Sunday and duke it out with my bishop, without hesitation. I've yet to find anything he's listened to me about, but maybe this will be different.

The trouble I'm finding with withdrawing my support completely from the Church (because that is essentially what I've done for now) is it doesn't make anything better for anyone else except for me. 

I was never the one in any danger, so I'm questioning who benefits from my absence.

You want to know where the heart of the average church member is, who has enough of a conscience to mourn and lament over the horrible treatment of LGBTQ+ people? That's pretty much it.

Interestingly, I've never seen anyone ask queer men why they're not doing anything to change the institutional church for disenfranchised women.

But the answer to that is probably because if intersectional institutional change was easy, we'd be doing it together already.

Exploring the New Temple Recommend Interview Questions

Temple recommend interviews are among my least favorite experiences in the Church. I would rather show up early on a Saturday morning and clean toilets than do a temple recommend interview. They make me nervous, I hate the feeling of being judge and scrutinized on elements of my personal life, and I can never wait for them to just be over with. For the overly anxious people who were averse to getting in trouble at school, the experience can feel a lot like getting pulled into the principle's office and interrogated about personal conduct.

I know I'm not alone in that. And there were many ways that these struggles came to the forefront when the new temple recommend questions were released.

When Sustaining Church Leadership is HARD

I recently had a conversation with someone who was having hard time sustaining an individual church leader. It was leaving them in a place where they were unsure of how to proceed, knowing that they have these feelings.

To sustain someone does not mean to agree with or uphold everything a person says or does. It's a commitment to help someone be successful in their service to God and keeping the commandments. Vehemently disagreeing with them when they're out of line is sometimes the only way to actually do that.

If you genuinely believe a church leader can do better in their calling, I don't think that feeling is a problem in and of itself.

If you find yourself genuinely hating that person, wishing harm on them, or no longer believing they've been divinely called, I'd say that's where the line is.

If it were me speaking for myself, I'd probably explain I have no problem with the idea that apostles exist and they're called through the Church by Jesus Christ, since that what the question asks. No where in the question does that mean I have to agree with everything they say and do.  

Even if I found myself in a place where I believe a particular leader is so bad at their calling, much of what they say and do is a reflection of themselves, rather than the office they hold, there's nothing in the temple recommend question that prevents me from holding that view. At that point, sustaining that person can simply mean committing to minimize the harm they might do, while praying for them so they can do better.

If that's the only kind of sustaining someone can provide, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Sometimes, that's all the faith a person has to offer, and no one can ever ask more than that.

Dissent and Disagreement

The questions regarding the teachings, practices, and doctrines of the Church is one that always makes me nervous because I instantly start overthinking it.

Something that has helped me is realizing that this question doesn't ask if I agree with all the leadership the Church has ever had, past or present. 

Rather, it asks if I agree with the Church, and I am the Church. (See 1 Cor. 12) My definition of the Church when answering this question has to include what I think, not just what various individual church leaders think. Which is convenient, because there are plenty of times when church leaders throughout the history of the Church have disagreed and contradicted each other.

If there is room for church leaders to disagree with each other, there certainly has to be room for me when I respectfully disagree with them on various issues.

Familial Conduct

The great thing about openly discussing these questions in a family setting is getting to hear the perspectives of our loved ones in how they approach these questions. It can help us to see them in ways we couldn't on our own.

My husband pointed out that there's absolutely no way to say "yes" to the question about having Christ-like conduct in your family relationships if you've ever kicked an LGBTQ+ kid out of your house.

Because, you know, how can you consider yourself worthy to enter the temple when you hate your own kids? I've never thought of it that way and I'm genuinely obsessed with that now. 

He also reminded me tonight of the time Jesus taught how it would be better for those who harm children to have millstones hung around their necks and to be cast into the sea. I never stopped to think before about that applying to LGBTQ+ kids either, and I'm equally obsessed with that too.

Allyship

As you all can plainly see, I don't put "ally" anywhere on my social media pages. My reasoning for this isn't because I don't want to be one. It's because I don't think that call is up to me.

Being an ally is an individual experience that I would share with each individual BIPOC or LGBTQ+ person. It will look different with each and every person. And with each person, being his/her/their ally is different. I need to treat it like an individual experience.

There are individuals in those communities to whom I will never be an ally. They will never feel safe with me because I'm not who they need. It's not for me to feel rejected by that. The most respectful thing I can do is accept it and move on. 

A black woman who is so tired of white feminism that she just doesn't want any interactions with any white or mixed race women, regardless of their intentions. The best thing I can do there is to respect her space and leave her alone.

An LGBTQ+ person who wants full-time commitment to LGBTQ+ rights from anyone they call an ally in their lives. There's nothing wrong with that person asking for that much, and me recognizing that just isn't me.

Some people have clearly defined who their allies are. It would be absurd for me to go to them and say "I'm your ally" when they've made it clear that I'm not. It's not up to me to make people reinterpret the allies they want to suit my level of engagement and commitment.

So, how do I approach allyship? I do my best to be generally informed about what bad allyship looks like by listening to many different kinds of voices. I listen to what people say they want, make improvements where I can, and self-sort my way into or out of their orbit. I accept that I need to learn, and there is no better time to embrace those lessons than when someone says "you can do better." I may not ultimately turn into the ally they want. But I'll be better than I was when I went into the conversation.

Aspiring to be an ally to everyone, individually, while being mature enough to recognize I won't make the cut for some is what allyship means to me. I'm not perfect, but this is how I try to treat every person who comes across my path.

Seeking, and Not Finding, Healing at Church

There's a tension worth exploring between two ideas about healing I've heard at opposite ends of Mormonism's attendance spectrum:

1. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints, which is Dear Abby's variation of Luke 5:30-31: "they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance."
   
2. You cannot heal in the same environment that made you sick.

How much I believe either statement depends on the nature of the sickness being addressed. Part of what allowed me to ignore so many things for so long in the Church was because I was going in and out of YSA units so fast, it didn't matter if someone bothered me. Chances were great either they would leave or I would. But once I got married, all of that changed. I couldn't bank on another move, another semester removing crappy people and situations from my life. I had to accept that people are who they are, they very seldomly decide to change, and I would have to find a way to live with that.

I've been thinking a lot about the sacrament meeting I went to at the nursing home. The speaker, for all his other faults, pointed out that we come to church to be edified. We go because it's supposed to feed us and help us. If that's not happening, it's a waste of time. It was an acknowledgement that not everyone who comes to church seeking healing ends up finding it.

 
I think I like the analogy of eating together a little better than the idea of labeling people in the congregation as being "sick." Sickness is something that happens against your will, in response to illnesses we can't always see or confront directly.

People at church aren't racist, sexist, and full of malice towards the marginalized because they're "sick." They're like that because they can be, and there's very little that prohibits or punishes that behavior at church. It's a potluck and that's what they choose to bring.

So my way of looking at it is "Am I putting my time and energy to make something that took time, energy, effort, and quality ingredients to this potluck, and the only thing there for me to eat is what I brought?" At that point, that's a crap potluck. Plain and simple.

I can stay at my own house and eat what I was going to bring. Why do I need to go somewhere else to do that? The only answer to that I've come up with so far is "the hope it'll be different this time." When I'm in the mood to let my curiosity override my past experience.     

Listening and Learning in Progressive Mormon Spaces

I realize there are conservative Mormons who engage with me because they're "here to learn and listen." 

Can we talk about what learning and listening does and doesn't look like?

Be Honest with Yourself 

Why are you here? No, really. Why are you seeking out progressive people to talk to? Is it really to challenge your own views? Or to challenge us to arguments whenever you feel like it?

Do you randomly go up to people in the street and start arguments with them? I sincerely hope not. If so, you need to get that looked at. 

If you would never do that in real life, why do you think it's okay to do it online?

If you're here to listen and learn, that means you shouldn't be doing the majority of the talking. You should be observing, taking in, thinking, probing yourself about what you see and hear, not asking people here to do that for you.

Some of you aren't here to "listen and learn." You're here to teach, and I don't remember signing up for your class. And guess what? My platform is my classroom, not yours. You're in my space because I'm allowing you to be in it. But that doesn't make you entitled to my time, space, and energy. You are not entitled to ask me whatever questions you want, whenever you want. 

Why?

Because unlike a professional educator, I'm not being paid to teach you.

Be Genuine

Now, some of you genuinely do want to "listen and learn," but only because you think it'll give you some kind of magic bullet insight to save me from myself and bring me around to your way of thinking.

Take your knight in shining tin foil armor somewhere else.

Some of you show up in conversations with me with this very odd "marketplace of ideas" economy in your own minds, where you think if you're willing to concede to how I think, I am under some obligation to do so in return.

To quote Shakespeare, I will eat your heart in the marketplace. 

If I concede that I'm wrong about something, or that someone else has a better way of thinking, it will be based on the merit of their position and nothing else. Don't expect bad arguments and untenable positions to win friends and influence people.

It's Not About You

If you're going to be here, don't expect the spaces you enter to be about you and serve you and your agenda. If you want that, go to church. Heavens knows you already get that there in ways many of us don't. That's how we ended up in online faith communities. That's why those spaces exist. 

Now, because many of us were once like you, we do make space and allowance for you to make mistakes while you're here. We know you're going to say and do hurtful things here unintentionally that you don't fully understand. We're not perfect, but many of us volunteer to help you in those moments.

If that happens, don't get mad. Say thank you. If this happens, it means someone saw you in that situation and decided to believe in you. They took their time and gave it to you freely to teach you something.

Most people only give you that chance once, so don't waste it.

Sex and Gender Identity in Scripture

One of the reasons people in the Church give for not wanting to affirm transgender, intersex, gender fluid, and non-binary members of our community is because of how these perceptions of gender allegedly conflict with scripture. So, let's take it apart, starting with some of the important terms on this front it will be helpful to define.

As I looked at each term on their list, I paused on the definition they've given for Binary: "The gender binary is a system of viewing gender as consisting solely of two identities and sexes, man and woman or male and female."

Maybe this is obvious to other people, or has been covered elsewhere before. But seeing male and female vs. man and woman written like that caught my attention. These terms are separate. They refer to sex and gender distinctly, separately.

You know what else does that? The creation story of Adam and Eve.  

Notice how Moses 2:27 refers to sex, male and female.

Gender isn't introduced until the next chapter, when Adam names Eve, "Woman." Which, yeah. How are you going to have gender before the first woman has even been created? It's a distinction and separation that is also maintained in the Genesis accounts of chapters 1 and 2.

Here's the interesting part. Nowhere, is any of this exchange, does God state that sex and gender are intrinsically tied together—that they must or will always line up as male and man, or female and woman. It's not a necessary part of the story as written.

Adam and Eve, the record makes clear, are cisgender. But there is no scriptural imperative of any kind to assume that this is the immutable order of things for all creation, according to God. There is simply no evidence for that assertion here.

I've read these stories countless times, heard them recounted countless times in the temple as both a patron and an ordinance worker, and I've never seen those layers of meaning before. It's a good reminder of what my husband says to me all the time: God can't steer a parked car. Until we ask for these insights, we may never see them on our own.

 

But wait! There's more.

Look at D&C 93:29. In our pre-earth life, we were spirit beings, living in the presence of God. And we were made of "intelligence," right? 

 

Notice how it says intelligence can't be made or created?

Hold that thought, and go back with me to Genesis 1.

 

What does it say God did with it biological sex? What's the verb? 

 

Created.

 

He made us male and female. But D&C 93 says intelligence, the substance from which we're made, cannot be formed or made. 

 

What does this mean? What does it tell us?

 

It means intelligence, like priesthood, has no gender. 

 

It means our biological sex begins when we are organized out of intelligence.

 

We are eternal beings, but biological sex and gender are not eternal.

"But Sister Collins! The Family Proclamation says the opposite!"

Yes, it does. It's almost like the Family Proclamation has been superimposing evangelical Christianity's political interpretation of gender and sexuality on the human family that isn't supported by scripture. And in a choice between evangelical Christianity and the health and safety of our own members, it's pretty clear whose side we should be taking.

But I'm just a returned missionary who has been a Sunday School teacher more times than I can even count. What do I know?

I'm Sorry for what I said Before I Went Inactive

There's something I need to say, an apology I owe for my online behavior in earlier years of my life. I have said mean, heartless, hurtful things on Twitter in the past towards various progressive groups and members of the Church. For that, I'm truly sorry.

I'm sorry for bullying people on the fringes and outskirts of the Church. There's no better word for it than bullying. I was a bully to vulnerable people who were hurting. I had in my mind what it means to be Mormon and I was judgmental to anyone who deviated from that in any way. I saw it as my job to give uninvited correction instead of compassion.  I had no comprehension of how difficult it was to find yourself on the outskirts until I also found myself there. 

I have been in the spheres of online Mormon thought since 2007, and on Twitter since 2009. I was a completely different person then. I have planted my flag in the soil, as it were, with the very people I used to mistrust. There are moments when old threads reappear and I see some of the things I used to think. I'm appalled at how careless I was with people seeking any degree of nuance in our faith. I wish I could take it all back, and undo the damage I've done. I've lived to regret every word.

So if you ever come across anything from my past that makes me look like a compassionless stooge, I fully take responsibility for the disappointment you feel in me. My only hope is that how I live now can be an unrecognizable contradiction to that person in every way.

The very people I used to mock and hold in derision as "not real Mormons" have become my friends. Thank you, to each and every person who has ever engaged with me in meaningful conversation. You've given me the chance to see how wrong I was, and to become a better person. Not everyone gets that kind of second chance, and I love you all to pieces for it

Of Course Not Everyone is Straight in Heaven!

One popular theory in the Church regarding homosexuality is that those who experience it will have those desires healed/cured/removed during the resurrection. This idea has been repeated on all levels of the Church, at every level of leadership. It's worth deconstructing for several reasons, not the least of which because of the harm it does to the LGBTQ+ community and the doctrinal inconsistencies with our own scriptural canon.

I'm bringing this up because I've spent the better part of today deconstructing this idea, as part of my project to revise the Topical. Because LGBTQ+ members, their families, and friends encounter this position so much, our community is remiss when we don't address it.

Let's look at the mental and theological framework surrounding the idea that we can "pray the gay away."

1. Homosexuality as an attraction is not a sin. It requires no repentance. 
2. Homosexuality is a deviation from "the Plan" of God. It must be resolved. 
3. Jesus Christ has the power to "fix" homosexuality.
4. Jesus Christ has the desire to "fix" homosexuality. 
5. He will express that desire and power through the resurrection--presumably because homosexuality is part of some physical dysfunction within the body that Christ needs to "heal."

Examining each one of these points in isolation, they each fall apart under closer scrutiny because the house of we're trying to build for our LGBTQ friends and family members cannot stand. So let's take them apart.

Homosexuality as an attraction is not a sin. It requires no repentance.  

The first point really should be more salient to people. If there is no sin in being attracted to the opposite sex, how can it possibly follow that acting on that desire is wrong? Especially in light of what Christ said in Matt. 5:27-28:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Sexual transgressions do not take place when we do something wrong. They happen the moment we even have the desire. If we've reached a logical place where our leadership advocates that homosexual attraction is not a sin, it should follow that acting on it isn't either. The idea that a desire can be separated from the sin is inconsistent with what Christ taught at the Serman on the Mount.

If the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is prepared to teach that same-sex desire isn't sinful, it's because we're ready to accept that acting on it isn't sinful either.

Homosexuality is a deviation from "the Plan" of God?  

Second point: if homosexuality needs to be resolved by Christ as part of his plan, there should be evidence somewhere in the scriptures that he believes this. This is especially true for Latter-day Saints because we have an open scriptural canon. If anyone should have evidence of God's explicitly stated, scriptural condemnation of homosexuality, it should be us.

What we find instead is that our expanded scriptural canon doesn't ever address homosexuality. Not in the Book of Mormon. Not in the Doctrine and Covenants. Not the Pearl of Great Price. And it's not because addressing social and cultural issues directly is outside of their purview. In fact: here's a list of issues those scriptures did address/condemn directly, as a demonstration:

• Cannibalism
• Human sacrifice
• Slavery
• Sexism
• Overthrowing governments
• Unjust laws that hold people on unequal ground in society
• The Nephite monetary system of coinage
  

The closest thing we have, in terms of modern revelation that condemns homosexuality, is the Family Proclamation of 1995. And given that we haven't voted on that as a church, it isn't part of the scriptural canon. It's not scripture. It's inappropriate to call it scripture because it hasn't undergone the process to become scripture. And my personal feeling as to why it has never undergone that process is because it would never pass.

So where did the idea that the scriptures condemn homosexuality come from? From outside of our community in the fraught exercise of Biblical translation. And what's more, it wasn't presented as a scriptural interpretation for the first time until the production of the the Revised Standard Version of the Bible by Protestants in 1946. The idea that the Bible condemns homosexuality by name or with that specific intent is not ancient in origin.

In fact, the people who saw the introduction of that idea into Christianity are still living and actively dismantling the harm from that mistake today.

 

The unique message of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the world is we don't take our cues on scriptural interpretation from the rest of Christianity. I have no loyalty to this interpretation of scripture because it didn't originate in my community, doesn't exist in any of our scriptures, and is best understood through the lens of apostasy creeping into the Church from those with agendas to cause harm to our people for their own political gains.

Jesus Christ has the power and desire to fix Homosexuality?

These last three points all converge together, so let's just dive in. If Jesus Christ has the power and desire to fix homosexuality, there should also be no sign of any scriptural evidence that contradicts that assertion. Under no circumstances should we see God being as open armed to as many people as possible, complete with mission statements committing himself to being way more inclusive than we're prepared to be.

Note these verses in 2 Ne. 26:24-28:

He layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him.

Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.

Hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say unto you, Nay.

All men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden. 

Then of course there's John 13:35:

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

And who could forget James 1:5, the scripture that we present to the world as the core, defining ideological pillar of our faith:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

I could keep going, but suffice it to say: we could put forth into the world that God endorses us when we read these scriptures with an unspoken caveat that the LGBTQ+ community isn't included, asserting that they don't get to claim the same belonging and acceptance in the community as straight members do.

Or, in the more likely scenario, we can accept that some in our community have a reading comprehension problem with the world "all."

In conversations I've had with other Latter-day Saints on this subject who are possessive of their ability to withhold support from the LGBTQ+ community, I've noticed a certain fondness of appealing to the Law of Moses. I can't help but ask myself what that has to do with anything when the demands of the law were answered through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It's not as if God delivered the unmistakable message to Peter and the entire Christian world that "what God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." (see Acts 10:15)

 

Jesus will "fix" Queerness through the Resurrection?

Let's get to the main point of this thread. Is Jesus Christ going to fix same-sex attraction in the resurrection? Do we have a doctrinal ground to stand on when we assert this is going to happen?

The answer, as it turns out, is no. Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. And even he doesn't get to use the Resurrection to fundamentally alter someone's identity or divine outcome. And let's dig into this idea here because there are two ways of looking at it:

• Homosexuality as a physical mortal flaw attached to the body, and 
• Homosexuality as an intrinsic part of someone's identity. You might say, someone with a queer soul.

Now, anyone who has ever bothered to listen to queer members of the Church would know that "queer body, straight soul" is not consistent with their experience. I've chosen to take those folks at their word because as the ones with the lived experience, they're going to be the ones with the rights to that revelation. But even if someone disagrees with the idea of queer souls being a thing, let's dig into scriptures to see what they say about eternal identity formation.

"That same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world." Alma 34:34

In context, this verse is talking about sin. Can Christ actively prevent us from the consequences of our actions viathe resurrection, as it relates to sin? Answer: No. But the language here, I think, reaches beyond just sin. It speaks to eternal identity formation in every context, including the one we're talking about.

Go with me also to Alma 40:23:

The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.

And Alma 41:2:

I say unto thee, my son, that the plan of restoration is requisite with the justice of God; for it is requisite that all things should be restored to their proper order. Behold, it is requisite and just, according to the power and resurrection of Christ, that the soul of man should be restored to its body, and that every part of the body should be restored to itself.

Is it possible to read these verses and believe God gets to tamper with the fundamental parts of our identity, the sum total of who we were born as and what we decided to make of ourselves--whether as a consequence of biology or identity?

If we're reading these verses honestly, I think it's clear that it doesn't matter how you choose to interpret when and how homosexuality becomes a part of a person's lived experience. Whether it's a biological force or of someone's eternal identity, Jesus cannot and does not cancel out who we are in favor of making into who he wants us to be instead.

Read those verses in Alma 41 again. If God was in the business of  overhauling people's personalities as part of the resurrection, why are we using the word "restore" here?

The role of Christ in the resurrection and the judgment is going to be to perfecting whatever version of myself I hand over to him. He is going to work with whatever raw materials I gave him. Which only seems fair, seeing as that's what I've been doing with all the lived experiences he has given to me.

We don't get to completely redefine everything we know about Resurrection in order to erase queerness from the Kingdom of God. We certainly don't get to do that to perpetuate unacceptable attitudes and behaviors towards our LGBTQ friends, neighbors, and family members today. And if we insist on continuing in that line of thinking, we need to remember one thing: Jesus isn't going to magically fix that about us before we go into our final interview. He will restore that crusty attitude right back to us, where it belongs.

We each need to think about the person we want to be when we meet Jesus again. What do I want him to restore to me from my life here on earth? Now is the time I have to decide who I want to be. The last thing I want him to ask me in that day is "Why were you so comfortable with the suffering of others?"

Because I'll tell you what. I can't think of a single good answer to that question.

Belonging

I want to talk about the conversation I had with my Relief Society president today. She dropped by because she wanted to hear more about the testimony I bore on Sunday, which I haven't talked about in great detail here yet. And now that I've talked to her, I feel better doing so.

As part of that testimony of being inclusive, I talked about how profoundly unwelcome I've been made to feel by other members of the church. I told them I've had members of the church tell me in no uncertain terms that I don't belong, largely because of labels they put on me. I told them how careful we need to be with the labels we put on people, whether because of politics or social issues. I said I'm not alone in feeling that way, and how deep I've had to dig within myself to find the testimony that will let me stay.

"I know we say the church is true in this meeting. But because of where I am emotionally right now, the best I can do is to say I know the church is more true than what we do to it sometimes."

Who wouldn't say that in front of a member of the stake presidency, right? 

And here's the thing. I have a lot of respect in my ward, including among older members. I could see in their faces that they were shocked at what I was saying. They couldn't fathom why anyone would say that about me. But that's because they don't really know me. And I had a small train of people come over and hug me, assuring me that I do belong.

I turned to my friend sitting next to me and said, "I want to believe them. I really do. But would they still be saying this if they knew I supported gay marriage?"

Would they still feel this way if they knew I didn't vote for Donald Trump? 

If they knew I thought Prop 8 was the worst mistake the church has ever made? If they knew I felt like the leaders who supported that policy will have to answer to God for it someday?

Some of them probably would. But there are people in that room with me every Sunday who wouldn't. They would call me a "demoncrat" (even though I'm not registered to either party) and tell me I don't deserve my temple recommend.

I left feeling better than I had at church for a long time, mostly because I respected myself more for making myself visible, to the extent that I felt able to do that. I felt like I'd staked a claim and made a space for myself, and it brought back that feeling of belonging.

I didn't expect a knock on my door. And I probably should have, honestly. But my Relief Society president and I have a really good relationship. I respect her and regard her as a safe person to talk to. She does the labor to listen, which is what she came to do today. So I told her about my life. I told her things about me that no one else in my ward knows. I told her about the experiences I've had with marginalized members of the Church, and the ways I'm trying to learn what it means to be a real ally to them and to actually do it. 

I talked for a long time. It all sort of just spilled out of me. I can't begin to hope to remember everything I said. But she listened intently, without ever telling me I was wrong. She validated everything I said--including how I wished the church could be safer for all of us. We do too much for the sake of keeping people comfortable who are already safe in our community, when the people who need to feel safe will never be comfortable sitting with us until we make room for them.

That really struck her. I could see it in her face.

She thanked me for sharing my feelings and experiences with her. She said it gave her a lot to think about. She came in a spirit of listening and wanting to understand, not correction. And I'll never forget her for that.

This experience made me realize I can do this. I have the privilege and social influence to make other people visible and encourage change. I don't have to apologize for loving people and wanting to make space for them. If anything, I need to let that desire work in me even more.

 

 

I can't change the entire church. I can't change policies. I can't change the minds of the general leadership. But I can make the spots on either side of me in the pews a safer place for everyone. And I can be a voice to show others how to do that.

I'm sure this looks ordinary how I'm describing it, but it was a life changing experience for me. It was an answer to my prayers to find my place again in the community I've gave my heart to, when that hasn't been an easy thing to do. It was a reminder of the hearts that beat beside mine, all yearning for the same thing: to love, to be loved, and to do good for someone in need. 

That is the church I joined. And in many ways, that is the church I'm trying to rediscover from where I stand now.