Religion. It goes with prejudice and bias, as well as lots of other good things. When you can not refer back to anything concrete, you can say whatever you want and to hate whomever you wish who disagrees with you on this vapor-subject.

I think this is the primary and best function of religion: to have to love everyone, for we are all God’s children. There are even some apostles we have to love, like it or not, because they are people. Gays are counted. (But how we can hate the sin and love the sinner is beyond my comprehension. When we see sin it should be with the sorrow of unfulfilled potential and loss.)

Homophobia is another manifestation of our xenophobia, for we truly fear people who are different. But it is more. In addition to just the basic xenophobia, it looks like God made males, especially, to like other males. Strong male bonding could be a manifestation of this imperative. In that borderland condition it appears that quite a few males who are struggling against nascent desire become strongly homophobic as a separation defense.

We are required to forgive (love) all men (women). So, I have been thinking, as an act of love and understanding, as a straight man of long standing, what it would be like to be loved by and love, in an erotic way, another man. I have decided it is another dimension of existence which I will never experience or understand well. But, looking deeply, I can sort of understand. The seeds must be there somewhere, unsprouted.

Of all religions Mormons have it easiest. Regardless of what John, the Lutheran, thinks, not having a hell to thrust our neighbors into is a great comfort. It means that God is a God of love and will not condemn his offspring to everlasting punishment. It means that we can honor and love all religions because they are all religions of truth, pointing toward different dwellings in God’s kingdom. We should be the most accepting and tolerant of all people.

Our gay brothers will be accepted into the kingdom of God, they are at least as good as the Baptists or Catholics, or even the Lutherans. However our own feelings of non-acceptance and hatred will demote any one of us to the lowest estate. Love is required in the Celestial Kingdom.

Bob

Thank you so much for your thoughtful approach to this complex and painful subject. I really appreciated reading your POV and understand all too well your dilemma. Eventually I had to leave Mormonism, because I am an “unrepentant homosexual” and despite years of faithful and compassionate service to others, fasting, prayer, reorientation “therapies” of all sorts, and consant vigilence by priesthood superiors, I remained completely Gay and profoundly suicidal. My options were to either remain in the LDS church and kill myself from the guilt I felt over my desire to love a man, or be “delivered to the buffetings of Satan” and see if I could find peace outside your church.

I never met Stuart. But I live near Los Altos and Stuart and I shared a dear friend in common, a local Mormon bishop, named Bob. This bishop loves, respects, and trusts me dearly, and gave Stuart my phone number on February 23. Stuart agreed to call and talk with me, a fellow sojourner out in this wilderness, on Friday, the 25th. Instead, Stuart took his life that day on the steps of the stake center. He, like FAR TOO MANY OTHERS, sealed his testimony against the church’s homophobia with his very blood.

I entreat you all to visit the “Book of Remembrance” of the Affirmation website, and read the biographies of the many Gay and Bisexual Mormon men who have killed themselves to relieve the suffering brought on by their religion. I’m a historian and helped compile the names and biographical information on these people. The “statistics” are alarming and should become a wake up call for all people of faith to re-evaluate how they express the LOVE they are commanded to offer to “the least of these my bretheren”.

Of the 33 documented suicides since 1965 (and trust me, there are MANY more), the average age of the Gay Mormon suicide is 31.5. The youngest was 20 and the oldest was 62. At least ten were returned missionaries. Two were Eagle Scouts. Seven were BYU graduates and another seven were BYU students at the time of their suicides. One was a BYU professor (and his Gay grandson recently committed suicide as well). At least six killed themselves on church property (chapels, temple grounds, or BYU campus). And things are only getting worse. From 1965 to 1999, 21 men killed themselves. In just the past six years, at least TWELVE already have.

With every breath of my life I choose to stand with my GLBTI brothers and sisters (that’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, or Intersexed, for those not in the know) in working, even fighting for a world where we are loved and respected BECAUSE of who we are, not despite it; BECAUSE of the incredible gifts like beauty, creativity, empathy, and innovation which we bring to the Feast to share. While others have sealed their witness with blood, I decided to live to voice my testimony. In an ironic twist of fate, I think we are in a very real way angels sent to prove the “cities of the plain”, to test your hospitality, your treatment of the stranger, the outcast, the downtrodden.

And quite honestly, the report which I have to turn in on the LDS Church is absolutely dismal. I was treated HORRIBLY by LDS leaders; the amount of ecclesiastical abuse I suffered at their hands was overwhelming. The misinformation I was given as “fact”, the stereotyping I suffered, the assumptions made about me and my “lifestyle”, the unjust and unjustified judgments passed on me were enough to drive anyone to the blessed rest of eternal sleep. But I won’t give up. I will strive with you to help make your church and this world better, kinder, more loving. All of you, please read Carol Lynn Pearson’s new book, “No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones” if you wish to discover more about the ways we can all work together for a better world. I hope one day that I can grow strong enough, big enough, gracious enough to forgive.

But for now, I just bear witness….

But probably only when it’s written about in the Ensign or the Church News or shows up on Meridian. I’m willing to bet that most members outside a few large areas of the Church have no idea who you’re talking about.