I've been out of the closet, or on my way out at least, for over two years now (yeah, I'm talking about the "gay" closet). These two years have been more challenging than any other period of my life, but they have been equally invigorating and rewarding. For the most part, I have been quiet about my personal struggles and feelings during this time, only sharing them with a few very close friends. However, with the passing of Proposition 8 in California, I've decided that its time to talk. History has shown that majority populations generally do not stand up to discrimination until it becomes personal to them. The majority of Americans were indifferent to the civil rights movement until they were able to witness the brutality of the Jim Crow South first hand on television. Recently, I read a quote by Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. He said, "I swore to never be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Like Wiesel, I've made the same commitment to speak out against oppression, injustice, and human suffering. Many of you who read this may not agree with my opinions and beliefs. Understand that my point is not to offend. All I want to do is share some of my own experiences and the reasoning behind my beliefs.
I've always been gay. Even as a kid, I knew that I wasn't like the other boys, and anybody who grew up with me can attest to that. As a young teen I became aware that I was attracted to guys. In fact, I had absolutely no interest in girls other than as friends- and most of my best friends were girls. None of that really mattered too much to me at the time though. My main concern was doing well in school and preparing to go on a mission for the LDS Church. I told myself that if I served God faithfully that He would bless me with the capacity to fall in love with a nice girl and live happily ever after. So I served God. I gave it everything I had. For two years I devoted every ounce of energy I had to being the best missionary to have ever stepped foot in the state of Georgia.
It was as a missionary in Atlanta that I became personally aquainted with a gay man named Anthony Nunez. He was the first openly gay person I had ever really known. Anthony invited us into his home to discuss our message of God's love. He was one of the kindest people I got to know in Georgia. The first things I noticed about Anthony were his hollow face and eyes and his pale skin. We found out that he was dying of AIDS. His liver was failing and he didn't have much life left. His entire family had disowned him and left him to die of this terrible disease alone. I'm ashamed of how I reacted to his situation. My companion and I were kind and did what we could to relieve his lonliness, but in my mind I told myself that God had allowed me to meet Anthony so that I would know what could happen to me if I didn't suppress my own homosexuality. I now believe that if God had in fact set up our meeting, that it was to show me the face of suffering among gay people in this country. It was to show me that first and foremost, gay people are people. They have families and dreams and when they suffer, all of humanity suffers with them. Now, when I think of what the oppression of gay people has done in this country, I think of Anthony Nunez.
Well, I gave my all to the Lord, came home, and everything was still the same. I still wasn't attracted to girls, but now it actually mattered. I was expected to date, to fall in love, and start an eternal family with no delay. I eventually became frustrated and stopped trying. I didn't feel that it would be fair to any girl to pretend to be in love just so I could be married in the LDS temple. Pretending would have been the only way- seriously, how can you fall in love with someone you are not even attracted to in the first place? I think it is important here to make the point that when I speak of attraction, I don't mean only physical attraction. Any of you who have been in love should know that when you love someone, you are attracted to body and soul- the entire person. It's not just physical. When I speak of attraction, this is what I'm referring to. I would ask any of you who are straight if you can imagine yourself falling in love with someone of the same gender. I'm sure the answer would be no. Likewise, falling in love with someone of the opposite gender is something that I have never been able to imagine for myself.
I went to my bishop in August 2006 seeking help to overcome my same-sex attraction. He had no idea of how to help me, so he sent me to LDS Family Services. I worked with a very kind therapist there for a couple months, but eventually she admitted that she didn't feel like there was anything she could do to help me. She told me that she was torn between her profession and her faith on the matter of homosexuality and she suggested that I see someone else. So my bishop set me up with a friend of his who was a therapist. This man claimed to have worked with over 500 gay Mormon men like myself. He told me that his experience had taught him that you can't change a person's sexuality. He believed, like most researchers and mental health professionals, that nobody chooses to be gay. Gay people are born gay. What he wanted to do, he told me, was to help me deal with homosexuality in a heterosexual way. It made no sense to me, and to this day, I think that he was just as ignorant about homosexuality as anyone. His method was for me to make a list of all of the girls that I knew. From there, he wanted me to tell him something that I liked about each of them. At that point, I was to try to convince myself that I was attracted to those qualities. Then I was supposed to pick one of the girls and ask her on a date. I've often wondered if this method would be at all effective on straight people. Make a list of all of your same-gender friends- think about what you like about them- turn those qualities into attractions- ask them on a date. My guess is that it would never work. One day I cancelled my appointment with this therapist and never rescheduled.
About this time my bishop was becoming just as frustrated as I was. He told me that I needed to try harder- I needed more motivation. So he convened a Church disciplinary council. It was by far, the most humiliating experience of my life, and it, more than anything else, turned me away from the LDS Church. I wasn't excommunicated, but I was told that I was standing on the edge of a cliff and if I proceeded to jump off that cliff, I would be excommunicated. I was instructed to hang out with girls more often. This showed me just how out of touch my bishop was with my struggles. I had been meeting with him and discussing these issues for ten months, and now he thought that if I just made some friends with a few girls I could be fixed. He didn't get it! My problem wasn't making friends with girls! I had TONS of girlfriends! My problem was falling in love. That summer I decided to never go back to the Mormon Church.
During this time I was an emotional disaster. Suicide was on my mind almost constantly. I felt lonely and alienated. I remember one cold night, I was sick of life. I just wanted to get away. I hopped in my Jeep and started driving. I had no destination in mind- I just wanted to run. I drove west from Salt Lake on I-80. I eventually got off the freeway and drove out through the dried up lake bed to Stansbury Island in the Great Salt Lake. I climbed up to the top of the peak and sat there gazing out over the lake with the city lights in the distance. It was like I was looking at my life- trying to decide if I had the strength to go back to it. Sitting on the top of that peak, I was the only human being around for miles as far I could tell. I cried. I prayed. I screamed. I yelled. For a few minutes, I went completely crazy. But then I told myself that I could do this- I could go back and face life. I hiked back to my Jeep and drove back to Salt Lake. Throughout this time, I had one friend who I knew I could trust. I knew that I could talk to her and she wouldn't tell me I was right or wrong. She would just sit there and listen- then she would hug me and tell me that my life was worth living. I will never forget her compassion, understanding, and support.
At some point I fell in love. We were together for about ten months and it was a journey through heaven and hell that I will never forget. In the end, things didn't work out, but I will always cherish the love that I felt for him. It was because of him that I decided to come all of the way out of the closet. Things were difficult. I didn't expect my family or most of my friends to ever want to see me again. I was wrong. While things were rocky for a while with my family, we've been able to maintain the loving relationships that we have always had. For my friends, it didn't matter if I was gay or straight. I was their friend and that was all that they cared about.
Well, that's my story- the short version, at least. Now I've enlisted myself in the struggle for equality and human rights for all people. I've been inspired by the work of two great human rights activists, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Coretta Scott King. Bishop Tutu has spoken out against homophobia saying that it is a "crime against humanity." He has also stated that, concerning gay people, "we treat them as pariahs and push them outside our communities. We make them doubt that they too are children of God- and this must nearly be the ultimate blasphemy. We blame them for what they are." He has also expressed his view that homosexuality has a place in God's plan: "the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?..... A parent that teaches a child that there is only one sexual orientation and that anything else is evil denies their humanity and our own too."
Likewise, Coretta Scott King emphatically supported the gay rights movement. She said that, "gay and lesbian people have families and their families should have legal protection... a constitutional ammendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages."
In the recent campaign to ban gay marriage in California, I have taken issue with the involvement of the LDS church in support of Proposition 8. I have taken this position for a number of reasons, none of which have to do with my personal feelings about the Church. I believe it is just to single out the LDS Church's role from among a coalition of churches and other organizations because the Church was the single most effective actor in raising money and supporting erroneous propoganda in support of the Proposition. It is estimated that around 22 million dollars was donated to the Yes on 8 campaign by members of the Church after being instructed by Church leaders to give of their time and means to support the Proposition. This accounts for upwards of 70% of the entire volume donated to the cause, much of which came from out of state donors. Without the Church's involvement, the so-called "coalition" would have been nearly powerless to change public opinion.
The Church has recently stated that they feel like they have been unfairly targeted for participating in the democratic process. They seem to forget that by accepting 501(c)(3) tax exemption from the IRS that they have forfeited their right to participate in the democratic process. The IRS Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations says specifically that this status may be jeopordized by "attempting to influence legislation" which it states includes action "by the public in a referendum" which is exactly what Proposition 8 was. If the LDS Church wants to be involved in the democratic process, all they need to do is pay taxes like the rest of us. Their involvement in this campaign has been blatantly illegal and immoral. If you would like to read the tax code it can be found online at: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf
Another issue that I have with the Church's involvement is the inherently hypocritical nature of it. Not only is it against church doctrine (but obviously not policy) to "mingle religious influence with civil government" (Doctrine and Covenants 134:9), but it should be against the spirit of Mormonism to participate in the oppression of minority groups. However, history has shown that this has not been the case. Despite enduring incredible persecutions for their religious beliefs and practices, the LDS Church has not hesitated during the last century to advocate oppressive practices and policies targeted at minority groups. Shortly after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, LDS apostle Mark E. Peterson, stated in a talk given at BYU, that the civil rights movement has "blinded the thinking of some of our own people." He went on to say that "the Negro... is not just seeking the opportunity to sit down in a cafe where white people sit... it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for the Negroes that, we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that they used to say about sin: first we pity, then endure, then embrace." He goes on to imply that segregation is a divine institution. He says "When the Lord chose the nations to which the spirits were to come, determining that some would be Japanese and some would be Chinese and some Negroes and some Americans, He engaged in an act of segregation."
Similar rhetoric has been at play in the current debate. The Church, and other conservative voices, have expressed fear that gay-marriage would be dangerous to the institution of marriage and family. In the fifties, these same groups were expressing the exact same fear about the civil rights movement and the end of formal segregation. They believed that if people of color (Elder Peterson goes on to include Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiians) were to be integrated into white society that it would only be a matter of time before inter-racial marriages were common place and the traditional homo-racial family was destroyed. The same rhetoric is being used about not allowing one's "feelings" to get involved in the debate. It seems that we are encountering history all over again. The debate is the same, and in the end the outcome will be as well: justice and equality will triumph for all.
Well, when I started writing this morning I had no idea that I would write this much. I applaud any of you who have read the entire post. I apologize for its length, but I feel like I need to open my mouth and let people know how I feel. Please feel free to leave comments and to share this post with others who you think may be interested. Remember, though, when commenting, that this is a personal blog, not a public forum, and I may remove any comment that I don't like. :-)
