A Mormon friend of mine recently shared this article with me and asked me for my thoughts on the matter. The title of the article is "Homosexual Thoughts and Feelings Not a Sin, Says New LDS Handbook." Apparently new handbooks are being distributed to church leaders which now instruct them not to discipline gay Mormons for their thoughts and feelings. The following was my response:
As Joanna Brooks points out in her article, the revisions do indicate a tiny bit of progress. She seems to think the new handbook will give hope to gay LDS youth, since it decriminalizes (in "spiritual" terms... which to me is a cruel oxymoron) their human impulse to love and share their lives with someone. The paradigm, however, remains firmly intact, and this is a paradigm in which gay people can have no hope whatsoever for finding love, companionship and fulfillment... at least in this life, which let's be honest: this life is the only one we can be sure about.
So while Marvin K. Jensen can be "sorry" about the damage his church did to thousands of families during Prop 8 (and I don't doubt that he is), and while Mormon leaders can be encouraged to feel "sorry" for the gay members of their wards instead of fearing and ostracizing them, the sympathy we're talking about here is ostensibly back-handed and condescending. While it's nice that now they're being instructed to put on soft gloves, they are still punching impressionable gay youth in the face.
While I can appreciate their slow, gradual efforts to tone down the hysteria and cruelty of their anti-gay rhetoric in an attempt to deal with the decades-long epidemic of Mormon youth suicides, the fact remains that if you ingrain into someone's mind that somehow their human impulse to find love and companionship is immoral, then you leave them with very little to live for. While I'm sure that NOT reading in official church literature that they are "latter-day lepers" or that it "were better [they were] never born" can only help lessen the blow to gay youth, the message is still clear: everyone else's need for love is legitimate and godly. Your need for love, however, is an abomination. In order to be acceptable to God, you need to resign yourself to a long life of solitude and self-loathing, and if you're lucky, we'll even give you a church calling like a "normal" person! See how loving and accepting we are [smiley face / most fervent attempt at a Christ-like countenance]?
So, progress? A little, I guess, but extremely minimal. Warm, furry gloves on a dogmatic fist. Hope for gay youth and suicide rates? Again: minimal. With such an ultraconservative crowd (referring to Mormon leadership, although it is having to become more moderate to remain relevant), I'll take every millimeter I can get, but these cosmetic "changes" do very little to solve the problem. If anything, they only help the LDS church look more politically correct on paper, and I think that's really what it comes down to, although it is nice to see some debate going on within the Mormon hierarchy about the gay "problem" (remind me again why love should be viewed as a problem?). Mormon institutional perceptions of gay people are deeply rooted in not one, but two deep-running anchors in Mormon culture: puritanism (which demonizes human sexuality in general, making sexual diversity all the more offensive) and sexism (if gender didn't matter, they'd have no reason for denying women the priesthood). But that's a whole different essay I have tucked away, and you didn't ask me about that. :-)
Suffice it to say, I don't see much light at the end of this tunnel. Gay Mormons are going to have jump ship if they are looking for hope and love. If they can survive on compassion alone, then I guess the forecast is a little more optimistic now.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Love Is Not "Immoral"
Today Boyd K. Packer, addressing all Mormons during their televised semi-annual conference, referred to love between two people of the same gender as "immorality." My argument is simple: love is not immoral. God is love. How can someone claim to speak for God and then speak out against love?1 Having faith can be a great thing, but we need to remember that institutions are made up of human beings, and consequently, the flaws and cultural biases that come with them.
Two consenting adults loving, supporting, and committing to each other; realizing their capacity to love and fulfilling the basic human desire to share life's joys and sorrows . . . this cannot be immoral. The impulse to love is at the core of everyone's being and is what makes us human. Calling that immoral or unnatural is not only ridiculous: it's cruel. It exposes what is really behind these attacks: cultural prejudice.
This is the same kind of cultural prejudice that a couple of decades ago had many God-fearing people condemning interracial marriage as immoral. After all, the logic was (not just in Mormon doctrine, but in others as well) that God had created different races in order to keep them separate and that two people of different races marrying each other was meddling with God's "natural" order. It was common sense (just like the world being flat was common sense for centuries) and it could be backed up with scripture (like slavery or the unequal treatment of women). Their love was not to be allowed if God's natural order was to be maintained.
Only not so. God is love. How can anyone claim to speak for God and at the same time speak out against love? In retrospect, we now realize that the moral opposition to "non-traditional" (i.e. interracial) marriage was not rooted in "God's law" or nature but rather in cultural prejudice.
Packer declared that voting for same-sex marriage would be like voting against gravity: that it defies eternal principles and nature itself. First of all, going back to the theme of this post, love is an eternal principle, so two consenting adults who love each other don't defy this principle: they embody it. Secondly, for some of us it is not in our nature to seek love and companionship with members of the opposite sex, and God created us just as much as everyone else.
Thirdly, Packer seems to be alluding to the old argument that cites the biological impossibility of procreation among same-sex couples as being proof of Nature's (and therefore God's) disapproval of homosexuality. The "common sense" logic goes something like this: if your relationship is biologically incapable of producing offspring, it can't be called marriage because it goes against nature. How is it then, that my mother was allowed to marry post-menopause? It's biologically impossible for her relationship to result in children. What business does she have demanding an equal right to marry? Or infertile people, for that matter?
Because God is love: not just a baby factory. Marriage isn't always about producing children: it's about two people committing to each other and sharing what's left of their life so they don't have to be alone. It's also about ensuring legal protections for said commitment.
That's why marriage is not universally a religious institution: it is a civil institution (which is what makes this a civil rights issue). This is why marriages are performed "by the power invested in me by the state of [pick your state]." Marriage is a legal definition. Some people, according to their various beliefs, add an optional religious aspect to it, which is just fine. But to quote a woman in the recent documentary on Proposition 8: "I'm not asking to go to their church, but I sure won't have them block the entrance to City Hall." In most countries, if a couple decides they want a religious ceremony, they must first go through a separate civil ceremony. In the US, people have the option of combining both, which explains some of the confusion over the separation of Church and State when it comes to marriage.
This is why some people believe equal rights for gay people infringe on their religious freedoms (religious freedom has also been used as an argument against interracial marriage, desegregation, etc.). Our country was founded on the separation of Church and State, which is why as a citizen who is taxed equally, I am entitled to equal treatment in civil matters. This is an actual case of taxation without representation, but for some reason the recent Tea Party movement has failed to bring it up. When it comes to private, religious matters, churches have always reserved the right to refuse to perform or host a ceremony for a couple. Contrary to outright lies that were circulated when Prop 8 was on the ballot, this will not change when gay couples are granted civil equality.
If you don't like that marriage is a civil institution, then feel free to spit on your marriage certificate (which comes from the your state: not your church), your tax break as a marriage couple (again, a benefit provided by the State: not your church), and on the "Big Fat Goverment" that has gotten involved in what you personally consider to be a religious matter. Keep in mind, however, that it is this very separation of Church and State that allowed your church to come into existence. It is what has allowed Mormon marriage to receive equal legal recognition despite the fact that they are vastly outnumbered in this country by Catholic and Protestant marriages.
There are very "peculiar" things about Mormon weddings that cause moral disapproval from the religious majority in this country, but thanks to the separation of Church and State, they cannot impose their moral subjectivities onto your marriage and ultimately onto your relationship: onto the private matters of your heart. That's what was so ingenious about the founding of the US: it provided a model that allowed for diversity and coexistence. Naturally, this is an ongoing endeavor, which is why equality for women, for black people, and for gay people (among others) have been hard-fought battles against cultural prejudice. The US isn't strictly a majority-rules democracy. It has a system in place to defend minorities against oppression from the majority, which is why 1) Mormon marriages receive the same legal recognition as majority marriages, and by the same token, 2) Proposition 8 was judicially overturned and ruled unconstitutional.
I really didn't mean to babble on like this, but since I'm going, I might as well get it all out. Going back to marriage being a legal (and not a universally religious) definition, it has also been argued that if we allow for this definition to leave out gender as a determining factor, then we must also leave out number. In other words, if we legalize same-sex marriage, then we must also legalize polygamy. Here's where "immutable characteristic" comes into play as a legal term. Being gay is an immutable characteristic. As BYU experiments in the 1970s on their own gay students confirm, not even electric shock or induced nausea therapy can change it. I'm not gay because I want to be gay any more than I'm tall because I want to be tall. I can't change my sexual orientation anymore than you can. I know this because I tried and tried and tried for a decade, hating and loathing myself the whole time instead of embracing love or even accepting it as a possibility: as something I was "worthy" of. I lost out on an entire decade of love and human potential.
Love is not immoral. In this lifetime of solitude and sorrow, why would we ever want to discourage--much less demonize--love?
The nature vs. nurture debate is irrelevant because either way, sexuality develops during childhood as a natural, unconscious process. Children do not choose their sexuality: it develops within them. If sexuality were a choice, why do you think so many gay youths who are convinced that their impulse to love is immoral are driven to suicide? Wouldn't it be less painful to just choose to be straight? It's not an ideology or a choice. Polygamy, however, is. No one at the age of 10 feels instinctively drawn to one ideology or another as a result of their natural physical and psychological development (as is the case with being instinctively drawn to one gender or the other). Do you really think a 10-year-old can be held "morally" responsible for "choosing" their sexuality: the natural driving force that will eventually cause them to seek love and companionship? This is a process that is as natural as "gravity," to quote Packer again. The fact that some are naturally drawn to their own gender does not make their love morally inferior or unnatural.
Which leads me to another argument I've heard: if sexual attraction can't be controlled, then that's just a perfect alibi for pedophiles, now isn't it? Sexuality must always be subject to a society's moral judgment! My response is to refer this type of argument back to the textbook for Psychology 101 (at least the one I had at Eastern Arizona College), wherein abnormal sexuality is defined as causing harm to oneself or to a another person. This is why pedophilia--a relationship in which a child is too young to give consent and is harmed by an adult--is abnormal, and homosexuality--a relationship between two consenting adults--is not. A lack of understanding of this basic difference, along with good old fashioned cultural prejudice, has allowed homosexuality to be improperly (and unjustly) conceptualized as abnormal.
Who is hurt by two consenting adults loving each other? No one. What is gained by two consenting adults loving each other? A lot. To those two people, it means everything. It means their life: their happiness, their humanity, which brings me back to this posting's thesis statement. Love is not and cannot be immoral. Any statements to the contrary are rooted not in God or nature, but in cultural prejudice, and let's face it: the history of the Mormon Church has not been spared from cultural prejudice (i.e. their pre-1978 stance on Black people).
I'm not writing this to attack my Mormon friends or belittle their religion. I'm writing this to defend my civil rights as a tax-paying US citizen. Some might point out that Packer's words weren't directed at me (since I'm not Mormon), so what right do I have to criticize him? Two reasons, really. 1) Because he holds leadership in an organization that continues to raise millions and millions of dollars to literally wage a holy war against my civil rights, and 2) because there are thousands of impressionable Mormon youth listening to him who are gay and who are being taught that their human impulse to love is immoral: that they are to renounce their need for love if they are to achieve salvation. I know of two such gay youths from my hometown who took their own lives, and I can't help but suspect that being subjected to this rhetoric influenced their conclusion that it would be "better [that they] were never born" (to quote Spencer W. Kimball, referring to openly gay men in "Letter to a Friend" [1971]). With five gay youth suicides documented in this country as a result of excessive soul-crushing bullying in the past week alone, how can spiritual leaders continue to spiritually bully--arguably worse than schoolyard bullying--young people for their impulse to love? If you take away love, life becomes meaningless. Why would we ever want to take away or discourage love? Love is humanity. Without it, we cease being human.
I'm being relentless, I realize this--bringing up some of the ugliest parts of Mormon history--but I'm doing so not to attack the church, but rather to defend myself against the church's attack and to point out that the uglier parts of its history are now repeating themselves. I need for my Mormon friends to consider the fact that their church has a serious and occasionally deadly problem with homophobia. That is not to say that institutionalized homophobia plays a part in the suicide of all Mormon youths or that all Mormons are consequently homophobes (because I know for a fact that not all of them are, as evidenced on this Mormon's blog and this article on Marlin K. Jensen's apology last month to Mormon families hurt by Prop 8), but by the same token, being friends with me doesn't magically cleanse you of homophobia.
If you think I'm a great guy but that my sexual orientation is a legitimate legal basis for discrimination against me when it comes to civil recognition of my (up-to-now-non-existent) relationship, well, that is prejudice against gay people. My love is not inferior to your love, and deep down, you know that's true. If you listened to Packer and felt that something just didn't sit right with the way he talked about gay people (because you know me, for example, and you know that I have an equal right to love and be loved) and it sounded more like the cultural prejudices and phobias of an old conservative man than like the loving voice of God, then I think you're onto something. If you just accepted it as God's word and that's that, I'd appreciate it if you thought about this a little more, examining the cruel, illogical contradictions that are inherent in the "common sense" anti-gay rhetoric that I have just pointed out.
If you think that I'm great but that my love is just inferior in the eyes of God and there's no getting around what Packer cites as "God's law," I'm sure you're able to console your conscience by referencing your friendship with me as evidence of your open-mindedness; your loving acceptance; your Christ-like tolerance. I hate to break it to you, but if that's the case, we're not very close friends. I don't need friends who "tolerate" me--how insulting is that? Really: think about how you would feel in my situation. I have plenty of friends who consider me to be an equal US citizen, which is kind of a basic prerequisite. In the words of the great Lauryn Hill, "respect is just a minimum." Your absolute loyalty to your church's leadership wouldn't normally enter into our friendship at all, but now that your church's leadership has entered, more than any other institution, into the political battle for my civil rights--rights that ultimately strike at the very core of my humanity: my capacity to love and share my life with another human being and gain the same civil protections for my relationship that yours has--I have to defend this heart of mine from the cold, back-handed embrace of tolerance.
This debate is infinitely more personal to me than it is to you. How can I fully accept your love if you really believe that mine is inferior or even immoral? Would you allow yourself to become emotionally close to someone who votes against your civil rights? I'm not saying that I don't consider you a friend if you vote against mine, but what I am saying is that I certainly can't consider you a close friend, because that would just be too painful for me. If you've bothered to read this far, however, then it's highly unlikely that I'm just one of your token gay friends who makes you feel better about your homophobia. If you've gotten this far, you're genuinely concerned for what this all means to me, so thank you.
But mostly--and breaking this entire post back down to its essence--I'm challenging Packer's statement from today because something about it is inherently dissonant: something that resounds within my very core as a human being. Love between two people of the same sex is not immoral, because love cannot be immoral. God is love. Love is all we have in this life: it's what makes us human. Hopefully we can learn to identify and overcome the cultural prejudices that have sought to thwart love over the centuries: classism (the rich girl and the poor guy who fall in love but can't get married), sexism (women being treated as property and married off as business arrangements between men), racism (Ray Liotta and Whoopie Goldberg in "Corrina, Corrina"), and homophobia (me and my imaginary boyfriend). The definition of marriage has been evolving for quite some time, it turns out.
_________________________________
1 Packer’s talk today was actually mild in comparison to previous statements he has made about gay people. See his pamphlet "To Young Men Only", which is given to all Mormon boys at the age of 12. It explicitly advocates violence against gay people. While you're at it, check out the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet in which youths are instructed to stay away from gay people, described as "latter-day lepers" who engage in sexual perversion on par with "rape" and "incest" (at least that's what it said when I was a teenager). For those who are curious for more details and perspective on Packer's history of violent rhetoric against gay people, may I suggest this letter from the concerned Mormon father of a gay youth.
The following are more examples and documentation of illogical cultural prejudice in the writings of Mormon leaders when it comes to gay people (including the ones I have referenced in this essay), borrowed from Affirmation's website.
David Hardy's press release of quotes from LDS Church publications about homosexuality
Letter To A Friend © 1971 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Author: President Spencer W. Kimbal, past President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. First printing 1971, revised 1978; latest printing post-1996.
Currently distributed to Stake and Ward leadership for counseling parents and their children.
"The death penalty was exacted in the days of Israel for such wrongdoing."*
*Wow. Thank you for being so open minded as to not chop off my head with an axe.
"Perversion is forgivable."
". . .the sin is curable, and you may totally recover from its tentacles."
"Satan tells his victims that it is a natural way of life; that it is normal; that perverts are a different kind of people born 'that way' and that they cannot change. This is a base lie."
"Homosexuality . . . means waste of power, an end to the family and to civilization. One generation of it would depopulate the world . . ."*
*OK, seriously? We're not trying to convert the entire world to homosexuality. Or anyone for that matter. We're just asking for equal civil rights. That's really it. Honestly. We're much too busy to plot a world takeover or force people to complete the impossible task of changing their sexual orientation.
". . . you are one who has yielded to the enticings of evil people and Lucifer, the 'father of lies'. . ."
". . . you can recover, and you can become the man your Heavenly Father created you to be."
". . . know that your sin is vicious and base."*
*The basic human drive to love someone is vicious? How can two people loving each other possibly be described as vicious? I would use that word to describe unwarranted attacks against people whose only "sin" is love.
". . . you should now make the super-human effort to rid yourself of your master, the devil, Satan . . ."
"You do the bidding of your master."
"You are in abject bondage, a servant compelled to do the will of your master, the devil, Lucifer, Satan . . . Is your father the Devil?"
"These unnatural practices are . . . of the Devil, the master liar and deceiver who laughs as he rattles his chains . . ."
"God made no man a pervert"*
Actually, all human beings are intrinsically and inescapably sexual, and God made all of us.
"So long as you tolerate this 'gay world' and its degenerate people, you are in a very desperate situation . . ."*
*I'm degenerate? But I've paid my parking tickets and am finishing up a Ph.D.!
"Men who die may live again, but when the spiritual death is total, it were better that such a man were never born."
"REMEMBER: Homosexuality CAN be cured."
To The One © 1978 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (owned by the LDS Church)
Author: Elder Boyd K. Packer, acting-President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). First printing 1978; latest printing post-1996.
Currently distributed to Stake and Ward leadership for counseling parents and their children.
". . . it is unnatural; it is abnormal; it is an affliction."*
Nope. It's totally natural. It's love. See my comments or any psychology textbook about the definition of "abnormal."
"Is this tendency impossible to change? Is it present at the time of birth and locked in? Do you just have to live with it? . . . The answer is a conclusive no!"
"Some so-called experts . . . teach that it is congenital and incurable. They can point to a history of very little success in trying to put whatever mechanism that causes this back into proper adjustment. They have, to support them, some very convincing evidence. Much of the so-called scientific literature concludes that there really is not much that can be done about it. I reject that conclusion our of hand . . . The Lord does not work by exceptions. He works by rules. Put a moral or a spiritual test upon it and the needle flips conclusively to the indicator that says 'correctable'."*
*Actually, I think researchers and scientists who have dedicated years to this may be a little better informed than you are. If you're going to ignore the evidence and go with a gut feeling, though, why not go with love?
"Some who become tangled up in this disorder become predators. They proselyte the young or the inexperienced."*
*That's no way to speak about your missionaries.
"In a strange way, this [homosexuality] amounts to trying to love yourself."*
*Wow. You're really obsessed with this, aren't you?
"This condition cannot as yet be uniformly corrected by emotional or physical or psychiatric treatment. Depending on the severity, some forms of these treatments are of substantial help in about 25 percent of the cases."
". . . the cause, when found, will turn out to be a very typical form of selfishness."*
*How is loving someone else selfish?
"If one could even experiment with the possibility that selfishness . . . may be the cause of this disorder, that quickly clarifies many things. It opens the possibility of putting some very sick things in order."
"When one has the humility to admit that spiritual disorder is tied to perversion and that selfishness rests at the root of it, already the way is open to the treatment of the condition. It is a painful admission indeed that selfishness may be at the root of it . . ."*
*Wow. Please see the letter from the father of a gay Mormon youth (linked above) regarding all these accusations of selfishness.
"I repeat; we have had very little success in trying to remedy perversion by treating perversion. It is very possible to cure it by treating selfishness."
"Don't be mixed up in this twisted kind of self-love."
To Young Men Only © 1976 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (owned by the LDS Church)
Author: Elder Boyd K. Packer, acting-President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). First printing 1976; latest printing post-1996.
Currently distributed to Stake and Ward leadership for counseling parents and their children.
This pamphlet was re-released in October 1999, at the same time as the Wyoming murder trial for the second of the two young men who beat Matthew Shepard to death. One of the two killers, Russell Henderson, was a young Mormon Priesthood holder (a little-known fact within the Church, but confirmed by reporter Paula Glover of the Cheyenne Tribune-Eagle). This is not to say the Church was responsible for Russell Henderson's actions. The point is that through these pamphlets, a culture of fear, ignorance, and intolerance is permitted to exist within the Church. Russell Henderson pled guilty and thus avoided a trial. In the trial of the other young man, Aaron McKinney, one of the primary - but unsuccessful - defenses was "Gay Panic" ("he came on to me and I was so upset by his homosexuality that I beat him to death").
[On the subject of homosexuality; Elder Packer relating a personal experience]
"While I was in a mission on one occasion, a missionary said he had something to confess. I was very worried because he just could not get himself to tell me what he had done.
After patient encouragement he finally blurted out, 'I hit my companion.'
'Oh is that all,' I said in great relief.
'But I floored him,' he said.
After learning a little more, my response was "Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way.'
I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself."
"Many of the world would, I am sure, be amused by this counsel. Let them be amused. They live by another standard, a lower one."
Two consenting adults loving, supporting, and committing to each other; realizing their capacity to love and fulfilling the basic human desire to share life's joys and sorrows . . . this cannot be immoral. The impulse to love is at the core of everyone's being and is what makes us human. Calling that immoral or unnatural is not only ridiculous: it's cruel. It exposes what is really behind these attacks: cultural prejudice.
This is the same kind of cultural prejudice that a couple of decades ago had many God-fearing people condemning interracial marriage as immoral. After all, the logic was (not just in Mormon doctrine, but in others as well) that God had created different races in order to keep them separate and that two people of different races marrying each other was meddling with God's "natural" order. It was common sense (just like the world being flat was common sense for centuries) and it could be backed up with scripture (like slavery or the unequal treatment of women). Their love was not to be allowed if God's natural order was to be maintained.
Only not so. God is love. How can anyone claim to speak for God and at the same time speak out against love? In retrospect, we now realize that the moral opposition to "non-traditional" (i.e. interracial) marriage was not rooted in "God's law" or nature but rather in cultural prejudice.
Packer declared that voting for same-sex marriage would be like voting against gravity: that it defies eternal principles and nature itself. First of all, going back to the theme of this post, love is an eternal principle, so two consenting adults who love each other don't defy this principle: they embody it. Secondly, for some of us it is not in our nature to seek love and companionship with members of the opposite sex, and God created us just as much as everyone else.
Thirdly, Packer seems to be alluding to the old argument that cites the biological impossibility of procreation among same-sex couples as being proof of Nature's (and therefore God's) disapproval of homosexuality. The "common sense" logic goes something like this: if your relationship is biologically incapable of producing offspring, it can't be called marriage because it goes against nature. How is it then, that my mother was allowed to marry post-menopause? It's biologically impossible for her relationship to result in children. What business does she have demanding an equal right to marry? Or infertile people, for that matter?
Because God is love: not just a baby factory. Marriage isn't always about producing children: it's about two people committing to each other and sharing what's left of their life so they don't have to be alone. It's also about ensuring legal protections for said commitment.
That's why marriage is not universally a religious institution: it is a civil institution (which is what makes this a civil rights issue). This is why marriages are performed "by the power invested in me by the state of [pick your state]." Marriage is a legal definition. Some people, according to their various beliefs, add an optional religious aspect to it, which is just fine. But to quote a woman in the recent documentary on Proposition 8: "I'm not asking to go to their church, but I sure won't have them block the entrance to City Hall." In most countries, if a couple decides they want a religious ceremony, they must first go through a separate civil ceremony. In the US, people have the option of combining both, which explains some of the confusion over the separation of Church and State when it comes to marriage.
This is why some people believe equal rights for gay people infringe on their religious freedoms (religious freedom has also been used as an argument against interracial marriage, desegregation, etc.). Our country was founded on the separation of Church and State, which is why as a citizen who is taxed equally, I am entitled to equal treatment in civil matters. This is an actual case of taxation without representation, but for some reason the recent Tea Party movement has failed to bring it up. When it comes to private, religious matters, churches have always reserved the right to refuse to perform or host a ceremony for a couple. Contrary to outright lies that were circulated when Prop 8 was on the ballot, this will not change when gay couples are granted civil equality.
If you don't like that marriage is a civil institution, then feel free to spit on your marriage certificate (which comes from the your state: not your church), your tax break as a marriage couple (again, a benefit provided by the State: not your church), and on the "Big Fat Goverment" that has gotten involved in what you personally consider to be a religious matter. Keep in mind, however, that it is this very separation of Church and State that allowed your church to come into existence. It is what has allowed Mormon marriage to receive equal legal recognition despite the fact that they are vastly outnumbered in this country by Catholic and Protestant marriages.
There are very "peculiar" things about Mormon weddings that cause moral disapproval from the religious majority in this country, but thanks to the separation of Church and State, they cannot impose their moral subjectivities onto your marriage and ultimately onto your relationship: onto the private matters of your heart. That's what was so ingenious about the founding of the US: it provided a model that allowed for diversity and coexistence. Naturally, this is an ongoing endeavor, which is why equality for women, for black people, and for gay people (among others) have been hard-fought battles against cultural prejudice. The US isn't strictly a majority-rules democracy. It has a system in place to defend minorities against oppression from the majority, which is why 1) Mormon marriages receive the same legal recognition as majority marriages, and by the same token, 2) Proposition 8 was judicially overturned and ruled unconstitutional.
I really didn't mean to babble on like this, but since I'm going, I might as well get it all out. Going back to marriage being a legal (and not a universally religious) definition, it has also been argued that if we allow for this definition to leave out gender as a determining factor, then we must also leave out number. In other words, if we legalize same-sex marriage, then we must also legalize polygamy. Here's where "immutable characteristic" comes into play as a legal term. Being gay is an immutable characteristic. As BYU experiments in the 1970s on their own gay students confirm, not even electric shock or induced nausea therapy can change it. I'm not gay because I want to be gay any more than I'm tall because I want to be tall. I can't change my sexual orientation anymore than you can. I know this because I tried and tried and tried for a decade, hating and loathing myself the whole time instead of embracing love or even accepting it as a possibility: as something I was "worthy" of. I lost out on an entire decade of love and human potential.
Love is not immoral. In this lifetime of solitude and sorrow, why would we ever want to discourage--much less demonize--love?
The nature vs. nurture debate is irrelevant because either way, sexuality develops during childhood as a natural, unconscious process. Children do not choose their sexuality: it develops within them. If sexuality were a choice, why do you think so many gay youths who are convinced that their impulse to love is immoral are driven to suicide? Wouldn't it be less painful to just choose to be straight? It's not an ideology or a choice. Polygamy, however, is. No one at the age of 10 feels instinctively drawn to one ideology or another as a result of their natural physical and psychological development (as is the case with being instinctively drawn to one gender or the other). Do you really think a 10-year-old can be held "morally" responsible for "choosing" their sexuality: the natural driving force that will eventually cause them to seek love and companionship? This is a process that is as natural as "gravity," to quote Packer again. The fact that some are naturally drawn to their own gender does not make their love morally inferior or unnatural.
Which leads me to another argument I've heard: if sexual attraction can't be controlled, then that's just a perfect alibi for pedophiles, now isn't it? Sexuality must always be subject to a society's moral judgment! My response is to refer this type of argument back to the textbook for Psychology 101 (at least the one I had at Eastern Arizona College), wherein abnormal sexuality is defined as causing harm to oneself or to a another person. This is why pedophilia--a relationship in which a child is too young to give consent and is harmed by an adult--is abnormal, and homosexuality--a relationship between two consenting adults--is not. A lack of understanding of this basic difference, along with good old fashioned cultural prejudice, has allowed homosexuality to be improperly (and unjustly) conceptualized as abnormal.
Who is hurt by two consenting adults loving each other? No one. What is gained by two consenting adults loving each other? A lot. To those two people, it means everything. It means their life: their happiness, their humanity, which brings me back to this posting's thesis statement. Love is not and cannot be immoral. Any statements to the contrary are rooted not in God or nature, but in cultural prejudice, and let's face it: the history of the Mormon Church has not been spared from cultural prejudice (i.e. their pre-1978 stance on Black people).
I'm not writing this to attack my Mormon friends or belittle their religion. I'm writing this to defend my civil rights as a tax-paying US citizen. Some might point out that Packer's words weren't directed at me (since I'm not Mormon), so what right do I have to criticize him? Two reasons, really. 1) Because he holds leadership in an organization that continues to raise millions and millions of dollars to literally wage a holy war against my civil rights, and 2) because there are thousands of impressionable Mormon youth listening to him who are gay and who are being taught that their human impulse to love is immoral: that they are to renounce their need for love if they are to achieve salvation. I know of two such gay youths from my hometown who took their own lives, and I can't help but suspect that being subjected to this rhetoric influenced their conclusion that it would be "better [that they] were never born" (to quote Spencer W. Kimball, referring to openly gay men in "Letter to a Friend" [1971]). With five gay youth suicides documented in this country as a result of excessive soul-crushing bullying in the past week alone, how can spiritual leaders continue to spiritually bully--arguably worse than schoolyard bullying--young people for their impulse to love? If you take away love, life becomes meaningless. Why would we ever want to take away or discourage love? Love is humanity. Without it, we cease being human.
I'm being relentless, I realize this--bringing up some of the ugliest parts of Mormon history--but I'm doing so not to attack the church, but rather to defend myself against the church's attack and to point out that the uglier parts of its history are now repeating themselves. I need for my Mormon friends to consider the fact that their church has a serious and occasionally deadly problem with homophobia. That is not to say that institutionalized homophobia plays a part in the suicide of all Mormon youths or that all Mormons are consequently homophobes (because I know for a fact that not all of them are, as evidenced on this Mormon's blog and this article on Marlin K. Jensen's apology last month to Mormon families hurt by Prop 8), but by the same token, being friends with me doesn't magically cleanse you of homophobia.
If you think I'm a great guy but that my sexual orientation is a legitimate legal basis for discrimination against me when it comes to civil recognition of my (up-to-now-non-existent) relationship, well, that is prejudice against gay people. My love is not inferior to your love, and deep down, you know that's true. If you listened to Packer and felt that something just didn't sit right with the way he talked about gay people (because you know me, for example, and you know that I have an equal right to love and be loved) and it sounded more like the cultural prejudices and phobias of an old conservative man than like the loving voice of God, then I think you're onto something. If you just accepted it as God's word and that's that, I'd appreciate it if you thought about this a little more, examining the cruel, illogical contradictions that are inherent in the "common sense" anti-gay rhetoric that I have just pointed out.
If you think that I'm great but that my love is just inferior in the eyes of God and there's no getting around what Packer cites as "God's law," I'm sure you're able to console your conscience by referencing your friendship with me as evidence of your open-mindedness; your loving acceptance; your Christ-like tolerance. I hate to break it to you, but if that's the case, we're not very close friends. I don't need friends who "tolerate" me--how insulting is that? Really: think about how you would feel in my situation. I have plenty of friends who consider me to be an equal US citizen, which is kind of a basic prerequisite. In the words of the great Lauryn Hill, "respect is just a minimum." Your absolute loyalty to your church's leadership wouldn't normally enter into our friendship at all, but now that your church's leadership has entered, more than any other institution, into the political battle for my civil rights--rights that ultimately strike at the very core of my humanity: my capacity to love and share my life with another human being and gain the same civil protections for my relationship that yours has--I have to defend this heart of mine from the cold, back-handed embrace of tolerance.
This debate is infinitely more personal to me than it is to you. How can I fully accept your love if you really believe that mine is inferior or even immoral? Would you allow yourself to become emotionally close to someone who votes against your civil rights? I'm not saying that I don't consider you a friend if you vote against mine, but what I am saying is that I certainly can't consider you a close friend, because that would just be too painful for me. If you've bothered to read this far, however, then it's highly unlikely that I'm just one of your token gay friends who makes you feel better about your homophobia. If you've gotten this far, you're genuinely concerned for what this all means to me, so thank you.
But mostly--and breaking this entire post back down to its essence--I'm challenging Packer's statement from today because something about it is inherently dissonant: something that resounds within my very core as a human being. Love between two people of the same sex is not immoral, because love cannot be immoral. God is love. Love is all we have in this life: it's what makes us human. Hopefully we can learn to identify and overcome the cultural prejudices that have sought to thwart love over the centuries: classism (the rich girl and the poor guy who fall in love but can't get married), sexism (women being treated as property and married off as business arrangements between men), racism (Ray Liotta and Whoopie Goldberg in "Corrina, Corrina"), and homophobia (me and my imaginary boyfriend). The definition of marriage has been evolving for quite some time, it turns out.
_________________________________
1 Packer’s talk today was actually mild in comparison to previous statements he has made about gay people. See his pamphlet "To Young Men Only", which is given to all Mormon boys at the age of 12. It explicitly advocates violence against gay people. While you're at it, check out the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet in which youths are instructed to stay away from gay people, described as "latter-day lepers" who engage in sexual perversion on par with "rape" and "incest" (at least that's what it said when I was a teenager). For those who are curious for more details and perspective on Packer's history of violent rhetoric against gay people, may I suggest this letter from the concerned Mormon father of a gay youth.
The following are more examples and documentation of illogical cultural prejudice in the writings of Mormon leaders when it comes to gay people (including the ones I have referenced in this essay), borrowed from Affirmation's website.
David Hardy's press release of quotes from LDS Church publications about homosexuality
Letter To A Friend © 1971 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Author: President Spencer W. Kimbal, past President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. First printing 1971, revised 1978; latest printing post-1996.
Currently distributed to Stake and Ward leadership for counseling parents and their children.
"The death penalty was exacted in the days of Israel for such wrongdoing."*
*Wow. Thank you for being so open minded as to not chop off my head with an axe.
"Perversion is forgivable."
". . .the sin is curable, and you may totally recover from its tentacles."
"Satan tells his victims that it is a natural way of life; that it is normal; that perverts are a different kind of people born 'that way' and that they cannot change. This is a base lie."
"Homosexuality . . . means waste of power, an end to the family and to civilization. One generation of it would depopulate the world . . ."*
*OK, seriously? We're not trying to convert the entire world to homosexuality. Or anyone for that matter. We're just asking for equal civil rights. That's really it. Honestly. We're much too busy to plot a world takeover or force people to complete the impossible task of changing their sexual orientation.
". . . you are one who has yielded to the enticings of evil people and Lucifer, the 'father of lies'. . ."
". . . you can recover, and you can become the man your Heavenly Father created you to be."
". . . know that your sin is vicious and base."*
*The basic human drive to love someone is vicious? How can two people loving each other possibly be described as vicious? I would use that word to describe unwarranted attacks against people whose only "sin" is love.
". . . you should now make the super-human effort to rid yourself of your master, the devil, Satan . . ."
"You do the bidding of your master."
"You are in abject bondage, a servant compelled to do the will of your master, the devil, Lucifer, Satan . . . Is your father the Devil?"
"These unnatural practices are . . . of the Devil, the master liar and deceiver who laughs as he rattles his chains . . ."
"God made no man a pervert"*
Actually, all human beings are intrinsically and inescapably sexual, and God made all of us.
"So long as you tolerate this 'gay world' and its degenerate people, you are in a very desperate situation . . ."*
*I'm degenerate? But I've paid my parking tickets and am finishing up a Ph.D.!
"Men who die may live again, but when the spiritual death is total, it were better that such a man were never born."
"REMEMBER: Homosexuality CAN be cured."
To The One © 1978 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (owned by the LDS Church)
Author: Elder Boyd K. Packer, acting-President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). First printing 1978; latest printing post-1996.
Currently distributed to Stake and Ward leadership for counseling parents and their children.
". . . it is unnatural; it is abnormal; it is an affliction."*
Nope. It's totally natural. It's love. See my comments or any psychology textbook about the definition of "abnormal."
"Is this tendency impossible to change? Is it present at the time of birth and locked in? Do you just have to live with it? . . . The answer is a conclusive no!"
"Some so-called experts . . . teach that it is congenital and incurable. They can point to a history of very little success in trying to put whatever mechanism that causes this back into proper adjustment. They have, to support them, some very convincing evidence. Much of the so-called scientific literature concludes that there really is not much that can be done about it. I reject that conclusion our of hand . . . The Lord does not work by exceptions. He works by rules. Put a moral or a spiritual test upon it and the needle flips conclusively to the indicator that says 'correctable'."*
*Actually, I think researchers and scientists who have dedicated years to this may be a little better informed than you are. If you're going to ignore the evidence and go with a gut feeling, though, why not go with love?
"Some who become tangled up in this disorder become predators. They proselyte the young or the inexperienced."*
*That's no way to speak about your missionaries.
"In a strange way, this [homosexuality] amounts to trying to love yourself."*
*Wow. You're really obsessed with this, aren't you?
"This condition cannot as yet be uniformly corrected by emotional or physical or psychiatric treatment. Depending on the severity, some forms of these treatments are of substantial help in about 25 percent of the cases."
". . . the cause, when found, will turn out to be a very typical form of selfishness."*
*How is loving someone else selfish?
"If one could even experiment with the possibility that selfishness . . . may be the cause of this disorder, that quickly clarifies many things. It opens the possibility of putting some very sick things in order."
"When one has the humility to admit that spiritual disorder is tied to perversion and that selfishness rests at the root of it, already the way is open to the treatment of the condition. It is a painful admission indeed that selfishness may be at the root of it . . ."*
*Wow. Please see the letter from the father of a gay Mormon youth (linked above) regarding all these accusations of selfishness.
"I repeat; we have had very little success in trying to remedy perversion by treating perversion. It is very possible to cure it by treating selfishness."
"Don't be mixed up in this twisted kind of self-love."
To Young Men Only © 1976 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (owned by the LDS Church)
Author: Elder Boyd K. Packer, acting-President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). First printing 1976; latest printing post-1996.
Currently distributed to Stake and Ward leadership for counseling parents and their children.
This pamphlet was re-released in October 1999, at the same time as the Wyoming murder trial for the second of the two young men who beat Matthew Shepard to death. One of the two killers, Russell Henderson, was a young Mormon Priesthood holder (a little-known fact within the Church, but confirmed by reporter Paula Glover of the Cheyenne Tribune-Eagle). This is not to say the Church was responsible for Russell Henderson's actions. The point is that through these pamphlets, a culture of fear, ignorance, and intolerance is permitted to exist within the Church. Russell Henderson pled guilty and thus avoided a trial. In the trial of the other young man, Aaron McKinney, one of the primary - but unsuccessful - defenses was "Gay Panic" ("he came on to me and I was so upset by his homosexuality that I beat him to death").
[On the subject of homosexuality; Elder Packer relating a personal experience]
"While I was in a mission on one occasion, a missionary said he had something to confess. I was very worried because he just could not get himself to tell me what he had done.
After patient encouragement he finally blurted out, 'I hit my companion.'
'Oh is that all,' I said in great relief.
'But I floored him,' he said.
After learning a little more, my response was "Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way.'
I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself."
"Many of the world would, I am sure, be amused by this counsel. Let them be amused. They live by another standard, a lower one."
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