Tough Situation, Tough Words

I've noted previously that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints place huge cultural emphasis on being nice and that they hate, hate, HATE to be the bad guys in anything.

So exchanges like the one I'm going to provide here will be extremely difficult for good-hearted, faithful, well-intentioned, prophet-following Latter-day Saints to read. But there's a lot at stake, and I truly believe that all such Mormons need to seriously consider the viewpoint stated by columnist and radio personality Dan Savage below.

The exchange started with a letter from a devout, sincere Christian who said this:


Dear Dan:

I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man, and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.

Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.

—L.R.

I'm sure there are countless Latter-day Saints who could have said exactly the same thing to Mr. Savage, and truly, honestly believe every word of defense of their own good faith and intentions. I am sure all such persons believe they really are trying to follow Christ.

Now, here's the tough part. Mr. Savage's words will not be easy for any such Christians to read, much less give good faith consideration to. But I think they must, if the current epidemic of gay-bashing and bullying and suicides is going to be stopped and not repeated.

To members of my own extended family in particular, I know you read this blog. You will probably want to take great offense at Mr. Savage's words. I beg you not to do that. Please try to set those feelings aside and give every possible consideration to what he says. That's the only way you'll be able to understand how I and so many others look at not only this issue, but at protestations by LDS and other Christians that they really don't mean anything hateful or bigoted or discriminatory when they fight against gay marriage or continue acquiescing to so much of what is believed by Christians and Mormons about gay people. The LDS Church has recently stated over and over again that it desires civil dialogue and discourse. Good. I'll take the Church at its word, and say that all its members who supported Proposition 8 need to read what Mr. Savage says, take it to heart, and really try to understand how they come across and what results from their words and beliefs.

OK, here goes:


Dear L.R.:

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments. No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: F--k your feelings.

A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying.

Why the hell not?

Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.

And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.

Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools.

You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day-in, day-out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.

Tough words. I stress that I am not directing these to any individual person in my family or otherwise. They are a general example of what I believe is a valid response to Christian protests that no hate or bigotry is ever intended, only love. Like it or not, Mr. Savage is responding to things like Boyd Packer's descriptions of homosexuality as "unnatural and immoral" because that's how those descriptions came across.

I know this puts particularly LDS people in a hopeless position, caught between their faith's demands that they follow the teachings of someone they accept as an inspired leader, yet sincerely wanting to be compassionate as well. Mr. Savage's words correctly point out that there really is no reconciling those two positions successfully.

And guess what. That's exactly the position many gay Christians, LDS or otherwise, find themselves in. Absolutely no way to successfully harmonize what their churches teach and what they know of themselves. So, faithful Mormons and other Christians who want to be true to your faith but can't stand to think of yourselves as bigots or haters, how does it feel to be caught in a dilemma not of your own making where you know you face feeling or inflicting hurt no matter which way you go? Do you understand a little more now?

Maybe that realization will help a few LDS and Christian hearts and minds understand the position of their gay brothers and sisters who want to be faithful. Maybe they'll be a little more willing to set aside defensiveness and really listen and consider that perhaps something other than the ostensible love is actually getting through and having an effect, while whatever love there may be is falling short. (To be fair, as I've said before, some of the most truly Christlike people I've ever met have been active Latter-day Saints. There needs to be more such people.) I hope those who can actually see that will then consider how to change and grow so this horrible epidemic can be stopped for good.

The only way to break those deadlocks is to prioritize. What's going to win out? Dogmatic judgment or Christian charity? How did Jesus prioritize? I think most people know. Your neighbor as yourself, and all that, right? And what did Paul say the greatest of all virtues was? Actually, breaking this deadlock shouldn't be hard at all.