Scrum Central

Brightly Beams

2011-09-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

Free to Serve

2011-09-21T22:35:00.000-07:00

Before my dad married my mom, he was an Army officer. He has always been very proud of his military service and I have always been proud of him serving. I remember as a kid seeing on his home desk and in his drawer the various badges and ribbons and insignia of rank he had worn on his uniform before I came along. I thought it was all very cool. I played soldier with my neighborhood friends like any other boy and imagined what it would be like to really be in the Army like my dad had been. As I grew it became clear that my asthma would disqualify me from any military service, which was disappointing. But I have remained proud of my dad’s service and have been very glad for that family connection to the service of our country.

I always respected the military traditions of duty and honor and integrity and meritocracy. Of goals and achievement, of judging and promoting based on performance and capabilities. The discipline that was inculcated, which enabled ordinary people to set aside or overcome their own foibles and do extraordinary things.

So I was stunned to eventually learn about the history of racial discrimination even in the U.S military and how relatively recently that discrimination was eliminated. I was amazed and embarrassed to read statements of people and politicians—and even senior officers—at the time who fought with everything they had to keep that racism in place and to prevent racial equality. Racism seems so indisputably opposed to everything the great American experiment stands for, to everything the United States military is sworn to protect, and everything I knew of its values.

And that’s why, as I learned about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, read its history and saw its effects, I inevitably came to the same conclusions. It was the same bigotry, just directed at another group that’s also historically been misunderstood and abused and discriminated against, solely because of an unchosen personal characteristic the majority didn’t share. What could sexual orientation possibly have to do with one’s ability to do one’s job, whether military or not? So why should gay people be singled out for being kicked out of the military if the same kind of treatment was illegal in civilian settings? It just made no sense. It went beyond nonsensical to self-defeating and even damaging to national security as I read about the effects, about the cost of kicking out able, dedicated service members who wanted to stay and had key specialties the military needed.

Others far more knowledgeable have told that story in far more compelling detail than I could. Suffice it to say that I agree with the opinions of many senior officers: DADT was stupid, counterproductive, harmful. A terrible mistake.

And that in turn is why, with the memory of respect for my father’s service, last night I went to the San Diego LGBT Community Center to join the celebration of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I knew it was a historically important moment and I wanted to be with the hundreds of others, including active and retired military personnel, who would be there to celebrate the correction of this great wrong, and the step our military service took toward greater faithfulness to American ideals.

It was remarkable to hear the story of guest speaker Eric Alva, who sustained permanent damage to right arm and who lost his right leg to a land mine. Who knew the first American serviceman wounded in the Iraq war was a gay Marine? Or the stories of a female Navy Academy graduate kicked out for being gay, or an active duty Navy hospital nurse who the next day could go to work for the first time and say “Yeah, okay, so what?” Or the story of a highly decorated Army bird colonel, now retired and happily married to his husband.

It was inspiring to see the obvious patriotism and love of country in the crowd of hundreds who listened to those stories, to see the dozens of little flags waved during every speech, to hear the cheers and shouts and military parlance, to see the pride and happiness on countless faces. They whooped and cheered as one of the speakers described waking up that morning feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and how elated she was that she could finally just be herself, honestly and without the deception that DADT had forced so many to live with for so long. I’m sure it was just like the first day of emancipation for African-American soldiers in the Civil War, finally free and eager to defend the nation that had given them that freedom.

But most inspiring of all was when the colonel, final speaker on the program, asked everyone to stand and join him in reciting the pledge of allegiance. And this time, he said, say those last six words like you’ve never said them before. Because starting today, he said, we are closer to making them true.

Click the Play button below to see what followed.

Very Touching

2011-09-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

Like virtually everyone else, my kids love hugs. Who doesn't. They need hugs. They thrive on them, on the wordless reassurance of love and acceptance and comfort and security. It's my job and my privilege as a dad to give all that to them so they can grow up happy and healthy and well-adjusted.

Everybody needs hugs. The sense of touch is a remarkable thing. Humans need to touch each other. Babies who aren't held and cuddled when they're tiny don't grow as well, and I think I remember reading that they end up having other emotional problems as they get bigger too.

The touch of a good friend is heart-warming, and the touch of a wife or husband or partner is even better. In a class by itself. It can set the heart racing, endorphins flowing, make the world brighter and more beautiful. It's magic. It makes life amazing.

Even if you don't have such a person in your life (which I don't), one can always hope to find them in the future, and can look forward to the thrill of that kind of touching.

And, at the risk of sounding like Johnny One Note, this is another reason I find the Mormon church's teachings about gay people not just wrong, not just cruel, but hypocritical. Nevermind the fact that the scriptural basis of the whole approach is highly questionable. The requirement that in order to remain in full fellowship a gay person must cut themselves off from all hope of this most fundamental need, the need to be touched, there's just no other word for that but "cruel."

And I'm not talking about sexual touching either. That's a completely separate issue. I'm just talking about the holding hands, the rubbing backs, the hugs, tne arms round shoulders, the stroking of the backs of necks or earlobes, all that innocent stuff that straight couples have been doing publicly in Mormon worship services since anybody can remember. The kind of thing that Mormon culture welcomes and encourages. But if two gay people do it, OMG OMG OMG. Call Church Security and throw them to the ground on the public sidewalk at Temple Square and have them arrested. Ask them to stop, ask them to leave. Mustn't even allow a public expression of such a thing.

OK, disproportionate, yes. But hypocritical? How?

Since the Prop 8 debacle the Mormon church seems to have been trying to repair some of its self-inflicted damage by taking what some characterize as a kinder, gentler approach toward gay people. I see this and basically shrug. Self-motivated penitence is one thing, the forced penitence of somebody who picked a fight, got beat up, and then tries to make up afterward is not quite as trustworthy or praiseworthy, I think, but hey, if it's an improvement at all, then good. I guess.

But so far, it's all cosmetic. It seems forced. Purely reactive. It wouldn't have happened if the church hadn't provoked such indignation by intervening in politics the way it did. The theological box into which the church has painted itself--and which forces it to act as it does--remains as airtight as ever. So while it's nice that the church has stopped coercing gay male BYU students into electroshock conversion therapy and stopped (publicly) calling gay people "perverts" as it used to do, the underlying reasons for that earlier approach haven't changed. Just the packaging.

And that's why I think it's hypocritical. I know they're doing what they think is their best to put a nicer face on things, and that's good. But an organization that claims to be led by revelation from God should be out in front leading advancements in truth and knowledge and learning and doing better in loving, charitable treatment for all God's children. It shouldn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming toward accommodation of social change (like no more racial discrimination) that all the less-inspired have long since accepted as basic fundamental humanity.

So the fact that the kinder gentler approach is just a new veneer over the same old doctrine that justified such horrible treatment before, well, in a sense it almost makes things worse. Because as long as the doctrine remains unchanged there will be people who cling to the old brutal homophobic ways of doing things and insist they're justified. I know some will say it takes time to change big organizations. But this one can turn on a dime if it wants. That's what it did in 1978 with the change in policy on priesthood. But the key there was a leader who realized how wrong the church had been and had the courage to change it. I don't see any indication of any current Mormon leader heading that direction as far as rescuing the church from its self-constructed box on the gay issue.

That makes me sad because I have friends who cling to their faith and desperately want to see that kind of reconciliation. But as long as the church holds to its current doctrine I don't see how that's possible. They will never be anything but second-class citizens, permanently excluded from eligibility for the eternal rewards which the church teaches are the only things worth striving for. Unless the doctrine changes. And that would require a re-write of everything in a way not seen since the time the church started polygamy. I don't see that happening for a very long time, if ever.

And that's why it's so sad that the Mormon church tells its gay members not to touch each other. You must deprive yourselves, it says, of this most fundamental of human needs, one so basic that babies die without it. This is what God wants you to do. Would that be the same God, I ask, who said it's not good for man to be alone? Yes, that would be Him. Oh, I see. And that's consistent how?

Words Kill. Again.

2011-09-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

I am stunned to learn of another gay Mormon suicide. A returned missionary, married father who finally came out, was promptly excommunicated from the church for reasons I don't know, and his staunch Mormon wife--apparently believing she had to protect her kids from perversion--left him with their five children and wouldn't let him see or talk to them. Unable to bear the shame, separation or loneliness, yesterday he killed himself. All alone. And now the wife's family is not allowing these fatherless kids any contact with their dad's extended family either; apparently dad's family was "too tolerant" of homosexuality. So these kids not only lose dad, they lose half their family too.

Three weeks, start to finish.

What's it going to take for some people to wake up and see the damage, the tragedy that their myopia continues to inflict?

What's it going to take for Mormons, Christians, Catholics, anyone else who cloaks homophobia in religious "principle" to see that they're perpetuating an atmosphere of such poison?

Mormon children are taught a song when they're young that includes the words "Jesus walked away from none, He gave His love to everyone, So I will, I will."

Why do the adults who teach the kids that song never seem to get the message themselves?

If memory serves, the New Testament shows that the thing which drove Jesus to furious anger faster than anything else was hypocrisy, the smooth protestations of the outwardly religious that they were following all the rules, when inwardly they were corrupt as hell and blind to the greater principles of loving God and their neighbor as themselves. These were the ones for whom the Savior reserved His greatest scorn.

I think this man's wife and his local leaders deserve to take their place with the "scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites" the Savior condemned to the kind of punishment nobody would want. I pray for his children that they will be able to heal someday from this horrible, totally unnecessary tragedy. And I pray for their father that he'll find the peace he seeks as he waits for his children to live their lives and someday join him again.

In paradisum de ducant angeli in tuo adventu susipiant te maryres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem, aeternam habeas requiem.

May angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival, may the martyrs receive you and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem. May the ranks of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, once a pauper but no longer, may you have eternal rest.

Awwwwww

2011-09-03T08:49:00.001-07:00

Just watch it and prepare to be delighted.

Today I Saw The Future

2011-08-21T22:44:00.001-07:00

Today I saw the future. And it was profoundly touching and wonderful.

Some of you may not know that in 2009, legislation which became known as the “Kill the Gays Bill” was introduced in the national legislature of Uganda, already known as one of the world’s most homophobic countries. This law would have imposed the death penalty for homosexual activity and for being HIV-positive (such activity is already punishable by lengthy imprisonment there). It contained extradition provisions to impose these penalties even on Ugandans who engaged in same-sex relations outside Uganda, and it included penalties for individuals, companies, media organizations, and other non-governmental organizations who expressed any support for LGBT rights.

It’s one of the dirty secrets of American Evangelical Christianity that this draconian bill was introduced swiftly in Uganda after a conference there that featured speeches by three prominent American “Christian” ministers who claimed, among other things, that homosexuality was a "direct threat" to the cohesion of African families. LDS friends who supported the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, these are the types you made common cause with during that effort. People who actively promote the imprisonment, persecution, and the execution of God's gay children. Perhaps you should re-think those alliances.

Uganda is one of over thirty countries to criminalize any homosexual activity, which in many places also makes the provision or even advocacy of health or prevention care for HIV illegal. If you’ve ever wondered why AIDS is such a problem in Africa, there’s one of the reasons right there.

This proposed Ugandan legislation provoked significant international outrage, as well it should have, and the bill was ultimately put on hold. So it hasn’t passed, but it hasn’t been voted down yet either. It remains a potential threat.

Uganda was for a long time a British colony, so British cultural influence remains strong there. And one brave Anglican bishop, believing that the message of Christ required charity for all—imagine that—decided that his Christian discipleship wouldn’t let him go along with this pernicious legislation. So he spoke out against it. And soon became the target of death threats himself, along with his family. Undeterred, he continued to confront Uganda’s raging homophobia and to support acceptance and tolerance for everyone regardless of sexual orientation.

For his efforts, Bishop Christopher Senyonjo not only put his own and his family’s lives at risk, he was also named one of 2010's most influential religious figures by the Huffington Post.

And today, Bishop Christopher was the special guest at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego. I wanted to see him and I thought it was important for the kids to hear his message too, so I took them along. He spoke eloquently of compassion for all and the duty of every Christian to have it for everyone. This, he said, was what compelled him to speak out in his own country even at the risk of his own life.

I pointed out to the kids that they’d never had to face the choice between exercising their Christian faith and having their lives threatened. Their eyes got a little big at even thinking about such a thing. I was glad to be able to show them a little of what the wider world is like.

And then the moment when I saw the future, represented by the three members of the clergy who conducted the service. First was the presider, who is openly gay, and whose depth of faith clearly showed in his beaming smile as he led the proceedings. Second was Bishop Christopher, resplendent in his bishop’s robes and the only African up front. Third was the assistant dean of the cathedral, a 5th (?) great-granddaughter of Joseph Smith. I looked at the three of them and thought “How wonderful. This is what it will look like years in the future. This is what heaven should look like. Race, ethnicity, gender and its straitjacketing, sexual orientation, none of that will matter. All God’s children will have an equal place at the table, just as they are, all commemorating the Savior’s life together, equally privileged." It was as moving and touching a moment for me as any I’ve ever had. Someday, God willing, someday other churches will get that same message and see that same eventuality.

The presider was a friend of mine, so after the service we were invited to a reception and got to meet Bishop Christopher and his very sweet and gracious wife Mary. She must have the patience of a saint to have endured the persecution they have, especially with ten children to worry about! We had a wonderful chat with them, and I was particularly glad that the twins got to learn a little about life in a far-away place from someone as brave and dedicated as Bishop Christopher.

As we walked back to the car, enjoying the sunshine and the beautiful park, I was sure this had been one of the best ways to “keep the Sabbath holy” in quite some time. Attend church, focus on the Savior, hear from an inspiring Christian servant who has actually put his own life at risk for his faith, and be able to teach the kids about all of it, as well as show them—and see myself—what the future must inevitably look like. A wonderful day indeed.

A Love Story That Changes Minds

2011-08-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

What Should The Rule Be?

2011-08-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days I've been watching an interesting discussion online, prompted by an anguished LDS mother's request to a counselor for guidance on how to deal with her lesbian daughter. I know this is a point of great difficulty for many, many LDS families. Here's what the mother wrote:

Our 20 yr. old daughter told us 2 1/2 yrs. ago that she was gay. Considering she had just broken things off with a not so great relationship with boy and she has always dated boys, this was a shock. This was during a very rebellious time in our daughter’s life and she left home twice. We are LDS and have lived our faith and been very involved and active in the church her whole life. No one can believe she’s gay. We continue to support our daughter in those positive endeavors; college, sorority, she comes to dinner every Sunday and I send her little cards with positive, uplifting things written and we go to lunch, shopping etc…but for me this lifestyle is wrong and so I don’t want it in my face or around me…which means I prefer she not talk about it, partners are not allowed to come over, etc. We let her know that she gets to choose the lifestyle she wants to live – it’s her life. But we also get to decide what we will or won’t allow around us – it would be hurtful to her father and I to see her with another girl and out of respect to us we feel she should not bring them around. The church doesn’t have any clear-cut guidelines for How Parents Can Best Handle Dealing with this type of situation…and I wish they did. We really feel like we’re trying our best to keep our family together and strong in love but I see that not being enough on down the road. I fear that as each year passes and we continue to stand firm that no partners are to be brought around – our relationship will begin to deteriorate and we don’t want that. We extend our love to our daughter always – but will not allow her to bring her partner to things – will this further alienate us from her? Are we not being fair? What about respecting our feelings and beliefs?

A long discussion has ensued. The clear majority opinion is probably best summed up by this pithy comment:

The difficult truth is that taking a hard stance is going to push the daughter away. Period. . . It’s fine to have rules, but you have to figure out at what point the rule just doesn’t work anymore. Sometimes you adjust the rules because you can’t parent adult children the same way you parent young children and expect to be able to maintain a relationship.

But so far I think the best discussion of the whole issue is the one I've posted below in its entirety. Well worth reading.

I think that it’s fair to concede . . . that the LDS church’s official stance is unquestioningly that personally engaging in homosexual encounters is a sin. (I agree though, with those who argue that there is room for debate regarding the scriptural and doctrinal backing for this stance by the church).

But I think that misses the core of this question. Mom in the OP is saying she believes that it is a sin, and is asking how to go about her relationship with her daughter, who she believes is sinning. I don’t think she is questioning her opinion on whether or not her daughter is sinning, I think she is asking how to have a relationship with her daughter without compromising her own values by contributing in some way to what she believes is a sin.

My two cents is that you can stand strong in your beliefs and still show love and decency to those who have different beliefs.

Opinions vary widely on whether homosexuality is a sin or not. So, i think this comes down to understanding you have a difference of opinion. Treat it like that, and lose the sentiments that “she is sinning, but I know I need to figure out how to ‘accept’ her anyway.” This sentiment resembles this one: “I am right, and you are wrong, but if you follow my rules, I will forgive you for being wrong, I will be good enough to love you anyway.”

We don’t want to participate in things we believe are wrong, but I assume we all have friends and loved ones who hold opinions we find offensive, or who do things we think are wrong. But we continue to love them, and don’t do those things ourselves. I am betting in most cases, we keep our mouths shut about the parts of those people we don’t approve of, because we know we can’t oppose our beliefs on them, and will damage our relations with them if we try.

But we muddle this with our kids I think, because we feel responsible to raise them in our own truth, and feel we failed if they do not embrace our truth.

When kids are kids, it’s appropriate for a parent to be the deciding factor on what is right and wrong, and to make rules, and to create consequences for breaking rules. That’s how we teach kids, and we hope we do it well enough to teach them our values in a meaningful way.

But with adults, even our own offspring, it’s no longer appropriate to give them rules and consequences. They are entitled to their own beliefs, to form their own values, and to make their own choices. And when we set up consequences for other adults who refuse to share our values, it does not teach them, or bring them to our side, it just alienates them.

I would say rule number one in having a healthy relationship with your daughter is to think apply this question to yourself before you set rules with her. “Am I setting limits with her because I need her to respect my space/beliefs/personhood like I respect hers? Or am I asking for things because I want to impose my beliefs on her and show her that I don’t support her choices?”

As an example, you have the right to decide what you do and don’t allow in your house. But, are the rules you are making really intended to keep you and your home from spiritual or other types of damage? If something she wants to do there would cause you damage, then by all means make a rule. But if you realize you are making a rule that only has the purpose of letting her know you do not approve of her or her life, and of showing her that when she is in your house, you are in control of the parts of her or her life you don’t like, you might want to reconsider.

You do not have a right to decide who a person (any person) is allowed to be when they are in your presence. If you don’t like who your daughter is, then don’t be around her. But you can’t change who she is, and she won’t come around anymore if when she does she gets beaten over the head with your opinions about how wrong she is. You are not losing her if you don’t want to be around her whole self, you are rejecting her.

I think [one] can argue that [some] scriptures could be construed to indicate that God is opposed to homosexuality but I don’t see the remotest indication in them that suggests that God is demanding you cut off relationships with people who don’t believe as you do, or who don’t act as you would. I also don’t know of any modern prophet who has said people should cut their gay friends or relations out of their lives, or treat them badly. I am also missing the part where God said it’s OK to leave people alone about theirs sins (cause we all sin) but gayness is special and requires special action.

So I don’t think you are compromising your values, morals, or loyalty to the LDS faith by embracing your daughter and her partner and not judging and not forcing your choices for her onto her for her to be allowed to be fully your family. In fact, I think the scriptures, and modern prophecy, have been rather big on a thing called agency.

I usually don't copy other people's words unless they say things better than I could. In this case, they did.

"Has It Injured Me?"

2011-07-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

Recently in reading about LDS history, I ran across a quote from Joseph F. Smith, sixth president of the church. He was no doctrinal liberal by any means. Yet in no less a prominent venue than LDS General Conference he defended the sale of coffee, liquor and tobacco by ZCMI (Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution) the church-owned department store in Salt Lake which was started back in the 19th Century.

I couldn't help but notice the parallels between what this LDS church president said about Mormons selling booze and what marriage equality supporters say to modern Mormons who oppose same-sex marriage. The argument is the same, but when it comes to civil, non-religious marriage--which carries none of the theological connotations drinking does for modern Mormons--the analysis no longer applies to the church? If anyone can explain that one to me, please do.

Here's the original quote. I believe Smith was a member of the LDS First Presidency at the time:

"Some of our pretended pious people, a few years ago, were shocked and horrified by seeing the symbol of the All-Seeing Eye and the words 'Holiness to the Lord' in gilt letters over the front of Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution. Especially was this the case with some of our brethren when they found these letters over the drug department of Z.C.M.I. Why was it? Why some of these pious (?) Mormons found that Z.C.M.I. under the symbol of the all-seeing eye and the sacred words, 'Holiness to the Lord,' sold tea and coffee, and tobacco, and other things possibly that Latter-day Saints ought not to use; and at the drug store, Z.C.M.I. kept liquors of various kinds for medicinal purposes. It was terribly shocking to some of the Latter-day Saints that under these holy words liquor should be kept for sale. Has it injured me, in any sense of the word, because Z.C.M.I. drug store kept liquor for sale? Has it made me a drunkard? Have I been under the necessity of guzzling liquid poison? Have I made myself a sot because liquor was kept for sale by Z.C.M.I.? I am not the worse for it, thank the Lord. And who else is? No one, except those pious Mormons (?) who in open day or under the cover of night would go into the drug store and buy liquor to drink.... Those who were the most horrified at seeing the All-Seeing Eye and 'Holiness to the Lord' over the front door of Z.C.M.I., I will guarantee are the ones that have bought the most tea and coffee, tobacco and whiskey there.... It does not matter to me how much tea and coffee Z.C.M.I. sells, so long as I do not buy it. If I do not drink it am I not all right? And if the poor creature that wants it can get it there, that ought to satisfy him. If he could not get it there, he would not patronize Z.C.M.I. at all, but would go some where else to deal." (Conference Report, April 1898, page 11)

Now, try this version:

"Some of our pretended pious people, a few years ago, were shocked and horrified by seeing the [Church stop its opposition to marriage equality] . . . Why was it? Why some of these pious (?) Mormons found that [the church, which uses] the symbol of the all-seeing eye and the sacred words, 'Holiness to the Lord,' [no longer opposed same-sex civil marriage]. It was terribly shocking to some of the Latter-day Saints that under these holy words [marriage between two persons of the same sex should be allowed]. Has it injured me, in any sense of the word, because [the church recognized that gay persons should be able to enjoy the same legal rights, privileges, and all the personal benefits of marriage as straight persons]? Has it [hurt my marriage]? Have I been under the necessity of [abandoning my wife in order to find another man to marry myself]? Have I made myself a [promiscuous party boy] because [a gay person, whether or not they were a member of the church, was allowed to marry the person of his or her choice]? I am not the worse for it, thank the Lord. And who else is? No one . . . It does not matter to me [whether gay people marry each other] so long as I do not [leave my wife or husband, which I would never consider just because someone else was allowed to marry who they wanted]. If I do not [marry a person of the same sex, since I am not attracted that way,] am I not all right?”

The Real Rainbow

2011-07-18T22:02:00.001-07:00

I had a wonderful childhood with loving parents, a classic suburban neighborhood with soccer moms and kids on bikes and skateboards and lots of green grass and the occasional backyard swimming pool. The beach just minutes away. I remember realizing there were kids who lived in the middle of the country a thousand miles from a beach, and honestly not comprehending how they could endure it.

I grew up thinking pretty much everyone’s life was like mine. That everyone looked and lived basically like I did. There were virtually no ethnic minorities in our area; it was as WASP-ish as could be. Even the kids who went to school at St. Bonaventure’s instead of the public schools all looked like the rest of us, except for those school uniforms. I went to church every Sunday where everyone looked like me too, and was taught there that God loves everyone throughout the world. As far as I knew, the world looked like my neighborhood. Things seemed pretty good. God was in his heaven, all was right.

Then I grew up and left home and went on an LDS mission and encountered real poverty for the first time. The first house I was ever invited into was so small that I had to crouch down and literally squeeze through the door. Inside were two rooms that totaled maybe 200 square feet. For a whole family. Later I met a very old grandfather who had outlived everyone else in his family and was so poor he slept in a niche of bare rock in the corner of an unfinished basement of a large apartment building on a hillside. No heat in the winter, and winters were very cold. I learned pretty fast that the world did not look like my home neighborhood.

Fast forward some years. Everyone at church still looks the same. With very few exceptions that I noticed usually didn’t last long before drifting away, it was the same WASP-ish middle and upper middle class nuclear family types I grew up with. The ones that fit the church-approved mold for what you had to do in order to go to the highest heaven. But I also noticed that virtually nobody new came in the door, and when one occasionally did, they didn’t stay long. Hmmmm. Wonder why.

Emerson said “give me truths, for I am weary of the surfaces.” And last weekend I had a massive dose of truth, of what the real world looks like. Of what all of God’s children look like, in their incredible, amazing, magnificent, blazingly colorful variety. A true symphony of diversity. I was a volunteer at the San Diego Pride Parade & Festival. For two days I watched as the most incredible parade of humanity walked past. Every conceivable size, shape, age, color, appearance, dress. White-haired grandpas and grandmas, little kids in strollers. Skin from the palest to the darkest, and every shade in between. Dress from the most prosaically conservative to the most outlandish.

The coolest thing was that everyone was accepted just as they were. No opprobrium, no pejoratives, no prejudice, no raised eyebrows or harrumphing about more than one piercing per ear or pressure to make everyone look like everyone else. Mr. Normally Fairly Conservative me was delighted to get a picture with the most fabulously dressed and beautiful African-American woman. I think she was a woman. Whatever. Didn’t matter.

What also didn’t matter was stereotypes or orientation. I met guys there dressed in the most wildly outlandish stuff who I know for a fact are straight, and guys who I knew were gay yet dressed in the most ordinary “straight guy” clothes, and without a hint of stereotypically gay mannerisms. Lesson: Don’t judge. Orientation doesn’t matter. They are all children of God, with the right to live free of prejudice and fear and homophobia and to have their lives and the way they love respected.

If there was one group there larger than any other, it was the regular, ordinary-looking people. Grey-haired men with scruffy beards in cargo shorts and t-shirts, who looked like they could be truckdrivers capable of beating the crap out of you in a bar fight, were holding hands and kissing each other tenderly. Women couples who looked straight out of the suburbia I grew up in, holding hands and pushing strollers with their kids. So many kinds of families. The outlandish types were the minority. Most were just regular folks. So much for "the gay lifestyle."

Honestly, I wish every Mormon ward and stake would have the courage to bring their comparatively cloistered and sheltered youth to the Pride Festival. Let them walk around and see the rainbow of diversity that is really what God’s children look like. They’ll learn things from that which no officially sanctioned lesson manual recited in a plain brick classroom could ever teach. Jesus went to church, of course, but I think afterward he didn’t go home to nap or shut himself away in a room and do nothing in order to “keep the Sabbath day holy.” My bet is that he went right back out amongst the people wherever he was, talking, teaching, visiting, helping, observing, eating, drinking, healing.

On Saturday there were reportedly some 200,000 people watching the parade, and I think all of them must have flooded into the festival at the park afterward. It was astounding to see. All celebrating diversity and being proud of who they were. Though some folks don’t quite know it yet, the battle has been won. This progress can’t be stopped. What a great thing to live in a time when I can see it all happening.

Nails It

2011-07-13T11:29:00.001-07:00

It's always interesting to read comments to Utah newspaper articles about gay issues. Normally they're the predictable mix of personalities and perspectives, with a shifting cast of characters re-hashing basically the same point-counterpoint. After one reads enough of such stuff, one begins to see the patterns and to draw some conclusions.

And one develops an eye for particularly insightful, perceptive analyses too. I just ran across two such comments in a Salt Lake Tribune article on an upcoming film by Kendall Wilcox about gay Mormons. I think they're spot on, about as insightful as any I've seen, so I thought I'd save all of you the time of hunting through the comments yourself, and share them here.

Comment One:

Many church members don’t understand how the church’s position is homophobic and damaging. I will lay it out for you.

The LDS church’s position is: “same-gender attraction is not a sin, but acting on those feelings is—just as it would be with heterosexual feelings.”- (from Helping those who struggle with same-gender attraction by Jeffery R Holland.)

Holland goes on to say “‘We do not reject you,’ he said. ‘… We cannot reject you, for you are the sons and daughters of God. We will not reject you, because we love you.’”

This is how the members are taught to react to gay loved ones. It is not overtly homophobic, but here’s the catch – while ‘acting on homosexual feelings’ – presumably engaging in homosexual sex – is characterized as no more condemnable than ‘acting on heterosexual feelings,’ straight people are able to, within the doctrinal framework, find suitable life partners, marry, and consummate their marriages with a meaningful sexual bond. No such mechanism exists for gay individuals, and they are relegated to a life of loneliness and insufferable longing.

The church doesn’t just deny them sexuality, it denies them intimacy and companionship – such an integral part to the LDS experience. Additionally, and though the official position is acceptance and understanding, most gay LDS people experience at least a lack of understanding and at worst –and frequently - experience bigotry, vitriolic and callous rhetoric, and a decent amount of institutionalized, or at least institutionally-condoned hate.

Living as a gay person within the framework of LDS-think invariably becomes insufferable. It is quite simply impossible for most individuals. When the circumstances become unbearable, some end their own lives. Others GET OUT. Mr. Wilcox seems part of the latter group, it’s just taking some time.

Comment Two (in response to Comment One):

I think you are right. I don't know if this is correct but I also understand that masturbation is not ok either in the Church so they do not even have that outlet. I have met some who have left for the very reasons that you state. It just became incredibly unbearable for them but many still do believe in God and have faith. They just choose to not be setup for failure anymore. It seems they have opportunity to become more healthy emotionally when they leave and free themselves of all the shaming and setup for failure they experience in the Church. As a parent, I would rather encourage a gay child to be who they are in a responsible and caring manner and do good with their life. It still seems odd to me that all of these men and leaders that are telling them what they must go without to be ok with God are men who have all those things and aren't willing themselves to make those kind of sacrifices to go without all of that. It is like a rich person not sharing with a poor person and telling them they must be poor and should be happy and rejoicing in their poverty. Strange.

Mass

2011-07-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

Sunday again. An appropriate time to write about a church service. But you're not expecting the kind I'm going to write about.

In my early teens I discovered a recording of what was called a mass, and which had some of the features of the Roman rite I was learning about. But other parts of it were very different. There was a rock band, a jazz band, and at one point the priest threw the bread and wine to the ground. It shocked me, even though I wasn't Catholic.

But it also fascinated me, because it talked about faith in very blunt ways I never heard at my own church. Soft bluesy riffs with lyrics like "I believe in one god, but then I believe in three. I'll believe in twenty gods, if they'll believe in me. That's a pact, shake on that, no going back." Imagine something like that alongside a very neo-classical and exuberant Gloria Patri, Gloria Filio, et Spiritui Sancto, sung by the celebrant and a children's choir. The mix of medieval, classical, modern, jazz, rock all jumbled together was like nothing I'd ever heard.

And the early teenage boy in me loved the catchy and edgy song about the creation of the earth and how humanity had gradually become more and more corrupt: "God said let there be light, and there was day to follow the night, and it was good brother, and it was good brother, and it was good brother, and it was goddamn good." Youtube vids of the Mass are surprisingly few, but here's a video of that particularly delightful part, done admirably by a Lithuanian orchestra and chorus of all things! And the lyrics are worth reading since you may not understand everything from the chorus. Some delightfully cynical stuff (e.g. "God said it's good to be poor. Good men must not be secure. So if we steal from you, it's just to help you stay pure.")

It's no secret to anybody who reads this blog that I have had growing differences of opinion with the Mormon tradition in which I grew up. How could I not, having come out of the closet a few years ago. Most gay Mormons end up leaving the church entirely because they realize if they go along with the church's demands for personal belief and behavior, it becomes impossible for them to live happy fulfilled lives. I've seen many friends, gay and straight, decide the LDS church isn't for them, and they end up agnostic or even atheist. This is logical; if you leave one strict, authoritarian, demanding religious tradition and don't trust it anymore, why would you want to find and affiliate with another? How could you trust any of them after you'd decided one was not credible?

So it's been interesting for me to explain to friends like this why I retain my Christian faith. It's not the same as it used to be, certainly. But those basics still make more sense to me than any other explanation for life and the eternities, and I still try to live by them. Like so many other paradoxes in life, I find my faith becoming simpler and more complex at the same time. Simpler in that I feel myself gradually focusing on a smaller list of fundamentals; faith, hope and charity. And more complex in my increasing comfort with ambiguity, incompleteness, different levels of meanings, different sources of truth. With not knowing, after being raised in a church that relentlessly stresses knowing and certainty and shames any confessions of doubt. Today I said out loud "Is it possible to be a Christian Buddhist?" It was a serious question. Yeah, like I said, simpler and more complex at the same time.

And after all these years I've realized that's what I liked about Leonard Bernstein's Mass. It throws everything into the pot, everything in life. The high church classical, the street musicians, the formally robed celebrant, the scruffy busker and sultry lounge singer. All are children of God. All at different stages of life and faith. They're not all in white shirts and suits and floral print dresses. And in the Mass, even the celebrant experiences a loss of faith. But then starts to find it again. Maybe that's the message that resonated with me back in my teens, when I couldn't quite articulate why. Life is so much more complex than I was being told at church, but it's possible to keep your faith even in the rough and tumble that is the real world.

So here is one of my favorites from Bernstein's Mass, it's called A Simple Song. I loved it the first time I heard it, and have sung it a lot myself ever since. Still do. BTW, "lauda laude" means "praise, highest praise."

Where Are They

2011-06-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

Several friends have recently told me of numerous e-mails they’ve each gotten from schoolmates or mission companions who’ve essentially come out in those e-mails, either explicitly or implicitly by asking questions that only a closeted person would think of. It’s startling, really, how many. Active, faithful Mormon guys. And these are only the ones I’ve heard of. Obviously there’s got to be more.

Statistics I’ve seen from various sources say that between 1% and 10% of any given population will be gay. In 2007, 80% of all Mormon missionaries were young single elders. I’ll assume that proportion is still current. As of the April 2011 General Conference statistical report, there were 52,225 missionaries serving at the end of 2010.

Combining these statistics suggests that somewhere between 400 and 4100 of the LDS missionaries now serving are gay. And these are just the guys (I couldn’t find statistics for how many single female missionaries were serving). They will come home and, if they’re strong enough, start looking for people like my friends who are out and who can answer questions about how to reconcile who they are with what they’ve been taught.

I admit, I envy these guys. Things still aren’t where they should be, but they’re a lot easier now. When I returned from my mission, before the days of widespread acceptance of civil unions, growing acceptance of marriage equality, and the openness that now prevails, I intuitively understood that coming out of the closet was unthinkable. So I did what I was told was my only hope for happiness: stifled and tried to kill off that part of myself, got married to a beautiful girl who did not deserve what ended up happening, and learned to be a very good actor.

Imagine living your life as if you were on a stage 24/7. Every waking moment having to monitor your own actions, words, nuances, thoughts, even the way you move and dress, for fear of tipping someone off to who you really are because if they found out, you’d be at risk of losing everything. That’s what it was like. Exhausting. Ultimately the marriage ended and that made it possible for me to get off the stage.

So now I’m hearing all these stories about gay Mormon guys popping up right and left. Some more traditional types think it’s an “epidemic” of people who have “decided” to be gay. That’s silly, of course; it’s well-settled that nobody “decides” to be gay. Or straight, for that matter. You just are what you are. All we’re seeing is more gay people who are comfortable de-cloaking and being at ease with who they are. And that’s a good thing.

But it makes me wonder, too. According to everything I’ve read, the proportion of gay people in any given population has always been fairly constant. That means back when I was a missionary, and just afterward when I was at college, there were hundreds of gay guys serving and at school with me too. Yet I look around me and see how many in my demographic there aren’t as compared to, say, the missionary age guys, and I ask myself “Where are they? Surely they’re somewhere. Where?”

The only thing I can think of is they’ve already drifted away from the LDS church, or they did what I did and are still there, but padlocked in a basement below the closet door. Married, with kids, working jobs and in the church, set in careers and being husbands and fathers and doing all that normal Mormon stuff. And probably just suffering in silence. Still on stage, like I was. Perhaps they’ve already given up any thought or hope that things could or should be different. Too invested in marriages and kids and reputations and careers now, fearing it’d cost more to disentangle than they’d recoup by coming out and being true to who they really are.

Some of them may be content with that. Some may still be suffering, perhaps even agonizing, over the what if’s. Some may have gotten so numb from the suffocating that they can’t imagine ever changing things. On auto-pilot. It’s easy to do in the Mormon church, where virtually every aspect of your life can be dictated for you, if you let it.

It was tough when my marriage ended. It’s still difficult sometimes. I feel awful for what happened to both of us because I, trying to be the faithful priesthood holder, trusted the “inspired” counsel of leaders who obviously didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.

That’s past. Now I’m able to build a new more authentic life. And it’s been great, wonderful, exhilarating. I can’t imagine going back on stage. Nothing would be worth carrying that burden again.

But I look around at my demographic on the road of life, a ways ahead of those friends who are getting all the e-mails. And there are far fewer of us I can see on the road at this stage than at theirs. I know there must be just as many of us in the world. But it looks like most of them are still cloaked. And if they’re still cloaked at this stage, chances are that’s where they’ll stay.

If they freely choose that, then okay, that’s their prerogative. But I freely chose it too, and I know how I ended up feeling. And how I feel now. So my heart breaks for those of them who are staying silent and invisible out of duty, or fear, or inertia, or apathy. Because I know how they’re feeling and what they’re missing. I wish there were some way I could find them and say “I know. I understand. I’ve been there. It can get better if you want it to. It’s really not as scary as you think. There are so many of us waiting to welcome you.”

Everyone has to decide what's best for their own life, of course. But I think Professor Dumbledore was right: “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

What's The Difference

2011-06-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

I've actually gotten this question from friends and family. Why do you have to shove this in our faces? Why do you have to advertise it? Why do you force us to confront something we find distasteful? Why can't you just keep it to yourself? Why can't you be satisfied with civil unions and leave marriage alone?

Well, with Davey Wavey's help ("borrowed" from his Break the Illusion Blog), here's what I hope will be a new perspective on those questions.

The Heterosexual Privilege

As I’ve mentioned more than once, I think being gay is pretty awesome – and it comes with a number of benefits, including never having to deal with tampons. But let’s face it: When it comes to privileges, straight people definitely take the cake.

The Heterosexual Privilege Checklist is a list that helps straight people get a better understanding of what it’s like to be gay in a very hetero world. It makes it a little bit easier for straight people to put themselves in the shoes of their gay friends and family. I encourage you to share this article, which I’ve reproduced below, with your nears and dears in the hopes of facilitating some meaningful dialogue.

On a daily basis as a straight person…

I can be pretty sure that my roommate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation.

If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented.

When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.

I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences.

I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE f*g tag or smear the queer) [I actually heard one of these phrases from a friend just a week or two ago. He realized what he'd said and immediately apologized. Just goes to show you how entrenched this stuff is.]

I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation.

I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation.

I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.

I can be sure that my classes will require curricular materials that testify to the existence of people with my sexual orientation.

People don’t ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.

People don’t ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.

I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It’s assumed.

My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.

People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.

I don’t have to defend my heterosexuality.

I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual.

I can count on finding a therapist or doctor willing and able to talk about my sexuality.

I am guaranteed to find sex education literature for couples with my sexual orientation.

Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me.

I have no need to qualify my straight identity.

My masculinity/femininity is not challenged because of my sexual orientation.

I am not identified by my sexual orientation.

I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my sexual orientation will not work against me.

If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has sexual orientation overtones.

Whether I rent or I go to a theater, Blockbuster, an EFS or TOFS movie, I can be sure I will not have trouble finding my sexual orientation represented.

I am guaranteed to find people of my sexual orientation represented in my workplace.

I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare.

I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.

I do not have to worry about telling my roommate about my sexuality. It is assumed I am a heterosexual.

I can remain oblivious of the language and culture of LGBTQ folk without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

I can go for months without being called straight.

I’m not grouped because of my sexual orientation.

My individual behavior does not reflect on people who identity as heterosexual.

In everyday conversation, the language my friends and I use generally assumes my sexual orientation. For example, sex inappropriately referring to only heterosexual sex or family meaning heterosexual relationships with kids.

People do not assume I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it!) merely because of my sexual orientation.

I can kiss a person of the opposite gender without being watched and stared at.

Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness.

People can use terms that describe my sexual orientation and mean positive things (IE “straight as an arrow”, “standing up straight” or “straightened out” ) instead of demeaning terms (IE “ewww, that’s gay” or being “queer” ) .

I am not asked to think about why I am straight.

I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job.

All of this isn’t to say that straight people have it easy by virtue of being straight. We all have our challenges and obstacles. But the heterosexual privilege may help some straight people get a better and deeper understanding of what it’s like to be gay in today’s society.

An Amazing Day

2011-06-26T14:40:00.001-07:00

Last Friday. Wow. It's gonna be hard to beat that one.

A year ago on 24th June I stood on a stone jetty on the shore of Cape Cod and had the privilege of officiating at not one but two marriage ceremonies, both read from an iPhone. It was picture-perfect. Blue sky, blue water, clear sunshine, smiles and happiness as you'd expect at any wedding. All four new spouses dear friends of mine. So Friday was their anniversary. I can't believe it's been a whole year!

I will always remember that day as one of the highlights of my life. Not only that, it was my birthday as well. How many guys can say that on their birthday they performed two weddings for four friends? How amazing is that? What a birthday present they gave me. Thanks guys!

And then this year, not only do I get a flood of birthday greetings from friends far and wide, and not only do I have the happiness of thinking of those weddings, but the New York state senate gives us all a gift and passes marriage equality. On my birthday. And on friends' anniversaries. Of all days! What are the odds?

A friend in Tennessee had a power outage at home for about 3 days, and on Friday, his lights came back on. He posted a Facebook status about it, to which I replied that thanks the NY state senate, the drive for equality across the country can say the same thing: "My power has come back on."

One of the ways we celebrated was with a trip to the annual Highland Games yesterday. My family's sense of Scots tradition is strong and we enjoy attending these events. I wore my kilt the whole day, though, not just at the games, including for morning excursions around downtown San Diego. You wouldn't believe how many compliments I got on it, including while walking down the street, a guy driving past slowed down, rolled down his window, honked, gave me a thumbs up, and shouted "love the kilt!" I shouted back "Thank you!"

I pity any guy who's never worn a kilt, or who doesn't have the guts to do it in public. It feels great. And imagine all the adulation they're missing out on. Plus you get the fun of being playful with brazen women who ask the predictable question. This actually happened to me yesterday. I told her nothing was worn, everything was in perfect working order. She said she still wanted to verify for herself. I told her take a number and call my admin, there were others queued up ahead of her. She laughed and got the message, I think.

I amused myself yesterday morning by reading through the comments to a news story about New York marriage equality in Salt Lake City's Mormon-owned newspaper. There weren't as many Chicken Littles predicting impending doom of civilization as I expected, a nice surprise. Sure there were some, trotting out all the old arguments that they don't know have been thoroughly debunked already. And I was surprised at my reaction most of all. A couple of years ago I would have jumped into the fray and started jousting with these people. Now I just shrug and smile. Not worth the effort. They won't be persuaded, their fears are groundless, and marriage equality is inevitable anyway. My challenging them won't change any of that. Demographics alone are turning the tide and bending the arc of history toward justice, as Dr. King said. I'm glad I'm along for the ride.

And now it's a beautiful perfect summer Sunday, quiet and relaxing. Time to catch up on sleep, go to church, relax and read, chat with friends, blog. I have a lot to be grateful for.

To LDS Friends & Family

2011-06-12T16:49:00.001-07:00

I'm about to ask you to do a difficult thing. It is to read something. Something you probably wouldn't otherwise run across, or choose to read even if you did see it.

So, with respect, I will remind you that Joseph Smith himself said "by proving contraries is truth made manifest." That means we can learn truth by comparing and contrasting competing, disputing and opposing positions on things. And so in that spirit, that's what I'm about to ask you to read. This will challenge some of your beliefs. But remember that Pres. J. Reuben Clark said if the church has the truth, then it can't be harmed. So there should be nothing to fear.

This article was written by a friend of mine and it's been picked up by a national news blog. Please read and give good faith consideration to what it says. It may make you uncomfortable. But it seeks to do what Joseph Smith said, make truth manifest by examining contraries. Nobody should be afraid of that.

---------------------

Timed for the annual gay pride celebrations, the LDS Church’s official magazine, the Ensign, has an anti-gay manifesto in its current issue.

The article is written by Elder Bruce D. Porter a General Authority who was formerly a political science professor at BYU. The article’s subject is political, not spiritual.

Placing political op-ed pieces in the Church’s educational materials is not a good idea. In fact, mixing politics with religion, in general, is a bad idea. It results in bad politics and bad religion.

Three things struck me when reading the piece. First, there’s the virulence of its anti-gay sentiment. The article contains no words of compassion, just condemnation and a call to political action against families the Church doesn’t approve of. Then there’s the cowardice. The article doesn’t mention gay people by name, and it doesn’t use the term homosexuality. It is written entirely using code words. And finally, the article repeatedly claims victim status for the Church. It evades all responsibility for the disaster that was Proposition 8.

You can read the essay for yourself, but I will respond to a few of the most egregious parts.

The first four paragraphs lay the foundation of a straw man argument. Porter presents as controversial the completely uncontroversial position that the family is an important social institution. (Can you see where this is going yet?) After this set up, Porter gets ready to attack his straw man:

[M]any of society’s leaders and opinion-makers increasingly seem to have lost their bearings when it comes to understanding the vital importance of the family.

…

We live in a day … when good is called evil and evil good. Those who defend the traditional family … are mocked and ridiculed. On the other hand, those … who seek to redefine the very essence of what a family is, are praised and upheld as champions of tolerance. Truly, the world has turned upside down.

Sigh.

For the record, those of us who are on the receiving end of the Church’s political campaigns do not mock the Church. We disagree with the Church’s political actions, and we are harmed by the practical consequences of those actions. There’s a difference between disagreeing and mocking, even if the Church doesn’t see it.

As for the argument that proponents of marriage equality want to “redefine the very essence of what a family is,” one can also ask if President Kimball redefined “the very essence” of LDS priesthood in 1978. Extending the rights and benefits of marriage to a small minority of people has no effect on existing marriages, just as giving the LDS priesthood to blacks did not “redefine” the priesthood already held by others.

As usual, just exactly how same-sex marriage is an attack on the traditional family or on traditional marriage is not explained, it is merely taken for granted. For a thorough discussion of these issues, I would recommend to Elder Porter the transcript of the federal court case that overturned Prop. 8 in California. (Why was Elder Porter, an expert from BYU, not a witness at that trial?)

Next, Porter dismisses tolerance as a virtue while simultaneously accusing any who engage in debate over gay issues as intolerant:

Latter-day Saints are often accused of narrow-mindedness or lack of tolerance and compassion because of our belief in following precise standards of moral behavior as set forth by God’s prophets…. Until recently in our national history, tolerance referred to racial and religious non-discrimination. It meant civility in the political arena; in other words, respecting the right of others to express their views, even if we do not agree with them. It meant treating all people with decency and respect. Such tolerance is an important and vital part of our American heritage.

Today, however, the world is in danger of abandoning all sense of absolute right or wrong, all morality and virtue, replacing them with an all-encompassing “tolerance” that no longer means what it once meant. An extreme definition of tolerance is now widespread that implicitly or explicitly endorses the right of every person to choose their own morality, even their own “truth,” as though morality and truth were mere matters of personal preference. This extreme tolerance culminates in a refusal to recognize any fixed standards or draw moral distinctions of any kind. Few dare say no to the “almighty self” or suggest that some so-called “lifestyles” may be destructive, contrary to higher law, or simply wrong.

When tolerance is so inflated out of all proportions, it means the death of virtue, for the essence of morality is to draw clear distinctions between right and wrong. All virtue requires saying no firmly and courageously to all that is morally bankrupt.

I don’t know where to begin with this kind of twisted and self-serving statement. First of all, the Church is hardly in a position to bring up racial tolerance. Its racist policies were firmly in place within recent memory (I grew up with them), and it used virtually the same language in arguing against civil rights for blacks as it now uses for gay people! The argument, then as now, was (mis)framed in terms of morality and supporting families.

Now, as then, the Church seems unable to distinguish between what influence it should exert over civil laws and the influence it has over religious laws. Why isn’t Elder Porter railing against the evils of alcohol and coffee? Where’s the Church’s support for a referendum that would outlaw alcoholic beverages and Starbucks? And if religious views are so important to respect, where’s Elder Porter’s support of gay-affirming churches who want to bless gay unions?

The theme of Mormons-as-victims continues:

Curiously enough, this new modern tolerance is often a one-way street. Those who practice it expect everyone to tolerate them in anything they say or do, but show no tolerance themselves toward those who express differing viewpoints or defend traditional morality. Indeed, their intolerance is often most barbed toward those of religious conviction.

In other words, Porter thinks the right of free expression is stifled by open political debate. Porter confuses the right of free expression with an (imagined) right to say whatever one wants without having others who disagree get their chance to present their own arguments. But, apparently, the opinions of others (including those actually harmed by the Church’s political actions) don’t matter. According the Porter, the Church knows better than the people whose lives it seeks to disrupt:

By defending the traditional family [i.e., legislating against families the Church doesn't approve of], Latter-day Saints bless all people whether others recognize it now or not.

Excuse me for not extending my thanks as I watch my partner lose his right to live in the same country as me due to the Church’s efforts to “bless” my life whether I recognize it or not. Please, spare yourselves the effort! The Church is accruing some pretty bad karma with its effort to ‘bless’ people like me by attacking the one thing in our lives we care most about: our families.

In the middle of all the politics, Elder Porter does bring up one religious point. However, it’s the heretical idea that has recently been introduced by LDS leaders to the effect that God’s love is conditional.

God’s love is sometimes described as unconditional…. But while God’s love is all-encompassing, His blessings are highly conditional, including the very blessing of being able to feel and experience His love.

[This is an example of bad religion, and it's not coincidental that it is linked to unjust politics.]

Finally, it’s back to politics for the wrap-up, with a call to political action:

The Church is a small institution compared with the world at large. Nevertheless, the Latter-day Saints as a people should not underestimate the power of our example, nor our capacity to persuade public opinion, reverse negative trends, or invite seeking souls to enter the gate and walk the Lord’s chosen way. We ought to give our best efforts, in cooperation with like-minded persons and institutions, to defend the family and raise a voice of warning and of invitation to the world. The Lord expects us to do this, and in doing so to ignore the mocking and scorn of those in the great and spacious building, where is housed the pride of the world.

The sense of persecution is just breathtaking, and in case you missed it, the call to “give our best efforts” means to donate money, and to do this “in cooperation with like-minded persons and institutions” means to give money to groups like the National Organization for Marriage, a political organization that was created by the Church to get Prop. 8 on the ballot in California. (Elder Holland’s son Matthew was a member of the original board of directors.)

But there’s more:

May we as members of the Church rise up and assume our divinely appointed role as a light to the nations. May we sacrifice and labor to rear a generation strong enough to resist the siren songs of popular culture, a generation filled with the Holy Ghost so that they may discern the difference between good and evil, between legitimate tolerance and moral surrender.

Many younger LDS people are not okay with this message. It is not “popular culture” that makes young Mormons sensitive to the plight of their gay peers; it is an emerging sense of justice. I know many devout members of the Church who are heartbroken over the harmful ideas that Elder Porter repeats here. Many members are ashamed of what their Church is doing, and rightly so.

Elder Porter, please know that demeaning someone else’s family does not strengthen your own.

I thought things were changing with these folks. Apparently, they are not. Is the Church warming up for the fight in Minnesota in 2012?

There is a silver lining here. It’s clear that Elder Porter’s op-ed sermon is very defensive. He knows that the Church’s position is unpopular with many members of the Church and that its involvement in Prop. 8 was a PR disaster. The subtext of the article is a sense of panic that the Church is losing this one.

To All Christians who Oppose Marriage Equality For Religious Reasons And Say They're Defending Marriage And Religious Freedom For Our Own Good

2011-06-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

To such Christian friends:

If you ever wonder why your protests of love and concern and "defending the family" and "we're watching for your souls so you must try not to be or at least try not to act gay" and "we're not discriminating,we're defending morality" ring oh so hollow, just consider the words of one of your favorite Christian theologians:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

—C. S. Lewis

Is that how you would want to be treated?

New Blog

2011-05-31T14:16:00.001-07:00

No, I'm not doing a new blog. But I just ran across one that's worth your attention. There's one out there which went viral during October 2010 LDS General Conference after Boyd Packer's infamous homophobic speech about The Gay which he was subsequently required to edit for publication.

Its author, who refuses to identify himself, revels in the angst and torment of "struggling" to be a faithful Mormon while also being gay. He loves the adulation of hundreds of followers who laud his every post for his bright shining example of devotion to God, the prophet, and every word that proceedeth forth from The Church Office Building.

While constantly proclaiming his own humility and propensity to fall short of perfection, he holds himself out as a beacon of faithfulness and obedience and a savior of the lives of other strugglers. For example: "I've had the daily opportunity to touch people's lives and help them find the faith to avert suicide, fix broken marriages, and pursue lifelong dreams." Yes, that's actually a quote from his blog.

Hmmm. I seem to remember the Savior saying "when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what they right hand doeth; That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."

Mr. Perfect Sufferer follows the same basic script for each post. It's the same model for inspiring introspective sermonettes used each Sunday morning by Lloyd Newell for the "Music & The Spoken Word" broadcast of the Tabernacle Choir. One need only read a few of his posts in succession to discern the pattern.

He also censors and filters every comment that comes in response to his posts. And he rejects any which disagree with his agenda. The result, of course, is an echo chamber into which none is admitted or allowed to speak except those who already see things exactly as he does--and who see him as a bright shining exemplar. It's no surprise that the overwhelming majority of his blog followers are straight women.

Fortunately this is not characteristic of the entire Internet. And somebody (not me, I had nothing to do with this) has now had the creativity to start a blog which answers Mr. Perfect Sufferer and actually allows the freedom to discuss and debate his Highly Processed Inspiration Packets which he himself does not permit. If there's any justice or fairness in the world, this one will catch on just as fast as his did after Packer's speech. In any event, it will certainly be a better tool for learning and discovering truth, since Mr. Perfect Sufferer seems to have forgotten the insight of the founding prophet he no doubt claims to revere: "by proving contraries is truth made manifest."

To see not only Mr. Perfect Sufferer's thoughts but also engage in actual free discussion of them, click here.

We've Already Won

2011-05-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

Over there on the left sidebar amongst my favorite quotes is one from Cesar Chavez: “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.”

I’ve had a stressful few weeks and have gotten a bit down about some things. But I think I’m bouncing back. Obviously I’m well past high school, and I know it’s common to hear of more mature adults deriding teens and 20-somethings for all kinds of things, “the world’s going to hell in a handbasket if we leave it to them,” that sort of thing.

But I don’t see that. And one of the things that’s helped me do it is the story of James taking Josh to his high school prom. I don’t know where, and I’m not sure when (other than that it’s recent), but this story and this picture warmed my heart. It was unimaginable when I was in high school. It still is in some less enlightened, tolerant and accepting places. But the fact that it is possible, and even welcomed, in some places now gives me real hope for the future. The same hope that those in the early days of the civil rights movement saw for younger generations of African-Americans. And just 50 years later, look who’s in the White House. Only a hundred years after Teddy Roosevelt was so cowed by national outrage for inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner there that he never met publicly with Washington again.

Focus on the Family Chief Executive and President Jim Daly recently conceded that marriage equality opponents have “probably lost” the battle already. And he’s absolutely right. Demographics alone doom his and anyone else’s opposition to marriage equality nationwide. I’m sure pockets of resistance will remain long after it becomes law, but the tide has already shifted. Polls show that growing majorities of Americans support gay marriage. Homophobia will eventually become as odious as racism.

John Adams said “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”

In the same vein, those of past generations who suffered through aggressive police round-ups at bars and clubs, and who finally started to fight back, they studied politics and war so that those of the next generation would have liberty to study demographics and philosophy. Those of that generation have been studying demographics, politics, philosophy, and debate so that those of James and Josh’s generation can have the right to finally and freely be who and what God made them to be, without the stifling shame and fear of the past.

And that’s why this picture warmed my heart. Because it told me that the battle has already been won. Like Chavez said, once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.

Evensong

2011-05-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

I love the Anglican tradition, always have. Many of my friends know that sometimes I like to go to the local Episcopal cathedral, where I know a bunch of people and get to practice on the organ sometimes and have even sung with the choir.

Part of the Anglican tradition is a late Sunday afternoon service called Evensong. It's kind of like an abbreviated church service, there's no communion or sermon, it's just a series of prayers and scripture readings and music. A wonderful way to end a Sunday with peace and contemplation and reflection.

I like this service a lot. So I thought I'd share it with you. The music you'll hear is Faure's "Cantique de Jean Racine", whose lyrics you can find with a quick Google search if you want. They're beautiful. This is an actual live recording from today's Evensong service sung by the choir of men and boys at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego, with pictures of the cathedral and some of its people. I hope you'll see why I love this place.

Infringement or Illusion?

2011-05-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Sitting in Borders Books relaxing after a frenetic week. Realizing that recent life distractions have led me to almost ignore the blog for the last little while. Can’t imagine anybody has missed it much. I haven’t gone anywhere, I’ve just been engaged with real life. Kids and stuff. Priorities. But I do have some thoughts still percolating and have been meaning to write about this particular one for a while.

Starting way back during the Prop 8 debates and continuing on since then, I’ve seen countless commentaries from conservative people and groups, the National Organization for Marriage, various religious groups, etc., all hollering about threats to religious freedom if marriage equality becomes the law of the land. Their ability to practice their religion freely will be infringed, apparently.

And as with all the committed gay relationships and marriages I see around me which are thriving, I look at such claims and say “How? Why? How does this infringe your religious liberty? Why is it bad for you?”

So far, the answers are basically “We won’t be able to teach that homosexuality is an abomination to God anymore, we’ll be forced to perform gay marriages that are theologically offensive, and our children will be force-fed an immoral social agenda in the schools.”

People a lot smarter than me have demonstrated with abundant evidence that all three of these claims are completely bogus. So I won’t rehash them here. This leaves one objection which is never clearly stated as such, because when it is, its silliness is immediately apparent. But it seems quite prevalent nonetheless.

It’s the belief that religious freedom is infringed merely by confronting the phenomenon, the issue of marriage equality. Just having to think about and deal with it seems in many peoples’ minds equivalent to impinging on their religious liberty. This theme underlies much of Dallin Oaks’ speechifying as well as that of many other marriage equality critics affiliated with the LDS and other churches. They seem to assume a constitutional right to keep things “the way they’ve always been” without even thinking about changes.

I have tried to follow the thread of this “logic” through more possible twists and turns than a cat’s cradle, and it still makes no sense to me. How does just thinking about and debating a public policy issue restrict religious freedom? That makes sense only if you define religious freedom as the right to be unquestioned and unoffended. And that’s just silly. There’s no constitutional right to never be offended, or to never have to think about things you disagree with.

I like and respect solid logic and a well-reasoned argument. But this idea of religious freedom being infringed by having to debate this issue at all is just dumb. It’s bogus on its face. It rests on a false assumption that has no legal basis whatsoever. And in doing so, it inflicts a great disservice on its own adherents, by leading them to believe something that’s just not true.

Anybody that reads this and disagrees, please jump in. Tell me why I’m wrong. I’m all ears.

Mash-Up

2011-04-30T05:58:00.000-07:00

I recently had a great time at a big party downtown, went with some friends and met a bunch of new people. In the course of talking with them, the subject of my growing up as a gay Mormon would frequently come up. And the reactions were consistent: raised eyebrows, slight drops of the jaw, words like “wow” or “OMG that must have been difficult” or “congratulations, you survived.”

I’ve gotten used to responses like this. What’s interesting is that they’re so uniform and predictable. Every single person says virtually the same thing. Now, it’s undeniable that life inside the LDS Church can be so all-consuming that one truly has no idea how people outside the church view those who are inside. So this has been a very interesting lesson, particularly in post-Prop 8 California, as to how so many view the Mormon Church: hostile territory at best.

I’m sure most active Mormons would react in ways ranging from mild disappointment to taking severe offense at hearing such opinions. After all, Mormons consider themselves followers of Christ and I know that many of them really do try to act that way. To have those efforts rewarded with such characterizations by outside observers can be hurtful, because Mormons reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally place a high priority on being nice and they reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hate to be the bad guy.

But then I think of episodes that have happened in the lives of some of my own friends, in light of the Savior's admonition to judge things by their fruits. Parents coming unglued when a gay son well past legal adult age decides to spend a few hours with another gay friend who the parents haven’t vetted and pre-approved. Parents who know a son is gay and are helping with college expenses but cut him off financially when he makes the mature and responsible decision to get married (to another guy). Siblings de-friending a gay sibling on Facebook or flooding him with guilt-inducing messages about “empty chairs in heaven” or “shaming the family and breaking mom’s heart” and so forth. Family members clinging like barnacles to ideas about homosexuality that are scientifically unsound but which bolster familiar prejudices. I need not mention the countless times that the shame and the guilt and the criticism have gotten so bad that suicide has seemed the only way out.

A Facebook friend of mine recently said “Mormons have no boundaries.” And she was pretty much right. There is something about Mormon culture that makes its adherents blithely assume they can ask the most outrageously personal and intrusive questions of other Mormons, or treat them in the most incredibly insensitive ways, without even stopping to think whether they’re being impolite or nosy. Doing or asking things they would never dream of with a non-Mormon friend or neighbor. This is the flip side of the “eternal family” idea. If you come out as a gay Mormon, you are seen as choosing to get up and walk away from the heavenly kitchen table over which Mom & Dad preside and which they’ve been taught is the ultimate eternal goal worth aspiring to. You are choosing to destroy their eternal hopes.

When seen from that perspective, it’s no wonder that parents come unglued when an adult child just wants to go spend a few hours with a gay friend, or that siblings would unfriend their own sister or brother on Facebook, or that parents would pay big bucks to snake oil salesmen hawking various seminars or weekends or programs claiming to teach their gay boy how to be a real man and stop thinking about boys when he fantasizes. After all, these gay kids are threatening to destroy the eternal family, so extreme measures are justified, right? This threat must be fought. It can’t be accepted as legitimate, even if the kid is an adult. After all, the prophet and apostles said so.

And when I explain these realities to people I meet at parties who’ve never met a Mormon before, that’s when their eyes really get big and their jaws really drop. And the phrases change to things like “You’ve got to be joking” or “I had no idea it was that bad” or “what a hot house” or “I thought the Catholics and the Jews had the monopoly on guilt.”

And here’s why I mention the bit about Mormons having no boundaries. It’s because responses like that, from non-Mormons looking at Mormon behavior about this issue, are normal human reactions to the behavior I’ve described. But in my experience, countless Mormons would just brush off such reactions and say “well, they don’t really understand.” It’s that unwillingness to question the assumption that they have the full picture on this (or any) issue, and thus the right to do or say anything amongst other Mormons (particularly family members) necessary to promote and preserve The Officially Approved Goal. I saw it after my mission when almost immediately people began asking me why I wasn’t married yet. I saw it after marriage when people I hardly knew at church would ask why we weren’t having kids. Or after we started, would ask why we weren’t having more. It happened so often that I got to the point of rehearsing a couple of pre-packaged responses designed to put such people in their place and tell them “back off, you are being rude and insensitive.”

The disconnect is huge. Because, as I’ve said before, some of the most truly Christ-like people I’ve ever known have been Latter-day Saints. But there is something about modern Mormon culture and groupthink that is hostile to the basic Christian principles of freedom of choice and which rejects any individual belief that doesn’t conform to whatever was said in the last General Conference.

And that is why friends of mine, confronting this immense monolith of Mormon opprobrium, tearfully say things like “I just can’t understand what makes my desire so wrong, immoral or disorderly” when they know how that special guy makes them feel down to the core of their soul: happy, whole, complete, filled with every good and noble and positive emotion and aspiration, with love and a desire to be with, care for, and do every single one of the same things any straight couple would be praised and celebrated for within the Mormon culture. Yet, clinging to misinterpretations of six small verses out of the entire Bible and their uncritical adoption by LDS leaders as a basis, so many Mormons reject the evidence of the words and hearts and lives of their own sons and daughters and impose incalculable heartache rather than do the hard work of questioning their own received prejudices.

I should say here that this post is not prompted by my own family, but by a broader trajectory of experience, recently repeated, in which I’ve seen this kind of insularity inflict this kind of pain yet again on someone I care a lot about. I understand the pain that Mormon families feel when they believe one of their own is choosing to reject what the family believes is the only way for them to stay together forever. And I also understand the pain of being the one who can’t seem to get anyone to really listen to or believe everything he says.

And that’s why, as I recently told another friend currently struggling with this same issue, ultimately there’s no way to bridge this gap. The church into which he was born has framed the issue such that he must either give up all hope of the fullest happiness he is meant for in order to comply with the church’s demands, or else he must accept (as my own bishop and stake president freely stated) that the church has no explanations or answers for him and thus he must seek his own and make his own decisions for his own life. Some, including some of my own friends, choose to stay in circumstances where they try to balance between these two, and I fully respect their right to do that. I also believe that even such efforts at balancing will ultimately and unavoidably yield a choice of one of these two alternatives.

What will it take to cut this tragic Gordian knot? The only thing that will permanently change the Mormon mind is a new revelation through the president of the church. I can't help believing that God knows far more about this subject than we do. But a new revelation that would legitimize gay relationships would be far more earth-shaking than Spencer Kimball’s 1978 change in policy on priesthood. It would re-write LDS doctrine more radically than has ever been done since the days of Joseph Smith. I seriously doubt the risk-averse corporate managers who run the LDS Church right now feel any need to take on something like that, or want the responsibility for the outcome.

And so the helicoptering and the tears and the secret sorrowing and the misunderstanding will continue. And I will continue to meet people at parties whose jaws drop and whose eyes get big and who wonder how any gay Mormon guy keeps his sanity. And I will nod and agree. And I will also tell them that there’s always reason for hope; I survived, I’m doing great, others have done the same. And someday the church is going to have to change and catch up.

So a shout-out to the one particular buddy concern for whom has sparked this post, the one who faced such family outcry for wanting to just go hang out with a friend. You know who you are. Hang in there. You are stronger than you think. And it really does get better.

The Real Glee

2011-04-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

Glee is a TV show with all kinds of social commentary drama and comedy. And everybody knows that its musical numbers are top-level Hollywood pro quality, not the sort of thing real high schoolers do. One must suspend some disbelief in that respect while watching.

But if you're interested in seeing a real world show choir, check out the Westminster Chorus. A friend of mine used to sing with them, and they are truly amazing. So Gleeks, set your show aside for a moment and have a look at some real stuff.

To Anybody Still In The Closet, Listen Up

2011-03-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

On a brief break this morning I skimmed a blog or two and ran across a friend's post that talked about his hours of chat with a 20 year old closeted gay Mormon guy from the Salt Lake area. Apparently the guy texted next morning and said please delete my number, I don't want to talk anymore, and "I need to do what I need to do not what I want to do."

I can't describe how sad that made me. Because I know what's ahead for this guy and I would save him from it if I could. I would at least try to persuade him to not be scared by learning from others' experiences, it could save him a lot of grief. But to put it bluntly as Will Rogers did, "some people just have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

So I got to thinking. If I could talk to this young guy in Salt Lake, what would I say to him, knowing what I know and having experienced what I have? What would I say to any young gay Mormon guy in his position? And the thoughts came tumbling out. Here's what I'd say.

1. It's okay that you're gay. No, really. It's OKAY. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. God made you this way and countless others like you. You are a person of worth and value, just as you are.

2. The church and culture around you will try to define your life and your purpose for you, instead of letting you do it yourself. And their definitions won't allow you to be gay. They will set up this conflict within you and then expect you to comply with their definitions because, they'll tell you, God and your family will accept nothing else and if you don't agree, you'll be doomed for eternity. Recognize that this is extremely high-pressure, even if it's couched in the most apparently loving of terms. This will be very hard for you to deal with, because your whole life and family and identity and feelings of security and happiness may be wrapped up in your church and its culture. I know, I've been there myself. But remember also that even God Himself honors and respects freedom of choice.

3. As long as you yield the decisions for defining your life and your purpose to someone else, whether it be a church, or a parent, or societal pressures, you will feel conflict and unhappiness.

4. Shame and silence are deadly. They will kill your heart and hopes. The culture around you conspires to keep you silent and conforming and wracked with guilt just for being the way God made you. Don't give in to that! It's spiritual suicide. Please don't be afraid to reach out and talk to others. There is a huge new family out there waiting to welcome you with open arms, to support and comfort and teach and encourage you. I know what it's like to stay scared and silent in the closet for years. I was stupid. Don't do what I did. Check out the It Gets Better Project to learn about others' experiences, to learn that you're NOT alone, and to see what could be ahead for you. And check out Empty Closets too.

5. You're going to need courage. Things are a lot better than they used to be, but we still have a long way to go. As you reach out, talk with others, learn, grow, you'll get stronger. You'll be able to talk frankly with family and friends. You'll be able to stand up for what and who you are, without the shame and fear and guilt. You'll be able to define your own life and your own purpose instead of abdicating that privilege to somebody else or to an organization. And that, my friend, is when all that guilt and conflict inside you will finally stop. You will still have all of life's challenges, but you'll have them with a confident and peaceful heart.

Sunday Thoughts

2011-03-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

After a frenetic week and a Saturday busier than expected, today is my one day to actually rest. And I found myself recreating a pattern from a while back when I would sometimes end spending weekends in the Bay Area. Drive up to the city for Sunday morning services at the majestic, awe-inspiring Grace Cathedral, then drive west on California Street across Van Ness to the Whole Foods market, get something healthy from their buffet for lunch, drive northwest to Lafayette Park (on a mid-city hilltop with views of the bay in two directions), and sit under some beautiful old trees, soak up the sunshine and the views, eat my politically correct organic natural lunch, read, savor the fresh air and sunshine. Those Sundays were truly days of rest.

And today I found myself doing almost the same thing without realizing it. Went to church here in San Diego, then ended up at Whole Foods for a bit of lunch and was planning a stop in the park. Ran out of time though, had a rehearsal. But it was fun walking through the Whole Foods after church, made me feel like I was back in San Francisco. I sure love that place. I don't know if I'll ever find the words to say how much I love Gothic architecture and its soaring sunlit spaciousness.

It's been unseasonably cold here lately. Today was more like the temperature we're used to. I love spring, because I love summer most of all. And anticipation is wonderful.

Hung out earlier this week with a buddy and his kids. They were all smart and funny and we had a delightful time. When we get both sets of kids together they will forget all about the dads, I'm sure.

One of the things I like about waking up in the morning is a bowl of Grape-Nuts, soaked to slightly soggy, and a ripe banana. I don't bother slicing the banana into the cereal, I just take alternating bites. One of the best breakfasts ever.

Simple pleasures are often best. A small group of us in the Master Chorale performed Ralph Vaughan-Williams' "Serenade to Music" with the symphony a couple weeks ago. I normally sing the low bass part but this time I was tasked with singing baritone, which meant I got to belt out the B natural that made the major chord at one of the climactic moments of the piece. I never get to do that. I felt like Pavarotti. We got a great review. Another one checked off the bucket list.

Found a great place to hang out downtown. Relaxed atmosphere, great food, great music. Spent an evening working there this past week. And another exploring some other places with friends. Walked into one last night around 11:30 and it was packed, but virtually silent. Every single person had a laptop or other screen-equipped device and was staring into it. The baristas were making most of the noise, other than occasional keyboard clacking from patrons. Weird.

I've been part of a discussion this week about Brandon Davies being kicked off the BYU basketball team. Friends from across the spectrum have participated and I've learned a lot about everybody that's taken part. In some ways I was reminded of the Proposition 8 campaign when tempers and tolerances were being pushed to extremes. And I was lucky enough to run across something very insightful from Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby. He's the author of the classic humor piece Five Kinds of Mormons.

Only this time Kirby was a little more serious, and made some excellent points. It'd be nice to hear someone speak in church with these thoughts as their theme.

Basically, he pointed out how conservative religions--not just the Mormon Church--often end up enforcing a culture of facades and deception as everybody tries to look like they fit the orthodoxy they think everyone else expects. "Honesty can be a real liability at church, which is funny considering all that emphasis on love and compassion and truth. While a certain amount of conformity is expected in any group, you don’t have to step too far out of line at church before you start scaring people."

And then the money quote: "Ironically, few things scare us more than the possibility of not being completely right about something far too big for us to fully comprehend in the first place." Oh boy, how true that is. Especially for a lotta Mormons when they confront the gay people in their midst. Mormon culture fosters such a high-voltage attitude of "gotta be certain about as much as possible as often as possible", and the thought that The Gay could be anything other than All Kinds of Bad is, to quote Vizzini, "absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable."

But we know so little. The most brilliant inspired people can't explain most of what surrounds us in the world. Or what happens when we die. Or how/why the Big Bang started. Or why a beautiful rose is so beautiful. Or how a baby feels as he/she finally figures out how to walk for the first time. And they certainly can't explain what God might have in store for girls who love girls, or boys who love boys. And there have been millions of them. Yet so many insist on "being completely right" about this thing that's "far too big for [them] to fully comprehend in the first place."

I certainly stopped worrying about all of that a while back, and I find I'm much happier as a result. Focus on what I can do and influence. Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly. Seek justice, speak out against unfairness of any kind. Try to treat others as I hope they'll treat me. And let God sort out the rest of it.

Another of life's simple pleasures. Working away on something and having a chat screen pop up from a friend. Somebody actually cares enough to reach out. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Priceless.

Q&A: "I Was Married to a Gay Mormon"

2011-03-20T11:36:00.001-07:00

The following article appeared today in the San Jose Mercury-News. It's worth reproducing here in full. I hope my LDS friends and family members who read this blog and who believe I've gone off the rails will suspend such judgments long enough to really consider these real-world results of what they believe. Remember, "by their fruits ye shall know them."

Q&A: 'I was married to a gay Mormon'
By Michelle Beaver
Correspondent

This woman, who was raised in the Mormon church and the Bay Area, was married to a gay Mormon and shares her story here. She requested her name and other details not be published, saying, "Please do not use my name, age, or city as it would be easy to identify me and church authorities would likely punish me and my faithful family members for my participation in this (article). You may mention that I am a 'disaffected Mormon who lives in the Silicon Valley, but cannot formally resign from the LDS church as it would likely result in irreparable harm to family relationships.'"

She continued, "I am willing to share my story in the hopes that it will help others going through the same thing, or help others to avoid ever falling into this trap."

Any further details, such as how long she was married, are not included.

Please give an overview of your marriage.

I was married to a gay Mormon who repressed his sexuality in an effort to fit in. Our marriage was a painful mess, and our religious authorities placed the blame on my shoulders for failing to have enough faith to make him turn straight. A seriously overlooked aspect of homophobia in religious cultures is the damage it does to the women they deceive and marry.

How much pressure is there on gays in the Mormon church to change their behavior?

I'm trying to think of a superlative that can describe it enough. Immense? Mandatory? Total? Is there a word strong enough? This is an organization that has heterosexuality written into its plan for getting into heaven. There is simply no place for homosexuals in LDS doctrine. My ex-husband knew he was gay since he was 12 years old. But the consequences kept him from opening up to his parents and religious leaders -- the first people he should have been able to turn to --and instead he learned to repress, deny, and go through the motions in the hopes that he would finally be "normal."

Once I discovered that my ex was gay, there was an immense burden on me to "fix" him. My bishop's exact words were, "I know this marriage can and should be saved. If you have enough faith then his confusion will vanish. You have a duty to stand by your temple covenants."

"Straightening out" my husband became my responsibility. The period of time in which I did everything my priesthood holders asked of me was the most miserable time of my life. I had no peace of mind until I was able to shake myself free of the idea that the men in charge of my soul might not be speaking for God after all.

I stuck it out and stuck it out until I found out my ex was meeting men on the Internet for sex. At that point, I wasn't going to stick around to wait for him to bring HIV home to me. I didn't care what my priesthood leaders said anymore. My male Mormon leaders and their male Mormon God could go to hell.

I knew in my heart that it was cruel and unfair to expect any woman to risk her happiness, health, and sanity for the sake of making sure that every member of the church fit into the exact same mold.

How were you treated by members of the church when it was discovered that you husband was gay, and that you were getting divorced?

Nobody ever discusses the collateral damage that is done to women because of religious-based homophobia. It's hard enough being gay and feeling deficient in God's eyes, but it's just as bad to be made responsible for curing something that can't and shouldn't be fixed.

In Mormon communities, women who fail to "pray the gay away" are viewed as failures. The implication is that you have no faith. The guilt and sorrow is crushing. My ex's parents to this day blame me for "giving him the idea" that he was gay, although he knew that he was homosexual long before he met me.

Shortly after leaving my ex and moving back in with my parents, an older woman at church pulled me aside and said, "I never thought that you would show such little faith and break your temple covenants. At least you didn't have any children in this mess."

It took me a long time to break free from the church's control over my mind. I had finally begun to feel that, having been married in the temple under false pretense, I was justified in walking away for the sake of my own health and safety. But this comment and many others like it really wounded me.

Being divorced brings enough stigma to Mormons and their family members, but divorce due to homosexuality is a truly gossip-worthy scandal. The Mormons in my life who really know me and what I went through do not blame me for what happened. They know I tried my hardest. But more general acquaintances have not been kind or understanding.

In your opinion, how angry is the gay population of the Bay Area toward the Mormon church for its involvement in Proposition 8, and do you think those feelings will change?

Pretty much everyone I know regards Mormons as backward, ignorant bigots who do what their cult leader tells them to. People generally acknowledge Mormons to be kind-spirited, family-oriented, clean living, but very deluded. Whenever I acknowledge that I am a Mormon, I am quick to explain that I am disaffected and my ties are familial and cultural rather than ideological. I am often embarrassed to be affiliated with such a bigoted organization, even if I was born into it and so had no choice.

In your opinion, is Evergreen -- a support group for Mormons who are having homosexual thoughts, and that coordinates reparative therapy for patients -- affiliated with the LDS Church?

Absolutely. Evergreen utilizes LDS-owned buildings for meetings, describes itself as a service for Latter-day Saints, and LDS authorities regularly speak at Evergreen meetings. LDS bishops are instructed to refer gay Mormons to Evergreen. I don't know how you could make the claim that the two organizations were not connected, any more than you could make the claim that the LDS Church and the National Organization for Marriage are not connected.

How did your family's involvement in the passage of Prop. 8 affect you?

It wounded me very deeply. When I saw that my own father contributed money toward Prop. 8, it broke my heart. My own parents opened their wallets and paid money toward a cause that will guarantee that more women will end up like me, unhappily married to a repressed homosexual who felt deception was the only option. I opposed Prop. 8 not only because I feel gays deserve full equality, but also because I feel it's pointless to attempt to legislate morality.

... Although I never publicly voiced my opposition, my failure to jump to attention when the Mormon leaders rallied the troops was obvious to my family. I received many hateful e-mails from aunts and uncles who said I had no faith and was under the influence of Satan. My counter argument, that the LDS Church was showing no faith in its members by ordering them to take political actions that, theoretically, they should have chosen on their own, fell on deaf ears.

Bucking The Trend

2011-03-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

I talk a lot about Mahler and philosophy and stuff like that. Then I go and shock my own kids by telling them I love banjo music. So here's another something that may surprise some people. I really like this video a lot. I like the energy, I admire the skills on display, and I like the message. Wish I could have been part of it.

The Ills of Modern Society

2011-03-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I run across commentary elsewhere that is so good, so perceptive, so prescient, that I can't help mentioning it here. There's lots of commentary around about various reasons for societal problems, and particularly the effects of tolerating or accepting "the gay lifestyle". Perspectives differ, of course, but yesterday I read a piece that was remarkably insightful. Whether you agree or not, it's worth a read.

Click here.

Joyful Noise

2011-03-08T22:17:00.000-08:00

Well that was one of the most unusual and delightful experiences I've ever had.

Today is Mardi Gras, the last big blow-out before the start of Lent's period of sober self-assessment and self-denial, leading up to Easter. Mardi Gras celebrations in the U.S. of course reflect New Orleans culture, and a key element of that culture is zydeco. Never heard of it? It's wonderful music, born in Louisiana, that mixes African rhythms with blues, rock, and swing, played on accordions, guitars, string bass, drums, and even washboards sometimes.

Religiously conservative readers, hold up your hands in horror now as I tell you of the zydeco mass I attended this evening at St. Paul's. It was a regular church service with music provided by Theo and the Zydeco Patrol, with clergy dancing up the aisle instead of the regular stately, slow procession, and congregation doing some dancing in the aisles too, many of them decked out in the most lavish Mardi Gras costumes. There to the right is my friend Chris, who's on staff at the cathedral and obviously a very good dancer, even in liturgical robes.

The dean of the cathedral gave a short sermon whose basic message was this: "We are all children of God, and children need to play. There are good ways and not so good ways to play. Tonight in our worship service we let loose the children within all of us for a little bit of the good kind of play, as we celebrate all the good things of life and all the blessings we have." A very good message indeed, I thought.

And with that, more music started, and more dancing in the aisles ensued. Spouses with spouses, parents with kids, friends with friends. Even your humble correspondent took the opportunity to dance in the aisle with the assistant dean of the cathedral, who also happens to be a 5th great-granddaughter of someone you may have heard of, one Joseph Smith. It was delightful. That's her in the center of that photo down below to the right.

The Bible speaks of singing and dancing "before the Lord" and making a "joyful noise." And that's certainly what we did tonight. And you know what? I came away from that delightful hour just as exhilarated and spiritually fed as I ever did from any other worship service anywhere. Church doesn't need to be somber all the time. Sometimes it's good to just bust out and do what King David did. We have so much to celebrate, why not let it loose once in a while?

Just down below there is how the service ended. No doubt some would call it irreverent and even sacrilegious. Meh. It was a delightful celebration of so many divine gifts. And I will definitely be going next year. In a costume.

More Random Thoughts

2011-03-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

The kids having gone off in different directions to hang out with friends for a bit, I might as well make some productive use of the time, in case anybody actually still reads this blog. Warning, some stream of consciousness ahead. Don't expect linear progression along a single thematic line.

OMG, who actually talks like that, spontaneously? (looks in mirror, aghast)

One of the fun things about life is trying to figure oneself out. Most of the time I think I'm pretty ordinary. Then I stumble over a reminder that I may not be The Average American. I don't know anybody else who enjoys watching rugby matches on TV with a Brahms chorale ("Wo Ist Ein So Herrlich Volk") playing on the iPod speakers. And I'm still laughing at the kids' astonishment when I recently divulged my deepest secret: Not only do I love Bach, I love banjo music too. They couldn't believe it. I wish somebody would write some banjo fugues, or a concerto for banjo & orchestra. How sad Mozart isn't still around, bet he'd tackle it and have a great time too.

And true to form, I'm excited to attend the zydeco Mass at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral this Tuesday evening. Never heard of zydeco? Look it up. Then imagine a church service in that style. Now that's a joyful noise.

Dad and step-mom are coming for a visit week after next. He promised no surprises at the end of the visit this time. We both laughed. It will be nice to see them again. FB buddy arriving later this week on an impromptu road trip from frozen climes to the north so I'll get to play tour guide. Fun times.

Rugby season winding down. Baseball season revving up. Alles gut either way.

I've received inside information that during next month's LDS General Conference, the ridiculously named Jimmer Fredette will be named General Young Men's Program President and also a member of the First Quorum of Seventy as a reward for boosting BYU basketball to its highest prominence ever. But the church PR people are going to require him to go by James, because let's face it, "Jimmer" sounds like the little kid in 2nd grade with bottle cap glasses who was already reading Einstein, had snakes for pets, and couldn't find his own way to the bathroom.

OK, the male half of The Twins (a.k.a. "Thing Two") is home now so we're going to walk to the store for a few odds & ends, including supplies for another couple of batches of marzipan snickerdoodles which all his school friends are already willing to pay 50 cents apiece for. Evidently thanks to those things my fame at his middle school is growing, even amongst the faculty, and I'm being encouraged to turn myself into the next Mrs. Fields. Maybe we'll make the cookies 30% bigger so he can charge a buck apiece. Let him buy his own iTunes cards.

Peace out.

"American and Family Values"

2011-02-28T13:27:00.001-08:00

Is Seeing Agreeing?

2011-02-25T10:41:00.000-08:00

This morning I received a very interesting comment from someone called "Max Drax" to my previous post about Dallin Oaks' "example" of the New Mexico photographer who violated NM state non-discrimination laws by refusing based on religious objections to photograph a same-sex wedding. I thought the comment was thought-provoking enough that it deserved prominent placement and its own post for discussion, rather than burying it in a week-old comment string.

Max Drax thinks the New Mexico courts were wrong to draw the distinctions they did, and that it was wrong for the law to "force" the photographer "to witness and memorialize something that he fundamentally disagrees with." Apparently, to Max Drax, being forced to "witness and memorialize" something that one "fundamentally disagrees with" is enough to encroach on religious freedom.

I think Max Drax presents a viewpoint that many people hold, one which suggests a view of fundamental rights and liberties profoundly different than that held by many others, including, apparently, New Mexico judges. This time, rather than leading out myself, I'm going to invite readers to comment, and I may chime in at some point later. So here's Max Drax's full comment. Readers, I invite you to respond, and Max Drax, you too.

Now wait...as all good lawyers understand, just because a judge wrote it doesn't make it true (as judges are usually just mediocre lawyers).

The judge says that the photographer's religious views aren't compromised by having to photograph a lesbian wedding. That's nonsense. The photographer cannot photograph the wedding without attending and witnessing the wedding. And in photographing the wedding, she is memorializing the ceremony. Attending, witnessing, and memorializing an event will, in most cases, be seen by most people as supporting that event, and if a photographer is forced to support an event that she disagrees with on religious grounds, by sheer virtue of the fact that she decided to become a photographer, then her religious beliefs have most definitely been compromised.

Let's look at it another way. Say a group of young men want to torture and slaughter a pig. These fellas call up a local photographer, who also happens to belong to PETA, and ask him to take pictures that everyone will keep in order to remember the event.

You're going to say that the photographer's moral beliefs aren't being compromised by forcing her to take such pictures? Sure, he can still hold to her moral beliefs. His internal opinions about animal welfare aren't harmed. But he's still being forced to witness and memorialize something that he fundamentally disagrees with.

At a certain point, you have to ask whether the right to hold a belief gives you any rights at all to make any outward manifestation of that belief. If it doesn't, then the right to hold the belief isn't really a right to anything of worth. After all, it's not like the mind can be coerced anyway. The logical implication of the judge's statements is that the right to religious freedom is simply a right to think certain ways, without ever necessarily manifesting those beliefs in public. But that places no limit whatsoever on the government, because the government can't touch anyone's mind to begin with.

For heaven's sake, any good lawyer would have a field day with that judge's statements. Don't treat them as gospel.

Oaks Rebutted, Summing Up

2011-02-21T11:15:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Dallin Oaks, LDS apostle, spoke at Chapman University about the alleged encroaching restrictions on freedom of religious expression in the United States. As one would expect from any lawyer, he gave what he claimed were examples of his theme, in this case, how various individuals or organizations had lost jobs, promotions, business opportunities, scholastic standing, and even had legal penalties imposed on them as a result of saying or acting on a religiously based belief that homosexuality, or gay behavior, was wrong.

Well, I’m a lawyer too. I dig up and look at details and consider their implications, individually and collectively. And that’s what Oaks—or his research staff, at least—should have done before this speech. Oaks’ claims didn’t pass the smell test for me, so I started doing just what I’d been taught to do. Something I actually saw him do once, when I met him doing research at the BYU library and we spoke briefly about our respective projects.

And guess what, Elder Oaks. The truth of your examples is quite different from the picture you seek to paint. So as a graduate of the law school you helped to found, I’m going to give you the benefit of the training your colleagues gave me.

You’ve claimed elsewhere that because freedom of religion is at the front of the list of 1st Amendment rights, it is therefore more important and should trump the others in case of any conflict. It’s perhaps not surprising that you’d take this approach as an LDS apostle. But the Constitution of the United States is not a religious text. It’s a legal document, the result of hard-fought politicking and negotiation. And you know, Professor Oaks, the basic rules of legal interpretation.

A law must be interpreted to give effect to the actual words on the page and to avoid any absurd result. Nothing in the words of the 1st Amendment establishes any prioritization amongst the various rights listed there. The idea that religious belief must trump any of the other 1st Amendment rights just because it happens to appear first in a list--well that's just fiction. It has no basis whatsoever in the Constitution. If the context (e.g. paragraphing or actual language) does not so indicate, then it's absurd to think that just because something comes first in a statutory list, it's therefore more important than the things which follow. There are easy ways to show such intent, of course. But if no such intent is shown, you can't blithely assume priority just from the order of recitation. And there is no showing of any such intent in the Constitution.

You’ve sought to paint a picture of freedom of religious expression as under increasing attack in the United States. But thanks to the skills your law school taught me, I’ve seen for myself that your stories don’t mean what you claim. Once the details are investigated, it becomes clear that in every single instance, every one of your “examples,” something else was going on—something else that makes all the difference. Something else that shows those examples do not mean what you said. Yet you lined them all up, omitting these crucial details, as alleged examples of something that just isn’t so. My posts over the last week have shown in detail how this is true.

When you were president of BYU, you gave a talk about honesty, in which you said this:

An individual who conceals and misrepresents, however small the matter, sows the seeds of his own corruption. . . A lie is not always told in so many words. It may be a creature of concealment or a misrepresentation by action or a half-truth.

Of course, everyone falls short of perfection. And I try to be as tolerant of others’ foibles as I hope they’ll be of mine. But when a man purporting to be a “prophet, seer and revelator” and an experienced jurist goes out of his way to speak publicly about such a potentially momentous topic, and he chooses over and over to say things which investigation shows to be "half-truth" at best, that’s something entirely different. That's not just human foible. That's something deliberate.

So with all due respect, I’m calling you on it, Professor/Elder/Judge Oaks. By your own description, you’ve lied. And you need to fess up, retract, clarify, tell the whole story. And you need to apologize to those whose trust you have abused and forfeited.

Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Seven

2011-02-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

Today we look at “the Boy Scouts’ challenges in various locations” with . . . well, with something Oaks never really specifies, but apparently it has something to do with alleged restrictions on religious freedom.

Oaks: The Catholic Church's difficulties with adoption services and the Boy Scouts' challenges in various locations are too well known to require further comment.

Problem is, the Boy Scouts of American (BSA) is not a religious organization. True, they affirm faith in God in the Scout Oath, which I can still recite: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to obey the Scout law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” And yes, I did type that from memory.

But beyond that affirmation, the BSA is not specific as to any particular religious belief. I remember looking in my Scout manual at pictures of the different medals awarded by various religious organizations for Scouting participation; in addition to the LDS Duty to God award, there were similar ones from the Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Unitarians, and even the Buddhists. Obviously the Boy Scouts don’t care what particular religion their participants follow, as long as they have some kind of faith in whatever God they choose.

So Oaks’ remark about “challenges” the BSA may have had in a “religious freedom” context is puzzling. In numerous cases which have gone as high as the United States Supreme Court, the BSA's freedom of association as a private organization has been repeatedly recognized and upheld by federal and state courts alike. The case which reached the Supreme Court, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, confirmed that since they are a private organization, the Boy Scouts can set their own standards for participation. While those standards have been challenged in various cases, so far no court has found that they constitute illegal discrimination. Does Oaks suggest that an organization with the size and influence of the BSA should expect to be free of litigation and controversy? That’s unrealistic at best.

Research suggests that the alleged “challenges” which might have actual legal legitimacy arise from the BSA's active exclusion of homosexuals and atheists while at the same time retaining sometimes preferential arrangements for use of public lands and facilities that are subject to non-discrimination laws. Wikipedia has a good summary of these cases. In many cases the BSA has sought to do the same thing as the New Mexico photographer and the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association previously discussed in this series: try to use private religious or ethical opinions as a trump card to escape compliance with non-discrimination laws that apply to everybody else.

Oaks makes an oblique reference to the BSA's “challenges” as if they were a well-known and uniform string of lost battles to preserve religiously-based freedom of association. In fact they are anything but that. The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld the BSA’s right as a private organization to set its own membership standards. Nor is the BSA without success in its efforts to retain sometimes preferential access to public facilities for Scouting activities and events, including public schools for recruiting purposes, U.S. Army bases for jamborees (at public expense), etc.

It is true that the BSA has lost some court battles in this respect. But they have won many others, including what I suspect they would consider the most important ones. The record shows that Oaks’ reference to the BSA’s allegedly well-known “challenges” can be most charitably described as inviting false conclusions. I would expect far more of a former judge, law school professor, and senior authority of a church which regularly quizzes its active members on whether they are “honest in their dealings.”

Tomorrow, a wrap-up.

Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Six

2011-02-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

Today we look at “the Catholic Church’s difficulties with adoption services” which Dallin Oaks holds out as yet another example of alleged restrictions on the free exercise of religion.

Oaks: The Catholic Church's difficulties with adoption services and the Boy Scouts' challenges in various locations are too well known to require further comment.

Real story:

The Catholic Church’s “difficulties with adoption services” are, as noted years ago by BYU law professor Morris Thurston, “another misrepresentation.” Oaks no doubt refers to the case, much-publicized and much-distorted during the Prop 8 campaign, of Catholic Charities in Massachusetts which allegedly “closed its doors” rather than place children for adoption by same-sex married couples. And, as with all his other cited examples, the real story is quite different.

Catholic Charities in Boston had contracts with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to provide adoption services and accepted public funding for those services. In effect, it acted as an agent of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a governmental entity.

After Massachusetts implemented marriage equality, Catholic Charities of Boston's board of directors voted unanimously to continue providing adoption services to same-sex couples. However, four Roman Catholic bishops intervened and sought to stop it from doing so. They also sought an exemption for Catholic Charities from Massachusetts’ nondiscrimination laws. Eight members of Catholic Charities Boston’s board resigned in frustrated protest over this edict from above, which reputedly had support from the Vatican itself. It was also reported that they feared losing support from The United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the largest donor to Catholic Charities in Boston, if it were forced to follow the Vatican’s position.

While Oaks and others seek to frame this in terms of "the state oppressing religious freedom,” it’s really not. The conflict was between the Vatican and Catholic Charities in Boston, not between Catholic Charities and the law. If the Vatican had not intervened and forced a Hobson’s Choice on Catholic Charities in Boston, it would have continued providing adoption services. It was the Vatican, not the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or its laws, which forced the issue and tried to stop Catholic Charities in Boston from providing adoption services.

As noted by columnist Brian Cavner, “This is not the case of a church simply asking to be left alone in its policies, but rather an agent of the state seeking to break the law. Because, according to tax reports, Catholic Charities received $1 million of state funds to provide adoption services, its actions are subject to state scrutiny in ways that churches typically are not. The state is not paying the charity to espouse its religious beliefs, but to offer adoption services consistent with its laws. Any organization accepting taxpayer money with the mistaken assumption that it can later deny services to those same taxpayers is immediately suspect.”

So once again, Dallin Oaks perpetuates a myth in a way that I'm sure he never would have tolerated from his law students or law clerks.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the Boy Scouts’ alleged “challenges in various locations.” Any suspicions on what we'll find?

Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Five

2011-02-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

Good morning all. Today I will tell you the story of The Valiant Little Pastor who spoke God's word and was persecuted for it.

Well, actually, it didn't quite happen that way. First the Oaks version, then the truth.

Oaks: A Los Angeles policeman claimed he was demoted after he spoke against the wrongfulness of homosexual conduct in the church where he is a lay pastor.

Oaks’ source for this statement in February 2011 is a single news article dated 31 July 2008 in the Washington Times, a newspaper known for its far-right conservatism.

Sergeant Eric Holyfield of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is also pastor of the Gospel Word of Life Apostolic Church. In September 2006 while serving as a “senior lead officer” of the LAPD’s community relations bureau, he gave a eulogy at the Whittier, Calif., funeral of LAPD Officer Nathaniel Warthon Jr.. Sergeant Holyfield had been Officer Warthon’s supervisor. He was not on duty as a policeman at the time, was dressed in clerical garb, and gave the eulogy at a private chapel at the invitation of Officer Warthon’s family. However, he also introduced himself as “Sergeant Eric Holyfield.” A number of senior LAPD officers attended the funeral. It wasn't held at Holyfield's own church, as Oaks claims.

During the eulogy, Sergeant Holyfield quoted a passage from 1st Corinthians that says “the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God” before going on to list such and talk in detail about the specific types of unrighteous people referenced: adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards and others, and to discuss their ostensible eternal prospects, e.g. men should not lie with men, women should not lie with women, doing so was sinful and anyone who did must repent or be condemned to hell’s “lake of fire,” etc.

According to his Complaint filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, Sgt. Holyfield’s supervisor contacted him shortly thereafter and said “I have received a number of complaints concerning you in regards to the funeral. People are very upset. Police officers, community members, clergy people, and as a result I’m going to have to move you.” Sgt. Holyfield was then transferred from his position, which he repeatedly described as “coveted,” and offered the choice of becoming a detective or a patrol officer.

Sgt. Holyfield filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department on June 19 2008, nearly two years after the funeral. He alleged anti-Christian discrimination, violation of his First Amendment free speech rights, and retaliation for expressing his religious views in what he characterized as a private setting with no relation to the workplace. His suit claims the LAPD demoted him and refused him further promotions.

The complaint confirms that Sg. Holyfield and his superiors disagreed over whether the funeral constituted an “extension of the workplace.” His supervisor allegedly told him the problem was the “perception” which Holyfield’s remarks had created, that “this thing is buzzing, it’s all over the department citywide,” and “has gone all the way to the top, it’s like bees to honey, it’s all over.” His supervisor indicated that in the circumstances, the funeral could have been considered an extension of the workplace. Holyfield disagreed.

Holyfield’s complaint goes on to accuse William Bratton, LAPD Chief, and essentially the entire department of systematic anti-religious discrimination and bias, of allowing “discrimination and other forms of prohibited misconduct to take place despite an official policy prohibiting such actions,” and called such conduct “willful, despicable and malicious.”

Holyfield apparently filed a separate administrative action with the LA Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which was closed on 26 June 2007.

On 12 January 2011, the LA City Attorney recommended to the City Council that the city proceed with settlement discussions to resolve Holyfield’s claims.

Oaks was partly truthful in stating that Holyfield “claimed” he was demoted for speaking against homosexual conduct. However, Oaks omits the crucial facts that the statements were made at a funeral for an LAPD officer by a police sergeant/lay pastor who introduced himself as a police sergeant, in the presence of numerous other LAPD officers. He also fails to acknowledge the impact Sgt. Holyfield’s statements had on the LAPD and that the administrative action was taken against him as a result of that effect.

Oaks also fails to acknowledge that the merits of Holyfield’s claim have not yet been decided. Having read Holyfield’s complaint, I believe he damages his own credibility by accusing the entire LAPD, from its chief on down, of systematic and intentional discrimination, misconduct, and cover-ups. This is the borderline paranoid language of someone with a hypersensitive propensity to accuse first and check facts later.

In light of the above, and the fact that no court has yet found Holyfield’s “claims” to be true, Oaks would have been wise to ignore Sgt. Holyfield’s case in his speech. It is hardly a credible example of any alleged nationwide growth of infringement on religious freedoms.

Tomorrow we turn to the Catholic Church's and the Boy Scout's issues in this area which, according to Oaks, are "too well known to require further comment." Are they really? We'll see.

Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Four

2011-02-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

Today we turn to the stories of two counselors who allegedly suffered professionally for their beliefs that homosexual relations were wrong. And once again, things aren’t quite as Oaks paints them.

Oaks: Candidates for masters' degrees in counseling in Georgia and Michigan universities were penalized or dismissed from programs for their religious views about the wrongfulness of homosexual relations.

In the Michigan case, Julea Ward, a graduate student, refused to counsel a homosexual student as part of the required practicum in her Eastern Michigan University's graduate program for becoming a high school counselor, because doing so would allegedly "validate" homosexual conduct which she believed was immoral and prohibited by the Bible. She asserted a First Amendment right to speak or decline to speak as she wished, and that the school's requirement that she counsel a homosexual student would violate that right.

It is settled law that a public university does not force a violation of the First Amendment when requiring students to comply with the terms of an academic assignment. As a former teacher of constitutional law, Oaks knows or should know this. A federal court held that Ms. Ward could not insist upon being excused from training to counsel gay people due to her religious beliefs, and that the school did not violate the 1st Amendment by insisting on a curriculum reflecting the counseling profession’s ethics code concerning non-discrimination in serving clients or requiring students to fulfill curricular requirements.

Oaks tries to paint this case as a penalty for trying to exercise religious freedom. It is not. The federal court's ruling says the following, and Oaks should have known this too, at least in principle:

"Plaintiff [Ms. Ward] has distorted the facts in this case to support her position that [EMU] dismissed her due to her religious beliefs. While [the university] may have been indelicate in their inquiry into Ms. Ward’s beliefs, they never demonstrated a purpose to change her religious beliefs. [The school was] at all times concerned with [her] refusal to counsel an entire class of people whose values she did not share. [The school] acknowledged that [her] beliefs motivated her behaviors, but always made the distinction between the two, and in no way attacked her beliefs. Even [Ms. Ward] is forced to agree that Drs. Callaway and Dugger never told her she needed to change her religious beliefs."

Oaks is therefore simply wrong to claim that Ms. Ward's dismissal from her graduate program represents a restriction of religious freedom. It was instead the predictable consequence of a student's deliberate refusal to fulfill all elements of the graduate program to which she voluntarily sought admission.

Once again, as in all the earlier cases Oaks cites, the federal court granted "summary judgment" for the university and against Ms. Ward. In real person language that means the court said "Ms. Ward, you have no case and there's no reason to take this to trial because the law is absolutely clear." Another reason to say "shame, shame" to Dallin Oaks, the former law school dean. He knows what summary judgment means, and it doesn't mean what he claims in this case.

In the Georgia case, Marcia Walden, a contract counselor with the Centers for Disease Control, referred an employee in a same-sex relationship to another counselor because of Ms. Walden's religious objection to what she believed would be facilitating a same-sex relationship. Although the second counselor was satisfactory, the employee “felt ‘judged and condemned’” and “”that [Ms. Walden]'s communication also indicated disapproval of her relationship.” After investigating the complaint, Ms. Walden was laid off. She sued, alleging (1) a violation of free exercise of religion, (2) a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and (3) a violation of Title VII’s prohibition of religious discrimination.

The court found no evidence in the record to suggest that the CDC removed Ms. Walden from the contract because of her religiously based need to refer clients seeking same-sex relationship counseling. Rather, the court found that “the CDC removed [Ms. Walden] from the contract because of the manner in which [she] handled the situation involving [the client], and the CDC’s reasonable concern about how [Ms. Walden] would handle similar situations in the future.”

Thus, said the court, the firing created no substantial burden on Ms. Walden's free exercise of religion. Since the CDC’s decision was “not based upon [Ms. Walden]'s religiously based refusal to provide same-sex relationship counseling” but on “the manner in which [she] handled the situation," there was no violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or Title VII. In addition, the CDC offered Ms. Walden employment reassignment services which was a reasonable accommodation of any religious objection she may have had.

In the Walden case too, the federal court issued summary judgment for the CDC and against Ms. Walden. "You've got no case, ma'am." This means that in every single case Oaks cites so far, each court has considered the claims of "infringement of religious freedom" (also made by Oaks) so groundless that they weren't even worth having a trial for.

At this point I should stop to say I'm astonished that Dallin Oaks, the former law school dean and state supreme court justice, has been so sloppy and distortionary with his research. He either does or doesn't know the real facts of these cases. If he does, then he's deliberately misrepresenting their implications in his speech. That's called "lying." If he doesn't, then his research has been inexcusably slipshod in a way I'm sure he would never have allowed for any of his law students or law clerks.

Tomorrow, the story of an L.A. policeman allegedly demoted after speaking against homosexuality in the church where he is a lay pastor. Stay tuned!

Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Three

2011-02-15T10:31:00.001-08:00

All right folks. Back from our Valentine's Day break, today we resume our examination of Dallin Oaks' jeremiad about threats to religious freedom. Next on the list is the sad tale of university faculty disciplined ostensibly for merely saying they thought The Gay was bad.

Oaks: Professors at state universities in Illinois and Wisconsin were fired or disciplined for expressing personal convictions that homosexual behavior is sinful.

Real story:

In the Illinois case, the "professor" was actually an adjunct lecturer who, like all others, was hired on a semester-by-semester basis with no expectation that his employment would continue. A practicing Catholic, he wrote a lengthy e-mail to his students in which he discussed Catholic teachings on how utilitarianism and natural law theory would judge the morality of homosexual acts, and said that "sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same." Some students protested [note, this wasn't action initiated by the university itself] and complained to the university. In response, the head of the religion department expressed concern that such remarks would "hurt the department," and the associate dean for the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, stated her belief that the e-mail violated " university standards of inclusivity, which would then entitle us to have him discontinue his teaching arrangement with us."

In the Wisconsin case, Tom Hilton, the chairman of the university’s information systems department, received an e-mail from a student organizer of a local gay film festival, seeking support for the festival. He replied, saying "I decry attempts to legitimize [homosexuals'] addictions and compulsions. These, our fellow humans, deserve our best efforts to help them recover their lives. We only hurt them further when we choose to pretend that these walking wounded are OK the way they are, that their present injuries are the best they can hope for in life.” He copied that e-mail to a staff member in the university's women’s studies department. Called on it, Hilton himself said he was sorry for the e-mail and acknowledged it had been worded “very badly.” The University said "administrative action" would be taken against Hilton but would not be made public. I've found no further indication of what "discipline" may have been imposed.

These are two cases out of how many universities, faculty members, film festivals, etc. across the country? One was sparked by student protest, not direct retribution by the school, and in the other, the faculty member himself admitted wrongdoing. This is hardly a rising tide of irrational restriction on freedom of religious expression.

Oaks is in no position to criticize two public universities for such actions when the private university over which he presided has dismissed, denied continuing status, or censured far more than two faculty members and students who have taken critical positions relating to official LDS church policy or leadership as well as those who for personal reasons did not pay a tithe to the LDS Church, and which even today will expel an LDS student solely for joining another church.

Tune in tomorrow for the dolorous details of two candidates for masters' degrees in counseling who were penalized or dismissed from programs allegedly because of their religious beliefs that homosexual relations are wrong.

It's About Love

2011-02-14T01:00:00.000-08:00

Today we'll take a break from the Oaks series.

This is a re-post of my piece from Valentine's Day last year. It got nearly 400 hits, far more than any other post I've ever written. I was encouraged to post it every February 14th and I think that's a pretty good idea. So here goes.

On this Valentine's Day, I wanted to re-visit and clarify something referenced in my last post. The reason will become clear in just a moment. I've decided one thing my correspondent mentioned needs more attention: the huge issue they had with the biomechanics, with "the fit" of genitalia as deciding the morality of being gay. So to that person I'd like to say this.

It's not about sex. Let me repeat. It's not about sex. Getting hung up on that issue puts the cart before the horse. Like I said before, deep down inside, everyone wants love, intimacy, security, appreciation, commitment. Optimally, sex should be a result of all that. True, some treat it like a casual playground activity, but it can and should be so much more: an expression, a manifestation of that love and care and appreciation and commitment. This is true whether a person is gay or straight. The sex is a consequence, at best a corollary. It is not a cause or catalyst.

Understanding this should help my correspondent get over the mental roadblock they have with what they imagine is misfit physiology. They need to understand that one of God's gay sons who truly loves another isn't just fixated on the other guy's equipment. He feels a spark, a connection, a pull like a magnet toward the spirit of the boy he loves. His heart will feel the same warm thrills and his tummy the same butterflies as any straight person would feel for their beloved. He will have hopes and dreams and longings when he thinks about that one special boy that are no different than what my straight correspondent would feel for their special one. He too will be unable to sleep or eat sometimes, preoccupied with thoughts and daydreams about them being together. Not about the sex, just about basking in the glow of the love they share. It is a connection of the heart, the mind, the soul, the spirit.

My correspondent may not be able to comprehend that this is possible between two guys, but I assure you it's true. One can accept that gravity, or relativity, or black holes, do exist and work--obviously--without comprehending just how. I have seen this kind of love, happiness, commitment in many gay couples myself. The love and commitment are obviously there. I've included with this post some pics of two wonderful, delightful friends of mine who will be married later this year. I defy anyone who doesn't have a heart of stone to look in their eyes and not see the delight and happiness and love they have for each other. Only the most sordid minds would look at them and still insist it's just about physical gratification.

So to my correspondent, let me say again on this Valentine's Day. It's not about sex. It's about love.

Update: I was privileged to officiate at Dan & Michael's wedding last June in Massachusetts. It was just as joyful and profound as I expected. They are truly married in every sense of the word, loving and faithful and committed to each other. I've seen lots of M/F married couples who should envy what Dan & Michael have. Why, why, why do so many still refuse to even consider the possibility that this is a good thing? Jesus said we should judge things by their fruits, their results. Dan & Michael are living, breathing evidence that it really is about love, and that same-sex couples not only deserve but are just as capable as straight couples of the commitment and the blessings of marriage.

Oaks Rebutted, Chapter Two

2011-02-13T10:28:00.001-08:00

Today we examine the second of Dallin Oaks' faux examples of restriction of religious freedom.

Oaks: "In New Jersey, the United Methodist Church was investigated and penalized under state anti-discrimination law for denying same-sex couples access to a church-owned pavilion for their civil-union ceremonies. A federal court refused to give relief from the state penalties."

Real story:

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA), a Methodist organization but NOT the Methodist Church itself (Error #1 to Oaks), had a New Jersey state property tax exemption for a boardwalk pavilion in the seaside town of Ocean Grove. The exemption's purpose was to reward organizations for opening their buildings and facilities for public use. The OGCMA knew this, amd had opened the pavilion for a wide variety of public events that had nothing to do with the Methodist Church or Christian belief. It was used for band concerts, skateboarding, debates, and even Civil War re-enactments. The OGCMA also made it available for marriage ceremonies by people of any faith. But when a lesbian couple who'd been together for over 30 years (each partner in her 70's) wanted to use it for a commitment ceremony (not a marriage ceremony), the OGCMA said no.

The chairman of the OGCMA at the time was Scott Rasmussen, one of the original founders of ESPN, who subsequently became a Republican campaign consultant, founder of Rasmussen Reports, and business associate of at least two convicted felons. For more details, see http://therasmussenretort.blogspot.com/.

The New Jersey real estate commission ruled that if OGCMA wanted the property tax exemption for their pavilion which was open to the public, they could not discriminate as they had against the lesbian couple.

The lesbian couple filed a complaint against the OGCMA with the state Division of Civil Rights. They were joined in their civil rights suit by a second Ocean Grove lesbian couple who had also been denied use of the pavilion for their civil ceremony for the same reason.

The OGCMA tried to pre-empt the state action by filing suit in federal court asking that the civil rights case be dismissed. The federal judge refused, saying he had no authority to interfere with this particular issue of state law. (As a former law school dean and judge, Oaks surely knew this was the right result under well-settled law, yet he sought to give the opposite impression in his speech.)

The OGCMA appealed, and the 3d Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said the U.S. District Court was correct to dismiss the OGCMA's suit. The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights found that the OGCMA's refusal to rent the pavilion to the couple for their commitment ceremony violated the public accommodation provisions of New Jersey anti-discrimination laws.

Oaks represents this case as an assault on religious freedom. The real story is far less simple. Ocean Grove is a diverse town, not just a religious ministry. OGCMA had public funding and a special property tax exemption for the pavilion based on a representation that it would be open to the general public, rather than restricted to use by the Methodist religious group. The property tax treatment exemption was not a function of OGCMA’s religious status, but rather a result of its promise to provide open public access to the site.

Until it denied the lesbian couple's request to use the pavilion, OGCMA consistently treated the pavilion as public space and accepted secular and religious reservations for its use, subject to payment of a standard fee, and when not so reserved the pavilion was open for all to use. The OGCMA had never put up any signs or other public indication that the pavilion was private property.

At best this case shows competing public and private interests that must be balanced and reconciled. The balance tipped in favor of public accommodation and the application of laws prohibiting discrimination because OGCMA itself had sought preferential tax treatment for the pavilion based on its own conduct of opening the pavilion to all and sundry for virtually any public use—until a couple with whom the OGCMA had private religious disagreements sought to use the facility.

Similarly to the New Mexico case discussed yesterday, the OGCMA had chosen to enter the public sphere by opening its pavilion to public use by anyone willing to pay a fee. It expressly promised, as a condition of its tax exemption, that the public would have equal access to the pavilion. By so doing, it characterized the pavilion as a "public accommodation" and subjected itself to state civil rights laws governing public accommodations. Its effort to bar the lesbian couple from using the pavilion was a classic case of trying to have its cake and eat it too.

OGCMA always had and ultimately did exercise the power to withdraw the pavilion from public use and refuse all reservations of the space. But as long as they chose to open it to public use, the OGCMA—like the New Mexico photographer—couldn't claim that purely private religious reasons exempted them from compliance with statutes that applied to everyone else in a public activity which the OGCMA had chosen to pursue. Oaks, a former law school dean and judge, surely should have known that.

Again, Oaks paints an overly simplistic—and ultimately misleading—picture. His legal background means he should have known better than to do this. There was no "restriction of religious freedom" here. If the OGCMA didn't want to allow gay couples to use the pavilion, all they had to do was withdraw it from public availability. Which they ultimately did.

Tomorrow, we turn to alleged assaults on personal free speech, with the woeful cases of two university faculty members who Oaks says were disciplined for expressing personal convictions that homosexual behavior is sinful. As you may have guessed by now, the real stories aren't quite as Oaks would have us believe.

Oaks Rebutted, Chapter One

2011-02-12T15:25:00.001-08:00

Someone called "Trev" made an interesting comment on my last post about Dallin Oaks' misrepresentations. He quoted my observation that "those who are not attorneys probably won’t take the time to research the cases (or even know where to find them) or see the distinctions" between what Dallin Oaks claimed and what the truth really was, then said this:

You're right. I don't want to take the time. But I *am* interested. I kept waiting for the substantiation of your claims of misrepresentation to surface, but they never did. Could you educate us readers on the actual details of those cases and what they were? I always question these cases they bring up when they speak, but, as you say, I'm lazy and don't want to take the time to look them up. If you've already done the work, do share, rather than just saying you did it and leaving it at that."

It's interesting that he thought I'd called him "lazy" when I didn't, and then flat-out admitted that he was. Couldn't help chuckling at that.

Truth is, my life is pretty packed right now. Those who follow this blog have noticed I'm not writing nearly as much lately. I've resolved a lot of the conflicts that drove my previously more frequent and lengthy posting, and I have a lot going on personally and professionally which take priority. Result: blog posting drops off a bit.

Part of me wants to say "Trev, if you really are that interested, you should be willing to take the time to look something up!" But maybe he's as busy as I am, that's possible too. So "Trev," I went back and did the research for you and for anyone else in your situation. As often happens, the real story is not packaged in quite the same neat little soundbites used by Oaks. So I'll do a separate post for each of his examples of "threats to religious freedom," one a day for the next week. Any non-lawyer who finishes reading these will not only have my admiration for endurance, but is also likely to get more of an education in the legal realities of "freedom of religion" than they ever would from Oaks' speech.

Okay, here we go. First one.

Oaks: "In New Mexico, the state's Human Rights Commission held that a photographer who had declined on religious grounds to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony had engaged in impermissible conduct and must pay over $6,000 attorney's fees to the same-sex couple. A state judge upheld the order to pay."

Real story:

The case arose after Vanessa Willock of Albuquerque contacted Elane Photography about photographing her commitment ceremony. Its owner Elaine Huguenin told Willock by e-mail "we do not photograph same-sex weddings," but gave no explanation for the refusal.

The next day, Willock's partner, Misty Pascottini, asked Elane Photography via e-mail if the studio would photograph her wedding. Pascottini didn't identify herself as Willock's partner. Huguenin responded that she would be willing to travel to photograph Pascottini's wedding, and sent her pricing information.

Willock filed a discrimination claim in December 2006 with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, seeking attorneys fees but no damages.

The Commission heard the matter and decided against Elane Photography because its admitted "existing policy that excludes same-sex couples from its wedding photography services" violated the state's Human Rights Act. That law prohibits a business dealing with the public from making any "distinction in offering or refusing to offer its services" on the bases of race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation and several other factors. The decision went up to the New Mexico Court of Appeals which affirmed it.

Oaks suggests this was an encroachment on religious freedom. The New Mexico court disagreed. It correctly noted that neither the business nor its owners' own religious beliefs or practices were restricted in any way by the state's law against discrimination. "At most, they have been directed to respect [the couple's] belief system and religious observation. They are not being asked to participate in the observation or to adopt or even defend [the couple's] religious beliefs. They are merely being asked to photograph it, for an agreed fee in the ordinary course of their business."

The New Mexico Court cited an Alaska Supreme Court decision in a similar case brought by a landlord who "refused to rent to roommates of the opposite sex because of the appearance of immorality." The landlord insisted he was not discriminating on the basis of marital status, but even if he was, he was only discriminating based on conduct ("hate the sin, love the sinner," anyone?) and in any case he was exempt from state anti-discrimination laws because he was merely exercising his freedom of religion.

The Alaska Supreme Court disagreed. "When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity." Put simply, your religion doesn't give you a free pass to ignore laws applicable to others who are in the same business you voluntarily chose.

In fact, the New Mexico court found the issues to be so clear that it granted what's called "summary judgment" against the photography business. That's legalspeak for "this isn't even worth having a trial, the result is so clear so here's the ruling right now."

This was such a predictable outcome, based on well-established legal federal and state legal precedent, that it didn't even need a trial. The photography business violated the state anti-discrimination law. Period. Religious belief doesn't get you an exemption, and that's not a new rule. And it's not a "restriction on religious freedom" either. Unless you think that religious bases for defending slavery are valid, because the analysis is the same.

How can I put this politely? Oaks "misrepresented" this case when he cited it as an example of encroachment on religious freedom.

Tomorrow, the equally exciting case of the poor persecuted New Jersey church that refused to let a gay couple use their facility for a commitment ceremony.

Not Again

2011-02-05T12:09:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

Living in an LDS congregation and region that was particularly active with personal and financial support for Proposition 8, I saw up close and personal what Mormons actually think of gay people. I also heard over and over the advice of LDS leaders on the subject, their jeremiads about encroaching loss of religious freedom and societal degradation that—they said—must inevitably follow if marriage equality becomes law.

As an attorney I’m trained to be skeptical of just about everything, and to demand, or find, proof for any claim anybody makes about anything. So when I heard LDS apostles talk about specific cases of religious liberty being infringed by “the gay agenda,” I checked those cases myself.

I found that every single time, the LDS leaders had misrepresented the facts. Not their predictions or extrapolations, but the facts of the stories they told. I’m being kind with my description of what they did, of course. I could use stronger words. I was stunned. How could these men I’d been taught to revere as “prophets, seers and revelators” do that? Facts are facts, and they’d not been truthful about facts. Yes, I know it's one thing to be mistaken about details on occasion. But that's not what happened here. This was consistent, repeated misrepresentation with the goal of persuading the flock that a danger loomed large, when in truth the "encroachments on religious freedom" were a total myth, completely unsupported by the actual cases LDS leaders cited. That’s when trust evaporated.

I would have thought that, over two years later, the myths spread about those alleged cases of infringement of religious liberty being infringed by “creeping secularism” or “anti-religionism” or “the gay agenda” or the bogeyman du jour would finally have succumbed to the readily available truth.

Alas, no. This past week Dallin Oaks, LDS apostle, gave a speech at the known-for-its-conservatism Chapman University law school in SoCA in which he reiterated some of the same myths about these alleged instances of encroachment on religious freedom which had “already happened.” I won’t bore you with the details, they are easily found through Google search by anyone who’s interested. The bottom line is that once again, Oaks’ speech spun the facts in such a way as to completely misrepresent what actually happened.

I won’t go into a detailed analysis of whether Oaks’ predictions of encroachment on LDS religious freedom are valid. But in sum, he essentially says LDS religious freedom should be given carte blanche but not necessarily the freedoms of other religions, e.g. those who want the religious freedom to perform legally binding same-sex marriages in their churches—a freedom which LDS intervention in California actually took away.

What is most dismaying to me, however, is that this man who I know many of my family and friends revere as having a special right to higher levels of insight and inspiration nevertheless persists in spreading falsehood. I’m not talking about his predictions for the future. I’m talking about his use of examples, actual reported legal cases, in which the facts and implications are completely different from what he wants his audience to believe. Yet those who are not attorneys probably won’t take the time to research the cases (or even know where to find them) or see the distinctions. They will simply rely on Oaks’ opinion, ex officio, and believe his conclusions without question.

With all due respect to Oaks, gentle reader, it’s irrelevant whether you believe he is a prophet, seer and revelator or not. The bottom line is that he has spun facts in a way that completely misrepresents the truth, in order to support his pre-determined conclusion. How can his position in the church justify that? Giving him a pass on this just because he’s an apostle means you think a different standard of honesty applies to him than to others outside the twelve (or fifteen). Do you really want to go there?

How many times does this have to be said? How many debunkings does it take to kill a myth that reinforces religious prejudice? I’m beginning to understand what Hercules dealt with when he tried to kill the Hydra. Sheesh.

Random Sunday Thoughts

2011-01-30T18:39:00.000-08:00

Today at church the theme was meekness and humility. Not particularly popular virtues in today’s self-obsessed society. But I’m glad I went. It has been an extremely demanding couple of weeks and I really needed the spiritual refreshment.

This past week the twins told me they missed being in elementary school. So comparatively carefree and innocent, they said. Not much homework, little responsibility, not nearly as many demands as in middle school. It was a bit of a shock to hear my own kids reminisce about the good old days! They’re not even teenagers yet. But we had a good conversation about stages of life, and escalating responsibilities, and the freedoms and privileges that maturity bestows, if one is wise enough to manage them.

I told them the story of King Henry V (the Shakespeare version) as he walked through his camp the night before the battle at Agincourt, ruminating about who had the better life, a farmer or a king. And when I explained his logic to the twins, they agreed with him that in many ways, the farmer had it better. I told them of one of my favorite scriptures, Ecclesiastes 1:18, “In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” That didn’t go over very well! Until I explained what it meant, then they understood.

This is a fascinating stage of life. My kids are just starting to be old enough to have these more serious conversations, and actually comprehend a more mature perspective on such questions. It’s delightful, really. And a nice contrast from last weekend, when we had their friends here for another sleepover, so the house was buzzing with noise and energy and shouts and kitchen cupboard doors banging and food foraging and video games and trips to the pool and all that stuff. It was all great fun, of course. Especially the early morning trip to our favorite beachfront donut shop, then we drove back down the coast, savoring the sea breezes, the view of the waves, the sunshine. With four sugared-up tweens in the car, it was quite a ride.

This morning as I listened and pondered meekness and humility, I was struck by something I heard earlier in the week. Or was reminded of, rather. With the rise of Correlation that’s taken over the LDS Church in the last 40 years or so, more and more the focus has been on obedience obedience obedience as “the first law of heaven.” Lots of encouragement to do things for no other reason than the leaders say so. Fake it till you make it. Don’t stray from the approved lesson materials. Don’t talk about “the mysteries.” Stick to the pre-packaged, pre-approved, nice vanilla flavors that Salt Lake sends out. This will be familiar to every active Mormon.

But wait a minute. The LDS Church sees itself as the modern restoration of part of the House of Israel, doesn’t it? Each person with a patriarchal blessing is told their “lineage” and it’s usually Ephraim, one of the ancient Twelve Tribes. Mormons think of themselves literally as another part of modern-day Israel.

Does anybody remember what the word “Israel” means? It means “struggle with God.” Yeah, that’s right. “Struggle.” Not “obey.” Not “stick to the manual.” Not “don’t discuss the mysteries.” Abraham’s grandson Jacob was renamed Israel because he “struggled”—wrestled, even fought—with an angel of the Lord, and he won.

So it strikes me as supremely ironic that the corporation which asserts that it’s today’s earthly vehicle for gathering the House of Israel should have morphed into a culture so antithetical to the origin of the name. I’ve always taken comfort from the fact that earthly covenants are not made with the organization but directly with God Himself. So I’m sure He will forgive me if I indulge in some of the same struggling, questioning, wrestling even, that Jacob did. After all, Jacob was rewarded for it. And as a parent, I know I am proud of my kids when they ask questions, try to reason things out, demand answers, struggle to understand new things, don’t take pat answers as sufficient, but ask why, what next, what if. How else will they grow? How else will any of us grow?

Seeing that I am straying close to ponderous philosophizing again, I will now veer back toward lighter stuff.

Dinner with a good friend Friday night, his first time with Korean food, which he loved. It won’t be the last time we go there, I’m sure.

We are out of bread again. This means I get the pleasure of waking up real early tomorrow morning and walking to the local bakery for something fresh and warm right out of the oven. It’s less than a buck more than a similar loaf of wheat bread at the grocery store, and it’s made on site just hours before, not in some factory hundreds of miles away two weeks ago and then frozen for shipment. Plus I like supporting local businesses. And the bread from this place is awesome. We had cooler weather, clouds and even a brief downpour this afternoon; hope it’s back to sunshine tomorrow morning. I like morning walks like that, they’re one of the little pleasures that make life great.

The last of the Christmas stuff is finally put away. I love Christmas but I don’t like Christmas decorations in February. And the house looks a lot cleaner. Well, at least till the kids come back. It’s remarkable the places I find kids’ dirty athletic socks sometimes.

I am grateful for washing machines. Imagine if we had to wash all our clothes by hand with a washboard.

The kids love my homemade chicken noodle soup with chicken stock I make from the remains of a roast chicken from the store. I made a particularly good batch today and then proceeded to spill most of it all over the floor. I’m glad I’ve learned to laugh at myself.

And I’m grateful for talented friends, one of whom appears in the video below playing the postlude from church today. I’ve played this piece myself and it’s riotous fun, like a roller coaster. A joyful and fitting end to a wonderful service.

No, I Don't Know

2011-01-16T19:54:00.000-08:00

Well, everybody gets writer's block once in a while. And there hasn't been much to write about lately. Work, time with kids, work. Real exciting.

Church was really nice today. Dr. King's birthday tomorrow was mentioned and I pondered his example of speaking out, his heroism in trying to correct great injustices, change hearts and minds. He is and should be an inspiration to all of us who are trying to do the same. It was good to take the sacrament and really focus on what it means, too. I have friends whose faith or lack of it is all over the map, but for me, nothing in life or the universe makes sense without God or the Savior or the atonement. Which is one of the reasons that as I write this I'm listening to "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty." Sung by the Mack Wilberg era BYU Men's Chorus, of course. ;-) Seriously, it's the best rendition I've ever heard. If I ever do end up in an angel choir, I want it to sound like that.

Kids are not here this weekend, so this evening I took a long walk through the neighborhood, enjoying the evening air, the moon in the east part of the sky and the sunset in the west. As I walked, I read Apronkid's latest post and it really got me thinking. Not specifically about the post, but about how I look at life and the future, what I want, where I want to go and be.

Everybody who's even semi-active in the LDS Church ends up having at least some vague notion of how they imagine the eternities to be, and often it's much like the simplistic organization chart presented in Sunday School. No surprise there. But when I look at the scriptural basis for that picture, I realize how little is actually said about it. A handful of verses in one section of one book. Yet speculation and extrapolation has created a vast body of popular folk beliefs about what all the kingdoms are going to be like, who will be where, what everybody will be doing, etc., etc.

Coming out as a gay Mormon forces you to fracture a lot of stereotypes in your own mind, to say nothing of how it threatens the complacency of others. And one of mine that's fractured is that neatly organized clearly defined picture of the eternities. I've realized that I have virtually no clue how it all works, how it's organized, or anything. With a few historically prominent exceptions easily guessed at, I have no idea how to predict where anybody I know will end up. When I look at pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, ponder the mind-boggling distances in the universe, look at the amount of time that goes into the birth of a star or a planet like ours, it makes me laugh to hear anyone say they know anything about the ultimate destiny of any other person, let alone all of humanity. The hubris!

Now, in the performance-focused Mormon culture where "knowing with every fiber of your being" is the minimally acceptable standard for public statements of faith, admitting such a lack of knowledge is just not done. And a few years ago I wouldn't have done it. I would have clung to The Org Chart of Eternity like a barnacle.

But not anymore. And the bigger difference is this. It no longer bothers me one tiny bit that I don't know. My mom passed away 3 1/2 years ago. Where is she now? I have no idea. I have no doubt that she's somewhere, and I'd like to think that sometimes she's close and checks on me. But I don't know for sure. And that's okay. How do the eternities work? The "many mansions" scripture talks about? I have no idea, and I don't think anybody else really does either. And that's okay.

This is why I say that since coming out, I think my Christian faith and commitment have grown stronger. I no longer have the luxury of drifting along on the Mormon cultural current, content and complacent because I know my appearance makes everyone else think I'm Orthodox Boy. Any honest Mormon will know what I'm talking about and should confess that they've done that too. But now I've broken ranks on a serious issue that LDS theology is not equipped for, and it's no use keeping up appearances anymore. I've had to actually take complete and full responsibility for what I believe, what I have faith in, what I do and don't know. And what I don't know is a lot.

I love Einstein's statement: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." So true, so true. And so it doesn't bother me that I can't explain or even confidently predict anything about the future where we're all gonna end up eventually. The world and the universe are so vast and beautiful that I can only conceive of them as gifts and creations of a loving God and a Savior who taught the best way to have happy lives here and hereafter.

So many Mormons are so guilt-ridden with feelings of inadequate performance of duty threatening their exaltation later on that I think they lose the ability to savor and enjoy the delights of this life while they're here. Well, that's not me. In Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" there's a very poignant scene where the spirit of a young mother, who's just died in childbirth, says goodbye to the town she grew up in and loved. I don't recall exact words, but it was a touching expression of how beautiful the world is, how miraculous life is, how every breath of every day is a glorious gift, and how much she was going to miss all that. I've been blessed with a wonderful life so far and, God willing, I have a lot more left to enjoy. And I plan to do just that.

Years ago, my dad told me his thoughts on this. "When I go for my final judgment," he said, "I'm going to tell the Savior I did my best with what I had. And if that's not good enough, well, so be it. But I will have done my best." I think that's a very healthy approach and I plan to do the same. And until then, live well, love life and my family and friends, never stop learning, savor the mysterious, enjoy each moment as much as possible.

And I'm very much enjoying that Colin Firth just won the Golden Globe for his performance in The King's Speech. If you could have seen that movie but haven't yet, you deserve to be hit with a nasty spell by Draco Malfoy.

An Apology

2011-01-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Family:

I owe you an apology.

Over the last year or so I have thrown a serious wrench into your expectations and your image of who and what I am. This has been new territory for all of us.

I have had more lead time than you for study, thought, wrestling, debating, and all of that as I've come to terms with being gay and how my life should proceed from here on. It hasn't been my whole life, since for most of my life I was absolutely convinced this was something I must try to kill off and ignore. It's only been in the last couple of years that I've accepted it and planned the rest of life with it in mind. You haven't had quite that long, I know.

And I know it's not fair of me to expect that such a conservative LDS family as ours will be able to change thoughts or opinions on this issue overnight. You all will need time, just as I needed time. So for now, please don't worry about what I said before as far as how I would want a significant other in my life to be treated by the rest of you; there's no such person right now and I don't know when there will be. I never planned to force the issue when it was purely theoretical anyway. Events may play out such that by the time I find him, you all may find your perspectives have actually changed. I think my friend JGW's comment on the prior post is a good one: theory is one thing, but real life experience may prove to be quite different. I hope so.

Meantime, I promise to be more patient. I apologize if I acted badly the other day. I was not prepared for what you said and did not respond in the best way. I recognize that you are all trying to live according to what you believe is right, and I know I must respect that.

I do have one favor to ask. Please, please, please don't refuse to read or listen or learn any more about this topic. The apostle Paul said "prove all things"; that is, investigate, learn, test everything. No exceptions! Please, please, please take his advice, especially about this issue which is now proving to be so crucial to our family unity. Would you at least be willing to talk to a couple of my friends who have been in your exact position? I truly think it would help you feel better.

If there's one thing I learned as I watched Mom battle her illness and slowly slip away from us, it's that the testing and the challenges of life never stop until the very last breath. We really are temporary actors in a play that started long before we stepped onto the stage and which will go on long after we leave. We must each do our best in the role we're given. I know that my coming out has been a challenge for the rest of you and probably will continue to be. But please, please, please don't refuse to learn and investigate and listen to those who've been through this experience.

Growth and change is really hard sometimes. Believe me, I know. I know you are worried, concerned, even fearful of challenges to your beliefs. But remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said: "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. Do the thing you think you cannot do."

Love
Rob

Where Do I Go From Here?

2011-01-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

A wonderful time over the last week with family and friends, despite a three day snowstorm--the three days we were there, of course. Naturally it cleared up the morning we left, and once I got out of the blizzard I felt a lot better. Now back to civilized weather, safe and sound.

On the way home I found a book on the shelf at parents' home, called "So You Want To Raise A Boy?" by the inimitable Cleon Skousen (first published in 1962, and again in 1995). It contains the following:

"18. Aren't some people born homosexuals?

This is so rare that whenever a case occurs it is considered a medical phenomenon. In practically all cases, homosexuality is cultivated [emphasis in original]. Individuals who get into abnormal sex habits during early youth can develop them into such a fixed pattern that they soon think these deviations are perfectly normal. When homosexuals are arrested, they try to excuse their conduct by saying "I guess I'm just made this way." [end of quote]

While visiting there I also learned the following, which I will relate strictly on the facts without editorializing.

Everyone in my family of origin has read this blog and knows of my statements early last year about giving them roughly a year or so to adjust to my coming out, that after that time, I would expect any significant other or partner of mine to be treated the same as any boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse of any of my siblings, and that we would be a package deal.

I was informed that I could do what I wanted with my own life and no one in the family would try to interfere. I was also asked to respect the feelings of everyone else in the family by never mentioning any such personal relationships with any of them, and by not bringing any significant other or partner to any family gatherings. Doing so would make everyone "extremely uncomfortable". If I chose to do so anyway, any display of affection such as holding hands or a kiss would be unacceptable.

Such relationships are abnormal, I was told, and make everyone in the family "feel icky." Normal is a male/female monogamous marriage and sexual relations, nothing else.

I asked the reasons for this feeling. None was given, and I was told none was needed because feelings are feelings and should be respected as such. Had anyone read the materials I offered from www.ldsfamilyfellowship.org written by members of extended families of other gay LDS men and women, material I thought would be particularly relevant to my own family given the same frame of reference, in order to promote understanding and communication? No, the material had not been read; it appeared to take an apologetic stance and the family was not interested in that perspective.

I was told that this request to "respect others' feelings" was not in fact an effort to push me back into the closet and did not represent any homophobia. I pointed out that everyone else in the family was allowed to freely discuss the central personal relationship of their life and have their significant other or spouse welcomed by the family, but I was not, and apparently I must be silent as regards that part of my life if I wished to maintain harmonious relationships with other family members. I said that I simply wanted to be treated like everyone else, and asked why it was fair to single me out for treatment given to no one else in the family. It was acknowledged that this was not fair, but "life is not fair." The family did not wish to see, discuss or be reminded of an abnormal relationship.

I love my family and this conversation made me very sad. And now I have some thinking to do.

It Feels Like Sunday

2010-12-25T13:15:00.001-08:00

It feels like Sunday because I went to church this morning. We've already done the whole presents and stockings thing and the kids are with their mom this week. So I went to church on Christmas morning, following a Christian tradition that goes back centuries if not nearly two millenia. And you know what? It was really nice.

Every year one hears laments about how Christmas has become too commercialized and the "reason for the season" is lost sight of. I know the joke about "Axial tilt is the reason for the season" and think it's pretty funny, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Yet every year Christmas remains as commercialized and frantic as ever. So it was good to actually slow down, spend some time at church on Christmas morning and really reflect and focus on what it's all really about. Focusing on the simple truths. Singing music that was sung on Christmases in Shakespeare's time, and thereby feeling connected to Christians centuries ago who had the same hope I do. That resonates, somehow.

All of this has made this Christmas special in ways I didn't anticipate, and I'm really glad.

The Journey That Christmas Means

2010-12-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

In high school, before my brain was fully formed, I first encountered and hated a certain poem. Later when I figured out what it meant, I once even prevailed on my bishop to let me read it from the pulpit as part of a Christmas program, knowing and savoring the probability that some in the congregation might hate it the way I first did. But anything's better than boredom, right?

This Christmas Eve will be different from most I've had in the past. The kids are elsewhere, the rest of my family is far away. Shortly I will be singing with friends in some wonderful Christmas Eve services unlike those I was brought up with.

It's a good time to ponder and reflect. A good time to go back to this poem I used to hate, but which I now love, and which I'd like to share. I like it because it's not the standard soft, gauzy, sweet-Christmas-carol-in-the-background sentimental sappy treacly retelling of its story. It's rough, gritty, and probably a lot more true to what really happened to the people involved than most other recitations. There are two basic flavors to the Christmas story, you know, and for some reason I've always liked the one about the three kings better than the one about the shepherds.

Naturally, this version was written by the great sage T.S. Eliot. And the thing which most offended me at first about it is now the centerpiece of its meaning that I like the best. Fortunately I've grown up a bit since the days when I was a Boy Scout and sang with my friends "We three kings of Orient are trying to light a loaded cigar. Bang!"

No, I understand things a little better now. Including this poem. Paradoxically, for a Christmas story, it ends by saying that "another death" would be welcome. It wasn't till years after I first read it that I understood what Eliot meant. Not the physical death of someone, but the death of the short-term-focused, self-indulgent, temporal, "natural man" as a result of the journey which the poem describes. In favor of the birth of something--someone--better, higher, loftier. Or at least capable of trying for it. It's the story of one journey, but it's also an allegory for life, and what I believe the Savior makes possible for those who will listen to His message. I hope it will add a new and unique facet to your Christmas.

The Journey of the Magi
by T. S. Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

Walking Through the Cold and Wet

2010-12-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

Stuck in this chair all day. I like what I do, but after a full day of it I need to get out. Kids are gone. Nothing much happens Tuesday nights. I need to move, breathe fresh air. It's dark and wet and blustery outside. I pull on a sweater, jeans, and my thick grey overcoat, and venture out.

Clouds overhead reflect back the glow of city lights. Streets wet, drizzling mist in the air. Traffic's light, night is quiet. Air fresh and clean. Christmas lights glint here and there through the trees, up and down the streets. Breezes gust, blow more leaves off the trees to skid and scrape along the sidewalk. I wish I could walk all night long. Soaking in the shiny, misty, cool, fresh tranquility.

Lines from T.S. Eliot, the greatest sage of the 20th Century, come to mind. His "Rhapsody on a Windy Night." Lines like this:

Twelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions.
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory . . .

Half past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark. . .
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,
Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount.
The bed is open; the toothbrush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.

The last twist of the knife."

I love paradox and Eliot captures it so well.

I stop at the local bakery for some orange almond biscotti to have with morning tea. Then the grocery store for some grapes and Stilton for lunch. A cold breeze billows my coat as I walk slowly under the lights hung from the palm trees that seem so out of place in this weather; they should be pines. But those are further down the sidewalk, the few Christmas trees still left on the sidewalk outside the drug store. Especially fragrant just after the rain. And on up the hill, homeward, past the dim street lamps and the memories of going hand in hand with absent children along those same paths. They'll be back. So I wait, and enjoy walks on rainy nights.

Random Thoughts on a Rainy Night

2010-12-20T18:40:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that my blogging has slowed down a bit lately. There are probably several reasons for that. One, just lots of things going on that pre-occupy, and when I stop working at the end of the day I'm really tired. I think for a living, basically, so sometimes the last thing I want to do in the evening is more heavy-duty thinking. Which is kinda why I'm writing this post, I guess. Nobody reads The Brothers Karamazov over and over for fun, right? So I shouldn't try to be profound or think deep thoughts with every post. It's exhausting. So I'm just gonna write down some light extemporania so y'all can see that my life is not all sturm und drang.

The kids are with their mom for Christmas week this year, so we already had "our Christmas." This means all the pressure is off for me, basically, and life has returned to normal. Except the tree's still up, and all the decorations round the house. When I was a kid I loved nothing better than to crawl as close as I could to underneath the Christmas tree and just stare up through the branches at the lights and the ornaments all glistening and glowing, especially if the rest of the room was dark. I kinda still do it, though I don't quite fit under the tree anymore, so I'm on the sofa instead. I think about being a kid again, remembering how it was to be so care-free. But there was a lot I couldn't do, and I was powerless in lots of ways too. Would I go back to that age, if it meant giving up all I've done and learned and accomplished since then? Not a chance. Funny how that works.

One of my favorite days of the year is 22nd or 23rd December, depending on when the winter solstice falls. Because on that date, the days start getting longer again. I love summer best, probably because I grew up on the beach. I love it when the sun doesn't set till 9 pm. One of these days I need to visit Tromso Norway, where one of my great-great-grandfathers came from, just to see the midnight sun; imagine the sun not setting from 21 May to 21 July!

Got hand-made Christmas presents from the kids this year. They don't comprehend why such presents should be so much more special to me than anything they buy, but that's okay. Sooner than I'd like they'll have grown up, and one day they'll have their own kids, and they'll get it.

Still raining outside. I like that I don't have to shovel rain or scrape it off a frozen car after it stops falling. Everything glistens after rain, especially when Christmas lights are reflecting off shiny dark streets and sidewalks and cars and windows.

Run-up to Christmas week. Freeways emptying out, that's nice. Helping out with Christmas music at church. Years ago I got so tired of the same old 15 or 20 songs most Americans think is the sum total of all existing Christmas music, and I started avoiding them in favor of other, lesser-known stuff, mostly from Europe. There's such an incredible wealth of Christmas music out there. Call me a grinch, but I really can't stand "Silent Night." Not that it's a bad song, I'm just so sick of hearing it. I much prefer "Quelle est cette odeur agreable", or "Quem Pastores Laudavere", or this one just below. THAT is my idea of wonderful Christmas music.

Christmas Letter

2010-12-12T00:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Family:

We've decided to start a new tradition and send out an annual Christmas letter! We noticed a lot of you had "other plans" around Thanksgiving so we didn't get to see any of you. Maybe you're following Uncle Dallin's advice? Whatever. We thought you might like to know what the Adam & Steve family have been up to this year.

This is our first Christmas together as a married couple, and some of you may not even know the story of how we met. It happened at an Evergreen Conference about 16 months ago. Adam was the organist and I was in charge of building security that day, and I had to unlock the Joseph Smith Building chapel early so Adam could practice. We started talking, and Adam ended up getting a good amount of practice that morning. Then I had to leave, so he started working on the music.

Adam worked just a few blocks away and started showing up at the JS Building a lot after that. We had a lot in common; both served French-speaking missions, we both like to cook and to play baseball, and both of us have uncles in the First Quorum of Seventy even! Actually, years ago Elder Packer assigned my uncle to attend every Evergreen Conference and report back on everything said and everyone who attended. Elder Packer seemed really interested in those reports. Never could figure out why. Whatev!

Anyway, Adam and I started dating, We'd meet in the JS Building lobby after work and head west for clubbing, or strolling at The Gateway, sometimes we'd catch a Bees game. In fact, that's where he proposed, on the scoreboard during the 7th inning stretch! The whole stadium cheered, even my uncle who was there, and the players waved us down onto the field to run the bases hand in hand. Isn't that romantic! A few guys in suits in the crowd didn't seem too happy but we didn't care.

We got married three months later in Iowa. It was nice to have a few family members there, too bad most of you couldn't clear the conflicts from your calendar. My uncle in the Seventy couldn't go because he was suddenly assigned to the East Africa Area Presidency right after we got engaged. Oh well. At least we had both grandmas there, and they arranged for all the food. It just wouldn't be a Mormon wedding without red punch and sugar cookies and green Jell-o salad afterward. Plus the local ward let us use their chapel, and the Young Women there even decorated it with white roses and pairs of silver rings and pairs of baseball bats!

When we got back to Utah, I was laid off from my job at the JS Building, but quickly got another with much better pay at the U. Adam and I found a beautiful Craftsman place in the Avenues and made it our first home. He's still working at Zion's Bank so we got a killer rate. The bishop of the local ward lives right next door. On weekdays he's as nice as can be, and on Sundays he doesn't seem to know quite what to do with us. Adam is the ward organist of course--so few guys in the Church can play the organ anymore--but the bishop hasn't asked me to do anything yet. It's fun to watch the different reactions at church when we sit together and hold hands or rub each others' backs like the straight couples do!

We had a bunch of the neighbors over for a Christmas party. The Relief Society president said she was going to copy our Christmas decorations, and the Elder's Quorum President couldn't believe I knew more about baseball than he did. He and the Pride Center director served in the same mission and had a great time swapping stories. Small world! The bishop even stopped in for a bit but said it was "unofficial," LOL.

OK, we've saved the best for last. By this time next year Adam and I expect to be parents! We've already started work on an adoption and so next Christmas we will be telling Santa Claus stories and sending family photos to all of you. We told the Primary President, and she was a little nonplussed at first, but then assured us our new addition would be warmly welcomed. So grandmas, we hope you're as excited as we are!

It's Monday night and we're watching the football game for FHE, then we're making fudge to take to the neighbors. We've enclosed a copy of our best wedding photo as your Christmas present. Have a wonderful holiday!

Love
Adam & Steve

Why They're Stuck

2010-12-08T21:33:00.000-08:00

Abelard's latest post related only the latest example of how a large organization with top-down control can stifle creativity in a way that runs counter to the organization's own stated goals. This kind of thing isn't confined to the LDS Church, but it's unfortunate in any organization that tries to be devoted to purposes such as the LDS Church espouses.

Beyond that, though, I was intrigued by Abe's statements of belief that only outside pressure will cause the LDS Church to change its position on homosexuality, that it will never willingly change from within. I've had this discussion with numerous friends who think differently, but I agree with Abe. Yes, there is precedent for the Church to change as a result of internal efforts, but not on issues like this. The last issue of such theological magnitude faced by the Church was polygamy, which the Church agreed to suspend only when its very survival was at stake--due to outside pressures.

For the LDS Church to change its position on homosexuality, it'd have to re-write its current understanding of the "Plan of Salvation" more significantly than has ever been done since Joseph Smith's time. In a church led by revelation, should that be a problem?

Well, ah, yes, I think it would be. Why?

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were radicals. They were most certainly not cautious or conservative. They shook things up in Christianity like few had ever done before. Joseph was not afraid to say "thus saith the Lord", nor Brigham either.

What do we see from the LDS Church of 2010?

As Daymon Smith recently pointed out, there actually is no such thing as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." There is The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns a bunch of subsidiaries like Intellectual Reserve, Inc., which owns the trademark "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" as well as copyrights to things like hymnbooks, publications, media productions, and so forth. There are other subsidiaries which own real estate, or operate businesses, etc. But believe it or not, there is actually no formal organization that itself bears the name The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

What we actually have is a family of corporations with very defined business functions. Who runs them? General Authorities who, before full-time church service, were doing what? Well, a lot of them were running corporations, or businesses, or practicing law, or engaged in other high-demand professions. Men who know how to navigate large organizations. And who run the LDS Church in the same way they ran businesses or professional practices in their prior lives. I won't go into detail, but trust me on this. I have worked closely with General Authorities and regional authorities and seen close-up how they operate. I know what I'm talking about.

This is the kind of organization that hires a PR firm to re-design its name logo to try to build more street cred amongst other Christian churches. Which surveys its members as to what they like about the divinely inspired temple ceremonies and then changes those ceremonies based on that feedback. Which concentrates authority over its official messaging in the hands of a small group of "Correlation" employees who are reportedly not above trying to tell senior leadership what they can say and how to say it, in the name of "doctrinal purity."

In short, a church run exactly like a corporation.

Now, think of the corporate business people you've known or seen. Are they radicals like Joseph Smith? Are they risk-tolerant or risk-averse? That's an easy answer. The 1978 Official Declaration extending the priesthood to all worthy men regardless of race was the first clear "thus saith the Lord" since 1890. And its text was pretty vague, even so. Now, 30+ years on, with more corporatization and Correlation having almost completely taken over the church, how risk-tolerant will top management be for any public statement about homosexuality, if they don't have a direct conduit for divine instruction that'll make any such statement fail-safe?

Not very. In fact, I submit, not at all. They're going to run as fast as they can from taking on this issue. There will be conflicting signals from individual leaders but no clear statements from the very top. Because they don't know what to do about it, and as best I can tell, there's been no new inspiration or revelation to settle the question. Nor does it seem top leadership feels much need to consider any changes, in light of Boyd Packer's speech.

This is why I think only external factors will succeed. The Church's inertia on this issue is too tied not only to cultural prejudice but to a theological construct which prevents the kind of change that needs to happen, unless some unprecedented revelation comes that shatters prior understandings. And that, my friends, is something risk-averse corporate managers--who now have complete control of the LDS Church--will never seek.

Ordinary Stuff

2010-12-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning I went to help clean the church. This is not a task that most people relish. But I looked forward to it, and had a great time. Everybody had assigned tasks, of course. I worked by myself, sweeping, dusting, polishing furniture, cleaning doors and windows. Beethoven's 9th blaring in my ears.

I surprised myself a little, even. I knew I wouldn't mind doing it, but I liked it more than I'd expected to. Wonder why. Maybe it's because all my work during the week is conceptual: I write, I think, I read, I talk. That's basically it. I like it of course, but a steady diet of nothing but one thing all the time can get monotonous for anyone. So it was nice to literally get my hands dirty, see something transform from dusty and grimy to clean and shining right before my eyes. Therapeutic, in a way. The sort of almost instant gratification that I don't get very often. And nice to know that I had done my bit to keep the church clean. It was like saying to God "Here's a way I can actually show you that I'm grateful for everything I have, I'll help make Your house clean and neat so that those who come here will feel welcomed and comforted."

I'm struck by little things in life sometimes, ordinary things. Going to the grocery store or the drugstore no doubt seems like mindless drudgery to many, and I understand that. But I like it a lot. My first law firm job after school was in a far-away country which at the time had a very protectionist government; American goods were extremely expensive and hard to find, and local markets were very small and not well-stocked. But from time to time I was able to access the big American grocery store and drugstore on the US Army base, and it was like being instantly transported back home again.

Americans who haven't had the experience of living far away, without all the comforts and conveniences they take for granted, wouldn't fully understand how good we have it here. But I'm glad I had that experience because I have never again taken for granted the countless little things in my life that are good, and convenient, and helpful, and make my life easier and more pleasant. Things as minor as walking into a clean, well-lighted, well-stocked, safe, secure, friendly grocery store. Even today, whenever I walk into one here, I remember what it was like to be in that other country where imported bananas were illegal (I'm not kidding) and a "big" store was maybe 1000 square feet and its selection of goods was mediocre at best. To be surrounded every day here by such abundance, in such safety, is something I don't take for granted anymore. I'm grateful for it every day, and for all the little reminders, the ordinary things, that tell me my life is pretty good.

Music and Identity

2010-11-27T21:01:00.000-08:00

Blog buddy Invictus Pilgrim has recently posted a Youtube clip of a beautiful violin piece that he says portrays all the feelings of his heart as he struggles to find his own soul and voice again after years of near-asphyxiation. I've shared favorite musical bits on my blog before like that, but his post prompted me to share another that has similar meaning for me.

Sir Hubert Parry was one of the finest English composers of the last two centuries. Yet he's virtually unknown in the United States except to aberrational music wonks like myself. This really is unfortunate because he wrote some of the most glorious stuff I've ever heard. Including one that has for me the same meaning as Invictus Pilgrim's violin piece does for him: it "seems to reach directly into one’s soul and issue a challenge to defy fate, to embrace and live life in all its texture, to experience sorrow as well as joy, agony as well as ecstasy, doubt as well as faith; to be – in the fullest sense of the word – human."

The piece which does that for me is the last movement of Parry's 5th Symphony. Curiously, Parry gave rather cryptic names to each movement of this symphony, and the last one, already so perfect a picture of life and its joys and struggles, is perfectly named: "Now." Especially for me. Now, more settled and happy and content than ever before. Now, past so much angst and turmoil, conflicts well-remembered but largely resolved. Now, looking ahead to a future brighter than for most of my life I imagined possible. And Parry's music captures it all, including the challenges and struggles that have led me to where I am, before it ends with some wonderful, brilliant resolutions in shimmering, resounding major chords that practically lift you out of your seat.

Caveat: It's 9 minutes long, and it's not background music. It requires your concentration, but trust me, it's worthy of it. If I could pick one piece as the soundtrack for my life, it'd be this one. Hope you like it.

Why Is It A Gift?

2010-11-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving Day before putting the turkey in the oven I want to respond to Invictus Pilgrim's question about how one could be grateful for being gay. He quotes another blogger whose perspectives I don't share, but the questions are worthwhile. I'll answer the questions and then share some of my own thoughts.

1.   Warren’s first statement presupposes that God “makes” some of his sons and daughters attracted to people of the same gender as they. To paraphrase an infamous question recently posed in General Conference, “Why would Heavenly Father do that?”

In this question we hear the voice of Boyd Packer jousting with the Calvinistic theory that certain people are predestined to certain fates. It assumes what's been called "the magical Mormon world view," a relentless habit of ascribing everything in life, no matter how small or detailed, to divine intent, design or intervention. I think the LDS scriptures themselves belie that notion, particularly Doc. & Cov. with its statements that we are supposed to act for ourselves and that "it mattere[d] not" to the Lord whether early Church leaders did one thing or another.

The question also assumes God could but never would do "such a thing" because it's intrinsically evil and wrong. Apparently those who say this never stop to examine the bases for their premise or wonder whether God might have more to say on the matter. Never mind about the 9th Article of Faith.

I don't think it matters whether God "did such a thing" or not. Evidence is overwhelming that, whatever the reason, being gay is an intrinsic part of one's nature that can't be eradicated (to me, that suggests it is a natural and morally neutral phenomenon, but that's a topic for another time). The only question then is how one can best deal with it. Asphyxiate, stifle, deny, endure, tolerate, accept, value, embrace?

2.    Warren’s second statement goes further, and presupposes that, not only does God “make” certain of his children gay, but that gayness is a “gift,” implying, as Warren so states, that SSA is not a curse, but rather a gift. How does one come to make such a statement?

I don't accept the premise here. But I do believe one can choose to embrace being gay as a benefit, even a blessing. That too is a long discussion for another time. But I know from my own experience that it's possible. Once I embraced that part of myself, the whole world lit up in glorious technicolor that drowned out all the drab of before. How could that not be a gift?

3.    If one accepts the fact, which I do, that one is born gay, how does one (particularly he who is steeped in the Mormon faith and culture) come to celebrate his gayness rather than to feel shamed and cursed by it? Specific instructions would be appreciated.

(a) Stop thinking of it as something shameful. This is a process and will probably require you to reject much cultural Mormon programming as false (which it is).

(b) List all the things that make you happy when you are conscious of the gay part of yourself. Imagine how your life would be without them.

(c) List the ways you think you are a better, kinder, more understanding, intuitive, loving, caring person as a result of being gay.

(d) Think of all the ways you're happier since you started coming out. Of all the art, music, creativity, the beautiful things in life you appreciate more than straight guys might.

(e) Think of all the friends you've made since you started the journey and how they may have enriched your life.

(f) You never could have made your own movie list if you hadn't started coming out.

4.    Moving beyond question #3, how does one come to view it as a gift from God?

A gift is what we make of it. You have this characteristic as part of you. You can make it into something beautiful and wonderful and fulfilling, or you can make it a source of frustration, stagnation, and unhappiness. How you come to view this characteristic will depend on which of these paths you choose.

5.    I am perplexed by Warren’s statements because he is an active member of the Church who currently serves in a bishopric. (My intention is not to “pick” on Warren, but simply to use him and his statements as a basis of discussion.) He “honors” his priesthood and lives his life as a heterosexual priesthood holder living “the plan of happiness.”

Therefore, if gayness truly is something to be grateful for and a gift from God, how does he/one reconcile the dichotomy between living what one truly believes one to be by divine grace [Oxford: “the unmerited favor of God”] versus living the “priesthood path” (straight, married, father, church service, etc., etc.) as taught by the Church?

Within the way the LDS Church has currently framed this issue, no such reconciliation is possible. One must give way to the other eventually. The choice depends on one's priorities, one's trust in the LDS Church as an institution, one's trust in one's own heart and ability to discern personal inspiration.

Concluding thoughts:

Since coming out, my life has been transformed. The old grey world is now aglitter with millions of glowing hues. I feel 100 pounds lighter, free to be my real self rather than being ashamed of it, a reluctant actor on a stage every waking moment. That was exhausting! Friendships are deeper, as is faith. My heart is peaceful, my confidence far higher than before. Especially on this Thanksgiving Day, how could I not consider it a gift?

Why I Like Clouds and Rain and Cold Sometimes

2010-11-21T16:46:00.000-08:00

I know that title may seem strange for a lifelong California beach guy to say, but there is a reason which I'll get to in a minute.

As a lawyer I can't resist a good policy discussion about controversial legislation. So this morning I attended a presentation about Don't Ask Don't Tell at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral. Lots of fascinating stuff and three key take-away points for this son of a retired Army officer.

First, DADT is more than just not asking or telling, it has tragic results on individual lives, cutting short promising careers, spending millions to actually reduce military readiness and capabilities at a time when those are not only crucial, but when a majority of military personnel themselves say they'd have no problem with LGB soldiers serving openly. Thus making more and more ridiculous such ostensible mandarins as John McCain, whose bigotry in trying to preserve DADT is increasingly desperate.

Two, DADT is a crashingly discordant exception in American law in that it requires discrimination by the same government which everywhere else must not discriminate.

Third and possibly most disturbing, DADT creates a culture of lying and mistrust. It "belies" who our military is "as an institution", says (just today, ironically) no less a figure than Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the military leaders whose advice Senator McCain said 4 years ago he'd follow re this issue, and whose advice he is now desperately trying to ignore.

DADT is now part of the Defense Appropriations Bill pending for a vote in the Senate before 10th December's Christmas recess. If you live in a state where your senator(s) support DADT or are undeclared, give their offices a call and them to listen to Admiral Mullen and get rid of this idiotic, tragic law/policy so they'll be on the right side of history and won't be lumped with the McCains of the world.

OK, public service announcement over. 'Cause obviously none of that explains why I like clouds and rain and cold sometime.

Since the DADT presentation ended just minutes before the regular church service started at St. Paul's, and since I have friends who sing in the choir there, I decided to hang around for services. It's a beautiful cathedral and the music is terrific. Very inspirational. The sermon was great, about "the cosmic Christ" and what that concept means for us individually. And I love the smell of that incense.

I didn't have a sweater or jacket. The cathedral is all masonry, floor to ceiling, so it was on the cold side. Outside it was raining and the air was slightly damp. The wooden benches aren't exactly cushy soft. But I found myself happier than I'd been in a long time. Why?

When I was a teenager I was lucky enough to take a couple of trips to Europe with friends. You know how it is when you're 16 and 17 and think you've got the world figured out and you're on the verge of being a legal adult and chomping at the bit to leave home and explore. Thrilled at finally being able to get out of the nest, be on your own, make your own life. Thirsty for adventure.

Well, I was all of that. And spent many weeks filled with that enthusiasm while exploring countries whose histories and culture had always fascinated me. Particularly the cathedrals. Both trips were in the late spring, and at that time of year Northern Europe can still be pretty cold and damp. One particular Sunday we were in Lucerne, Switzerland. It was Easter, actually. There was still snow on the ground and a few flurries in the air. Everything was wet. But it wasn't unpleasantly cold.

Though it was overcast, the clouds had that bright quality by which you could tell the sun was shining behind them. The first few green buds were appearing on the trees. Icicles were melting. The lake was beautiful. I was almost intoxicated with the feeling of such history all around me; this city had existed since 750 A.D., an almost unimaginable history in my hometown where anything over 50 years old tends to get torn down. I walked the covered wooden footbridge over the lake whose eaves were still decorated with the paintings done in the late 1500's when the bridge was built. My friends and I returned twice to admire the statue of the Lion of Lucerne, which we found profoundly touching in ways we couldn't articulate. (I've since learned that others have felt the same.)

And of course, we spent time in a big church. It was Easter, after all. The church was probably 17th Century, from the look of its white & gold German-style Baroque decor. Yep, that one to the left, that's the very one. It was cold, and damp. But the music and the incense and the atmosphere were wonderful. Outside were the first signs of spring. Though it was cloudy, the sky glowed. And there I was, in the middle of this grand adventure, surrounded by all this wonderful stuff, these omens of a bright future. It was a wonderful, exciting, memory-making day that, obviously, I never forgot.

So while it doesn't happen often, today it happened again. All those factors once again converged--the damp, the cold stone church, the incense, the cloudy but glowing sky (with the glow coming through stained glass windows) and I felt that same sense of happiness and gratitude and excitement and gratitude for a bright future. True, since that Easter Sunday in Lucerne I've had a bit of life experience, but there's still a lot of future left to embrace.

And the icing on the cake was when my buddies from the choir collared me in the hall outside afterward to sing some barbershop pick-ups with them, just for fun, on the spot. No written scores, just pick one you know, sing everybody's part through for them, then all together. Short clips. No reason other than the sheer joy of singing with your friends. Can you imagine such a thing happening in an LDS chapel after priesthood meeting? No wonder I like St. Paul's.

Days like this are why I like clouds and rain and cold sometimes.

In Which Your Local Correspondent Gets Picked Up

2010-11-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

Life sure can surprise you sometimes. I got picked up yesterday and didn't even know it. Thanks to Brody for alerting me. And if you want to see just how I got picked up, click here.

Thank You, One Hundred

2010-11-09T13:08:00.000-08:00

Lots of measurements and benchmarks are ultimately kind of arbitrary. New Year's holidays in cultures other than our own may fall at very different times through our year. You can vote and join the army at age 18 but you can't legally have a beer till you're 21 (does that mean we collectively think it takes more maturity to drink responsibly than to volunteer to give your life for your country?). The dividing line between an A and B at school sometimes fluctuates. Life's full of arbitrary measurements that nevertheless manage to give us some structure, some means of assessing progress.

I hesitated a bit to write this post because I didn't want it to come across the wrong way. But then I realized the only reason I can write it is the kindness of other people, and I have an obligation to thank them.

A few days ago, my little blog acquired its 100th self-declared follower. It's been just barely over two years since I started writing here, after Troy urged me to give it a go. I honestly thought it'd be a waste of time and that I'd have nothing to say. What could I possibly have to contribute that would interest anyone else or mean anything to anybody?

Well, obviously I found out. Not that I had anything meaningful to say, but that I was at least capable of churning out content, vapid though it might be. So the blog became a good place to wrestle with issues, express frustrations, put ideas out for discussion, tell a story or two. It's done me a lot of good. And it's helped others waste some time, I'm sure. I'm in a lot better place today than I was two years ago, and a good part of the reason is this blog, the friends I've made as a result of writing, the things I've learned. And it all started from nothing and an honest belief that this was going to be a waste of time.

So when I see that one hundred people have been brave enough to attach their on-line personas to my little corner of cyberspace, nobody is more amazed than me. I honestly never expected anything like that and it is hard for me to believe that many people are interested.

I'm kind of torn. Part of me would much rather do what I can quietly and anonymously. And part of me realizes that sometimes I have things to say and I need to speak out, and this blog is one way to do it. More paradox in my life. As if I needed more.

But I certainly can't complain about the things I've learned, the ways I've grown, the friends I've made and grown to love so much, the experiences I've had, all as a result of blogging here. It's been an immeasurable blessing.

So I now stand with hat in hand before you brave one hundred followers and say a humble thank you. For flattering me by sharing some of your time to read what I write, for your comments and for your friendship. I've no doubt that I have benefited far more by talking with and getting to know and learning from you than you may have by visiting here. I will always be grateful.

In Praise of Pulchritude

2010-10-30T23:32:00.000-07:00

The latest episode of Glee generated some advance media buzz because two of its hottest male stars appeared for the first time with very little clothing on, and during the show both characters were extremely uncomfortable with it. That got me thinking about why, and I realized how many people--guys particularly--would share their sad, overinflated prudery. From time to time there's also some discussion in the MoHoSphere about whether it's morally wrong to appreciate pictures of male beauty (because of the Mormon misinterpretation of the "appearance of evil" thing, a topic for another time).

Coincidentally, I'm reading a book that offers an interesting insight on this point, and I wanted to share.

The book is called Sailing The Wine-dark Sea: Why The Greeks Matter. It's a fascinating look into the culture and the people who became the foundation for all of Western civilization. But despite the incalculable debt we owe to the ancient Greeks for ideas like representative democracy, aesthetics, drama, literature, and more, Judeo-Christian cultures have always been uncomfortable with the ancient Greeks' tolerance and even encouragement of homosexuality and those statues of guys who weren't wearing much of anything.

Most conservative Christians and Mormons, while recognizing the Greeks' artistic and social and political achievements, would probably not choose for their own homes any replicas of such statues. I even heard of one LDS stake president who called Michelangelo's David "pornography." My parents once attended an art festival and purchased an original sculpture, small enough for a tabletop, of a man & woman passionately embracing. Both were unclothed. They put it in the living room. I thought it was beautiful and very tasteful. But apparently somebody from church saw it during a visit and complained to my parents, so they moved it to their bedroom. Apart from the gall of criticizing someone's own choice of art in their own home, I was amazed at the aggressive prudishness. How cleverly diabolical, to persuade someone that the mere sight of God's greatest creation is morally wrong (spare me the "sacred, not secret" bit, that's not the topic here). I understand my parents moving the statue because they didn't want to give offense to any other visitors. To my dad's credit, it's now back in the living room.

Art like that, no matter how tasteful, makes a great many conservative Christians and Mormons uncomfortable. They're baffled by why the Greeks created so many unclothed statues. Their religious tradition's heavy overlay of original sin and the idea that the flesh is corrupt, plus the hysteria that has overtaken modern American society about child molesters and sexual abuse and wardrobe malfunctions in Superbowl broadcasts, all seem to have robbed almost all American Mormons and Christians of any ability to think calmly and rationally about anything less than fully clothed in a way Queen Victoria would have approved. But this book I'm reading gives some compelling insight about why the Greeks created those statues, and why such art resonates with gay guys particularly. And I think also answers the MoHo question about appreciating depictions of male beauty.

Many straight people assume that gay people's attraction to those of their own gender is merely "abnormal" and "unnatural" lust, thus any appreciation of the physical form of someone of one's own gender must also be "abnormal" and "unnatural." Apart from the fact that this is just plain wrong, it is also demeaning and dehumanizing.

In fact, there is another aspect, much loftier, that's perfectly captured by the Greek statues and any art that follows the same lines, as so well put by the author of Sailing The Wine-dark Sea. It is that those statues capture an ideal:

"The kouros [statue of a young man, unclothed] is the Greek in his idealized state, eternally young, eternally strong, but fixed for all time--not in process, not on his way from boyhood to manhood, but eternally achieved, eternally One. As the ultimate ideal, he must be naked, for no costume but his own skin could serve his eternality. . . . Forever beyond all development (which would necessarily imply disintegration at a later stage), he belongs to the World of the Forms. He is the Form of Man, the perfection, of which all beautiful and heroic men partake as partial examples, the man that all men would wish to be.

The kouros, then, is not merely the expression of a Greek idea but of a profound human longing that the Greeks were the first to uncover and that reverberates through art and literature ever after . . . the wish to be absolved . . . from the "change and decay in all around I see"--and its expression in notes high and low, in measures quick and slow--whether in Homer's lost utopias of Troy and Ithaca or in Sappho's plangently expressed desire for youth and regret over age, whether in Socrates' earnest aspiration to "shuffle off this mortal coil" and ascend to the World of the Forms or in the molded pathos of the kouros--is Greece's most complex and valuable gift to the Western tradition. . . . The kouros . . . speaks with one authoritative voice: "Here is our ideal, the best we have to offer."

That's why that cork-brained stake president I mentioned before was so laughably, pitiably wrong about Michelangelo's David. It, and those Greek statues, are actually homage to perfection (and aren't Mormons supposed to be trying to achieve perfection?), to the pinnacle of the Creator's art--in fact, they try to depict what I'm sure most Mormon men hope to be after the resurrection. They are reminders of what all of us partake in, partly, and of what we might hope to approach through dedicated care of the divine gift of corporeality. They represent a longing for the eternal, for youth and beauty to stay that way forever.

Gay guys get this; it's intuitive. But you don't need to be gay to understand it. I am sincerely sad for anyone who can't see this perspective, who may be so bound down by the traditions of their gymnophobic fathers that they can't comprehend this reverence and appreciation but remain stuck in the attitude that all such depictions are necessarily base and obscene. In fact it is that attitude which dishonors both the Creator and His creation.

Mormons are fond of the truism "As a man thinketh, so is he." So to anyone, Mormon or otherwise, who thinks these statutes or the "David" or anything like them are porn and obscene, I say get your minds out of the gutter and show more respect not only for others but for the Creator's work. Thomas Cahill, author of Sailing the Wine-dark Sea, is right; such art captures a way of thinking that honors divinity, invites us to aspire and achieve, and fills our lives with beauty. It's not porn, it's perfection. It's not shameful, it's sacred. It's not degrading, it's a celebration of the divine gifts of life and creation.

DAC Epidemic

2010-10-30T14:42:00.001-07:00

Seems there is a never-ending stream of news stories about new and various health disorders of all kinds, physical and mental. I ran across one a while back that I've realized is quite widespread among a certain segment of the population and I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention because this one I think we can actually do something about.

DAC is rather unusual. It's an acquired syndrome, and like other mental conditions is not physically painful to the person who suffers from it. But it is detrimental all the same, because over time it changes and warps the sufferer's perspective and ability to deal with others on an equal level. Those who are afflicted with this unfortunate condition usually acquire it through no conscious choice, of course. Normally it results from repeated exposure to those who display similar behavior, especially authority figures.

DAC is insidious because it also hurts others: those with whom the DAC sufferer interacts and treats in abnormal, patronizing, and sometimes even pejorative ways. DAC sufferers are usually not aware of the damage they do, but it happens all the same. I've seen it myself, and it's all the more sad because DAC is totally preventable and can be eradicated so easily.

Oh, I just realized I didn't identify DAC fully. DAC stands for Disparaging Acronym Compulsion. It's found most often among conservative Evangelical, Catholic, and Mormon groups, and its most common example is relentless use of the dismissive acronyms SSA and SGA. I've written elsewhere about why these are bad.

My heart goes out to those who suffer from DAC. Just having DAC is no sin, though acting on it certainly is. I realize that many people with this condition will not be able to free themselves of it in this life as long as religious authorities perpetuate DAC. Some will be able to control their behavior despite having DAC, and I salute them for their heroic struggle, because DAC can be a powerful urge. But with regular reminders and doses of truth, it can be controlled. Certain geographical areas are more susceptible to it, like Utah Valley and Mesa Arizona, and ultimately more drastic public measures may be necessary there to curb the spread of DAC and its dolorous effects.

But for now, the best we can do for DAC sufferers is to be compassionate, understand that their situation's not entirely of their own making, try to help them be strong and overcome DAC's sad, relentless urge to euphemize.

Tough Situation, Tough Words

2010-10-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Reality Check

2010-10-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things about life is that you never know how you will be pleasantly surprised. Recently I have met a number of people who've taught me a lot and I'm really glad they did. When you're a kid you assume your life is normal and everybody else's life is like yours, right? Well these people have reminded me that, not only was I incredibly sheltered and lucky growing up, but that human nature is amazingly resilient, and I should be very grateful for what I have because lots of people have had things worse. I really admire the courage I heard in their stories.

One was a guy in his mid-60's who was an alcoholic by age 16 despite a strong Lutheran upbringing. Never went to college, kinda drifted through life without any real sense of purpose. Divorced, second wife died. Abandoned his faith for many years. Now he's trying to find it again. He never lost the sense that God was there and loved him, but he's still not figured out what his life's purpose is. He seems determined. I admire his tenacity; it's hard for me to imagine going through much of a lifetime without any clear goals or understanding of what you are meant to be. And being an alcoholic at age 16? Wow. He's weathered a lot.

Another was a 40-something Mexican woman, one of 12 children who grew up in Tijuana with an abusive father and a distant mother. Staunch Catholics till they moved across the border and parents stopped going to church. Dad gone almost all the time working, drunk and physically abusive when he was home. Some of the kids kept going because it was their only source of stability in life. A tough life got even tougher for this woman when she realized she liked girls, not boys. She married, regardless, had a daughter. Then divorced. She's a teacher and lost her job, hasn't been able to find permanent work for a while. Her life is very difficult, but she persists in looking for work and retains her faith and hope that things will get better.

I felt a little ashamed after hearing these stories, ashamed at how easily I forget how lucky I am, even with the challenges I face. I was glad for the reality check these two friends provided. They could have given in to a victim mentality and blamed others for their unhappiness, which would have made them even more miserable and kept them stuck and unable to move on with a happy life, but they chose not to. Good for them. Attitude is everything, and theirs is really good despite their challenges. I felt fortunate to hear their stories and to see their faith that God had cared for them through it all.

Latest Column

2010-10-17T07:21:00.001-07:00

Ah, Sunday. The day of rest. A day on which I can even leverage a blog post, which is a lot more restful than writing a new one.

Recently I was invited to contribute a piece to gay.com's "Writes of Passage" series which is running as part of National Coming Out Day. The premise is to write a letter from the me of today to the pre-coming out me of years ago. It was lots of fun.

To uber-conservative members of my family who read this blog, caveat: gay.com has things on it that, while certainly not obscene, you also probably wouldn't find in a Sunday School lesson manual either. So go on to something else if that makes you uncomfortable.

OK, that disclaimer out of the way, if you'd like to read the froth I came up with, click here.

Poe's Law In Utah County

2010-10-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

OK, probably some of you have never heard of Poe's Law. That's because it's fairly new, only been around for about five years. Succinctly put, it says this:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.

For more details, click here.

Now, what does this have to do with Utah County?

Well, admittedly, the Utah County thing is a guess. But only because I can't imagine this latest example of Poe's Law emerging from anywhere else within Mormondom.

Very soon after Boyd Packer's Conference talk started rumbling round the world, somebody posted a link on Facebook to a hitherto relatively obscure blog purporting to be written by someone called Gay Mormon Guy.

I've been blogging for a while now. I've run across most gay Mormon blogs at some point. But I'd never heard of this one before. When I heard of all the hubbub about this blog, I went there to find out more.

What I found was the single most compelling example of Poe's Law I've yet seen to emerge from Mormon culture. A blog that is so relentlessly obsessed with reinforcing every possible Mormon stereotype of strictly orthodox behavior that it strains credulity, yet it seems consistently serious. Is there an actual person behind this? If so, he's got some healthy self-confidence for a gay Mormon boy:

"I grew up in an almost perfect family, with superheroes for parents and inheriting at least some of their awesomeness. I was a star student, champion athlete, great musician... you name it. And then I realized that everyone wasn't like me. Everyone didn't grow up as an Incredible... and suddenly it didn't seem fair that I could sit in on a class and recite back, word for word, what the teacher said, or read a textbook once and have 99% comprehension... when the girl next to me studied for hours just to memorize the quadratic equation."

Yep, that's a quote from Gay Mormon Guy. Now you see why I wonder if this is on the level. Would a real person actually say such stuff? Or does this tip off astute readers to another example of Poe's Law?

A further read through this blog reveals an almost daily drumbeat of vignettes, stories and observations that sound straight out of the Church Education System's Model For The Perfect Seminary Student. Every waking moment of Gay Mormon Guy's life seems consumed with becoming more soaked in Church stuff. One reads post after post and gradually a sense of unreality sets in. It's just too, too much. One begins to suspect it is in fact a parody. Or written by a committee. Poe's Law again. Don't believe me? Try reading it yourself for a while and see.

Particularly interesting was the response to Gay Mormon Guy's post about Boyd Packer's Conference talk. Naturally GMG rallied to Packer's defense with a lengthy exposition which caught fire on Facebook and within just a couple of days had vaulted GMG's blog followers from a few dozen to over three hundred. Most of them women. A careful review of the nearly 300 comments he got to that one post also indicates that probably 2/3 of the commenters were female, whose responses range from short expressions of admiration to gushing paragraphs of adulation normally reserved for celebrity general authorities. And GMG seems to love it, if his answers to their comments are any indication. If there really is a GMG. More Poe's Law.

Your humble correspondent also submitted a comment to Gay Mormon Guy's post, in which among other things, I pointed out the fact that all reputable professional organizations who've studied the issue agree that sexual orientation is not chosen and can't be changed--something contrary to what Packer preached, so on that point at least, Packer was not correct.

Very soon after I submitted that comment, Gay Mormon Guy added the following to his blog:

"Most comments are published as soon as I read them. Anything with potentially controversial content is eventually published, along with a response, if it is (1) well-written, (2) well-meaning in nature, (3) does not contain statements contrary to Church teachings, and (4) relevant."

Guess what. My comment didn't pass muster. I expected this. Apparently Gay Mormon Guy not only has a healthy dose of self-esteem, he is also intent on keeping his blog rigorously "faith promoting". And that's fine. If he exists, he has the right to do what he wants with his own blog.

But something just doesn't pass the smell test here, ya know? The tidal wave of adoration that flooded that blog within just a few days was like nothing I've ever seen before. The blog itself is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's like Seriously So Blessed without the humor. Gay Mormon Guy is completely unidentified on the blog profile too; nothing, zero, zip, nada about who he is, where he is, what makes him tick. If he exists.

So to the comparative paucity of readers who check in here occasionally, I say have a look at Gay Mormon Guy. Comment on his posts, see if he lets yours through. Tell me if you think he's on the level or whether this is Poe's Law in action and we're seeing a very polished hoax.

Gay Mormon Guy, if you're for real, I challenge you to draw the curtain and tell us who you really are. With the hundreds of fans and followers you've acquired in the last week or so, you're in a perfect position to acquire some real prominence as the poster child for How A Faithful Gay Mormon Boy Should Live. So take advantage of it! You could have a great career ahead of you.

If you're real.

Packer & The Saints vs. Brigham Young

2010-10-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

Boyd Packer's speech during the recent LDS General Conference stirred up worldwide controversy over his insinuations that being gay was a choice, his statements that homosexuality (and therefore gay people) was/were intrinsically unnatural and immoral, that God would never "do such a thing" to any of His children, etc. Packer said nothing he hasn't been saying for the last 30+ years as part of building his reputation as one of Mormondom's most vocal opponents of The Gay. He just reiterated it more forcefully, and with spectacularly bad timing as the LDS Church is spending millions to repair its post-Prop 8 image with the "I'm a Mormon" TV ad campaign and in the wake of a cluster of suicides by gay teens bullied beyond endurance.

Others have criticized the substance of what he said, the post-Conference amendments to his text, the implications of removing his reference to the LDS Proclamation on the Family as "revelation." I won't re-hash any of that here.

Instead, I've been struck by statements from Packer's defenders and what they say about real-time attitudes toward The Gay within the LDS Church.

Officially, the Church says we love and welcome them as long as they follow the same standards of morality and chastity that straight people do (nevermind that the result of doing that is to take away all hope of any happiness from those gay Mormons who choose to comply).

But statements from the rank & file in response to non-Mormon criticism of Packer are far more telling and far more honest an indication of what the truly believing actual Mormon In Your Neighborhood probably thinks about the whole gay issue and how their Church is dealing with it.

So I now present you with a series of quotes pulled verbatim from a Facebook Group called "I Support Boyd K. Packer." I'll go very light on my own commentary here, preferring to let these faithful Mormons who support Boyd Packer's remarks speak for themselves. I'll not discuss the doctrinal and scientific errors in their statements, though I assure you there are plenty (some of which the LDS Church itself has repudiated). I'll ask only that you consider whether, knowing what Packer said and insinuated, these statements would honestly, genuinely make any gay person feel truly loved and accepted within the LDS Church.

"This is a testament to all the followers of Christ of what a wicked world we live in. Nobody reads the bible anymore, it has been cast aside for things of not [sic]. I am so grateful we have Leaders like President Packer to voice MY opinions. I will forever and always follow the things that are said to us by Gods Holy Prophets."

"Not only did he clearly stand for the truth, he gave hope to the hopeless. Many feel like they can't change, like they're born that way to stay. NOT SO! The atonement can help us all. A man of God just promised it." I believe the Church has already stated that homosexuality is not something that the atonement of Jesus Christ needs to or should be expected to fix.

"I'm not understanding why anyone who is part of our church is arguing with this man, the apostles and prophets are called of god and speak only words through the spirit and through revelation. we sustain these men when they are called and should do so throughout there [sic] calling."

"Vicious ideologues make benign and loving people offenders for a word. We cannot countenance this. Mormons' very religious freedom is at stake. Don't be silenced by bullies." Side note: the "bullies" are Packer's critics, not the Packers of the world.

"Why is freedom of speech such a double standard? I'm so proud to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!"

To a brave soul who posted a link to the Facebook page for Affirmation, an advocacy group supporting gay and lesbian Mormons, two commenters wrote: "why are you on here?!?" and "I agree wy [sic]". Keep in mind the "why is freedom of speech such a double standard" question just above.

"Leviticus 20:13 - "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

"I support Elder Packer. Through him, Heavenly Father provided a message of love and hope for ALL of His children." Marlin Jensen, senior member of the LDS Seventy, has publicly acknowledged that the Church does ask its gay members to give up all hope of companionship, intimacy and happiness in this life.

"No need to apologize for the Truth! We all know that Christ himself was criticized and eventually killed for the Truth. No apologies required!"

"I can't help that [sic] feel those who are fighting against the church and the talk that was given is because they do not know God as we know God."

"Always remember- the wicked taketh the truth to be hard. President Packer, thank you for the words of strength." So anyone who disagrees with Packer is wicked.

"Homosexuality is unnatural and where would the world be without procreation to carry on human kind. I support President Packer and know we must follow the prophet to be safe in these troublesome times. It does, indeed, seem that there is a persecution of religion and those that choose to follow God's commandments." And who was it that worked for two decades to prevent marriage equality and revoke those rights where they'd already been recognized?

"The truth hurts and that's why everyone is so bent out of shape over his speech...God's law is God's law and it will never change, regardless of whether we ruffle a few feathers of those that believe otherwise."

"Just looking at the mechanics of men and women we know homosexuality was not what God intended. We can love those people that haven chosen this "lifestyle" but denounce the behavior. I wish people understand the difference. Homosexuality is a choice not the way God intended." Man doesn't have wings so we mustn't fly in airplanes either.

"You are one of my prophets, seers and revelators called by the voice of Heavenly Father. I know God lives, therefore, I know you speak what he would have you speak. I thank you and I love you, President Packer!"

"Bro. Packer, please hang in there and DO NOT COMPROMISE YOUR PRINCIPLES! if the LDS Church will stand firm against Pink fascism, then God will bless & protect us." Pink fascism.

"President Packer is a prophet, he hears the voice of the Lord. He wouldn't have been permitted to say what he did if it was wrong, morally or otherwise."

In response to this last comment and the others like it, I need only quote past LDS leaders:

Brigham Young: "I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken the influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually."

Again, Brigham Young: "Now those men, or those women, who know no more about the power of God, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, than to be led entirely by another person, suspending their own understanding, and pinning their faith upon another's sleeve, will never be capable of entering into the celestial glory, to be crowned as they anticipate; they will never be capable of becoming Gods. They cannot rule themselves, to say nothing of ruling others, but they must be dictated to in every trifle, like a child. They cannot control themselves in the least, but James, Peter, or somebody else must control them. They never can become Gods, nor be crowned as rulers with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. They never can hold sceptres of glory, majesty, and power in the celestial kingdom. Who will? Those who are valiant and inspired with the true independence of heaven, who will go forth boldly in the service of their God, leaving others to do as they please, determined to do right, though all mankind besides should take the opposite course."

George Q. Cannon, Counselor to three Church Presidents, expressed it thus: "Do not, brethren, put your trust in man though he be a bishop, an apostle, or a president. If you do, they will fail you at some time or place; they will do wrong or seem to, and your support be gone."

Pink fascism. Threats to religious liberty. They don't know God like we know God. They are wicked and they should be killed. And those who do know God will just fall into lock step and march to Boyd Packer's drum, unquestioningly. This is how the world outside Mormonism sees the LDS Church loving and caring for gay people. This is why the Church's claims of welcome and inclusion ring hollow.

I don't think I need to say any more.

The Mormon Dilemma and Why Prop 8 May Have Been Good After All

2010-10-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest guest column at Brody's Notes and Scribbles, which you can also read here.

The recent rapid-fire of suicides by priceless, gifted, irreplaceable and relentlessly bullied young gay people has jump-started public reflection on why so much homophobia seems so furiously resistant to persuasion toward the kinder, gentler approach many of its practitioners' churches ought to teach. History is no stranger to Christians inflicting incalculable suffering on others in the name of Jesus, so we're seeing just the latest chapter in a long tradition. Many Christian churches seem to indirectly foster such hate and homophobia by their obsessive focus on the sinfulness of same-sex relationships and their fear-mongering that civilization itself is at stake in the fight against The Gays. And many critics of such churches are revving up their demands for such churches to back off, admit their complicity in so many gay suicides, and repent for the damage they've done.

Others have spoken passionately about broader Christian traditions in this respect. And, as usual, the Mormons are in a category of their own. They led the fight for Proposition 8 and their money made its passage possible. To most Prop 8 opponents, the Mormons are just a quirky cult with an unusually virulent strain of homophobia. But the real reasons for that aren't as apparent. In the wake of these recent suicides and calls for Christian churches to back off behavior that fosters such lethal bullying, Mormons are actually stuck in a far more difficult situation than most of their opponents imagine as regards this issue.

Niceness is a cardinal Mormon virtue. Mormons hate, hate, HATE to think of themselves as the bad guys. Within their own theological framework, there is genuine encouragement to be kind and compassionate and forgiving. I've seen this countless times, and some of the most truly Christlike people I've ever met are active Mormons. This focus on being nice, combined with a religious/social worldview that can easily occupy every waking moment, combined to produce much genuine puzzlement and dismay among the rank & file after Prop 8 passed. "Why do they hate us so much" was an honest question for many Mormons, who simply didn't comprehend what life was like outside the Mormon culture and world view. They were simply defending morality; how could they possibly be the bad guys?

But Mormons are stuck, you see, between that genuine desire to be nice & kind, on one hand, and a theology which enshrines heterosexual marriage in a Mormon temple as not only the pinnacle of life's achievement but also an essential, non-negotiable requirement to get into the highest degree of heaven and live with God eternally. If you don't have such a marriage, you ain't gettin' in. There are other tiers in the Mormon heaven, but Mormons all aspire to the top level and treat all other possibilities with a mix of pity and regret. Because everybody is supposed to want--and be able to get to--the top level.

There is no explanation anywhere within Mormon theology for homosexuality. None of the three books of scripture unique to the Mormon canon ever mentions it. Thus, Mormon leaders have relied historically for their condemnations of homosexuality on the same half-dozen oblique and questionable Bible verses the rest of Christianity uses against The Gays.

But with a twist. Mormon church presidents are regarded as living prophets. Thus, to the Mormon faithful, when their church president speaks, it is the same as if God Himself spoke. This belief trumps all other considerations in the Mormon mind. There's an old joke that says the Catholics say the pope is infallible but don't really believe it, and the Mormons say their prophet isn't infalliable but don't really believe it. It's funny, but it's largely true. Even if an active Mormon privately questions something the prophet says, if they can't resolve the quandary they usually end up complying anyway, thinking "well, he's the prophet, he must know something I don't."

So when we combine that attitude of presumed prophetic infallibility with the belief that heterosexual temple marriage is an absolute and indispensable requirement for achieving the only heaven where families can be together forever, it's easily seen why many Mormons are so passionately opposed to homosexuality and marriage equality. It's not just that "the Bible tells me so," which is sufficient justification for other Christians. It's that AND the fact that "the prophet tells me so," AND their view that gay relationships strike at the very heart of life's ultimate purpose and literally destroy the eternal destiny of Mormon families. And if their society legitimizes those relationships, many Mormons fear their children will be lost to that belief and thus be lost to their parents forever.

That is very powerful stuff.

And that is also why this issue is far more painful for many Mormons than most non-Mormons realize. More and more Mormons are starting to seriously question the actions of their church in the Prop 8 debacle. They see their children, friends, relatives coming out of the closet--active Mormons themselves who've summoned the courage to buck their church's culture and be true to themselves. These brave souls volunteer for the front line on this issue that is so impossibly irreconcilable within current Mormon theology. The ostracism they risk is not just a social thing for this life--it is, to the conservative Mormon mind, volunteering for eternal damnation. Yet many honest, kind, and nice straight Mormons can't, when they think about it, quite accept that God would so condemn their children, friends and relatives on that basis. They are caught between what their hearts whisper and the official orthodoxy of their church's teachings. And official Mormondom does not tolerate cognitive dissonance well, especially when it speaks out.

This has produced the latest flavor of Mormon belief about homosexuality (by my count, this is Version 4 or 5 over the past century): it's okay to be gay but you can't act on it. Shouldn't be surprising that the Mormons and the Catholics synched up to push Prop 8. But this latest band-aid over a gaping doctrinal hole does nothing to resolve the ultimate dilemma: honest Mormon hearts see the impossibly painful contradiction between their theology--which can't explain gay people and whose whole eternal structure is threatened by their existence--and the tears and fears and aching hearts of their gay children and brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers who want only to be able to love the way they believe God meant them to. Heart and head don't match. More and more Mormons are understanding that "be gay but don't act on it" means "give up all hope of happiness." Faced with such dilemmas, as I said before, most Mormons will default to following the prophet because they think that's safest. "He must know something we don't."

But the doubts don't go away. And as best I can tell, the questions among the Mormon rank & file about their church and gay issues are growing. Quietly, at grass-roots levels, but they do seem to be growing. I expect that will continue. Somehow, someday, the gap in Mormon theology has got to be filled. It would be one of the great jokes of American history if Mormon muscle to pass Prop 8 ultimately yielded nationwide constitutional recognition of marriage equality rights, even in Utah, which would thus force the Mormon church itself to accommodate same-sex marriages. Maybe then God will speak to the Mormon prophet and fill in the eternal picture. And maybe then the real purpose for pushing Prop 8 will finally be clear. The irony: priceless.

LDS Friends, You Gotta Read This

2010-09-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

Once in a while you run across something that is so good on so many levels that you don't even want to start describing it. You just point others toward and say "You gotta see this." And that's what I'm doing now. Thanks to anonymous blogger friend who called this to my attention. LDS friends and readers, you are about to read something quite remarkable. Click here.

Sunday Evening Post

2010-09-26T20:06:00.001-07:00

I've always liked Sunday evenings, they're a time to wind down from weekend activity and re-charge before starting another week. I think one of the great secrets of happiness is a grateful heart and that's something I have tried to cultivate. My friend Will, an Episcopal priest, sometimes updates his Facebook status with "grateful." That's all. Good for him. Here are some things I'm grateful for.

My kids. Everybody brags about their kids being the world's best, but mine really are.

My extended family. Sure, a few of us don't see eye to eye on everything at the moment and some issues need to be worked through. But they are my family and I love them all, regardless.

My friends. I am so richly blessed in this respect. Time and again they have rescued me from disaster. I love them all and they know who they are.

Sunglasses. My pale-colored eyes really need them. I would not have made a good Eskimo.

Dark chocolate, 72% at least. Cures the sweet tooth with minimal caloric intake and definite health benefits, and if you know the right brands to buy, the taste experience can be amazing. No, Hershey's industrial quality bars don't qualify. Use them to patch your roof.

Sleep buttons on remotes.

The sound of lawn sprinklers going off at 3 a.m. IDK why it's so soothing. Almost as much as hearing the soft rush & rumble of distant 18 wheelers whizzing by in the early hours of the morning through an open window at my grandma's house in St. George, when I would stop there to spend the night during college years or we'd go there for Thanksgiving. Savor the times that make the memories, folks, 'cause they pass too quickly.

Key fobs with buttons that unlock your car before you get there.

Black cherry Kool-aid. My mom used to make it all the time during the summer. To me it still means home and happiness.

Faith.

Seeing the kaleidoscope, not the monochrome.

Rugby and baseball, without which we would be stuck with soccer, American football, and basketball. Unendurable.

Rachmaninoff's melodic gift, Bach's genius with counterpoint, and Beethoven's laughing lion's roar.

Costco roast chickens which, after meat is removed and the rest is boiled for hours with celery, onions, carrots, bay leaves, garlic, kosher salt, fresh peppercorns, and a little sugar, make the best chicken stock in the world for the best homemade chicken noodle soup in the world for the best kids in the world.

Pablo Hits It Out Of The Park Again

2010-09-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

This one's even better than the last. Whether you agree with him or not, he has the gift of provoking some serious thought. So if you're not afraid of that, read what he has to say here.

Family And Friends, Please Read These Posts

2010-09-14T14:34:00.001-07:00

Occasionally I run across somebody else's stuff on line that's too good not to share. Today I found two of those, actually. Well worth reading.

The first is from blogger friend Pablo. It's extremely compelling and should be required reading for all "TBMs" (True Blue Mormons) with any gay family or friends in the LDS Church. To my own extended family: I know you read this blog. Please give Pablo's viewpoint every possible consideration. Warning: It is not a sweet nice diplomatic puff piece. He pulls no punches. But I think you will be better and more knowledgeable for reading it. Click here.

Second is for anyone geeky or wonky enough to care about the legal fate of Proposition 8, or who really believes all the messaging put out by the LDS Church in the 2008 election about protecting traditional marriage, preserving the family, etc. When the lead attorney who defended Prop 8 in federal court can't even withstand questioning from a bunch of BYU Law students, what does that say about the truth of all that election messaging? Or Prop 8's chances if it ever gets to the Supreme Court? Click here.

More Paradox

2010-09-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today I was chatting with a friend and we got onto the subject of paradox. Those who know me also know that this topic fascinates me, and that my own life is filled with paradox. I love the brutality and strain and sweat and conflict of playing rugby, and I also love leisurely preparing a gourmet meal with/for friends with Mozart playing in the background. Don't ask me to explain this, I've given up trying. It's just part of the design. You want reasons, go ask The Maker. More on this in a minute.

At the end of my CODA post a few days ago, I said "Not The End. Because there isn't any end. It goes on forever." Which I truly and sincerely believe down to the bottom of my soul. After I wrote those words, suddenly they seemed familiar, like I'd read something similar elsewhere. But I couldn't place it. When this happens, my subconscious usually takes over while I focus on other things. It goes into back buffer search subroutine mode and usually spits out the missing piece later on, sometimes days later.

As in this case. The answer popped up on (mental) screen just a few minutes ago. And I laughed because it was more evidence of my own paradoxical traits that blend with the rugby and the baseball and the kickboxing and all that.

I like old Korean poetry. Really old, as in centuries old. Since its originals were all written in archaic Korean and Chinese, I normally content myself with the translations. So they don't scan or rhyme like English poetry does. Instead, the aesthetic focuses on the pictures that the words paint. And I realized that the phrase I'd used at the end of my CODA post was similar to one of my favorite Korean poems from the 16th Century. (How many rugby players do you know who obsess about 16th Century Korean poetry? Yeah, weird, I agree.) Nearby in the anthology was another one that I love because of its imagery, and I've been in remote Korean mountain valleys much like it describes so I know that the beauty it describes is truly stunning.

So I thought it'd be nice to share these two little gems with whoever bothers to read my blog, because I'd bet the cost of two tickets to a Padres game (which is dropping since they're playing really bad right now) that not a single one of you has ever seen these before or even heard of them. The secret to enjoying these is to let your mind paint the picture as you read the words, then just savor the picture for a moment afterward.

First one, by Buddhist Grand Master Sosan (1522-1604):

The Dozing Monk

In the deep recess a rain of pink petals,
The long bamboo emit emerald mists.
Frozen white clouds lodge on the peak.
A monk dozes beside a blue crane.

Stop and savor that mental picture for a moment. The "deep recess" of course being a narrow wooded mountain valley. Rich green, pink, icy white, blue all together, and perfectly tranquil. Sosan was a genius.

Now here's the one that my wetware subroutine finally coughed up after being triggered by my CODA post. It's by Korean poet Yi Hwang (1501-1571) and is deeply, profoundly touching in both its imagery and its message. It doesn't have a title. And I won't say anything after it because I want Yi Hwang to have the last word.

The green hills--how can it be
that they are green eternally?
Flowing streams--how can it be
night and day they never stand still?
We also, we can never stop.
We shall grow green eternally.

Random Thoughts

2010-09-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

Time to take a break from the seriousness of life and just spout whatever froth floats around my alleged brain in between the big stuff.

A bird's nest fell out of the tree outside my office window. The tree is a Torrey pine, found nowhere else on earth but this small area of the SoCA coast. I've never seen a bird's nest made with Torrey pine needles before. Fascinating. And my time in Asia must have warped me permanently because I instantly thought of Chinese birds' nest soup and how I was a lot less likely to try it again now that I've seen what the inside of that nest looks like.

Windows Vista sucks big time.

iTunes Ping rocks.

My good friend Lisa Jenkins has written one of the most hysterically funny and spot-on analyses of Mormon terminology I've seen in a long time. Check it out.

Why has my black ink cartridge run out already, long before the colored ones? Usually it's the other way round.

I wish I didn't have a 7 am conference call, I want to go running on the beach tomorrow morning. Oh well, at least the gym's open late and I can get in a workout tonight.

Thank you George Foreman. Your grill makes it possible to whip up a somewhat decent dinner in 5 minutes.

Few situations in life are not a match for at least one line from Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

Living far from lots of my friends sucks. But there is some small compensation when I look out the window at the ridge of hills just a mile to the west, right along the coast, when the trees are back-lit by the setting sun's glow and the coastal mist turns their silhouettes shades of green-grey, tinged with gold. It's like looking at a modern impressionistic painting. So beautiful.

One of my kids loves Family Guy. Said kid would watch it all day if it were permitted. I have therefore learned to hate Family Guy for the same reason one hates a joke one has heard for the 1000th time. For the same reason I hate Beethoven's "Fur Elise." Gaaaaahhh.

Adam Sandler ain't much better.

Chris Pine. Perfect.

Rush hour traffic should be done, time to head to Costco for supplies. Friend Chris recommends for post-workout purposes a protein supplement stocked there. Stupid me, already ate dinner, could have binged on the samples near the freezer section.

I think the iPhone is charged. There's nothing like stomping down the Costco aisles belting out Mahler's 8th Symphony under your breath while buying fruit and salmon in bulk.

Marzipan.

Rob's CODA

2010-09-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

See Rob two years ago. Rob is miserable and conflicted, browbeaten into thinking God wants his whole life to be that way.
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See Rob suddenly come to his senses for a reason he may never figure out. Inspiration, frustration? Some angel touched him, he thinks, because suddenly he knows he can't stay the way he is any more.
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See Rob finally speak out, voice and hands trembling.
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See the world continue turning, the sun rising as usual, and life going on as normal, despite all Rob's prior expectations of calamitous world collapse.
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See Rob incredulous at how happy he suddenly is. See him feel like a huge weight is lifted from his shoulders.
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See the two years that ensue. See Rob start to blog and speak out with a stronger voice. See him start to write for national publications. See his kids be totally supportive and push him to find their other dad. See his network of friends grow miraculously to include so many that bless his life immeasurably. See Rob's faith correct itself. See Rob's heart finally at peace and confident in his path forward.
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See Rob wish he could give each one of his friends a huge rugby hug and tell them how much he loves them and how much they mean to him.
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Today is Rob's second Coming Out Day Anniversary, his "CODA". His own personal Thanksgiving Day. See Rob grateful beyond expression for all the gifts in his life and hoping to live happily ever after.
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Not The End. Because there isn't any end. It goes on forever.

Joyful Noise

2010-08-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

I can't resist sharing the music I heard at the end of church yesterday. On a sunny Sunday morning, after a wonderful church service, with friend Steve along for the ride, this is the kind of joyful noise that was really appropriate, and matched how I felt. This is proper church music.

What To Do About Activist Judges

2010-08-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

"Borrowed" from Dan's Facebook post. Thanks buddy!

A View From Outside

2010-08-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

Having been born and raised in the Mormon Church, I can confirm that such a background influences one's entire world view. I call it the Mormon-Colored Glasses Effect. It becomes intrinsic to who you are, looking at everything around you from a Church-approved, Church-favoring, Church-centric perspective.

Which makes for some interesting disconnects when such a person encounters a view of the Church from outside, not filtered by those glasses. Many conservative Mormons tend to reject such outside perspectives as inherently biased or pejorative, and that's unfortunate. One would think that a church whose avowed aim is to try to convert the whole world might want to understand how those outside really see that church.

With that background, I'm going to link you to one of the best bits of commentary I've seen in a while along these lines. It's insightful, accurate and fun to read, and it's from a Church member whose honest assessments are likely to make some culturally conservative strictly orthodox Mormons squirm more than a little bit. This should be a wake up call for the LDS Church that much work remains to be done. Click here.

Cross Post

2010-08-20T09:15:00.001-07:00

Check out my latest piece over at gay.com about The Four Wedding Summer.

Clueless Batman

2010-08-18T10:47:00.001-07:00

Maybe I should start a series of movie scenes like this.

How Star Trek Should Be

2010-08-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

"I'm A Mormon" PR Campaign - Will The Church Post THIS One?

2010-08-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

Filling In The Gap

2010-08-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Talking heads and pundits on news shows are interesting and all, but there's no substitute for studying an original source and making up one's own mind. I've now finished reading all 138 pages of Judge Walker's opinion in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, in which he found Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional. As a lawyer of some years' experience, I found it exhaustively researched, thorough, logical, solidly grounded in evidence, and compelling in its legal conclusions. Anybody who rants about it being the illegitimate agenda-driven power grab of a biased judge is either ignorant or uninformed or blinded to intellectual honesty by their own preconceptions. Such people would usually rather sling ad hominem attacks than educate themselves about details and deal with the merits.

All that said, I'm now going to make a confession. I've always had one concern with the equal rights argument for marriage equality, especially under Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court case which held that laws against mixed race marriages were unconstitutional. Loving clearly said the Constitution establishes a fundamental right to marry. However, marriage equality opponents have consistently pointed out that that statement assumed a male/female marital structure. They agree there's a fundamental right to that model of marriage, but only that, because when Loving was handed down, no other definition of marriage was contemplated. Arguably, then, Loving doesn't even apply to a "redefined" model of marriage as between two men or two women, because that's not a "marriage" under Loving. If that argument is accepted, the equal rights-based argument for marriage equality is noticeably weakened. This implication has troubled me for some time. I knew something was missing in the analysis but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Thank you, Judge Walker, for supplying the missing piece. As you read on, note that he refers to evidence presented in trial for each conclusion (I've left out the reference notes for ease of reading). This is not the uncontrolled usurpation of power by a radical petty tyrant; it is the reasoned weighing of arguments and evidence presented by both sides and the drawing of conclusions therefrom. Here's what he said:

"The evidence at trial shows that marriage in the United States traditionally has not been open to same-sex couples. The evidence suggests many reasons for this tradition of exclusion, including gender roles mandated through coverture, social disapproval of same-sex relationships, and the reality that the vast majority of people are heterosexual and have had no reason to challenge the restriction.

The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage. The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, as states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry. Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage. That time has passed.

[Now, here's the money quote that supplies the missing piece to the argument about Loving just above]

The right to marry has been historically and remains the right to choose a spouse and, with mutual consent, join together and form a household. Race and gender restrictions shaped marriage during eras of race and gender inequality, but such restrictions were never part of the historical core of the institution of marriage. Today, gender is not relevant to the state in determining spouses' obligations to each other and to their dependents. Relative gender composition aside, same-sex couples are situated identically to opposite-sex couples in terms of their ability to perform the rights and obligations of marriage under California law. Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals."

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Loving's declaration that marriage is a fundamental right does apply to same-sex couples because the legal nature of spouses' marital roles has evolved since that time, such that we no longer draw legal distinctions based on the gender of each spouse. Since we no longer do that--a result even most defenders of "traditional marriage" would surely favor and have probably reflected in their own lives--there's no longer any legal justification for saying that gender must nevertheless be preserved as the ultimate determining factor for admission to civil marriage in which the roles and responsibilities of each spouse are legally indistinguishable. Put succinctly, the evolution's already done. All we're doing now is recognizing and labeling it.

And women who oppose marriage equality had better recognize that it's the inevitable result of their being freed from past gender-based legal restrictions that would have been imposed on them as part of their marital role if their older sisters hadn't fought so vigorously to throw off those restrictions. If they are intellectual consistent and want to "preserve traditional marriage," then they'd better be prepared to take up those restrictions again, go backward in time, and sign over all their legal rights to their husbands because that used to be part of "traditional marriage" too. Any takers? (Crickets chirping). Didn't think so.

I recognize that this is a bit of legal wonkery that most normal people wouldn't have lost much sleep over. That's fine. But this is my blog so I get to say what I want, right? Of course right. (Public plaudits to the first commenter who identifies the Broadway musical to which I've just alluded.)

Cross your fingers that tomorrow Judge Walker will deny the stay and that the 9th Circuit and SCOTUS will do the same. And in case you hadn't heard, it now appears this thing might not make it to the Supreme Court after all, for legal procedural reasons I find fascinating and which will no doubt have Mags Gallagher and the NOM crowd squealing like stuck piglets. Watch this space for further developments.

The Way Out of The Corner

2010-08-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

In my last post I mentioned the corner into which the LDS Church is painting itself on the issue of marriage equality. Many thanks to good friend David Baker for supplying a perfect solution which almost every active Mormon will recognize instantly.

The Wall Starts To Crumble

2010-08-04T23:50:00.000-07:00

I was at lunch with a friend in Los Angeles today when we heard that Judge Walker threw out Proposition 8 as unconstitutional. Elation ensued, of course, along with frustration that all the Internet pipes were predictably clogged so we couldn't get any details. Eventually those surfaced, and it became clear that Prop 8 had been knocked down decisively by a 1-2 punch, unconstitutional on two separate grounds.

I won't take time to rehearse the decision in this post. I recommend that everyone read this summary instead so you'll know what the ruling actually says. Don't rely on or be swayed by overheated rhetoric from anyone who hasn't read at least that much about it.

I had a business function to attend this evening in LA which is why I went up in the first place. And by sheer dumb luck, today was the day of decision. And since I had some free time in the afternoon, I attended the post-decision celebration rally at West Hollywood Park. The mayors of WeHo and Los Angeles were there, along with hundreds of others in a celebratory mood. Everybody knew this wasn't the end of the fight, but it's a significant step forward. Jubilation reigned.

I love it when life throws pleasant surprises at you. Out of all the hundreds of people at that rally, who did I end up standing next to? Two gay Mormon boyfriends. One wore a CTR ring, and the other had a tattoo of the Angel Moroni on his right calf. That is SO California. What a delightful surprise. I wished I had a magic wand and could have transported them to the BYU campus for a stroll around during Especially For Youth. Just goes to show you that gay Mormon boys are everywhere!

So sorry, Prop 8 proponents who gave money, but I think you fought a lost cause and your money was wasted. The LDS Church predictably lamented the ruling and in its press release repeated the myth that civil rights should be subject to popular vote. More paint, please, for around that corner into which the Church has backed itself. Fight this if you want, but the trend is unstoppable. Why not cut your losses and make your peace with the inevitability of marriage equality now, rather than making it even more difficult for yourself later on? The time's coming when the Church is going to have to change again. Accept it. Embrace it. Walk your talk about living the Golden Rule.

Some of the rhetoric I heard this afternoon from Prop 8 supporters was really disheartening. Is there actually that much ignorance still out there about the law, about marriage, about how our courts work, about who and what gay people are? Apparently so. That's really depressing. But it just means there's more work and educating to do. So we keep at it. But for today we can pause and savor a great achievement. And the discovery of a CTR ring in WeHo Park.