Salt Lake City - CTW Conference

I'm in Salt Lake City getting ready to attend the Circling the Wagons conference that begins later today. The conference is at the center of a great deal of controversy, and we'll see how that plays out as the weekend unfolds.

At the center of the controversy are questions of authenticity, identity, and life journeys that certain presenters at the conference have claimed and experienced. Much has already been written in blogs, and in online groups and forums. The tone has been strident and vituperative. I found the lack of dialogue, the anger, the personal attacks, and the bitterness of the exchanges to be uncharitable, uncomprehending, stigmatizing, and generally not useful to examine and explore perspectives and understanding that people coming from different backgrounds might have for the issues confronting Mormons grappling with gender, sexual orientation and attraction, and institutional stigmatization. And all of this happened before the conference even began!

This is what I hope happens here: I hope all of us can open our ears so that our heads and hearts can hear what is spoken. I hope we can ascribe all presenters good intentions, and proceed from that foundation. I hope we can be humble, be open to questions rather than answers, be satisfied with a carefully studied ambivalence, be able to bridge a wide gulf that in the past has been full of bitterness, hurt, despair, and loss.

Authenticity

Authenticity refers to our credibility, our truthfulness, our commitments, and our intentions. In short, it examines whether our conscious life choices are congruent with our values and beliefs. Gauging another person's authenticity is a difficult task because no empirical method exists to determine a person's values and beliefs other than that person's assertions. Consequently, we often use a person's behavior as a surrogate measure of his or her values and beliefs, without having a reliable understanding of that person's motivations that give rise to the observed behavior. Human beings attribute behavior to motivation, and almost always get the motivation wrong. We simply cannot look at behavior and claim it is based on a specific motivation. Because we cannot clearly explain another person's behavior, our comprehension of another person's authenticity is often incomplete.

Rather than search for authenticity in others, I hope that each of us look for our own authentic expression, and in the process, that we ascribe best intentions to others. I believe that will bring us closer to an honest and engaging dialogue with each other.

Identity

Identity names us, tells us who we are. It labels personal, social, and cultural characteristics with which a person describes him or herself. Struggles about identity chiefly affect members of subcultural groups. Members of a dominant culture don't, for the most part, struggle with issues of identity, except as identity affects people who they care about in a subculture. Identity serves a couple of purposes: it defines who is part of a subculture, and it serves as a brake against assimilation in the larger culture. Identity is not only what a subculture names itself, but it is also what the dominant culture labels the subculture.

Problems of identity arise out of stigmatization. A dominant culture almost always stigmatizes the subcultures within it. Subcultures are viewed by their dominant culture as problems, "other," mentally ill, dangerous, and immoral. Identity becomes an issue for members in a subculture when they internalize these kinds of stigmatizations.

Subcultures also identify themselves, and stigmatize and separate out their own subgroups. For example, within group of Mormons characterized by the larger Mormon society as having "homosexual inclinations," a rainbow of subgroups exist that don't identify with each other, but are grouped together by the Mormon society from which they spring. A lot of name-calling ensues, and I believe that identity issues lay at the root of the current controversy.

I offer a thought experiment: rather than making specific claims of identity, recast those claims such that they do not rest on attribution of being. For example, instead of saying, "I am a gay man," you could reformulate that as, "I prefer to have intimate relationships with other men." Identity that isn't rooted in physical characteristics is often culturally driven. Maybe we should practice some studied ambivalence about our orientation/attraction until we have heard what other stigmatized Mormons with "homosexual inclinations" might have to say about their individual situations. I believe their stories are important and that they should be heard.

Life Journeys

We are all on life journeys. No journey is identical to another. Every one of them is unique. I hope we can approach other peoples' journeys with a humility and respect for the sacredness of a path that ultimately is one's own. We are all broken. We have all stumbled. We are all bloodied. Let's not compound the injury and the pain that we have felt. We are taught in church to love, not judge. He who has ears, let him hear.

Pilgrim's Progress

In a comment to one of my recent Facebook posts a person asked me, "In light of the fact that you are 'an excommunicated homosexual apostate secular humanist' what is it that you gain from being at church in general?" I promised the person who made the comment an answer, and this post is an attempt at starting to answer her questions.

About Being a Secular Humanist

I'm a person whose heart wants to believe but whose head will have none of it. Up until my mid-thirties I tried to believe, but finally concluded that I didn't have that gene. That's my head talking, but I have a whole irrational part of my personality that hopes and prays. My rational side kicks in, then, and points out to my heart that I haven't the slightest idea what I'm praying to or to what end that prayer effects.

This is what I gain from being at church: I get to experience a faith community sharing its beliefs. Most of what is said I find incredible, but I feel the underlying spiritual longing, and I really understand that, because I've spent much of my adult life having that longing. Even though I know that what I am hearing is irrational according to my perspective, I hear another unconscious spiritual message of longing, hurt, burden, and suffering that is so deep that the speaker can't even recognize it in his or her own soul.

Some Sundays, I also hear messages of profound joy. I recognize that joy, too, because I have felt that, and I often experience it in my life. In the LDS church, members' beliefs are expressed publicly within the setting of the community. I'm attracted to that. I know that other faith communities can share in similar ways, but the Mormons do this very directly and effectively. The community sharing of sacrament talks and testimonies deeply touches me, even if the literal content of the messages contradict my own knowledge and experience or spring from a different "truth" paradigm.

About Being Excommunicated and an Apostate

This is what I gain from being at church: I get to be restored to a body from which I was cut off. I was cut off on the LDS church's terms, but because of the unique nature of excommunication, I can come back solely on my terms. The LDS church really can do nothing to prevent me from being in the pew on Sundays. Now it is true that I am not really LDS, because I am not an LDS church member, but I am a Mormon and that Mormonness springs from my days as a Saint when I shared the sacrament and when I attended the temple. Indeed, the LDS church cannot take that shared experience from me, no matter how final the excommunication or how cruel the shunning and the stigma. I remain Mormon, and I claim that. At church on Sunday I share my own Mormon experience with all the other Mormons. It's a regular lovefest. Really.

I still am apostate. I really don't believe the truth or literalness of the Book of Mormon the way LDS members believe it. I can posit all kinds of explanations, but none of them would hold any water in Sunday School class. I will admit it, Sunday School is a trial for me. The God in Whom I Don't Believe (GiWIDB) has a wicked sense of humor, and her cosmic joke is this week's Sunday School lesson, whichever one it happens to be. Which brings me to some reasons I'm an apostate attending Sunday School.

Sunday School teachers in my ward don't ask thoughtful, intellectual questions. Instead they ask questions inspired by the lesson manuals. Teachers, as a rule, don't ask questions that reflect an understanding of scriptural criticism, never use any sources that are not blessed by LDS church authorities. I think the biggest reason I'm apostate is because I've never been asked to think, only to parrot back groupthink answers to questions that only reinforce the LDS church's role as the sole arbiter of what is correct. I simply can't do that. I trust my own experience too much. The world I know outside the chapel or the classroom is not at all what our church leaders claim it to be.

Being apostate keeps me sane in Sunday School. I'm not sure that I'm gaining anything from being in Sunday School (which usually triggers my apostate self), but it's a growth experience offered me by the GiWIDB. She really is watching my back. I accept her gift. She's my Mother in Heaven.

About Being a Homosexual

This is what I gain from being in church: members have to deal with me as another Mormon in the pew. I'm there worshiping with them. The subject of my homosexuality has never come up directly, but it has come up many times when LDS members ask me if I'm married. I always reply, "No, but I have a husband at home." Some members quickly change the subject. Others follow up with, "Is he a member, too?" No one has been unkind or fled in haste. I have disclosed to perhaps two dozen or more members at this point. I am sure other members know, as well.

So the most important reason I go to church on Sunday is so that my sisters and brothers can know somebody like me. If I were not in the pew, their worship experience would be less than what it is. Every Sunday that I go to church someone comes up to, I think prompted by the GiWIDB, and tells me things like, "My sister is a lesbian. I want to love her, but she won't let me." "You're gay? I have a gay cousin. He left the church because of it." I begin to hear new stories, a different narrative, a reaching outside to bring me in.

As a people, we Mormons believe in revelation, and we believe in prophecy. The God in Which I Don't Believe called me to be in a place to which I didn't want to go. So I ended up in church. I was surprised by that deeply spiritual call to such a worldly person as I. I'm still that worldly person, but I go to church. Because God called me, She gave me a prophetic mission in my own little part of Her Vineyard. I intend to be faithful to her call, because she's quite a Mother, and I feel quite blessed to be an excommunicated homosexual secular humanist in the Kensington Ward.

Carefully Picking my Way

This weekend, I was on a panel discussion of the topic, "Navigating the Issues of Homosexuality and Same-Sex Attraction While Going to Church." The panel was held at the Circling the Wagons conference in Washington, DC. A couple dozen people attended the session, asked questions, and shared stories. Randall and Tristan were also on the panel, and each of us had unique perspectives on threading the eye of the LDS needle.

I am a gay man with a lesbian heart, so I brought my own agenda. I had a few specific things I wanted to say, so I made a list of questions, some of which I wanted to answer, and in the course of the discussion, I was focused enough to have the opportunity to say the things that were in my heart and on my mind. In this blog entry, I'm going to repeat my list of questions, and then try to answer them honestly for you. This is my take. I appreciate the journeys that Tristan and Randall are taking. Their insights, and the insights and contributions of the people participating in the discussion added to my own understanding. The panel reinforced my belief that we are all on our own journeys of discovery and understanding.

Briefly, my situation is that I was excommunicated from the LDS church 30 years ago, and I started attending church again in November of 2011. Being excommunicated means that I am not officially a member of the LDS church (although officially an ex-member), I cannot take the sacrament of communion, I cannot hold any church callings or positions, I cannot give prayers in church meetings, I cannot give talks in church meetings (although I can participate in Sunday School and Priesthood discussions), I cannot pay tithes or offerings, and I cannot wear temple garments. The practical effect of these prohibitions is to isolate a person who has been excommunicated.

So in that context, I provide these questions and answers from my own experience in the Kensington Ward. I hope and pray that these will spark some thought and discussion in the hearts and heads of church members and help them remember not to leave behind their lesbian, gay, and transgendered brothers and sisters.

What do you tell members when they ask inevitable personal questions about where you are from and about your family? Mormons like to know all about you. I have yet to introduce myself in Priesthood Meeting. I felt that telling the brothers about myself in any honest way at all in that setting would stigmatize me. So for the first few Sundays, I artfully dodged that introduction. I don't regret that.

When members come up to me and introduce themselves to me one-on-one, I tell them my story. So far, no one has left the room screaming. I tell them that I've been in the Kensington Ward for 22 years, but only started attending in November, that I've returned to the church. When I am asked if I am married or have a family, I reply that I am not married, but that I have a husband at home who is not a member of the church, and that he and I have been together for 29 years. In all my conversations with members (numbering several dozen, by now), responses have always been respectful: they either ask me about Ron and our life, or they say, "That's nice," and they change the subject.

What have you told the bishop and priesthood leaders about your situation? The second Sunday I attended, I went to see the Bishop, and I told him that I was apostate, excommunicated, gay, and atheist, and he smiled and said, "Welcome to the Kensington Ward." And he has made me feel welcome. I have also spoken to the High Priests Group Leader and told him about my circumstances. I felt that I wanted to be as open and honest as possible. I don't want my leaders to find out through some other means and have them feel like I was deceiving them. I know this is a tough decision for some gay Mormons to make. Kensington, Maryland is not Kaysville, Utah. I think how you answer this question may depend on how much you trust your bishop and leaders. Obviously, since I'm excommunicated, there isn't much that my priesthood leadership can do to discipline me if my bishop or stake president felt inclined to do so.

How have ward leaders responded? The ward leadership has responded in a very kind and loving way. The bishopric all know my name and greet me every Sunday. For the first few months, the only real contact I had with ward members was in meetings. I decided that something had to be done, so I contacted the Ward Executive Secretary, and I gave him all of my contact information. In addition, I went to my High Priests Group Leader and requested a home teacher. As soon as I took that initiative, all kinds of things have started to happen. I was immediately assigned a home teacher. The Ward Missionaries came over for a visit. I'm pretty sure I've become a Ward Council project, and I welcome that.

What are the biggest obstacles to re-integration in your ward coming back to church after being away for so many years? Has your homosexuality been an issue? My transition into the ward is very much a work in progress. So far, I think it is going pretty well. One of the biggest obstacles to being part of the ward is not having any official way to be on ward contact lists. Consequently, I didn't hear about activities or really know what was going on in the ward, except what I would hear in meetings. Because I do not have a membership number, nothing happens automatically. So I request that I be added to various lists. I finally added my name to the priesthood roll, as well (that's why those blank lines are printed at the bottom of the page).

Another big obstacle for me is the lonely feeling that I can get when I'm at church. So I now always sit in the center of the chapel so that families can fill in around me. After meeting, I can then introduce myself to the people around me. I joined the choir, not because I have a great voice, but because it's a great way to get to know other people in a happy, social space. I try to attend some of the ward socials and other events.

Not having callings also keeps me out of the mainstream where I might be meeting other members. So I really try to attend my meetings when I am in town. My home teacher suggested I take a notebook with me, so that I can jot down names of members, and begin to know who people are. I'm happy to meet with the ward missionaries, because it helps me learn a lot about the ward and its people, and because they need to hear my story, too.

My homosexuality has not been an issue. It's never come up. In fact, on at least two occasions, I was told that Ron would be welcome, too. On the other hand, it is not widely known among ward members that I am gay. But among the leadership, my personal life has never been an issue. Check back in six months.

Why did you decide to go back to church? Someone at the panel discussion actually asked me this question. It's the only question here that is really difficult for me to answer, because some days, I really don't know except that I have felt strongly moved to be back in the pew. I love these people. I want to be in a faith community, and this is the place. The God that I do not believe in has called me to a place I did not want to be in, and I accept that. God is remodeling my heart. Church is not an easy place for me to be, but I'm grateful that I'm here. I feel this place, right now, is where I'm supposed to be. Okay, this is a meandering answer, but it's the best I can do right now.

How do you handle instances of homophobia, misunderstanding, or discrimination? So far, I haven't experienced any. I think I've probably forestalled some of it by pre-emptively telling my story as I meet members. Having said that, if I do run into problems, I will attempt to talk with the person involved in a loving, caring way. If problems can't be resolved, I will talk with the bishop or my priesthood leader. If I run into misconceptions or mischaracterizations during lessons, I will add my two bits to the lesson discussion. If a letter is read over the pulpit in sacrament meeting, or if a sacrament meeting talk is given that is offensive, I will talk with the bishop.

How can you be of service to ward members if you can't hold a calling? Virtually every week in priesthood meeting there are announcements for various work projects. Now I've only been on one or two, but I know I can get involved in many others. What I mean to say is, I have lots of opportunities that don't require a calling at all. I think the greatest service I can be to ward members, though, is to be consistently present, to listen to them, to love them. I am hearing some of their stories. I really try to be open to their experiences.

Any thoughts about what will happen in your ward when people come to the realization that you aren't going to "repent?" What does the long slog look like? How will you navigate that? Of course, I have doubts and awful imaginings. Maybe by my presence, the members will realize that I don't need to repent of homosexuality or repent of the love I share with my husband. I'm sure, though, that some members of the ward will be troubled by my living and social situation.

The long slog looks hopeful. At my current rate of meeting ward members, I will have worked my way through the roster sometime in 2017. The long slog requires patience on my part. That isn't one of my strong suits, but so far, it's working. And I'll navigate through all of this by continuing. I just walk up to the church's front door and open it.

If the LDS church's stance on homosexuality doesn't become more reasoned and nuanced, will you continue to stay or will you eventually feel you have to move on? I honestly don't know the answer to this question. Ultimately, I'm hopeful, although I'm sure that the LDS church will never move as far as I would want it to. If I were to feel utterly rejected in my ward, I would probably move on. But I don't believe that God has called me to an impossible task or an impossible situation. I need to learn patience. I need to be my authentically gay, skeptical self. I need to continue loving a community from which I was absent. Maybe a reconciliation of our hearts can be effected. I'm waiting on and trusting in God. I don't have to believe, but I do have to be there.

Part III, Answering the Questions

This was the third comment I wrote on a post in a LGBTQ Mormon group on Facebook. The original post asked some difficult questions, and I finally got around to answering them in this comment.

Please forgive my ignorance of LDS scripture and doctrine. I have been absent from the LDS church for many years, so it’s fuzzy, but I do have to admit that it’s coming back fast. Therefore my answers to your questions are not going to be scriptural or doctrinal, more experiential.

Q. So where are the gaps between the intent to provide a loving and welcoming place in the LDS Church and the actual lived experience of the homosexual members?

A. I think that the big gap between the loving and welcoming church and the actual lived experience of LGBT and SGL members is that other members in the church have a conditional notion of love that is predicated on members behaving correctly. If lesbians, gay men, and SGL persons are actually involved in a loving faithful relationship, it is always thrown back at them as sin. I don’t think LGBT and SGL members will be barred from meetings and the like, but I know in my own experience, and in the experiences of gay friends in the church that a lot of “shunning” was going on. It’s very difficult to remain in a ward if members refuse to talk or sit next to you, or if you are the subject to vicious rumor and gossip.

So although members intend to be loving, the “known” presence of LGBT and SGL members causes a revulsion among the other members because of our unfaithfulness. That is a very difficult gap to overcome.

Furthermore, even if an LGBT or SGL member is NOT unfaithful to his or her baptismal and temple covenants, if it is known in the ward, ostracism is likely to occur among some members. This isn’t to say that those members aren’t good and loving people, it’s just that they (and possibly their priesthood leaders) haven’t conceptualized a non-judgmental love that can transcend real and important differences.

A word about the actual lived experience of homosexual members: thirty years ago, I did everything I could to be a worthy member of the LDS church, believing that God would answer my prayers to be made whole. I suspect that scenario is still being played out in every ward in the church today. Every Sunday tweaks our personal holiness codes to an exquisitely nuanced degree. Expecting to be perfect, but always being broken is the actual lived experience of homosexual members. Of course, that’s also to some degree the experience of most members of the church, but I don’t think it’s played out as dramatically and tragically as it is for LGBT and SGL members. For some reason the church leadership and church members believe that homosexuality is the very worst sin in the book. And we bear that burden and stigma.

Q. What are the details of the lived experiences that would help inform a more comprehensive and sincere application of this dictum?

A. I think the means to a comprehensive and sincere application of loving and welcoming homosexual members is for LGBT and SGL members talk with the straight members of their wards. If we don’t tell our stories, we are completely invisible, and we will continue to be victims of the church’s unintended oppression. So what details should we talk about?

Church members should know that we are human beings, not homosexuals. We are not labels; we are people who need the love of God’s people.

Church members should know that we are capable of great love for each other and for them. They should know that many of us have respect and love for the church in spite of the sin of inhospitality that the church and its members unintentionally (or not) continue to practice against its LGBT and SGL members.

Church members should know that we have strong life-long relationships, that we have children that we love, that we work hard, that we love our country. In short, we are very much like them, and in fact, are part of their families and their friends.

Church members must finally come to know that no one chooses to be ostracized, stigmatized, and hated by the families and communities in which they grew up. We are part of them, but were thrown out. They need to know how much suffering and grief we bear in our lives for their actions. We did not choose to be scapegoats, but that is what many of them would have us become.

Q. What do straight members not understand about the lives of the gay members and what do the gay members not understand about what it's like for the straight members to negotiate the living of this principle?

A. I’m guessing that straight members do not understand the depth of despair, the burden, the hurt, the weight of sin that LGBT and SGL members often carry with them. I don’t think most straight members ask the question, “if a loving Heavenly Father created me this way, what did I do in the pre-existence to merit this?” And then be told by prophets and priesthood leaders that you have to buck up and fight the good fight during this mortal existence; well that’s often too difficult. When I was dealing with this issue, no one around me in my family or in the church understood the despair and condemnation that I felt.

I think what LGBT and SGL members may not understand of the experience of straight members trying to love and welcome them is that straight members have been taught well to practice a conditional, judgmental love. In the midst of this, LGBT and SGL members have to bear witness about what the true Love of Christ might actually look like in their ward. The ONLY thing that any member of the church needs to do to live this principle is to love one another. As members of the church (with a few limited exceptions) we are NOT called to judge, only to love. We are called to respect one another, to bear each other up, to give succor. I think it’s is long past time for Zion to invite its sons and daughters to gather again.

Part II, Speaking up in Priesthood Meeting

The following blog post is another comment that I made on a post in a LGBTQ Gay Mormon group on Facebook.

I started attending the Kensington Ward in November. I have not publicly introduced myself or explained my situation because of the stigma many members attach to excommunication and homosexuality. After two months of being in the ward, just about everyone recognizes me as belonging there, but nobody (with few exceptions) knows me. One of those exceptions is a stake high councilor who has become a friend and knows my story.

So when I spoke up in Priesthood (the High Priests Group), only a couple of men in the group know my status, and it isn't generally known that I am excommunicated. The instructor was teaching the lesson Love Thy Neighbor. He said, "What about love the sinner; hate the sin?" I immediately spoke up (because I just couldn't let this go unchallenged) and said, "You always love the sinner. If you don't love the sinner, you break up families, you destroy friendships. You ALWAYS love the sinner." By this time, I was on the verge of getting quite emotional. Some of the brothers were nodding their heads in agreement.

The instructor moved on to the next point in his lesson, and we never got around to hating the sin, for which I am grateful. Afterwards, I thanked the instructor for the lesson, and I told him, that hating the sin destroyed my family, that all that we need to do is to love the sinner, and the rest takes care of itself. He thanked me, and I think he and I will have future discussions.

As for the other brothers, they may wonder what sparked my outburst. It is clear from what happened earlier in the lesson that several of the men are quite judgmental about behavior ("We have caffeine-addicted members. Some of our home teaching families have alcohol problems"). I felt I had to speak up because of my personal theology.

I don't believe that as members we are ever called to judge; we are only called to love. Now different people have different notions about what that love means, "tough love" for example. But at least I can move the conversation away from sin and judgment to loving behaviors, regardless of another member's situation. I also expect members to love me, and I will tell them that.

This is the first time that I've really spoken up in a meeting. It has given me some courage, and if I need to, I will be more forthcoming with my personal story. I am unconcerned about how members view me, but I feel moved to love them and to challenge their harmful attitudes and behaviors. I'm not sure how to do it. I certainly appreciate your thoughts and prayers about how to do effective ministry within my ward. I love these people, and I really want the pain, hurts, and burdens that they carry to be recognized and to be lifted.

As for sin, we are all broken and fall short of the perfection that we've been taught. I earnestly believe that grace covers that brokeness. So I want to be open to love these people. I want them to be open to love me.

Oh you guys, I'm grateful for this discussion. I really makes me think and grow. Thank you for having my back (and my heart).

Part I, Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin

The following blog post is a comment I wrote on a post in a LGBTQ Mormon Facebook group. I am really tired of hearing about loving the sinner and hating the sin.

The love the sinner, hate the sin talk is completely judgmental and damaging. I think LDS church leaders and family members would love to love us, but they can't get past the roadblock of sin with which our sexual feelings and behavior confront them. How do you love a sinner and hate the sin without preaching to the sinner and judging her or him? This whole "hate the sin" conundrum certainly doesn't provide sound advice to families, and it drives LGBT people right out of the LDS church because HATE THE SIN = HATE MY LIFE, which gets internalized as I hate me.

Hating the sin is not compassion, and it isn't the gospel of Jesus. It's just plain hate, well intentioned, perhaps, but hate, nevertheless.

So while I acknowledge the LDS church can (and did) discipline me, I maintain that the grace of Jesus Christ covers me. The fortunate thing about being excommunicated is that there is nothing that the LDS church can do to me. So I can be there in sacrament meeting, Sunday School, and Priesthood meeting and know that I am a witness to them about hate every time I hear this cruel HATE THE SIN, which I heard today in Priesthood Meeting. I spoke up. We don't have to be silent at church. We can be disciplined, but we can't be silenced.

I trust in the grace of Jesus Christ. I pray for the wisdom and compassion of my priesthood leaders. While the LDS church can never make right what it did to me, I can make right what I did to the LDS church, and I pray for the humility and the righteous anger, and the love of Jesus to be able to do that. We have the power to be a voice. The church members have ears. Let them hear.

Top 10 Reasons Why I Came Back to the Church

I started attending the LDS church again on November 20, 2011 after a 30-year absence. I am doing this knowing that I will not be able to be rebaptized in the church. I am also doing this knowing that I do not believe in many of the doctrines of the LDS church. I'm still pretty much the same apostate gay atheist excommunicated person that I was on November 19. I did not go back to church without a lot of thought and prayer(!) (yes, this atheist prays regularly). It's an uncomfortable fit right now, but you will see me on Sundays in the Kensington Ward of the Washington, DC Stake. Here's ten reasons why I'm back in the pew.

10. I need the love and support of my faith community.

Shortly after I was excommunicated by the LDS church, I started attending the Episcopal church. When I moved from Kennewick, Washington back here to Washington, DC, I quickly found St. Margaret's Parish, and attended it for many years. I love the Episcopal church, and I love its liturgy. It spoke to my heart and I felt the Holy Mystery of the eucharist every Sunday.

But belief eluded me. I felt like an interloper, like I was outside looking in – seeing the miracle wrought in the lives of other parishioners, but not feeling it in my own spiritual life. I wanted to believe in God and Jesus; certainly in my heart I wanted to believe. But my head just couldn't lead me there, and I couldn't bring myself to stay in the in the heart of St. Margaret's. So after more than five years, I quit going.

Even though I am skeptical about God, a Higher Being, a Universal Force, I have a spiritual life, and I missed not being in a faith community. Twenty-five years was a long desert to cross. So I'm returning to the faith community that touched me and made me its own. Because of who you are and what you call yourselves, I expect you to love me. I'm here. I'm yours.

9. I want to reconnect with my family.

When the LDS church and I parted ways, my already strained marriage pretty much fell apart. I lost my family, and I left it. I saw my children twice when they were growing up. All of my children have married in the temple, and all have remained in the church.

Coming back to church is a small way of coming back to my family. They may not be with me in the pew, but I'm sharing with them every Sunday in thought and deed the motions, habits, and reflections of their Sabbath. I remember them. My sitting in the pew is a token of my faith that the God in whom I do not believe can work on the messy details of my family. I do not believe that I'm an accident or a victim diverted from exaltation by a mistake in the Plan of Salvation. The God that I imagine in my heart is bigger than that. So I sit in the pew and wait (and pray).

8. I want to grow in an unconditional love for my faith community.

Just because I'm a skeptic doesn't mean that I don't believe in something. I believe in the all-encompassing love of Jesus. I believe in his example and devotion. While I may doubt the miracles and the stories, I don't doubt the teachings about love and sacrifice.

Being Mormon is part of my DNA. Just as I expect my community to take me in, I want to take it in as well. I want to love these people, and love them in their shoes, and not offer them up a version of my shoes. I want to listen, to share burdens, to walk beside them, to comfort them, to love them because that's what people who are in love do. I seriously wonder if I can do it. But that's a big part of why I came back. I want my heart to grow again.

7. I need to examine seriously my (lack of) Mormon faith.

I am examining in my life what I mean when I call myself “Mormon.” Some members may make the claim that I'm not even that, because I'm not a member of the LDS church, and I live a life that precludes me from ever returning to full fellowship in the LDS church. Some of my non-LDS friends think that I have a weird case of Stockholm Syndrome, that after I escaped from church thirty years ago, I have a need to go back.

The Mormon Myth is astonishing. The Restoration is astonishing. Set inside the ancient Christian narrative, our Restored collective notion of God has a much larger story. In my saner moments, I ask myself how can Christianity possibly be true. Mormonism confronts my skepticism with a much more problematic improbability. How can I reconcile the mythic restoration with the historic facts? Why did God restore The Church in historic time? Is this another cosmic joke? If I am to walk in faith within the LDS church, it will have to be a walk in spite of the facts, but I do need to know and understand the history of the Myth.

And my identity: why do I still call myself Mormon? Why is it in my bones? I cannot examine that outside the church doors. So I'm going to church. It doesn't fit very well. I'm not comfortable in my Mormon identity. I want to know what that discomfort is all about. I want to experience the discomfort, because I think it's in my distress and distrust that I shall truly discover my Mormon identity.

6. Someday, I'll be reconciled within the LDS church.

My relationship with the LDS church is quite simple: I'm not a member. But the truth goes deeper than that. My kids and grandkids are in the LDS church. I've gone around the last thirty years telling people that I'm a former Mormon. I've dropped the former. I was wistful in my former days. Now, I just bite my tongue a lot in Sunday School. Every Sunday I am confronted by ten dozen Mormon Stories, most of which aren't told, and I want to know them. What makes these people tick? Why is it such an itch under my skin?

I have another relationship with the LDS church. It has an expansive theology that has the capacity to embrace me and the realities of my life, if only it will. If I am not in the pew, I will never experience that. Someday, the Mormons will reconcile their families and embrace their same-gender loving daughters and sons. I'm not holding my breath for it to happen, but it will, and maybe I'll be sitting in the pew to see it. What a glory day for Zion it will be, don't you think?

5. I claim my Mormon® identity within the LDS church.

It may be an urban legend, but I heard once that the LDS church tried to trademark the term Mormon^®.

My church, my faith community kicked me out, tried to rob me of my spiritual integrity (and my sexual orientation), then blamed me for it. My pitfall was thinking and asking questions. Somehow the Mormon didn't get kicked out of me. I really am a Mormon, and I go to the LDS church on Sundays.

4. I felt strongly moved to get back in the pew.

After I discovered Mormon Stories on Facebook, I attended two of their conferences, the DC Regional conference and the “Circling the Wagons” (LGBTQ) conference. At both gatherings, speakers challenged their listeners to remain in the pews. I felt strongly after each conference that I needed to go back to church. I did not go back without praying about it. I consulted with church members, with family, and with members of Mormon Stories. People offered encouragement, love, and support, which confirmed my feelings and my resolve.

The trip back has been good. The members of the Kensington Ward are gracious and warm. I talked with the bishop, and he was very welcoming. So the possibility confirms my feelings, too. So far, I've avoided all public introductions. I think by now that most people in the ward recognize that I belong there, even if they don't know my name. When people privately ask me questions, I answer them truthfully. No one has been unfriendly or put off by my presence.

All that being said, being excommunicated carries a stigma, so I've not mentioned it except when asked. Being excommunicated also carries restrictions, such as not speaking publicly in meetings, not receiving the sacrament, and not praying in meetings or classes. Those restrictions impede my path to being fully integrated in the ward life. At some point, I'm going to have to talk with the bishop, or the high priest group leader and ask for some clarification about how I fit in.

3. Members in the LDS church need love and succor from those of us beyond the reach of the LDS church.

I have a unique vantage point in my ward. I'm very much on the outside looking in, and I'll always be on the outside. Some of our ward members are in great pain whether it be grief, illness, or crisis of faith. I can share that burden with them. I don't have to believe what they believe, I only have to love them. That's all I'm called to do, and that may be the only calling I'll ever have. I think that's a pretty good calling.

2. My faith community needs to see my witness.

The LDS church needs my witness. It needs to know the truth about my life, and the truth about my life needs to be seen in my ward. The truth is this: my life has worth. Just because I'm gay or I struggle with my own unbelief doesn't mean I don't belong here. Because the LDS church cannot find an institutional means to have me back, I'll sit in the pew, waiting, bearing witness to the truth I know about my life, and the lives of other LGBT-SGL people. I'm not going away anytime soon.

1. My brokeness, openess, and presence can work for change in the body of Christ.

So I'm back in the church building sitting in the pew. It's not an easy place for me to be. I'm not sure what kind of a Mormon I am. I have a lot of anxiety.

When I left the LDS church thirty years ago, I felt beaten up. I felt robbed. I was angry and bitter. I was shunned. I lost my family. I had a big empty hole in my soul. Thirty years heals a lot. Sometimes, I still feel the pain of leaving, but the bitterness is gone. I used to believe that I was broken because I was homosexual. Now I realize I'm broken because I'm human. We're all broken. We all fall short of God's glory. Every single one of us falls short.

Sometimes we're shepherds. Sometimes we're sheep. The wisdom is in knowing the difference. When I'm a sheep in the Kensington Ward, I trust that a wise shepherd will set me right. When I see a sheep in distress, I hope I will have the shepherd's instinct and love for his sheep.

Top 10 Reasons Why I Left the Church

I recently listened to a podcast on Mormon Expression that detailed the “Top 10 Reasons to Leave the Church.” It got me to thinking what my own reasons were to leave the LDS church. I've written the reasons below. I'm writing from thirty years ago. So the recollections may be pure fabrication. It's through a haze of memories, some of which were full of pain.

10. The congregational music was awful.

I was a convert to the LDS church. I was used to loud, rousing music from the pews. As a Methodist, I learned to sing forcefully the praises of my Lord. That just didn't cut it in the LDS wards in which I worshipped. It was really a shock to me that this church put so little stock into the singing of its music. Mormons don't even stand up when they sing! Over the years, this minor irritation became much larger. I would try to salve it by always singing in the choir. It seemed I was always the backup priesthood chorister. I could never convince the brethren to sing with any feeling at all. It gnawed at me the whole time I was a member in the LDS church.

9. The Sacrament Meeting liturgy was a joke.

The LDS church has a liturgy, but it is an overstatement to say that it is “low church.” Although the LDS church celebrates the sacrament every Sunday, it is not like the eucharist in the Roman Catholic or Anglican traditions. It is not even like Methodist Communion. The whole sacrament part of Sunday worship consists of two young men (usually) saying a prayer over the bread and the water(!), and passing the elements to the congregation. The whole thing seemed so prosaic. It took me years to learn to focus on the prayers and on the experience of the sacrament. And I have come to realize that the very ordinariness of the sacrament is its strength. We can find the body and blood of Jesus in the very midst of our lives. Thirty years ago, though, the sacrament was sometimes very difficult for me to get through.

8. LDS Church Standards often have nothing to do with morality.

The LDS Church has standards, some of which do concern morality, but many which do not. I did not have a lot of problem with standards relating to honesty, chastity, etc., but I had real issues with standards that related to appearance. I did not then, nor now, believe that wearing a white shirt, tie, and jacket improves my relationship with Heavenly Father. I have difficulty supporting modesty standards that punish women because of the way their dress affects the male sex (a better standard would be to inculcate the priesthood with its own modesty standard about how to relate to women appropriately).

A larger issue for me in the church was its orthopraxy, with its emphasis on right conduct. Although I kept the Word of Wisdom as a church member, I do not believe that God cares at all about alcohol, hot drinks, and tobacco. These were the only parts of the Word of Wisdom that seem to have traction with members. The rest of the advice (and it was advice) seems to be ignored. I guess the heart of this issue is I didn't believe that many of the practices of the LDS church had anything to do with enhancing or elevating my relationship with God and Jesus Christ.

7. The LDS church revises its history.

This is beginning to get to the meat of my disaffection with the LDS church. This church continually re-invents itself, and recasts its history. I don't object to the principle of continuing revelation. I do object to the erasing of history, the changing of “facts,” and the reinterpretation of the past that is at odds with contemporary historical records.

When I started studying the historical record around the First Vision, the translation of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith's business activities, (this list could go on and on), it shook my testimony. Ultimately, I stayed in the LDS church for many years despite this knowledge because I realized that the mythic story of the founding of the Mormon religion happened in historic time. The fiddling, blemishes, embarrassments, and apologetics are simply part of the landscape of this religion. Still, I felt each new “discovery” I made was assaulting my integrity. Becoming a Mormon is not for the faint of heart.

6. Some doctrines of the LDS church are weird.

When I joined the LDS church, I knew that many of its doctrines were different than the Methodism I grew up with, but I was unprepared for the sheer sweep and amount of that difference. I was brought up in a Protestantism that provided a corrective to Catholic theology. The Mormons weren't out to correct Christianity. They were out to replace and reinvent it.

There is much in LDS theology that is familiar to converts from Christian denominations. There is also a steep learning curve. The LDS church doesn't talk much about blood atonement anymore. It disavows the Adam-God theory. It accepts men of African descent in its priesthood. Admittedly, these doctrines may be called outliers. The Mormon faith has mainstream doctrines that seem alien to outsiders, including an anthropomorphic God, a pre-existence of the soul before this life, what appears to outsiders as a conditional salvation, and a heaven with three separate kingdoms.

Practices that took some getting used to included doing baptisms and sealings for dead people so that the dead could have the same opportunities for salvation as the living. The notion of celestial marriage and exaltation, that is making the family links between the generations eternal in heaven was a little mind-blowing, which isn't to say that it's not beautiful or untrue. There's just nothing like it in other Christian denominations, and scant support for such a view of heaven in the traditional Christian scriptural canon.

Of course, in addition to the traditional canon of scripture, members of the LDS church believe the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price are also divine scripture from Heavenly Father. Twice each year, the LDS church leadership provides counsel at the church General Conference, and that counsel is regarded by most members as scripture. If you are a True Believing Mormon, you accept all of this. If you are the least bit skeptical, you will experience profound cognitive dissonance.

5. The members were burdened with guilt.

After I got over the initial flush of conversion (this took at least a couple of years), I noticed how guilt-ridden many saints seemed to be. This really depressed me. Many LDS church members are striving to be perfect, to live every law of the Gospel, to honor covenants that they have made at baptism and when they have gone through the rites in the temples. When members fall short, they are deeply and spiritually pained. There is a reason that the lectern on the stand in the front of the chapel has a box of Kleenex^®.

Most members appear to have a very strong personal holiness code that they've developed and personalized over the years. The code is nuanced and tweaked every Sunday in every meeting. Members are always being exhorted to be obedient: to God, to the Holy Spirit, to the Prophet, to the Apostles, to their bishop, to their priesthood leaders. The road to perfection and exaltation is long, narrow, and difficult. The road to failure is much shorter and much wider. The pain Mormons feel from the guilt is real. Suffering runs deep.

4. The LDS church often pays lip service to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

When I was growing up, I heard a lot about Jesus at home. Jesus was a Methodist. Jesus loved us, and through grace he covered our shortcomings so that we could have joy in fulfilling God's will. I don't ever remember that religious duty was heavy. I didn't know about the “rules.” The only rules taught us kids were the Golden Rule and to love our God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves.

LDS church members talk about Jesus and his atonement, and the grace born out of his atonement, but it's a very different grace than what I had learned as a child. Mormon kids learn another scripture about grace, 2 Nephi 25:23.

“For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”

That grace, to me, seemed like low-octane fuel.

In their meetings, members often quote their prophets, but they aren't as likely to preach from the New Testament gospels. I think some LDS church members distrust the Bible, because they are always reminding themselves of their Eighth Article of Faith

We believe the Bible to the the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

It is my perception that church members regard the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants to be more trustworthy than the Bible because of this caveated correctness. Members can never be sure what parts of the Bible are translated correctly, with the express exception of those portions translated by the prophet, Joseph Smith. So the real story of New Testament grace is suspect. It doesn't get told in the same way. It gets trumped by other Mormon scriptures.

3. I'm gay, and I'm not broken.

Long before I joined the LDS church, I realized I was gay. I did not realize what an issue that would become in the LDS church. While I was attending college, I met another LDS student, and he and I became involved with each other. We talked to our bishops and stake presidents, and I got a phone call from the then-President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Spencer W. Kimball. To this day, I remember his gravelly voice, and him telling me that he had scheduled an interview for me with one of the church's general authorities. I talked with Elder Henry D. Taylor, and he promised me that if I got married, “it will solve your problem.”

Gay men should not get married to cure their homosexuality. And, to its credit, the LDS church no longer advises gay men to do that. However, because many such men have a well-developed personal holiness code from their church upbringing, and a desire to achieve exaltation in the highest degree of glory in the Celestial Kingdom, they go ahead and get married. In my own marriage my homosexuality was not as big an issue as my skepticism about the church doctrines. But I know that it was a tremendous strain on my wife, and I'm quite sure had we remained married long enough, the issue would have become magnified, especially if I had developed a relationship with another man.

My bishops knew that I was gay. My wife knew that I was gay. Some of my priesthood leaders knew that I was gay. Eventually it became a burden. They wanted me to change, and I refused. I did not believe I needed to be fixed.

2. I couldn't look an investigator in the eye and say, “Now do you understand why the church had to be restored?”

I was struggling with my lack of testimony, my skepticism. I really wanted to believe but my testimony simply wasn't there. I remember fasting and praying. It seemed to me like I was always fasting and praying, and still no testimony. My wife, my home teachers, my bishops would tell me that I simply wasn't fasting and praying hard enough. But years into the project, I realized, it was never going to happen. I resolved not to worry about it, to trust that God would take care of my lack of testimony. I would do my callings, exercise my priesthood, be a good father, a caring home teacher, a loving husband. I would get through it!

Then, I got called on a stake mission. I remember memorizing the discussions. I remember tracting. And I remember asking an investigator, “Now do you understand why the church had to be restored?” and not being able to look the investigator in the eye because I knew I had no testimony, that I would never have a testimony, and that I felt the LDS church was not true in the way that members believe it to be true. I was devastated. I immediately asked to be released.

1. God's love was completely conditional, and Christ's sacrifice ultimately didn't matter.

The “after all we can do” finally wore me down. I didn't have a testimony of the LDS church or its doctrines. I didn't feel God's love at all. The grace of Jesus seemed out of reach, even though I had experienced it, and knew that it was real. My life was outside Christ's atonement. No matter how much I fasted and prayed, I was gay and a skeptic without a testimony. I wanted the fullness of the gospel, and I knew I could never have it. I couldn't stay in the LDS church. I had to leave. Within a few weeks, I was excommunicated for apostasy.

What Would Jesus Do?

Jonathan Dudley says it much better than I ever could. He wrote an interesting piece on CNN's Belief Blog about the Bible and Gay Marriage. Historical context is everything, and our collective memory is very short when it comes to "traditional values."

Sometimes on this blog, it's just so much easier, and better, to let someone else do the writing.

A New Day

Don't you believe it! How do you like the new pic? It's very controversial in some circles. Some of my readers (all five of you) think that it looks like on old doddering fool getting ready to drool. I like to think that it makes me look surprised, excited, and energized. You tell me what you think. I really, really want to know. And, in fact, this blog has a comment facility such that you can add your reasoned comments and intellectual critiques of my new pic! I'm looking forward to a rewarding and lively interchange of ideas.

So, it's been ages since I have added anything of any import to this blog. That isn't to say that I've been dead, or anything like that. And it doesn't imply, although you might think so, that I have a boring, insular, and somewhat pathetic life. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have talked with intellectual giants (well, I consider her a giant) since my last blog entry. I have eaten the nectar of ancient civilizations. I have been challenged by the real and theoretical artistic post-contemporary vision of modern Catalan art. Finally, I'm discovering a bridge to the gulf of a difficult past. There was life before Happy. And my post-apocalyptic view still remains intact, knowing that over the next 40 billion years, I'll be, well, Happy.

2011 has been the year of the Cosmic Road Trip. It started with a stint in Ft. Lauderdale with Ron, ramped up with a trip to the Pacific Northwest, recycled on a bicycle trip down the Great Allegheny Passage with Jerry and Rick, went full-throttle with a square dance convention, gay cruise and Catalonian vacation with Ron, and now will play out a trajectory of a visit to my sister, then off to Rexburg, Idaho to see my daughter and my newest grandchild and Moscow, Idaho to see my Mom, and I'll end it up with a weekend in York, Pennsylvania square dancing with Tim. But that travel is also insinuating its way into my life on Bucknell Terrace, too with some examining and rethinking. It starts out with butterflies beating their wings, but perhaps some real growth and change can result. In any case, my heart is full and very happy. I'm grateful for the experiences, and for being able to have a Cosmic Road Trip.

I may be Pollyana's stepbrother, but examining the context of the road trip would also reveal how profoundly moving this whole experience has been for me. I find myself turning over small (and large) parts of my life and looking at them from a different perspective. I feel alive, restless, scary, and awkward all at the same time. The road trip within has been dramatically shaped by the Cosmic Road Trip without. While I don't believe that I've seen this year anything that has been radically different than in other years, it seems to be facing me with a clarity, saturation, and brightness that I've not experienced before.

In 1976, I had a born-again experience. I woke up one morning, and the world had changed. It was the deepest experience of my life. I remember it like it happened yesterday. My life this year is approaching in its multiplicity the profundity of that moment in 1976. That's why I'm dancing. It's also why I'm writing these feelings down, before they fade and become shaped again by other events. I feel caught up in something greater than myself.

Traveling has the capacity to broaden horizons and change circumstances. I love being wide-eyed somewhere other than Wheaton (although I love Wheaton, too!). It was hilarious to be in Florida in February and hear a young, drunk, sexy-looking, blonde guy discourse on Floridiots. I've never been quite so entertained in a hot tub. It also cast a light on my own fears and prejudices about growing older (he would have called me ancient, but thankfully, the ambient light did not betray me), and about what it means to me to be gay. Oh, you bet, I do have a gay identity. And I wish they would send me the homo card to go with it. I'm definitely not a Floridiot, either, although I think I could enjoy becoming one.

April saw me zipping off to Seattle and Moscow. Moscow means Mom. It also means the University of Idaho, and it means hometown. My feelings about Moscow are mixed. Part of it is the distance I have put between me and my hometown. Part of it is that when I go there, I go there to visit my step-Mom, and not much else, except for at least one stroll on the University of Idaho campus, my Alma Mater, and a school deeply tied up with my adult life and career. I see in my Mom a woman growing very old, more infirm every time I visit. She's full of life, with a great laugh and sense of humor, and she knows that she's about walked to the end of the path. I'm ambivalent about her approaching death. I'm grateful that she and my father chose to spend a life together so that she could be my Mom. In her, I see me in the next quarter century. Her journey will some day be my journey, and I'm glad to see it close-up a couple of times a year. I'm always surprised by our mortality.

Bob lives in Seattle, and I try to see him whenever I get to the Northwest. Bob and I go back 30 years. He's pretty much retained his hardline left-wing radicalism. I've retreated into a comfortable leftish centrism, which doesn't always please Bob. Our friendship is one of shared experience over the course of a couple of years in the early 80s. We both survived Washington State's Nuclear Desert and came out fast friends. Our lives went in very different directions, but at heart, we're small town gay boys looking to get laid every now and then, but never by Republicans.

My CRT continued with a jaunt down the Great Allegheny Passage with Rick and Jerry in early June. Over the course of a week, we pedaled about 225 miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Cumberland, Maryland. Both guys are far more doctrinaire (my word...) than I about environmental issues, and also (I think) about personal responsibility. I heard quite a bit over the week about the environment, global warming, fracking, and consumerism. I hope that at least a little of the dialogue has rubbed off on me. The real discovery on this beautiful trip down a rail trail is how free I feel on my bike, how my bike and I are this entity hurtling down a path, carefree, sweaty, sometimes rainsoaked. It's a complete marvel to me how a man and his machine blend into a wonderful pumping organism speeding (or not) down the trail to a new sight, a new place, an ahhh vista, or a heart-stopping moment. I was thrilled by the trip, and happy to share it with two intrepid cyclists. Does it really get better than this?

Also this summer a friend, Steev, turned me on to Mormon Stories. I checked it out, joined the Facebook group, and have begun to rethink my relationship with the Mormon tradition. In the meantime, my youngest daughter invited me to come visit her. I love her very much. I think her kids are angels. This invitation has sparked some introspection (oh yes, I'm capable of that...), and I feel humble, fearful, happy, tentative, gay, and grateful all rolled into one emotional point. I've purchased the plane ticket for a September visit. When I found the Facebook group, it felt like I was returning home. I felt a tremendous loss on leaving the LDS church, but I realize that the tradition extends far beyond the institution. I just want to connect my current life to the life I left behind. I want to reknit a connection. I want to acknowledge to the people I love within and without the LDS church, and Mormonism that I need to reclaim a spiritual community that evicted me. This is part of my Cosmic Road Trip. I'm not asking to be re-baptized. I'm telling people that I'm Mormon, and gay, and atheist. And that's not a contradiction. It's me.

Okay, let's get away from this heavy stuff! For a few days in June and July, I was at the gay square dance convention in Atlanta, Georgia, Gone with the Windmill. I danced a lot of Advanced, and on the last day, way too much Challenge 1. My gray matter was spilling on the floor. Tonight is the first night that I'll have danced C-1 since Atlanta, and I'll have to post a status on Facebook chronicling the result. The Fun Badge Tour was one of the best. I was impressed.

It's really time that I ended this blog entry. Two days after returning from Atlanta, Ron and I flew off to Barcelona, and spent a week on the cruise ship, Nieuw Amsterdam, with 1700 other gay guys and 30 lesbians. Ah, RSVP, thank you! We had a blast. Well, what did you expect? So, the first port of call was Tunis. To put it mildly, it was not one of the favorite ports of call among the men (and probably the women). Tunis is dusty, hot, and second-world. But it's also strikingly different than any other port we were in. I've never had a trader right in my face trying to make a sale (okay, I ran into something like it in the Yucatan). I saw camels up close. I walked through the Roman baths in Carthage. I had a wonderful lunch of Tunisian specialties made for tourists, just like me. What isn't there to love in an experience like this? I don't know if I'd like to spend three weeks in Tunis, but 5-1/2 hours was spectacular. Sure, I'd do it again!

Okay, in Europe, it's easy to get overdone with Madonnas. They are everywhere, and that's because ancient churches are everywhere. And saints are everywhere. And everything is older than dirt. And every place looks like a postcard. I love tour guide history. I think I could almost become a tour guide, just about anywhere, after this cruise. All of them were unrelentingly cheerful, even when it was hot. All of them new the tale that made this place the most beautiful, historical, important place in the Ancient World.

I loved it. I loved every moment of it. I loved every church, every square, every ruin. I loved soaking up the experience in a different place in a different way imagining the histories, the people, the forces, that propelled and animated this place, and finally I'm in it. I'm part of the picture. I'm crossing a bridge across the Tiber, and staring up Il Duomo, and walking in the twisting alleys of a Provencal village. This is not Wheaton.

And I loved the cruise. The porn stars got deported in Tunis (their underwear was worn too provocatively under their cheeks). It was reported that their debarkation was a mutual agreement between them and RSVP. I can't wait to see RSVP's promotional materials for 2012 :-) The ship was very comfortable. The food was grand. The entertainment was fabulous. Amy Armstrong and Freddie Allen, I love you! The entertainment on a gay cruise really is a cut above. Amy is sometimes painful to watch, but only for the poignancy of her performance. She has an astonishing voice. A lot of the comedic talk was about alcohol, self-image, and sexual attraction, and the talk wasn't happy talk. It was the tip of an iceberg of alienation. We see it surface in our lives from time to time, but what's beneath the surface is the real story. Maybe gay men (lesbians?), and the large women who entertain them really are profoundly alienated from each other, and from the world off the cruise ship. How far is the social distance between sexual connection and deep friendship? Just askin'. Thanks, Amy for letting me ask the question after your fifth Cosmopolitan. I couldn't do that!

The lesson of Catalonia is, again, we're not Spain. It's like being gay in a straight world. People around you presume you speak Spanish, but you're really Catalan. I was quite taken by the country, the people, the FOOD, the place. I would go back tomorrow. Spain has a peculiar hold on me, and Catalonia has settled on my mind.

After debarking from the cruise ship, Ron and I rented a car and drove about 145 kilometers northeast of Barcelona to Castelló d'Empúries. It's a small fortified town about 8 km from the Mediterranean and several km east of Figueres. We stayed in a small, family-owned and operated hotel, the Hotel Emporium. The family adopted us, and really wanted us to love our vacation and see everything we could see in that part of Catalonia. We did. The church in the town dates from the 12th century. The outside is plain; the inside is exquisite, and yes, you'll find St. Sebastian bleeding near the door. The old town is a maze of streets and alleys, although after we had been there a week, we were not getting lost so often. And the food. I loved the food. The hotel had a gourmet restaurant that re-created Catalan cuisine in a beautiful way. This was not street food, or some odd tapas. This was an offering from the soul of a Catalan kitchen.

Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the street food, or the cafes. Because I did. We had a platter of tapas in Girona that made me happy. I ate anchovies at every opportunity, because I could. A Frenchman served me a sandwich in Prats de Mollo, and I'm sure that it was the authentic sandwich that I'd been waiting six decades to eat. We even ate at our favorite Indian restaurant in Barcelona. Govindas. Check it out! Ron, Brian, and I had eaten there five years ago. It was a hoot to return. I loved the Indian food, Catalan style.

Which brings me to another insight. Ethnic food, no matter where it's prepared somehow absorbs the place that it's in. That is, Indian cuisine in Langley Park, Barcelona, or Amsterdam is Indian cuisine, but parts of Langley Park, Barcelona, or Amsterdam assert themselves in the food. I discovered this with Catalan pizza, too. In fact, McDonald's is not always McDonald's, either. Every culture leaves an imprint, and I was amused and intrigued by it.

Yes, we went to the Dalí Museum in Figueres. We re-visited the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. We visited the Jewish Museum in Girona. For me, the most surprising visit was to MACBA in Barcelona, where a curator took a group of us on a tour of the collection, and in the course of an hour and a half he gave us a cogent, credible, philosophical perspective on contemporary Catalan art. The art would have been completely inaccessible without his fast-paced and penetrating art history lecture. It was a tour de force that had all of our heads spinning, and I think every person on the tour was hanging on to the words that spilled out of his mouth in such complete thoughts and elegant explanations. It was performance in an art space. It was at least an upper-level semester art appreciation course crammed into our time together. I've never seen anything like it.

Okay, I'm going to end this. I'm out of breath, and perhaps you are too. Or maybe you're just bored. I kind of feel like the parent of a first-born child. Such a parent acts like it's the first time it's ever happened. And when I see behavior like that, I remind myself that it is. And that's my Cosmic Road Trip so far. It's still in progress. I'll let you know what happens next.

Stanley Kurtz Is Dead

I'll miss Stanley. Oh, he wasn't a close friend, or anything like that, but I'll miss him, nevertheless, much as God misses any of His Creation. I mean, I don't have to know his intimate life (although I do) to appreciate the fact that Stanley, well, Stanley was quite a piece of work, and a hard worker, too.

I've got to keep better track of things. I didn't see it coming, and I should have, because that's my job. I suppose I could have prevented his death, it was untimely. According to my charts, Stanley was supposed to clock in another twenty-two years, four months, and eighteen days. I did not anticipate that flying lunch box. Normally, air resistance would have slowed it down so that it would have dented Stanley's head, but it wouldn't have been fatal. Alas, it contained one too many cans of sardines, and it fell, unimpeded down those eighty-seven stories.

No, I don't take the blame for Stanley's passing. I don't engineer events. I just let them happen. I'm not a personal God, because that would make me a personal servant. I don't make coffee for anyone else. And Stanley was walking when the lunch box impacted his cranium. He was one of my best thinkers: clear sighted, energetic, calling out Obama and the homosexual agenda, defending my values. I adored what he did, although I thought he was a bit stuffy and overly combative.

Stanley was right about one thing. Homosexuals getting married is really going to upset the applecart. It's so sad that he stepped in front of that bus trying to avoid that gay skateboarder bearing down on him. I mean, I knew that the skateboarder was packing fudge, but Stanley only knew that theoretically. Stanley was plastered up against the windshield like a giant locust from Utah. His colleagues at the Hudson Institute (of which Dr. Kurtz was an associate fellow) will miss him terribly. The skateboarder was unhurt, but ticketed for feckless behavior.

If I had hands, I would wring them. I once had hands, and I did wring them, and it caused lots of problems. To put it simply, the unexpected expansion of the universe shortly after The Big Bang was caused by a lot of my hand wringing. Or maybe it was the blink of an eye. I forget. Fifteen billion years doesn't seem like a lot of time, but there is so much to remember, and frankly my memory is not that good. I would wring my hands over the demise of Stanley Kurtz. He was that good.

Yes, he was walking his dog, Swoosie (that was his little joke for being saddled with his last name: he really didn't like it that much), when the dachshund leaped after a squirrel, and Stanley slipped on a banana peel. How life mimics art! His left leg came up over his chest and wrenched his buttocks into an airborne state. The cheery whistle on his lips morphed into a rictus grin of prescient doom. Clearly, Stanley knew that his number was up. Felled by a banana peel. This is an end of Biblical proportions. I didn't plan it this way at all. Stanley crumpled on the street, only to be run over by a charging garbage truck. Because I'm God, I don't believe in luck. Fate is another, different thing, though.

Like Stanley, I don't particularly like homosexuals mocking me. They pretend that when they marry each other, it's all going to settle the matter. I sent them Fred Phelps. I sent them Pat Robertson. I sent them Stanley Kurtz. I even sent them Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith, Jr. I stripped them of their dignity. I had thugs beat and murder them. I turned my back on them, even the ones I loved (Caravaggio's angels come to mind). And what do they do? They want to get married. Can you imagine that? They want to get married!

Stanley would have none of it. He was a great statistician, which is to say, he was no statistician at all. He knew how to make numbers lie so that hateful pols and smarmy media commentators could make blood libel (truly, those Americans really do like to kill homosexuals) about part of my imperfect creation, something that I was a little disturbed about, too. Stanley knew, and I fully agree, because I am God, that homosexuals threaten marriage. I'm not sure why they threaten marriage, that was up to Stanley to figure out. So he lied about it.

My creation started out better than this, and the six thousand years or so (yeah, I know I cooked the fossil record, too) turned out pretty well. The earth had a certain bloody order (if not the universe). But it's gotten out of whack. The Madonna isn't a virgin anymore. Jesus is a Mexican baseball player. And Modern Family is the most popular television show in America. I gave them Sarah Palin, but they are watching Glee. And now, Stanley is gone. I weep, but enough of that. You don't want to see me weep. It messes up the atmosphere.

So Stanley died at his desk. He was reading M.V. Lee Badgett's book, When Gay People Get Married. His hippocampus suffered a proto-molecular quantum wave collapse. He never recovered. Dead as a door nail. Stanley Kurtz is dead.

When my Mother Died

In the weeks after the funeral,
The widows came to the house
Corningware, Tupperware, Rubbermaid.
The doorbell rang; each dish accepted,
acknowledged, and refrigerated.

Jello eight ways. Three kinds of macaroni.
Spaghetti and meatballs in a metal bowl.
Four tossed salads with five different dressings.

Three molds, five glass baking dishes, four casseroles,
washed, dried, and returned.

December, January, and February.

Mysterious Mother

O Mother with your burning heart,
Sursum Corda on your lips,
Betrayed, the blade wedged in your valve.
Your skirted smile scarce hides your sorrow.
A golden crown can't salve your loss.
The lily's fragrance masks the stench
of death, of lost tomorrows.
O Mother's son sprained on the cross
O Mother's heart broke from the loss
A world quickly walks on by
lost in talk, concerns, and bills.
Your lips are closed to words expressed
that might explain your open breast,
spread apart with bleeding flames,
a heart afire that fans your pain.
O Mother, I can hardly stand to watch.
Not a wrinkle or a blemish on your face,
and yet you tear a hole in my own chest
That connects your picture frame to mine.

O Mother with your burning heart
Betrayed, that blade wedged in your valve.

The Mormon Thing

Strange doings are happening in the Mormon kingdom. I remain fascinated by the Mormon tradition, and am still part of it. I belong to a gay Mormon group, Affirmation, and I recently joined a Yahoo group, Reform Mormonism Discussion Group (see their web site). None of this is to say that I want to go back to church, but I'm very curious about some winds that are sweeping the Mormon landscape.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has policies that limit the participation of members who are attracted to the same gender or are gender variant. Affirmation was formed to help lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members of the LDS Church resolve the spiritual conflict that many such members felt in the church. The group offers support, fellowship, education, and sanity in the midst of personal crises created by a church and its teachings that demand individual perfection and strict adherence to church teachings.

Reform Mormonism began in 2002 to reform the LDS and FLDS (fundamentalist) branches of Mormonism. The reformers appear to be reacting to the increasingly patriarchal line of the other two churches, and the reformers are also going back to many of the early teaching of the founding prophet, Joseph Smith. The Reform Mormons are a home church. They are also a creedless church, and cast an exceedingly wide doctrinal net, hewing to the traditions and teachings, but radically reinterpreting the teachings, structure, and prophetic teachings of Joseph Smith.

Finally, the other major strand of Mormon thought is the Community of Christ. The Community of Christ was formerly called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS). Like the LDS and FLDS churches, the C of C, has prophets, apostles, seventies - a priesthood structure. Unlike the other churches, the priesthood is open to women. Also, the church is governed as much by consensus as it is by direct revelation from the prophet.

The Community of Christ is undergoing a deep doctrinal rethinking in light of its revelation, the Doctrine and Covenants, section 163. The revelation was received in 2007 by President Veazey, and is beginning to have a large impact in the thinking of the church. The church's world conference in April of this year is expected to provide consensus and guidance on a number of social issues including same-sex marriage, and acceptance into membership without a C of C baptism.

You may wonder why I am interested in any of this. Although I do not follow the Mormon faith, it has a deep hold on my culturally. My own spiritual life is a little vague, and reading and discovering these changes within the Mormon tradition is heartening. I have hope for my brothers and sisters in the faith. I have hope that their leaders will find the means to heal the deep wounds that various churches within the Mormon tradition have inflicted on women, on lesbian and gay people, and on gender variant people.

The LDS church continues to turn a blind eye to its members' needs. The suicides among lesbian and gay members in that church are blood that stains the doctrines, practices, and attitudes of many members of that church. Affirmation will continue to bear witness to the plight of LDS church members in need. I don't believe in God, but I do believe in hope. I believe in thoughtful reflection, in prayerful communication, in witness for change and truth.

I've said many times in the past that you can kick the boy out of the church, but you can't kick the church out of the boy. And that's about as spiritual as I can get.

The Problem of Homosexual Stigma

Yesterday, I was cruising around Facebook, and happened upon a group, Building connections to protect tradition (sic) marriage when the day comes again. Today, I notice when I went back to the group, that the post I was most interested in has been removed. Oh well. This site was started by a Brigham Young University alum, and has many Latter-day Saint members on it. Most of the posters appear to be deeply religious church members.

The removed post was part of a string, where one poster (who was not LDS) mentioned that some of the language and content of the other posters wasn't especially Christian or religious, i.e., the language was intemperate and could be characterized as being either bigoted or hateful. Another poster responded very quickly that the remark was a little hypocritical because, "Gays hate religion."

To be fair, the page creator respectfully requests posters to be mindful of their speech and to be respectful of others. Here's his complete statement:

This group is just to fortify the social networks for when the time comes to do what is necessary in protecting traditional marriage, whether it be to write state officials or rally the vote. We need to be passive to not fuel the anger right now as it is a sensitive issue at this time. Remember we are to love all and respect even when we are not respected.
Thanks!

Just an aside, not all gay people hate religion, but for those who do, they have cause for their feelings. Most religious groups kick out gay people, when the groups find out a member is gay. Religious groups rob gay people of their religious life, the groups hijack gay people's spirituality, and many groups condemn gay people to an unhappy, life (and death) in hell. Furthermore, the speech that many religious groups use is deceptive, if you hate the sin, in the context of homosexuality, you are hating the sinner as well. The speech from the pulpit can be a huge burden to bear. It often incites other members to shun or to even commit spiritual, if not physical, violence on gay people. I know this from my own experience as a gay man. It has happened to me, and to many of my gay friends.

While being gay (or as many straight people say, "homosexual"), can indeed be a problem for gay people, it's also a problem for people who follow any creed that purports to believe "Love your neighbor as yourself." The Christian version of this commandment is

Jesus said unto him Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:37-40, KJV

Most religious faiths have similar formulations of this: Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you, or the affirmative of the same.

I invite religious people who disagree with me about the nature of my sexual orientation (I am gay, I am homosexual) to put their feet in my shoes. Believe me, I've already put my feet in your shoes. I really have. How does it feel to have someone say to you that you hate them and what they believe. That's a foul charge smearing all gay people. Honestly, we don't hate religion or religious people. I do, however, get irritated by people who let their sometimes blind belief trump science, common sense, and the Holy Scriptures, and then proceed to carry on with intemperate speech about my sexual orientation.

The problem is stigma. It all started 5,000 years ago with, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:13 KJV. That scripture and six other "clobber" scriptures pretty much have molded traditional Christian (and Jewish) thinking about homosexuality. These scriptures are almost always ripped out of their historical, religious, and cultural contexts, and applied willy-nilly to gay people. One of the underlying characteristics of bigotry is that the people engaging in it (from its gentlest to its most rabid manifestations) can rattle off justifications for their behavior (clobber verses), but often do not consider the context of the justifications. They do not have a deep understanding of their behavior, and over time, it becomes a part of their irrational belief.

[A personal confession, here - I also have irrational belief and engage in irrational behavior. I have my own prejudices which probably border on bigotry. Just because I disagree with most religions' views of homosexuality in no way exempts me from experiencing the human condition, part of which is to engage in irrational belief and irrational behavior.]

Many religious people let their irrational beliefs about homosexuality color their feelings about gay people. That coloring is called stigma. Your stigmatization of me effectively makes me less a person than you, and by inference less than your humanity. I'm not a real person in your eyes. I know these may be difficult words for you to read. And I know that you may feel offended, disgusted, saddened, or angry. I know that you may not believe my words. I also know, that you have felt stigma because of your religious beliefs and practices. You are marked and mocked by other people (like me) because of what you believe. I know that you have felt emotional pain, ostracism, and conflict with the outside world because of your beliefs. I know how much that hurts.

I invite you to examine some of the stigmatization that I live with, stuff that I hear and experience all the time. What follows isn't pretty, and may seem offensive, but again, I ask you to get into my shoes, and my skin, and be open to that experience. Please.

I am a homosexual who really deserves less than straight people. This stigma is stated in explicit terms with the phrase, Gays want special rights, not human rights. When a person utters this phrase, the first thing it does is rob gay people of their humanity, because the speaker is saying that gay people are not human. It implies that special rights are privileges, and privileges that "normal" (straight) people don't have. Here are the "human rights" that straight people regard as their own (any may not even think about): freedom from bullying and violence, non-discrimination in housing and employment, the freedom to love (and marry) someone, the right to speak out on public issues. Here are the "special privileges" to which homosexuals aspire: freedom from bullying and violence, non-discrimination in housing and employment, the freedom to love (and marry) someone, the right to speak out on public issues. I know this, because I am a gay man who aspires to these human rights.

Why do I feel stigmatized by this attitude of feeling less than straight people? Let me give you a few For Examples from my own life.

• Example 1. I listened to Fag Jokes at work for many years, afraid to speak up, because I felt that my co-workers would think less of me.
• Example 2. I couldn't be open with co-workers about my partner, or about my life outside of work. Where other people would come in and tell me about their weekend, all I could do was to say, "Fascinating!" I was mentally and socially constrained by my stigma.
• Example 3. When I finally did tell a colleague that I was gay, he promptly went to Employee Resources and claimed that I was offending him, and that he no longer wanted to work with me. (When he asked my about my weekend, I got up the courage to say that I had gone to a gay bar. That's it! He was totally disgusted) Needless to say, experiences like this confirmed the stigma.
• Example 4. I was fired from another job because I knew two other gay people at the company, who ratted on me to Human Resources/Legal. The two gay people were afraid that I'd tell other employees that they were gay. See how insidious this stigmatization grows? While I had no intention of telling anybody that anybody else was gay, another gay person ratted on me, and I got fired. That was difficult to take.

This particular stigma has real consequences, affects real people, and stunts the lives of others. It is a very uncomfortable stigma with which to live.

Gay people deserve what happens to them, because they choose to live that way. This is a difficult stigma to shake, because deep down, many religious people appear to feel that homosexuality is such an immoral aberration that gay people couldn't possibly choose to live that way.

First of all, if you read the sacred texts with an open heart and a mind wanting to know the truth, and you study the historical, cultural, and religious context of those texts, you'll find that the assertion of immorality often made by religious people isn't nearly so cut and dried as many of those people assert it. So please, I pray, reread the "clobber verses" and study them with an inquiring mind wanting to know your Creator's will.

Secondly, so what if I did choose to live the homosexual life? Democrats choose to live the "Democrat" life. Baptists choose to live the "Baptist" life. I am guessing that part of the reason the stigma of choice remains so important to religious, straight people is because of their misunderstanding and demonization of gay sexual practices. Admittedly, some of those practices are pretty weird. But, you don't hear gay people talking about straight people choosing to be straight, and you don't usually find gay people critiquing straight sexual practices (Dan Savage, aside). Why? Because sexual practice is in the realm of private conduct, and it should stay there. Frankly, gay sex is very similar to straight sex, more than either gay or straight people want to think. Straight people have straight sex with other straight people all the time, and don't get accused that they are choosing to be straight.

Finally, choice is a curious word. Let's put it in the context of a gay person, "choosing" to be gay. Here's what that person is often choosing: opprobrium from family and former friends, bullying and physical violence, and social ostracism, to name a few things. Think about it: people don't choose to live a life like this. Instead, a life like this often finds gay people because we have an intrinsic and innate need to behave congruently with our feelings and our attractions, just as straight people have an intrinsic and innate need to behave congruently with their feelings and attractions. Gay people don't choose to be gay any more than straight people choose to be straight. Any other conclusion is unsupportable by scientific, cultural, and moral evidence.

Here's a couple of examples of the affect of this stigmatization in my own personal life:

• Example 5. Because I chose to be gay and deserved what I got, a man stopped his car in an intersection, accosted me in the crosswalk, started kicking and beating me, screamed that I was a f**king faggot, told me he was going to kill me, jammed me against the stanchion of a traffic signal, well, you get the point. The only thing that saved me was a straight couple who ran up the sidewalk after my assailant. He jumped in his car, and sped off. I ended up with black eyes, broken ribs, and multiple bruises. I'm convinced my assailant meant to murder me. I deserved all of that because I chose to be gay. And what was my gay choice that day? I was walking down the sidewalk in a gay neighborhood, wearing a leather jacket, on my way to buy a birthday card for my five-year old son.
• Example 6. I was in a Bible study at work. The leader of the Bible study asked me to leave the group, saying that because I was homosexual, it was very disturbing and disruptive to the other members of the group. But if I repented, and chose not to be gay (meaning, I guess, that I was choosing to be straight), that after a period of repentance and forgiveness, I could rejoin the group. The affect of this stigmatization on me was devastating. In effect, God was kicking me out. The leader, a well-meaning Christian was robbing me of a rich spiritual experience, and was trying to extort my soul. He was doing it out of his best intentions because he knew that homosexuality is a choice. Except that it isn't, and his behavior broke my heart.

I ended up with broken bones and a broken heart because I chose to be gay.

God Hates Fags! This particular stigmatization comes out of a certain mean-spirited fundamentalism masquerading as human kindness. Yes, I know that Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church are extreme caricatures of faith, but I don't see a lot of religious people, like you, protesting their hateful speech and vitriolic phlegm. Go to Fred's web site, and read and see gay stigmatization at its most reprehensible. It's disgusting. It's hateful. It's an Old Testament God (who wrote Leviticus) untempered by the life, acts, and teachings of his Son, Jesus Christ. What Would Jesus Do? It certainly would not be what Fred Phelps does.

One of the reasons I ended up with broken bones and a broken heart, (not to mention fired from my job), is because good religious people believe what Fred Phelps teaches. These good people believed that God Hates Fags, so they could do evil to me. And I believed, at one time in my life, that God Hates Fags, and I hated myself, too. Stigma hurts. It hurts those who practice stigma, and it hurts those who carry its burden. In fact stigma makes religious people less Godly, and it has the power to make gay people afraid, injured, friendless, and unemployed.

Thank you for spending some time in my shoes, well boots, actually. I'm grateful that you gave me the opportunity.