The question was "How do you balance your sexuality and your religion?"
This was my answer:
I’m assuming that the reason for this question is because
the religion I am a member of has been so outspoken about its teachings related
to homosexuality. I think this question is kind of difficult to answer without
having a lot of context but I will try.
I feel like, first, it is important for me to
acknowledge that I am lucky. From the moment I started being open about my
sexuality, I had very important, key people that were supportive of me, and I
know that things could have been much different if they had responded
differently. My parents and my church leaders never made me feel like there was
something wrong with me, or that my feelings were something evil. They never
suggested that I created these feelings somehow or that I was less of a person
or less worthy of a person because I am gay. I know that others have not
experienced this. I know there are many whose families disown them, whose
church leaders belittle them or make them feel wrong, and so I am empathetic to
and understanding of people who feel like the church and its followers are
judgemental, closed-minded, and ignorant. I am lucky because the response of family
and church leaders helped me to form an understanding and belief about what God
thinks about my being gay. In terms of God’s involvement and feelings about it,
I believe that my being gay was intentional, that it is on purpose, and that
there is a purpose to it, not just something to “deal with,” and it isn’t
something that I should be ashamed of or scared of.
I believe that historically the church’s
position on homosexuality and the things that church leaders said were wrong
and damaging. But I also believe that it was because they didn’t know better
and that I can’t expect church leaders to always have known everything about
everything because we can’t have that expectation of anyone, even religious
leaders. The tone in which homosexuality is spoken about by church leaders now,
is SO much different than it was 20 or even 10 years ago. I think that is
because more and more people are open about their experiences with sexuality
and so it has required that these things be looked at, prayed about, and questions
answered. I admit that there are times when church leaders will speak about the
issue and they will use a term or a phrase or something that hits me the wrong
way, but I can still appreciate how much different it is now than it was even
just 15 years ago when I was a teenager and I feel like progress is being made
toward more full understanding.
That being said, the church
continues to hold to the teachings of marriage being only between a man and a woman, and
that isn’t a very popular thing to believe, and is understandably upsetting to
most everyone outside of a few religious settings. I say “understandably
upsetting” because I feel like my experience as a gay person helps me to
understand why it seems so wrong to limit marriage between a man and a woman. I
didn’t ask to be gay. I didn’t create these feelings. They didn’t just
accidently happen as a mishap in development, they are part of me like my skin
color, or my height, or my birthmark on my left foot. Why would a church, or
more importantly, God not allow me happiness with someone I love and want to
create a good, moral life with just because we are the same sex? I think that question is really important: If
you believe that God has an issue with homosexuality, what is his problem with
it? I think the answer to that question
is kind of involved and is actually pretty different from what many Mormons
would say is the answer.
I think most Mormons would
immediately respond with, “Gay people can’t have kids and God wants us to have
kids.” But there are so many arguments that can be brought against this like,
“what about heterosexual couples who can’t have kids?” or “what about people
who just stay single?” Ultimately, I think if someone responds with simply “gay
people can’t have kids,” then they are a jerk and you probably shouldn’t ask
them any more questions. I think that unfortunately, there are a lot of
religious people who take their own feelings about homosexuality (that its
uncomfortable and “icky” or weird) and project those feelings onto God, holding
a kind of assumed belief that God is against homosexuality because he thinks
it’s icky and it makes him uncomfortable. I know and have enough interaction
with gay people and gay couples and have witnessed love and genuine affection
they have for each other to feel certain that God doesn’t think that its gross.
I don’t believe that his direction regarding homosexuality is because he’s
uncomfy. God is a much more mature, dynamic, and all knowing being. I believe
that he sees beauty and goodness in these relationships and doesn’t categorize
everything about them as evil and wrong. God’s great like that…because he knows
everything…he doesn’t have to slap a label on something and put it in a
designated box and keep it there. He can dissect things, understand them, and
appreciate and love what is good about them.
The more complicated answer is
that Mormons believe in eternal progression. This is, in fact, the whole
purpose of life and the whole point of being born and coming to earth. We
existed before we came here, we are here to learn and progress and grow, and we
will continue learning and progressing and growing after we die. The church
puts A TON of focus on the family, so much focus that sometimes as members we
talk about getting married and having kids and creating a family as being the
purpose of life on earth. This isn’t true, not entirely. Its not, not about
having families, but it is only about creating families in that it is a part of
progression on earth for many if not most people. That distinction I think is
important, the actual purpose is progression, for many their progression
involves getting married and having kids in this life, but it doesn’t require
that…not here. For some, marriage and having kids doesn’t happen in this life.
Mormon’s believe that, if they want it, everyone will have the opportunity for
marriage and children at some point in the great expanse of eternity.
I have to kind of take a
side-step here and explain something about eternal progression and perfection.
Mormons believe that God is perfect. But Mormons also believe that progression
is eternal. Which, if you think about it, seem to come into conflict with one
another. If God is perfect now, he wouldn’t need to progress anymore because
he’s already perfect. There is a popular scripture in Matthew 5:48 that says
“be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” In
LDS scripture, there is a footnote to the word “perfect” to the greek
translation which is “complete.” I think
in so many ways Mormons would do so much better if we focused on working to
become complete rather than becoming perfect. The difference in the words, for
me, change so many things that make more sense to me. But again, if God is
complete than how is eternal progression a thing? If he is complete? How does
he keep progressing? There is another
Mormon favorite scripture that says that God’s glory (or purpose) is to “bring
to pass the immortality and the eternal life of men.” Meaning that all of his
efforts are about helping further our progression. So, how is God complete and
yet still progressing? His progression is now through his children, us. As we
progress toward completeness, we add to his progression or “glory.”
Let me give a hypothetical
example that simplifies things a whole ton, but hopefully helps make sense of
what I’m trying to say. Let’s say that two couples, a heterosexual couple and a
homosexual couple die in a car crash. They move into the next life and for what
would maybe be like, millions of years earth time, they work and learn and grow
and become and experience. They do all of these things to the point that now we
have 4 perfect/complete individuals that know and are everything (this is super simplifying likely very
complicated things that in my simple mortality I can’t totally understand…but
stay with me). At this point, the heterosexual couple could continue to
progress through their posterity and the homosexual couple would reach the end
of their progression. Not because God thought they were icky, or not because
they are selfish, and not because they are inherently evil but because natural
law (which Mormons believe there are unchangeable natural laws) causes their
progression to come to a stand-still.
This is why the church focuses
on marriage between a man and a woman. Because Mormons believe that with
homosexuality, whether now, or in 50 years, or in billions of years into
eternity, at some point will cause a halt or block in progression for a person.
Why did I do all of this
explaining about beliefs? It probably has gotten annoying to read and you are
wondering when I’m going to just stop and move on, but I often feel a need to
make this explanation because I feel like knowing the context can help people
to understand why the church teaches what it does and why I feel like I can
align myself to a religion that seemingly is so harsh about these things. Because if a religion, or a church believes
these things are true, like, really believes these things are true and actual
facts, then teaching what it believes to be true is the merciful thing to do.
Teaching these things that fit importantly into an eternal perspective is what,
as a church, they really have to do, otherwise a million years into my
progression I would be like, “Hey…why didn’t you tell me this was so important!
I was looking to you for guidance!” Current church leaders teach, for what a
lot of people are difficult and often determined to be emotionally damaging
things to hear, but if they believe its true are they supposed to not teach it?
I am hopeful that they will continue to get better at teaching these things in
a tone and language that expresses their truth, but gets better at trying not to dishearten or
offend.
All of these things are matters
of faith. I believe that these things are true, but I understand and appreciate
that not everyone believes these things are true. Some people don’t believe that
there is a God. Some people would read this and say, “I think you’re wrong, I
think that God is totally cool with homosexuality without any reservations.”
Some people would say “you’re wrong, gay people are gross and God thinks they
are too!” And to all of those I say, “congratulations! You are a person. And as
a person you get to believe what you want to believe about faith, God, and
religion.”
I believe that it is VERY
possible to believe something different than someone else, even about things as
emotionally charged as religion and homosexuality and still love each other,
respect each other, enjoy each other’s company, and desire good things for
them. Some of the most important relationships in my life are with people who I
know don’t believe these things are true. We disagree, but our disagreement
doesn’t supersede how much we love each other!
Again, I'm lucky. My open-minded parents, my understanding church leaders, my opportunity to meet and marry someone who understands and works with me, my career as a therapist that allows me opportunities to understand myself... all of this combined to create a scenario in which I am gay, but have the luxury of mostly fitting into a hetero-normative environment that abounds in LDS church culture. There are so many that aren't as lucky. I can't say with certainty that if things had been different, if even just one of those circumstances had changed, that I wouldn't have left the church feeling upset, judged, and left out. I see and understand why people do, and I work in my own life to try to help others have positive experiences like I have had with all of these things.
I went on for a very long time
just now… but if you ask a complicated question you’re going to get a
complicated answer!
