My Own Damn Fault

He probably would have responded better...

Open Letter to a Facebook "Friend":


You got me. I thought you were just interested in knowing my POV. However it now looks like you googled "naive Mormon gay guy" until you found someone who would be kind enough to answer a question or two.


You led off your correspondence with “Personally (in regard to your mixed orientation marriage)I believe that you are incorrect.”  With a whole slew of differences between us, this may be the biggie. I do not claim to be in a position to judge anyone else – a task I am grateful that Christ has claimed for only himself. Though I am an arrogant, arrogant man, and even I wouldn’t dare.


For you to tell me over face book – without ever meeting me – that I am not fair to my wife because we don't seem to fit into your idea of marriage is downright silly and is reminiscent of the arguments we are used to hearing from those who oppose gay marriage.  What would you think if, in all my ignorance, I said something silly like your marriage is a sham because it doesn't fit into my notion of what a real relationship is? Would you be as upset as I am? Putting down/minimizing my relationship with my wife is uncalled for.


I have never said it is sinful to be gay, and for you to assume that because I am a Mormon I am anti-gay is rash - and mistaken.  I will never say such a thing. I do not believe that God makes mistakes. He made me what I am. I am betting He did the same for you. I believe in personal revelation. I believe that His son, the Lord Jesus Christ can guide me through the Holy Spirit, through modern prophets, and through scripture.


I am making no comparisons to other churches and their beliefs or observances, not do I use their practices to dictate or confirm my own beliefs. Another church may allow, permit or consent to a number of things. In my church, the men don’t make the rules. It is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe that Jesus Christ makes the rules. I am in the church I am in because I have researched and made a choice. Sounds like you have, too.


I appreciate your choice and honor your right to it.  Wither I agree with it or not is no ones business and I would never volunteer my opinion to anyone other than my wife, from whom I have no secrets.   By the same token, It is not your place to offer me unsolicited feedback concerning where you think I am wrong.  I may have to concede this argument because I have invited others, to a degree, into my personal life by the very nature of this blog.


Yes I am gay. I am gay, and so much more. I am a husband and a father and an artist and a writer. I am a softball coach and a choir director. I am an author and a blogger. I teach sometimes when they asked me in my church, and I strive to be worthy to use the priesthood (not just a calling but authority and power) actively by following the commandments/rules that God has asked of me. I know what he has asked of me because I listen to the words of his prophets.


I write a blog for gay Mormons because of what I thought of as a dearth of information available and I thought I could help those who feel as I do about their own lives and the direction the Lord wants for them. It is not for all, and it is not for many. But it is for a few.

I am not aggressively judging anyone one else. Including you. I would never tell you you are wrong, or smile and patronize and claim that you "just don’t understand", and I am a little miffed as to why you seem to take that stance toward me.


I am Gay.  I am a Mormon.  I have a temple recommend - meaning I am card carrying.  I'm not going anywhere.  Google that.


And, yes, I do feel better now.

Five, Six, Seven, Eight...

BYU recently "transferred" several men in the Musical Dance Theatre program to the University of Utah due to issues dealing with homosexuality.


I certainly will not be one to make humor at their expense being that I am a proud alumni of that same program. But, if I may say, who did the administration think they were getting when these talented men who can sing like the wind, dance up a storm, and act their way out of a paper bag were recruited with scholarships? Stereotypes aside, somebody knew these men were not loggers.


One could easily replace the MDT men in this scenario with football players when the occasional blue chipper is recruited from a non LDS background having been raised with a different belief regarding word of wisdom and chastity.


Of course MDTers should be held accountable for honoring the same code of ethics the football players honor. And when football players have moral issues, they are disciplined the same as anyone who committed a standard of behavior to the university--including the theatre guys.


However, there seems to have been no mention of any honor code violations, only issues dealing with homosexuality.


In 2007 the honor code was revamped and expanded to include recent differentiations between homosexual actions and homosexual behaviors; behaviors (having gay sex), versus homosexual feelings (being attracted to ones same gender).


Earlier this academic year, certain wordings (advocacy as one) were removed from the behavioral standard with little fanfare.


In the previous year, 2009-2010, the honor code had a section titled, “Homosexual Behavior or Advocacy”. This stated that “homosexual behavior and advocacy of homosexual behavior are inappropriate and violates the Honor Code.” It continued “Advocacy includes seeking to influence others to engage in homosexual behavior or promoting homosexual relations as being morally acceptable.”


Recently, however, references to "advocacy" have been eliminated. It currently reads, "Homosexual Behavior: Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or attraction and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards. Members of the university community can remain in good Honor Code standing if they conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code." (NOTE:Your being gay is one thing. Your being sexually active - not obeying the law of chastity - is another.) "One’s stated same-gender attraction is not an Honor Code issue. However, the Honor Code requires all members of the university community to manifest a strict commitment to the law of chastity. Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings."


FYI, the code had previously read (2007 through 2010): "Homosexual Behavior or Advocacy: Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or attraction and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards. Members of the university community can remain in good Honor Code standing if they conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code. One’s stated same-gender attraction is not an Honor Code issue. However, the Honor Code requires all members of the university community to manifest a strict commitment to the law of chastity. Homosexual behavior and/or advocacy of homosexual behavior are is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings. Advocacy includes seeking to influence others to engage in homosexual behavior or promoting homosexual relations as being morally acceptable. Brigham Young University will respond to student behavior rather than to feelings or orientation. Students can be enrolled at the University and remain in good Honor Code standing if they maintain a current ecclesiastical endorsement and conduct their lives in a manner consistent with gospel principles and the Honor Code. Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code."


I am not about to argue the honor code here. Nor do I generally respect the opinion of those who sign it, then enjoy the benefits of the university, and then make known their excuses for not following it.


You choose to sign the code, you choose to come to BYU, you follow the code you signed.


(Quick side bar to nowhere: There may be an occasional conscientious objector status--a peaceful demonstration within the law to further ones cause; but these when done deliberately as an act of true Thoreau Civil Disobedience as per his essay of 1849 are rare.  Rather than an organized distention to not allow governments to atrophy our consciences, we have turned it into a whine in Indian position on a sidewalk somewhere.)


Maybe these MDT men met with leaders and decided that the U of U was a better fit. As a group they all went to the honor code office. Voluntarily as a group. Uh Huh.


Maybe there was some type of sting that nabbed them as they all shuffled off to Buffalo in unison. I doubt it.


Possibly there was an Internet/blogging incident that brought them together, or these men decided to take a political stand where the only outcome was a change of educational venue.


What if several of them spouted off about a social life that was contrary to the code they signed? Possible. Frankly, no university owes anyone an explanation of facts on the files of these eight men (if my source is correct). If I was one of them or one in or out of any group in the public eye, I would be pleased at the university's protection of my privacy--as they have protected the privacy of many students many times in the past. (So 'in So was released from his scholarship today, or Joe Bob was dismissed due to honor code infractions and no, we will not be answering your questions.)


Could the reason be that these men were released and offered transfers be based on confessed Homosexuality alone?


I pray no.

Empha-Sex



Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

-Robert Frost

I recently posted the question of what to do for Valentine’s Day. I wanted ideas of what would be original and fun. The responses I got were mostly hypo-sexual – the kind of references that, frankly, I wouldn’t use in front of anyone I knew and respected. It seemed clear that for a huge number of people, sex equaled love: Valentine’s Day was for sex: Sex was the main/only/most important expression of love.

Remember, I am somewhat a conservative Mormon talking here. (If a gay Mormon is considered conservative) With my conservative background, I have been skewered (deliberate word choice) in a different direction.

I have never been what I thought "real guys" were. I considered sex to be something kept underground, something taboo for the “kind” of person I wanted to be. It was not for the guys in black socks, khaki pants and white shirts. The kind of guy I wanted to be.

My kind of man knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was more of an eternal nature. He wanted love. He wanted a relationship, communication, cooperation, companionship and expression. Sex was none of these things. Sex was something different.

Sex was urges, physical passion, and gratification. Love was not sex. The men I knew didn’t have sex as I understood it. They had wives and families and had appropriate, neutral, controlled expressions of love. They had sex to procreate, and then they went and earned some money to pay the mortgage.

So I tried that. Both. At the same time. I tried to have one, which seemed incredibly incompatible with the other. I kept them separate.

Talk about the swinging pendulum. Even today I have a difficult time with sex as part of an expression rather than simply fulfillment of physical desire. Most people who say that love is more than sex are thought of as prudish, naive, or as one reader said, “He has obviously never had spine tingling sex”. The thought seems to be that if you can think of anything other than sex, you haven’t had the right sex.

I know what it is to have tingling sex. Am I allowed to say that it was wonderful, and then to add-in the same sentence - that I want that and more? I want the sex and I want the relationship. I want the tingles and a commitment and I don't want one for a couple years so I can say I did it and then move on.

Even PBS is against me. A recent documentary emphases that man is not meant to be monogamous. That even women’s menstrual cycles are timed to encourage promiscuity, and that man would be better off genetically if he spread his stuff around instead of sticking with one partner.

Is this really where we are as a people that we are still comparing ourselves to members in the animal kingdom? This seems like the equivalent of “everyone’s doing it”, which is an excuse doesn’t fly past Jr High school. So, everyone is doing it. And I have had my share.

It is true that I have work to do in becoming emotionally healthy. I get that. I get that views towards sex need to change.

And I don’t generally look to PBS for answers to my problems. But the questions this last week has presented beg questions. But what if, after all the counseling and coming to terms and prioritizing, I want, expect more from a partner than sex? What if I consider myself to be more than just a link in someone’s reproductive food chain? Sex plus relationship, plus commitment, plus understanding?

A heightened sense of mutual well being. That topic would not make it to PBS because that would be called religion. When sex is everything, the instructions are easy to follow. When sex is one forth or one fifth of a relationship, when there is something that has to be achieved, the PBS documentary during sweeps week becomes simplistic at best.

I don’t want a club, or a bobsled partner. I don’t think I need to have every sexual whim satisfied. I do want sex as part of the physical/emotional experience.

And I want to be part of something more than just me.

Blessings and SGAttraction

I was asked today by a non-family member to give a blessing.  My neighbor has been feeling poorly and she sent one of my kids who was playing outside to find out if I would come over. 

When I am poorly, a blessing is not the first thing I think of (not that her decision was off the cuff or flippant). I usually go for a pill and a diet coke. Actually, a pill and a diet coke sounds like the solution to most of life’s problems. That she would step outside herself and have the wherewithal to consider a priesthood blessing impresses me.

A little sad to say that I had to give pause.  My life has not been one clean and reverent and ready to assist in things of the spirit.  Maybe the mental listing is just a habit because I have not always been in that position to help. 

I am happy to report that, with a quick change of clothes and a little hair gel, I sit here waiting for a call to tell me when to come over.  Okay, with a fast run to my next door neighbor’s house to borrow a vile of consecrated oil, a change of clothes and hair gel I am sitting here ready to use the priesthood.

The power and authority of the Savior is the biggest reason to stay priesthood ready – to be worthy to use the power of God at the drop of a proverbial hat.  For me, it tops what I call the obedience factor (staying morally clean because the Lord himself or through his prophets says to). 

More specifically, as a worthy gay man I can access the same priesthood that the straight worthy men access.  As God created me, even with the SGAttraction that I have alternately despised and cherished, I am enough.

Father shares that power with us.  He shares it with me.

The best reason to keep my SGAttraction in check.