Thursday, March 3, 2016

What I know as a gay Mormon.

I started this blog years ago to support gays in the Mormon church -- because there were gays in the Mormon church and no one seemed to want to acknowledge them. I knew this to be true because, as you may have guessed by now, I am gay and I am in the church.


I thought I'd be the hit of the season, the toast of a town that never toasted.  Conservatives would love me because I supported the commandments as laid out by the prophets of God, and liberals would love me because I was gay and had fabulous shoes.

There was little love. I thought that I wasn't well-received because  I hadn't found my voice, so I just kept writing, and as I wrote I continued to lose friends. I had to pretend that I didn't notice when Facebook friends eliminated me from their accounts. Many didn't want to hear what I had to say.


Had I been a celebrity or a political figure, or rich and pretty, things may have gone over better. Rich ain't going to happen and pretty is relative. I am just a normal gay guy in the church who has had problems in his life and knows what it feels like to have to repent in a large way. I will never be any one's poster child. 



All I know, and I have been trying to get these several points across for years, is:
  • God is loving and just
  • All people deserve respect
  • Everyone has a place and a purpose
  • Everyone makes mistakes and has need of the atonement
  • My viewpoint is just as valid as yours and vice versa.
What I want to say to members of the LDS church is that sinners of all types and ages will never feel comfortable coming to church that passes judgement at the door. To lay claim to a bench and disallow others is a grievous error on our part.

What I want to say to gays is that there is a reason that the Lord gave us commandments to follow. The rules apply to everyone who wants to follow God.


Yet we still have our agency. 

Which is the worse sin:  Being critical and exclusive, or immoral and disobedient. The answer may be different that you think.

3 comments:

  1. Matthew 25:31-40. Saw this yesterday, been kicking it around in my head and your last question seemed to explain maybe why it struck a chord.
    How will the moral and disobedient find us if we are being critical and exclusive?

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  2. Followers of Christ will choose not to be critical and exclusive. Nor will they choose to be disobedient. Knowing that all are sinners, followers will choose do do ask the savior has asked.

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  3. You know that I enjoy reading your blog, and respect your viewpoint (even if I don't always agree with it.) But I thought that Elder Bednar has now declared that there are no gay members of the Church. If you raise your hand in support of him as a "prophet, seer and revelator" then I guess you will have to stop claiming you are gay Mormon. Because an apostle has now said that such people do not exist.

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