I apologize in advance. You’re probably not going to recognize me in this post. I’m not drunk and I’m not smoking anything.
It’s just me, raw.
I just spent all day listing to YouTube videos of Mormon hymns while working. I had a really productive day. I had a close of escrow with one of my real estate clients. It happened right when I need the money. Anyway there was a lot of e-mailing back and forth. Occasionally I’d click over and watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or the MTC choir belt out one of my favorites. I know some Post-Mormons can’t stand hearing them. But for me, most LDS hymns only bring good memories.
When the women sing I can hear my Mom’s voice singing. When the men sing I long for the peaceful strength and certainty I stumbled upon every once in a while as a Mormon priesthood holder.
I also see myself.
I see myself in many of the men’s faces and expressions. I actually know two of the current male choir members. One was a home teacher of mine my first year at BYU. The other is an ex-girlfriend’s husband. He’s a BYU professor and one of the kindest, most intelligent, most accepting and most sensitive guys you’d ever meet. I like him and respect him. He’s the very attractive, expressive one who looks like he’s really into the meaning of the lyrics and not just making sounds.
And this is pure conjecture, but I’d wager that both of these men (and a significant number of their colleagues) “suffer” to some degree with “same sex attraction.” They’re married and have never given me any concrete or obvious reason to come to this conclusion, but there it is anyway.
The odd thing is that when I think that, I get a little bitter, jealous and indignant. As much as I say I respect anyone’s choice to live his life however he pleases, it makes me upset that they can do it but I couldn’t. I get sucked into the glossy, saccharine, warm and fuzzy crispness of it all.
In my recent post, Mormon Courts of Luv; My Experience, I related how some bishopric members I’d worked with in the past had seemed to harbor a “prodigal brother syndrome.” I define it as being jealous that someone else got to sin and yet have a happy ending. It’s a rather ungracious but human emotion.
I fear I have its equal emotion for gay post-Mormons.
While I know that finally being honest and authentic were the wisest and best choices for my emotional well-being, it does honestly irk and sting to see others choosing obedience, compliance, vague faith and turning the other cheek to reason and truth… and coming out OK on the other end.
If I’m being honest, this is part of the reason for my distasteful reaction to North Star, Mitch Mayne, John Gustav-Wrathall, and most recently to Tom Christofferson.
I’m the one who followed church counsel. Each one of them have disregarded church counsel by being open about their homosexuality while in the church – something in direct opposition to what leaders have counseled. I’m the one who followed church counsel, who served a mission and married a woman in the temple. I’m the one who beat myself up over every gay thought I processed in my brain dozens of times a day, every day into my late thirties. I’m the one who kept it to myself as my church leaders and counselors advised. I’m the one who believed it was just a verb and not a noun, (something one did, not something one was). I’m the one who fought to remain “temple worthy” rather than express any affection for another man. In other words, I spent 20 years of adulthood being “humble, meek and teachable” rather than listening to the still small voice in my own soul.
As a result, I’m the one who developed an inner resentment towards the church for the years of self-denial. Because following church counsel messed up my ex-wife’s life and my kids’, I’m admittedly not as willing or able to give the leaders the benefit of the doubt now.
I’m the one who brought my homosexual boyfriend to my own daughter’s baptism and was treated by family as if I’d murdered someone.
Yet now Tom Christofferson waltzes into the scene having done it his own way with an ever lovin’ homosexual partner of 20 years, a family that supposedly shows “unconditional love for each other,” and he has the balls to tell me that “as we freely offer our will to Him, as we are humble, meek and teachable, as we access the enabling power of His atonement we will find peace.”
To capture a Mormon testimony phrase, “every fiber of my being” wants to scream at him,
“FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU Tom Christofferson!”
But I won’t.
I won’t because I really don’t talk like that. It’s not who I am.
I don’t want to be the ungracious “prodigal brother” who seemingly couldn’t stand to see another person receive praise for his own mixture of wise and unwise choices.
It’s not Tom Christofferson’s fault that the LDS in my family are less than perfect in their unconditional love. It’s not Ty Mansfield‘s fault that my wife never contemplated staying married to an out, gay man. It’s not Mitch Mayne, or John Gustav-Wrathall‘s fault that curiosity and investigation weighed down my “testimony shelf” with more facts and more contradictions than theirs.
These days, peaceful strength and certainty still come occasionally. They indeed come when I see my imagined soul brothers in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and I remember what that duplicity was like. But peaceful strength and certainty also comes at new gatherings of my gay friends, at my local gay professional get-togethers and at the occasional Ex-Mormon gatherings. Most importantly it comes in quiet moments on a campout in the wilderness when my kids offhandedly and sincerely say they love and respect me. That’s all I need.
Dad's Primal Scream 
He’s the very attractive, expressive one who looks like he’s really into the meaning of the lyrics and not just making sounds.
Mr Smiley? With the big glasses, who was part of the choir in the mid-’80s and is now back, with a newer haircut, more gray, and modern glasses frames? I spotted him at my first post-baptism GC in 1986!
No. That is not him. You’d have to subtract about 15 years from that guy’s age at least
The way I understand the JGW/Christofferson paradigm is that if you can’t change the Church from the outside, then the only way to do it from the inside is be an excommunicated type who still attends (provided you’re interested in same-sex intimacy eventually being okayed). So, the humility comes in being able to regularly put your own beliefs in the background as the change happens slowly. I’ve been following folks like Mansfield and JGW for a while, and while I do think the Northstar paradigm is now the norm (“you can be “gay,” just don’t act on it), it’s fundamentally unstable. (For example, mind commenting on a recent post of mine “The Church asks its gay members to water-down doctrine”…? Hard to get a conversation started these days…). The JGW/Christofferson paradigm, while not unstable, I think mistakes “humility” for “complicity,” since the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
I have met JGW. I have followed his blog. I am not sure he wants to change the church. I think that he just sincerely believes and participates to the level that he can…
Notice I said “as the change happens slowly.” There’s no particular actor effecting it. =)
I’ve met JGW, too. He’s a “good Mormon” is that he doesn’t try to change the Church himself, per se…rather the “Lord changes it.” Anthropologically-speaking, it’s the group changing together and the impossibility of stepping too far from the flock without being ostracized. I personally don’t have the patience for homophobic group-think.
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Great post! (But maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have made Tom the topic of my last blog!) I hope we can still be blog friends. 🙂
I appreciate your viewpoint. When Tom’s story came around, I was thinking about a certain type of Moho’s I witness on the various message boards and other bloggers. They are sad, lonely, and depressed. When they develop feelings for a guy, they’re immediately told to squash those thoughts and repent. I hate seeing it. (I wish I could just “Let it Go” when it comes to the lives of other gay Mormons, but I just can’t.) I was thinking a bit of Tom’s story could trickle down to these guys and give them some hope.
I failed, though, to think about your story and you’ve opened up my eyes to how Tom’s life can piss someone off! I’m sorry you’ve gone through hell with the church and its members.
No! Your post was great! But something had been festering in me regarding that story… I couldn’t realize why I had such a negative reaction to some of those MoHOs … writing this helped me figure it out. I totally get where you were coming from. It IS hopeful for guys who are still making those decisions for their future.
But are any of the faithful gay Mormon stories really what the church has encouraged? NO none of them have followed the church’s counsel. They’ve created their own little sub-religion in their heads. Especially Ty Mansfield and Josh Weed! The church has been very clear about not focusing too much on “SSA” and not meeting with others with the same “problem.” That’s all these guys do is talk about it.
I get pissed off even more just writing about it! LOL
I really relate to this blog post. I feel like our paths were very similar. I feel a lot of this resentment too from time to time.
I too, don’t understand why some do A and get B, while others do A and get H. I am sorry for the struggles you, or anyone else like us, go through. I understand your anger and resentment. I am glad, however, that you find ways to your peaceful strength.
Thanks so much Trevor. Blogging also helps a great deal!
Wow, this is really a great post. Thank you for honestly sharing your feelings. I think your feelings are totally understandable, and I think you might be “beating yourself up” a bit when you indicate that feeling those feelings to the point of expression makes you have what you call “prodigal brother syndrome” in a way that reflects poorly on your character.
Thanks for your comment Trev. I guess it really was a reflection on the type of character I want to have.
Thank you for your honesty. Anyone who is LGBTQ and LDS has the same kind of conflicted feelings regardless of where they end up with regards to the church. I had a room mate at BYU (now married to a woman and has two kids) who I suspect is gay (though likely never acted on it). I do wonder how he has done it because there is no way I could have been in a heterosexual marriage. Dishonest to myself. Dishonest to the woman. Unfair to the kids when the inevitable breakup came (or worse – I honestly might have killed myself if forced to marry a woman). I guess each of us have to live our own reality. Being honest to ones self means different things to different people. I just wish everyone would accept that we all don’t fit into the same mold. If It works for Tom Christofferson (and others) to attend church as an excommunicated gay man more power to him. I could not do it and don’t want to be part of any organization that will not treat me as a full equal. I would not react well if LDS family members asked me why I could not be more like Tom. And it is likely that as his story becomes more well known someone in my family is going to ask me.
Thanks for your comment Edward. I think you touched on another reason that I find it irritating to read about him. As much as he or any of those guys claim they’re not advocating that anyone follow their path, that’s the message our Mormon families hear regardless. It feels almost like a betrayal by one of your own… even though I can see the difference.