Here we go again

The legislature of the state where I live is just about to enact marriage equality for same-sex couples. A number of Republicans have crossed party lines to support the bill. There is good public support for the proposed law, and the governor has pledged to sign it.

In other words, it's only a matter of weeks before Tobi and I will be equal to other couples under state law. (Federal law is another matter.)

Religious conservatives have vowed to place a Prop. 8-style referendum on the November ballot that would reverse the action of the legislature and write discrimination against gay families into our state's constitution.

Powerful out-of-state interests, such as the fact-challenged and unscrupulous National Organization for Marriage (NOM), are swooping in with seemingly limitless funds. It's looking virtually certain that I'm going to have to live through a year of high-profile political campaigning that is specifically targeted against me and my family. To say that I'm not looking forward to it would be an understatement.

Unlike Maine and Minnesota, there are a lot of Mormons where I live, probably as many or more as California as a percentage of the population. A lot of these folks are prosperous and have the means to contribute to lavish political campaigns. What will the LDS Church ask its members to do?

I'm not going to make predictions. My track record on predicting what the LDS leadership will do on this issue is poor. (I was completely blindsided by Prop. 8.) However, it's worth looking at the Church's options.

1- Do nothing. There are expensive billboards all over my town with smiling, racially-diverse faces saying "I'm a Mormon!" Public engagement in controversial, divisive politics would undo every bit of this campaign, and more. The Church might decide that it's just not worth the cost.

As an aside, the folks I've talked to who've seen the mormon.org ads think that they are weird and creepy. People are justifiably suspicious of advertising that does not directly state its value proposition. It's what scammers do.

2- Act covertly. The LDS Church could easily act by proxy simply by funding an organization like NOM. Such funds are untraceable. There are existing ties to NOM: the Church helped create this organization back in the Prop. 8 days, and highly-placed Mormons have been on its board of directors. In any case, NOM isn't the only channel the Church might use. There are other ways to work behind the scenes without being detected.

3- Use code words to ensure deniability. The Church might try to have it both ways. We saw this in Minnesota with advice from the pulpit to "Prayerfully read the [anti-gay] Proclamation and vote your conscience." Anyone who has had even brief exposure to Mormon culture knows what a verb in the imperative mood means when modified by the adverb "prayerfully."

4- Repeat the Prop. 8 fiasco. It's possible that the Church could turn its meetinghouses into precinct halls as it did in California. As hard as it is to believe, they might willingly sign up to repeat the Prop. 8 PR train wreck.

So that covers what the LDS Church might do. But a more important question is what I should do. Clearly, this is an issue that is close to me. So far I've committed to donate money to the cause of marriage equality, and I may end up on the phone banks if my stomach can take it.

But I have another thought, which I want to throw out for consideration, dear readers. It's an idea so crazy it just might work.

What if I went back to church?

The idea is this: attend sacrament meeting for the four months before the election. I (and any who joined me) would simply be present during the meetings on a weekly basis. If I did this, I'd make sure to be extremely quiet and respectful. If the folks at the pulpit wanted to speak against me and my family, they'd have to do it to my face. If I had a chance to meet any of the members or leaders personally (for example, in the foyer afterwards), I'd be open to hearing them out and might even invite them to dinner at my home if I got to know them a bit.

I think I'm at a point with my Mormon identity where I could do this. I feel no need to challenge anyone on points of doctrine or any other topic. I just want members of my tribe to look me in the eye and say whatever they have to say to my face.

One glitch is that Tobi has a very bad impression of Mormons. I'm pretty sure he'd rather swim in a sewage pond than step foot in an LDS chapel, and I'm not sure how he'd react to LDS dinner guests. He might have to stay out of this plan.

What do you guys think? Is this a horrible idea? Does it have a possibility of doing any good? Would I just be signing myself up for unproductive conflict?

Losing one's religion

I just spent some time watching an "exit interview" with a CES instructor and his wife who recently resigned from the LDS Church. I highly recommend it. It's a great window into the conflicts that many orthodox members of the Church experience, especially with respect to the Church's rejection of gay people. I found it interesting that the couple's disaffection began with cognitive dissonance about a friendship they formed with a gay man and his partner.

You can check it out here. If you are a believing, participating member of the Church you might find this interview useful in better understanding what people who leave go through. If you are an unorthodox or secular Mormon, it's required viewing. :- )

Pet parrot attacks Mormon missionaries

OK, this is just a diversion from our normal fare. It's a short clip (2'38") of a pet parrot who goes after two Mormon missionaries.



I have to say that this brought back some memories. A missionary companion and I were once attacked by two geese with serious anger issues. Ah, the memories!

Via: Reuben's Cube

Toward a post-heterosexual Mormon theology

One of the big Mormon blogs had a discussion on a recent Dialogue article that explored the potential for a gay-affirming version of LDS theology. It took me a couple of hours to read the article and the long thread of comments. It is an interesting presentation and discussion. If you have a couple of hours to burn, check it out.

The article questions whether gender exists and if it exists whether it is eternal. It then argues that if gender is not an essential, eternal attribute of a person, our expectations for straights-only exaltation might be open to revision. (This is a gross abbreviation of a much longer argument.)

Here’s my reaction, for what it’s worth. I’m not sure the point we should be considering is whether gender matters or is eternal. I think it’s pretty obvious that gender matters– if it didn’t then gay Mormons would just marry members of the opposite sex and those marriages would do as well as any others, or equivalently, it would easy for straight people to successfully marry members of the same sex. Clearly, this is not the case. When it comes to the formation of durable pair bonds, gender matters. A lot. We shouldn’t be arguing for the elimination or negation of gender.

It’s also easy to imagine that gender identity persists in the hereafter. LDS tradition tells us that there will be a continuity of personality and identity between our mortal and post-mortal selves. Given how deeply rooted gender identity and sexual orientation seem to be in people, this doesn’t seem like much of a stretch for Mormons to accept theologically. Eternal life where we are not “ourselves” is something other than eternal life.

I guess my question on the theological issue is how eternal the concept of patriarchy might be. Using Wikipedia’s definition, in patriarchy "the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization." In other words, it’s not so much that gender exists and is important to relationships, it’s whether gender disqualifies a person from participation in all aspects of society, including marriage and social leadership. This is a much, much bigger issue than just how we treat gay people.

It's interesting to note that there is a strict correlation across cultures in how women and homosexuals are treated. Compare, for example, Holland versus Saudi Arabia. In strongly patriarchal cultures like Saudi Arabia women are excluded from public life, and homosexuals are put to death. Cultures that have rejected patriarchy, such as Holland, open their society to participation by women in every way and see families headed by same-sex spouses as equal to all other families. Does the society of the Celestial Kingdom more resemble Holland or Saudi Arabia? Right now, the CK is trending toward the Saudi way of doing things-- our Heavenly Mother is mutely sequestered away, polygamy worthy of the FLDS is still the social order, and gay people are excommunicated from the Kingdom by male agents of a male deity. It couldn't be more of a sausage fest.

Thus, the question isn't whether gender is eternal, it's whether eternity is led by the male gender.

Of course, there is an ongoing conversation in Mormon culture on this topic. It is one of Mormonism’s central tensions right now. The earthly church is straining in the direction of Holland even as the folks with their hands on the tiller are pointing it toward Saudi Arabia.

I'm an optimist. The winds will prevail. Tulips and cheese are in our future.

Crazy Mormon love

The radio program This American Life had an episode where a young gay Mormon describes his (inappropriate) crush on another Mormon guy. It's funny, poignant, utterly insane and oh so Mormon. You can listen to it here. It's called "Benny Takes a Jet" and runs 13 minutes.

You have to listen to this. It's a great story.

Update: Benny has a longer video interview here if you're curious about the person behind the story.

A professor talks about her gay Mormon students

I read a very good essay by a non-Mormon Utah State professor about her experiences in rural Utah. What she has to say about her gay Mormon students is particularly interesting.

I won't quote her. Instead, I recommend just reading the whole article.

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Via: Andrew Sullivan

Linens for the sacrament table

For as long as I can remember as a child and adolescent my mother would care for the linens used at the sacrament table. I don't think anyone asked her to do this. She was never called and set apart, yet she carefully washed, starched and ironed the sacrament linens regularly. The sacrament table, when prepared, was always perfect in a way that only freshly starched linens can achieve. I also have a (vague) memory of her buying linens for the sacrament table with her own money. I don't know if this was standard at the time in the "mission field" where we lived, but my mother made sure that the tablecloths were of very high quality. I remember that they were of a luxurious weave and had white embroidery.

When I became a teenager it was my job as a male, of course, to help prepare the sacrament. I noticed at the time a difference between the attitude of devotion that my mother had in caring for the sacrament linens (I should also mention that she treated the cloth itself with respect, as if it were holy) and the casual, sometimes disrespectful manner of the boys who prepared the sacrament table. This difference in attitude registered with me, but as a teenager I didn't have the maturity to understand what it meant.

I doubt that my mother ever got a word of thanks for the many years of service she performed. I know that she was not looking for thanks. I think it was simply an act of worship.

Today I have mixed emotions about what my mother did. On the one hand, I admire her devotion, constancy and willingness to honor to symbols that were sacred to her. On the other hand, I have a hard time reconciling that with the public gratitude that was often expressed over the pulpit for the pimply, barely interested adolescent boys (myself included in this sorry lot) who performed the ritual. I have a hard time interpreting this as anything other than even more evidence that men and boys are valued and celebrated in ways that women and girls are not in LDS culture.

My mother (who was born in the first quarter of the 20th century) was of another era. She was extraordinarily bright and talented; she gave up graduate school in a scientific field to marry my father (women's options were not then what they are now); she raised five children. She was my father's equal in every way, yet it was my father who as stake president called bishops and organized the multimillion dollar building program of our stake. My father got an incredible amount of adulation for what he did while my mother starched the sacrament linens, unnoticed. I wonder in the end whose act of devotion meant more.

I think the LDS insistence on "eternal gender" is misplaced. There's absolutely no reason to segregate men's and women's ecclesiastical responsibilities. There's no reason whatsoever to value the contributions of one group of people over another and to exclude whole categories of people from leadership. I, for one, would love to see Carol Lynn Pearson called to the Quorum of the Twelve, and I think my mother should have been the bishop of my ward.