Husband-in-Law
I had the opportunity of virtually sitting down with Steve, Jessica, and Matt over at the Husband-in-Law podcast to talk about my experience growing up gay in the Mormon church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint)(LDS) and going through conversion therapy while I was a Mormon missionary in Atlanta, Georgia. This is all part of a memoir that I’ve been working on for the past several years, tentatively titled, A History of the Problem: A Latter-day Memoir. I want to clarify a couple of things:
(1) I wrongly cited Ezra Taft Benson—sorry, I’ve been out of the church for awhile—as the author of the popular (among Mormons) book, The Miracle of Forgiveness, when in fact it was Spencer W. Kimball, the twelfth president/prophet of the Mormon Church, that authored The Miracle of Forgiveness, and taught that homosexuality was curable: “In 1970, Kimball was involved in creating an LDS publication for church leaders to ‘assist them to effect a cure and ... become normal again.’ The pamphlet taught that church leaders may assist gay members by reciting scripture; appealing to their reason; encouraging them to abandon gay lovers and associates; praying with them; and encouraging them to replace any sexual expression of their homosexual feelings with heterosexual expressions like opposite-sex dating. The pamphlet emphasized that ‘[h]omosexuality CAN be cured.’”
(2) I never fully explained what I found to be so compelling about the “clinical hugging” that I witnessed while watching the recorded Evergreen workshops. One of the things that the modern Mormon Church teaches is that you can be “openly” gay and active in the church—like the Charlie Bird’s of the church—the “sin” is in acting upon the feelings of same sex attraction. However, when I was watching those recordings of Evergreen workshops, in 2002, one could not be openly gay and a member. Acting upon it has never been an option if you want to keep your membership in good standing. And so I found it compelling that, at those workshops, the men were allowed to embrace each other in this brotherly, intimate way seemingly as a kind of consolation prize for their attendance—like, here’s a hug, don’t let it go any further. Intimacy, as we all know is so important to human growth, and a hug is one of the most intimate experiences two people can share. Clearly, the church understands this, and yet they deprive their gay members from engaging intimately with someone of the same sex without also facing the potential and damning consequence of excommunication. Still, I cannot make sense of the way that same-sex intimacy is coded as a threat to members of the Mormon Church and the Plan of Salvation—it’s a contradiction to everything Christ teaches us about love.
(3) My main issue with gay members choosing to stay in the Mormon Church—the Charlie Bird’s of the church—is that the Mormon Church teaches its members that the only way to become exalted in the afterlife is through the ordinance of eternal marriage; and gay members are not allowed to be in partnerships, and if they are in a same-sex partnership, they are not allowed to be married in the Mormon Temple. Therefore, they cannot be exalted in the afterlife. Gay members remain spiritually sick in the eyes of the Church (and most of its members), whether they adhere to its most strict of policies or not.
Finally, the story I told today, in the podcast, isn’t the whole story, but a condensed version of the story. However, I want to make myself very clear about the dangers of conversion therapy: it is harmful and I was lucky to have gotten out after only three years and to have had wonderful (and actual) licensed clinical therapists that helped me to unlearn the damaging messages conversion therapy taught me about myself, love, and the gay community. For the rest of the story, you’ll have to read the memoir. More details about that to come.