Shame, Faith, Fear, and Joy

Another late night blog post. This one is for Alex. Tonight, he is extremely scared that his roommate has inadvertently learned about his SSA. As such, Alex is having a hard time. He’s scared to talk to his roommate about it, but he also is scared to just wait and hope for it to blow over. In the midst of that, he has been dealing with shame surrounding his SSA these last few days, which I didn’t realize.

In texting me about his fears and his shame, Alex said to me “I don’t want to deal with this! Why What awful thing did I do before this life to merit dealing with such a terrible punishment? I just want to be normal! I just want to be happy… I haven’t been truly happy for years. What does God want from me now? Sometimes I just wish God would just let me be.” My heart broke getting these texts from Alex after I left his place. I’ve been there… I think many members of the church with SSA have been there… we struggle with “Why would God give me something so controversial?” However, there is no simple answer to that question.

I don’t know why I have this attraction to men. I don’t know why the Lord gave it to me. However, there are some things I do know. Number one: If I serve God and love Him, all things will work together for my good. Number two: I know that every trial I go through will give me experience and will benefit me in the end. In may not be soon, Alex, but as you continue to follow the Lord, you will begin to see your SSA as a blessing more and as a curse less. Number three: Our purpose here in this life, and God’s purpose for sending us here, is to make us happy and give us joy. He will NEVER give us anything that is intended to cause us misery if we give it time. Yes, things are hard and we get sad and hurt sometimes, but no, we don’t have to stay that way. Number four: Jesus Christ, our Older Brother, our Savior, and our Redeemer, felt all the sadness, pain, hurt, and shame that we go through in this life. The beautiful thing about that is that He could have learned how that hurt and shame felt through the Spirit, but He chose to experience it for Himself because He loves YOU so much. He is your friend and He will never abandon you.

I wish I could formulate my words better, but it is past 1:00 AM and all I can do right now is to bear my testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And there is no way I know better to bear testimony of it than how I have already done, by referencing scripture. The Lord loves you and that will NEVER change. To Alex, everything will be okay. To everyone else, please keep Alex in your prayers.

MormonsAndGays.org

About a month and a half ago, the Church released a new website entitled “Love One Another: A Discussion on Same-Sex Attraction”. I’d heard about this website a couple weeks before its release, but I was still blown away by it!

The very top of the website begins with words from Elder Oaks and Elder Christofferson, clarifying the Church’s position on homosexuality. I loved what Elder Oaks had to say! He mentions that the Church’s view of homosexual activity hasn’t changed and isn’t changing. From a public relations perspective, it would be easier to accept homosexuality, but that can’t happen, because it’s God’s law and not ours. I have heard many people express opinions like “It’s only a matter of time until the Church changes its policy about gay marriage.” Honestly, these comments break my heart. I can understand why someone would yearn for that to be the case… because the alternative could mean living alone as a single adult throughout the rest of their life.

The rest of the website goes over several topics (including “Our Common Humanity”, “Love One Another—The Great Christian Imperative”, “An Eternal Perspective”, “Being True to Religious Beliefs”, and “Hope”) and each section includes videos of people who experience same-sex attraction, spouses of those individuals, and parents and grandparents of them. The stories and feelings that they share are tender and powerful to me.

Of course I was happy to see my hero, Ty Mansfield, among those individuals. In a ten-minute clip, he shares his story and his journey to finding reconciliation between his sexuality and his faith. One thing that he addresses which rings true with me is the need to release himself from cultural expectations. I’ll be honest, sometimes (often) it gets annoying to hear people (especially leaders) harp on us about dating and marriage here at BYU (personally, I don’t think it does any good). To me it just tends to weight me down and remind me of how far I am from getting there. Yes I’ve been attracted to women before, but I still feel very far from that goal.

However, I like what Ty says… this is between me and God. Yes, that’s the expectations around me. But no, that’s not necessarily what God expects of me right now. He knows I want to get married and I believe that as I follow the Spirit, I’ll get there on the Lord’s timetable. I love the way that Ty phrased the impression he’d had: “Just stay with me.” Live each day and focus on staying close to the Lord and what He wants you to do and you’ll get to where He wants you to be.

I am grateful that the Lord and the Brethren care enough about us, the “gay” Mormons, the minority, that they had this website created to teach us and to teach all members of the Church how to love better and how to show that charity to our brothers and sisters who have such unique trials that not everyone understands. I am grateful for the knowledge of the Atonement and that above all else, even if we have to take it one day at a time, it gets better, because of the Gospel.

PS: For any who are wondering about Alex and how it went with his parents, it couldn’t have gone better! He wrote a post about it on his blog.

It Only Takes One

Last semester I hit a period of time (I can’t remember if it was a matter of days or weeks) in September when I got frustrated with myself. While my roommates were talking about cute girls they’d met and/or were asking out, I was mentally by myself. What was wrong with me that I didn’t notice these girls? I’ve noticed girls before. Sure, they don’t usually make my head turn every time, but I’ve had crushes on girls before. Instead of meeting girls and desiring to go out with them, I was noticing guys and fighting my attractions to them. Why was it so difficult?

It was during that time that I’d gotten into the habit of going up to Lehi for Sunday dinners with Eric and his family and getting to play with his cute daughter. One Sunday as I was leaving, I got talking to Eric about stuff that was going on (seems to happen often with us, making two-minute goodbyes last about half an hour or longer). Of course it was during one of these conversations that I told Eric what had been bothering me about my lack of attraction to women.

His advice hit me as a “duh!” answer. He reminded me that it doesn’t matter if I’m attracted to every woman. In the end, I only get to marry one anyway. As obvious as it was, I don’t think I’m the only one that could benefit from this advice. I’ve talked to other guys with same-sex attraction that have been discouraged about dating and marriage because they don’t get attracted to girls. So what, guys? No one ever said you had to be. In fact, some people find it easier not to be attracted to all women (you’ll have to check out the link to see what I meant).

At the Logan temple; If I'm single, I might
as well enjoy a few more excursions like this 

I’ll say it again though. You only marry one; you don’t need to be attracted to them all. It only takes one! Another thing Eric reminded me about is that just because you get married doesn’t mean your attractions go away (to the same or opposite sex). A married straight guy is still attracted by women other than his wife. In that sense, change (in the sense of sexual orientation) isn’t all or nothing. I know several married people with SSA that were not attracted to anyone of the opposite sex until they met their spouses.

In the meantime though, be happy with where you are. If you’re single, enjoy being single (married people miss it sometimes). If you’re married, enjoy your spouse and be grateful for him/her (you have someone very precious to take care of). Enjoy life in no matter what stage you’re in! Remember the Lord in all things you do. Look forward to the blessings He has promised you as you remain worthy and remember that He will not hold back any blessings in the eternities (including marriage) that you live worthy of. And always remember that, even if today isn’t so good, because of the Atonement, you can trust and have hope that it’ll get better.

Now Taking Bets

This week during my LDS Marriage and Family class, my teacher mentioned a program he’d seen on television where they brought on a group of teenage/young adult stars that had committed themselves to being sexually clean. He said it began as a really great testimony of these young adults’ use of agency. However, then they brought on an “expert” (which made my professor shudder) who claimed that based on hormone levels at their age, it was impossible for them to be 100% sexually clean. Even if it wasn’t with other people, he claimed they must be sexually active in some way in order to survive.

The comment made my blood boil as it reminded me of something I’d seen on Danielle Mansfield’s Facebook wall last month… She had stumbled across comments somewhere taking bets on when her marriage to Ty and Josh and Lolly Weed’s marriage would end up in divorce. The idea in the world is that “gay” men in a heterosexual marriage will inevitably leave their wives because of their desires for other men. Call me naïve, but it doesn’t make sense to me. After all, the Lord has promised that He will give us a way to escape temptation and that He will ALWAYS provide a way for us to follow His commandments.

As I’ve mentioned before, Ty and Danielle have been receiving persecution about their marriage for years. And ever since his coming out, so have Josh and Lolly Weed. For some reason it seems that those who ask for tolerance are not able to tolerate that there are men like Ty and Josh who do not choose to live the way of the world. In addition to them, I know several men with same-sex attraction who are in heterosexual marriages. At the AMCAP conference, I actually heard one of their wives say that her marriage is better because of it, because it means that they communicate with each other better. Josh Weed said on his blog that his marriage is stronger because it was not based on attraction, but based on love and friendship. Yes, there are many stories of gay men getting married and then leaving their wives for other men. I’m not denying that. However, we have agency, the power to write our own stories and the stories I’ve seen in the LDS SSA community of those men and women who have found marriage have been written beautifully.

Yeah, people say that it’s impossible for a marriage like the Mansfield’s or the Weed’s to stay together. When I get married, people may say the same thing about me and my wife. However, no matter what gender they’re attracted to, a man and a woman, committed to each other, and committed to God can choose with certainty that it won’t happen. Yes, there’s work involved to keep that marriage together. But there’s work to keep any marriage together (side-note: there are plenty of straight couples that get divorced because one is unfaithful).

The world has its beliefs. And honestly, lots of the time, the world’s beliefs do not line up with what the Lord’s standard is. However, no matter what the world says, I have my agency to choose the path I want. Sure, I could choose a gay lifestyle, but I choose to use my agency to say no, because that’s not what I want. And it’s because of the Atonement (and through the proper use of our agency) that it gets better.

PS: My bet is that Ty and Danielle will be together through eternity, as will Josh and Lolly. And I have good odds on that. J

Q&A Session #2

Truth be told, I’m kinda looking for an excuse to write tonight, so I decided to pull out some questions I’ve been saving for another SSA Q&A blog post. With that said, here we go with the two questions I have for today…

Question: Doesn’t being “gay” mean you’re acting on your same-sex attraction? Isn’t that the implication of the word?

Answer: The simple answer is yes. That’s the implication. The complex answer is that it’s a word. In the end, we have our meanings behind words that may or may not match up with others’ meanings of that word. Personally, I choose not to call myself gay… ok, yes, sometimes I do, but I don’t consider myself gay… it’s just a lot easier sometimes to say “gay” instead of “same-sex attraction” (my friend David hit on that point really well on a blog post he did over two years ago). And I’ll be honest, sometimes I’ll use the word gay to catch people’s eye when I share a post on Facebook. I promise; it works. For me though, no, I do not consider myself gay. However, the label is arbitrary to some. For example, Josh Weed refers to himself as gay, even though he’s married to a woman. My friend Benjamin calls himself gay, though he has no plans to leave the church or anything of the sort. In the end, here’s the thing: “gay” is a just word and it often changes meaning depending on who’s using it, so know who you’re talking to and clarify the use of the word if necessary.

Question: How do you feel SSA plays into your eternal identity? What do you feel it will be like after this life? Will your desires be the same?

Answer: The short answer to this question is that, in my understanding, I will not be attracted to men anymore after this life. Some people counter this belief with Alma 34:34, but I’ll counter that counter with Alma 41:5. Honestly, I feel that my SSA is both a trial and a blessing in this life. It’s a trial because I’m tempted to act out with men sexually. It’s a blessing because I enjoy a non-sexual closeness with other men that most straight guys don’t, because of the homophobic mindset of our culture. I thoroughly enjoy tight hugs (not bro-hugs, with a double pat on the back before letting go, but real hugs) from other men and having another man’s arm around me at times. After this life, the SSA won’t be necessary for me to feel that closeness with other men (because there won’t be the homophobic stigma anymore). In the end, it is a refining characteristic. It has helped me develop charity, empathy, and a degree of humility. I believe it has made me more Christ-like. In that way, I suppose it will never leave me. However, the sexual attraction to men will not be a trial for me after this life anymore. I desire righteousness, so that’s what I will receive if I live worthily.

Please send me any questions you have about SSA! I want to answer them! :) Either leave them in the comments or email me (spencer3101@gmail.com)!