Love the People, Hate the Policy

Thoughts from an apostate on the Mormon Church’s same-sex marriage rules

As I reached my row on the crowded airplane on Saturday, I sighed when I saw my seatmate, an older woman with a pleasant face and a bright, welcoming smile. At that exact moment, my Facebook feed was filled with stories of pain and heartache, reactions to the harsh news from the Mormon Brethren in Salt Lake that defined same-sex marriage as apostasy, and worse, denied children of gay married couples any access to saving ordinances until they turned 18 and renounced their parents.

And now I would have to spend two hours sitting next to a Mormon grandmother. I steeled myself for the worst.

I am a Mormon apostate. In 2008, when my marriage ended, I was going through an even more painful faith transition that tore apart everything I had ever believed about life. With the help of a kind LDS therapist, I learned about cognitive dissonance, and I was slowly able to accept that I was not broken, even though my progressive values did not align with the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I later joined the Catholic Church, an act defined in the Mormon Church’s Handbook as grounds for excommunication, though I was never summoned to a church disciplinary court.

I formally resigned from the LDS Church in 2014, and now I attend a Unitarian Universalist congregation, though I still identify theologically, for the most part, as Catholic (like many Catholics, I’ve embraced the cafeteria approach to religious teachings). The Unitarians have long provided a haven of humanistic grace for those seeking to escape the harmful effects of soul-damaging dogma. I expect many righteous Mormon saints who were personally affected by the same-sex marriage policy may find a home there, a place where they can cherish their heritage while distancing themselves from this most recent painful enforcement of The Proclamation on the (White, Heterosexual, Affluent) Family.

I’m not going to write about why the Church Handbook changes are viewed by so many as divisive, hateful, and contrary to Christ’s teachings. That subject has been thoroughly covered in numerous blog posts that exploded onto the Internet after the changes were leaked.  Nor am I going to expound on the disturbing fact that so many faithful LDS members flinched when they learned about this policy (we call that reaction “the still small voice” in Mormon-speak), then turned away from their initial response and worked very hard to justify the church’s hateful words as something born of “love.”

Instead, I want to share what my faithful Mormon American Airlines seatmate reminded me of during the course of our flight.

Though this policy is hateful, many (if not most) Mormons are in fact filled with love.

As an acknowledged apostate, I have felt that love over and over again since I left the church. Two of my children are being raised LDS because I agreed to it after my divorce. Their leaders have always included me (an apostate) in their activities. Relief Society sisters have frequently brought me (an apostate) meals; one former visiting teacher even cleaned my kitchen while I was at work and left me freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

When I lost my job, my sons’ bishop took me (an apostate) aside and said, “I know you’re not a member anymore, but we still love you. If you need anything at all, come to us. We will help.” And I knew he meant it. Another Relief Society President stopped by with flowers and a card, “just because.” Some of my children’s ward members came to celebrate Midnight Mass with me (an apostate) one Christmas, and I am still regularly invited by Mormon directors to participate in interfaith choirs each holiday season.

These loving Mormons understand and respect that I no longer share their faith. And they love me anyway, not in a “love the sinner, hate the sin,” way, but in a genuine, Christ-like “love one another” way.

A song I learned as a child in Primary (Mormon Sunday School) has helped me to understand (though I cannot support) where the new Handbook policy is coming from. Here are some of the lyrics: “Keep the commandments, keep the commandments. In this, there is safety. In this, there is peace.” The Proclamation on the Family, supported now by the new church policies on apostasy and same-sex marriage, helps conservative, traditional LDS families to feel safe and at peace. Many identify this very issue as their “freedom of religion,” and they see that “freedom” attacked on all sides by the “world.”

But I prefer Mormons—and I know plenty of them, including the woman who so serendipitously sat beside me on my flight—who sing a different Primary tune: “Jesus said love everyone, treat them kindly too. When your heart is filled with love, others will love you.”

Policies may set the rules, however harsh and unforgiving.  But people determine how those rules are interpreted and applied. If my LDS friends are any indication, creative leaders and ward members will continue to find ways to embrace people who don’t fit the narrow standard defined by the Proclamation on the Family. I hate this Mormon policy. But I still love my Mormon people.

Family Values

Lessons from two very different flags

Our family is complicated. Like many other Americans, my second husband Ed and I are both divorced from our first spouses. Ed has no children of his own and thinks that “our” four (plus our very lively cat) are more than enough. My children’s father has also remarried, so my children have step-siblings and a half-sibling to add to their postmodern family tree. We are all white and middle class, and we live in one of the most politically conservative and the least racially diverse states in the nation: Idaho.

One of the biggest challenges of raising children after a divorce is navigating the space between very different sets of parental values. My younger two children are being raised in a faith tradition that historically discriminated against blacks and that continues to prescribe rigid gender roles.  I support their father’s decision to take them to the Mormon church because I don’t think religion is worth fighting about, and because my own Latter-day Saint parents managed to raise children who were respectful and tolerant of others. But I cannot remain silent about my values, even when they conflict with what my children learn in church.

In light of a landmark week for gay rights and racial discrimination, I asked my children what they knew about two very different flags. “A flag is a symbol,” my 11 year old told me. “It represents a country or an organization.” As we talked about the Confederate flag, I asked them what it symbolized. “Isn’t it the Civil War or something?” my 10 year old daughter said. I explained that for many people, the flag was associated with slavery and oppression.

“But didn’t Dr. Martin Luther King fix all that?” my daughter said. “I thought he made it so that black people and white people were equal.”

White people say things like this all the time. They say, “Oh, we have a black president now, so we can’t be a racist country,” or “Oh, we have affirmative action policies, so white males are actually the victims of discrimination” (Yes, I have actually heard this phrase come out of more than one white man’s mouth).

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over and over again these past few years, from the Trayvon Martin shooting to the tragedy in Charleston, it’s that Americans are decidedly not “over” racial discrimination. As a parent of white children, it’s my duty to teach them to use their privilege to be allies to those who do not share that privilege. My children were shocked as I explained to them how black mothers and fathers were afraid for their teenage sons, because they could actually be shot and killed, just for being teenagers.  “That’s not fair,” my son said. “That’s not right.” Exactly.

Then we talked about another flag: the rainbow flag that symbolizes the LGBT pride movement.  The Mormon church, along with many other conservative Christian churches, has been and continues to be a vocal opponent of gay marriage.  I actually do feel some empathy for people who fear that their deeply held religious convictions are being challenged by last week’s Supreme Court ruling supporting gay marriage. But in listening to some of my conservative Christian friends, I think there’s a basic misunderstanding of what the ruling really means. No church is going to have to marry gay people. The decision does not at all impact their religious freedom, any more than the long overdue imminent removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s state capitol impacts individual freedom of speech.

I told my children that I think the First Amendment is one of the things that makes America a great country. Every person who wants to display the Confederate flag on his or her front lawn or white Chevy pickup truck should unequivocally have the right to do so. But any person who wants to fly the rainbow flag should and must have that same right. The government should not sanction discrimination of any kind. And as a parent, I have the power to teach my children tolerance and respect for differences and to encourage them to speak up for those who are oppressed.

That’s one thing I have learned from my conservative Christian friends: We shouldn’t be afraid to share our values. In the end, no matter what your family looks like—black, white, gay, straight, or some combination of all of these—the love you share is what matters. Love wins.

Add the Words

Why sexual orientation and gender identity matter to me

#addthewords #Idleg pic.twitter.com/bFyO78Bn6Z
— Liza Long (@anarchistmom) February 17, 2014

Katie M. (not her real name) was my best friend in high school. Tall, blonde, and beautiful, she introduced her simple, unsophisticated Mormon classmate to foreign cinema and the Smiths, while I returned the cultural exchange with apricot Jello and Wednesday night Mutual activities. A gifted artist, Katie passed me notes that were illuminated manuscripts, masterpieces of satiric humor. Once a month on a Friday, we would skip school and pursue our own education at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts—my mom was more than happy to write a note stating (honestly): “Liza did not feel like coming to school on Friday.” At our Texas high school graduation ceremony, Katie was the only woman in a pants suit—in her muted yellow, wide-legged costume, she looked like a young Katherine Hepburn.

My Dad had already accepted a transfer to Bakersfield, California, and two days after I graduated, Katie and I watched as movers loaded up the contents of my parents’ two-story Tudor style home. I was sad to leave my boyfriend and Katie behind (the boyfriend and I broke up shortly afterward. Katie and I are friends to this day). Katie had already arranged to visit me in July; we had been planning a road trip to San Francisco during our senior year’s final semester.

A week later, I got her letter. Written on thick cream colored paper in her distinctive bold, backward-slanted hand, were words that would change how I felt about sexual orientation forever.

“I can’t keep this a secret from you any longer,” she wrote. “I am gay. I have always been this way. It is not a choice.”

“I know you probably will never speak to me again,” she continued. “I know how important your church is to you, and how they feel about homosexuality. But I have to tell you the truth.”

I put the letter down. And that’s when I realized that knowing what I knew now about Katie didn’t change how I felt about her. Not one bit. I loved her as one of my dearest friends before I knew she was gay, and I still loved her.

I also felt immediately ashamed as I remembered the Mutual activities she had attended with me at the LDS church. In one activity, a leader explained how AIDS (a new disease in those days) was God’s specific curse for homosexuals, a modern day scourge for our nation’s new Sodom and Gomorrah. Had Katie flinched? Had I noticed? We talked about that—and other things—on our road trip that summer. We talked about what it meant to be a gay teenager, about the prejudice and painful stigma. These were things I had never known. My worst experiences in high school had involved a toxic bout of highly visible acne in ninth grade. That was nothing compared to the anguish Katie felt as she realized how difficult her life path would be.

I still love Katie today. And I think she has just as much right to marry her life partner—a lovely, brilliant woman—as I have to marry mine (and he is all guy).

That’s why I spent my lunch hour at the Idaho State Capitol building today.

My state, along with many other states, is in the midst of a new civil rights war. State Senator Lynn Luker, a Mormon from Meridian, has proposed legislation that would allow people to deny services to other people on the basis of their religious beliefs. As Magic Valley Times reporter Kimberlee Kruesi reported:

Under the bill, doctors could deny providing medical treatment to gay people or even unmarried mothers and not lose their medical license. The same would be allowed for teachers to deny educating one of their students if they were gay.  

Meanwhile, the LDS church has joined other religious organizations in actively fighting against the legalization of gay marriage in Utah, claiming that it is not bigotry but concern for children’s welfare that drives their opposition as well as a defense of so-called "traditional marriage" between a man and a woman as the only type of marriage sanctioned by God. I’m sorry, but the whole “It’s not me; it’s my God who is a bigot” statement  just isn’t going to cut it as an argument against fairness, decency, and dare I say it, love.

The God I believe in is all about love. And love—transformational, all consuming, non-judging—is not present in Senator Luker’s bill.  In all fairness to my LDS friends, many of them disagree with Senator Luker’s hateful stance and support former Idaho State Senator Nicole LeFavour’s brave crusade to add the words—see Joanna Brooks’s Ask Mormon Girl, or pretty much the whole gang at Feminist Mormon Housewives.

But this isn’t just a religious or civil rights debate to me. Respecting and protecting people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a mental health issue. Our children are dying. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for children and young adults ages 10-24. A disproportionate number of these young people are LGBTQ. 

Our refusal to love and accept our children for who they are is leading to their deaths, as In theParlor blogger and youth pastor Tyler Smither noted:

"We are now faced with the reality that there are lives at stake. So whatever you believe about homosexuality, keep it to yourself. Instead, try telling a gay kid that you love him and you don’t want him to die."

What kind of God would want a young person to take his or her own life because of persecution and rejection? Not the God who said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Another Christian, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin put it bluntly: ““Anybody who doesn’t show love towards gay and lesbian people is insulting God. They are not just homophobic if they do that–they are actually Godophobic because God loves every one of those people.”

When I was a Mormon (a phrase that increasingly feels like “once upon a time” to me), our Sunday School teachers told us that we already knew who would win the great war between good and evil. I can now extrapolate that lesson to this current fight to deny our friends and neighbors, our brothers and sisters, equal protection under the law. We already know how this fight will end; and fortunately, Senator Luker and his supporters are on the wrong side of history.

But I want to make history today. I never want any young person to feel like my friend Katie did, afraid to lose a friendship or a job or even her life, simply because of whom she loves.  Add the words, Idaho! And let there be love now, for all of us.