Recent search terms that found my blog

Here are some popular Google searches that pull up my blog as well as additional resources.

Annotated church membership records

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church, aka Mormons) “annotates” (places an “asterisk” on) membership records of gay members for various reasons one of which, purportedly, is to protect children from the gays. John Dehlin interviewed Benji Schwimmer about it here and there’s more about annotations of membership records here. If you want to watch full two-hour interview with Benji/John, you can find that here or click the image below.

 

Ty Mansfield’s blog

Ty Mansfield is a gay Mormon (married to a woman) who co-authored In Quiet Desperation. As far as I know, he deleted his personal blog. He writes frequently on the Northern Lights Blog and has a Facebook page and profile. He recently launched the Voice(s) of Hope video project and there’s also a book called Voice(s) of Hope.

 

Thomas S. Monson is a pedofile

I don’t think this is true… Thomas S. Monson, however, is the current president of the LDS Church. This search probably relates to the idea that Mormons are/were polygamists and married lots of young girls back in the day.

If same-sex marriage is legal then few babies will be born

Mathematically this doesn’t make any sense — providing rights for gay couples probably won’t change whether they’ll go out and have babies and it definitely won’t change whether straight couples have babies. If anything, legal protections will result in gay couples raising more children. This also sounds like the idea that if you “put all the gays on and island and they’ll all die out”. That may or may not be true, but at least you’ll move us some place awesome.

Bisexual LDS RM discussion boards, gay Mormon couples

I grouped these two popular searches together because it sounds like closeted gay Mormons looking for support groups or something along those lines. So… here are some support groups and resources for gay Mormons. The only one I participated in is North Star. The concept of North Star is unique and works for a lot of people — create a social network of gay Mormons who can support each other and create a community. The bad thing about it is there’s a lot going on behind the scenes (i.e., romance, exploration, etc.) that makes it a little volatile and is not the place for anyone who disagrees with the LDS Church’s stance on marriage equality.

• Affirmation
• LDS Resources
• Gay Mormon Reconciliation
• Mormons for Marriage Equality
• Gay Mormon Forum
• The MoHo Directory
• North Star
  • Discussion groups
  • Facebook group
  • Firesides
  • Retreats for mixed-orientation married couples
• Evergreen

Gay hangouts in Logan Utah, gay men in Logan Utah, gay clubs in Logan Utah

This is a little creepy, but there’s a blog out there with a geographic map of gay Mormons — MoHos (Mormon homosexuals) as they’ve been termed. One of the three people on the map listed their blog (http://agaymormonboy.blogspot.com) and email address (agaymormonboy@gmail.com).

A map of gay Mormons living in Logan, Utah.

Even more creepy is the new Facebook search feature. You can search for gay people in geographic locations. Here’s a search “men interested in men who go to Utah State University” and “men interested in men who live in Logan Utah“. From these searches you’ll find people like Vote USU and presumably straight men pictured with their wife in front of temples who like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Donnie Osmond, and Mitt Romney (someone should probably tell this guy he should take a closer look at his profile, although Donnie Osmond makes sense). So, before you ask any of these guys out, just make sure their wives are okay with it. And hey, it’s not really creepy if Facebook enables you to use your stalker skills.

One place you’re sure to find gay people — Cafe Ibis. I’ve heard gay people get together every Sunday around noon and call it “church”. If there are no gay people there, you’ll at least get to listen to live music and enjoy a cup of awesome coffee. Or you can just people watch and check out the counter culture on Federal Avenue. There’s a great sandwich place there too: The Italian Place so if you don’t like coffee or counter culture, you can get a good sandwich.

And if you just want to know where the nice people are in Logan, Utah, check out this Facebook group or follow John Dehlin on Facebook — he posts regularly about gay issues and get togethers. Ironically, a lot of allies have left the LDS Church or have mixed views on LDS history. It’s hard to find “faithful” or “true believing” Mormons who are okay with the gay.

For those of you Googling things like “gay sex in Logan Utah” or “gay missionaries in Logan Utah”, there’s an app for that.

And unfortunately there are no gay clubs in Logan, Utah. However, there is a gay club listed on FourSquare named Jordan but Google street view pulls up an elementary school. Someone has a sense of humor.

Jordan, a gay bar in Logan, Utah resembles an elementary school.

The Candle of the Lord: testimony is found by bearing (sharing) it

In a not-so-recent discussion with a friend I was asked about my past (a true-believing Mormon or TBM) and how I got to where I am now (partnered to someone of the same sex). That’s not an easy question to answer but I’ll do my best to answer this question. My assumption is many who read my blog have this same question. And before I answer this question I’d like to openly state that my purpose in explaining these things is not recruit any one to my way of thinking; it’s merely to explain for those who would like to understand. Hopefully it will also explain how other people also get from point A to point B in their own “spiritual journeys”.

To start, I’ll take you down memory lane. Around my 18th birthday is when my spiritual journey started. Growing up in Utah, the religion to which I was exposed was the Mormon church. Due to the passing of a family member, I began to take religion more seriously: Is there life after death? Will I be with my family in the after life? Am I worthy to live with them in the Celestial Kingdom? Those are the questions I asked, and I decided the answers to questions were an emphatic yes and subsequently served a full-time mission for the LDS Church. I was called to the Baltic Mission (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), served two years, and loved almost about everything about it (at the time). More on that later.

Me on an LDS mission in Estonia

In preparation to serve, I went through the temple in Logan Utah. I think this is when my first doubts about religion began. Sitting in the temple ceremony I asked, “What in the world have I gotten myself into?” I felt like I had hopped on the wrong bus and it was taking me somewhere I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. My main concern was the subordination of women to men and the realization that LDS women will probably never be equal in status to LDS men. If I marry a woman in an LDS temple one day, could I ask her to submit to me? And would I be okay with my role as a mediator between her and God — that her relationship with God would be defined not as a direct relationship with God but her relationship to me as I sort of shield her from God. Another concern was the fact that I couldn’t get up and leave without being stigmatized and without embarrassing my family or letting them down.

LDS temple in Logan, Utah

You see, social pressure is a huge part of Mormonism. I couldn’t acknowledge my true feelings about that experience for fear of being kicked out, both in the literal sense of being kicked out of the temple and in the metaphorical sense of being rejected by Mormons. Actually, I did acknowledge my thoughts to a few close friends shortly after going through the temple for the first time. They asked, “So, what was it like?” and I resisted expected responses like “I felt like I was home” or “I felt so close to heaven”. I said, “I had a testimony of the Church until now.” As another blogger explained, the LDS Church is really good at enforcing social expectations to keep everyone “in the bounds of ‘acceptable’ behavior”. He speculated that the LDS Church provides a place of community (but you have to give up individuality to fit in). So, to fit in, I didn’t talk about those feelings with any one else. I didn’t want to lose friends; good friends are hard to find.

Jaani kirik (St. John's church) in Tartu, Estonia

Castle in Russia as seen across the river from Narva, Estonia

My experience in the Church continued to be one of living up to social expectations. That’s just how it seems to works. As a missionary, I tried to live up to the expectation of being a challenging and testifying missionary. My very first day in the mission field I was challenged by someone from another faith. My testimony about my church was met by the testimony from someone else about her church; she spoke with as much conviction as me. The solution other missionaries seemed to use was to speak down on members of other religions: “He’s such a good person. Too bad he’s Lutheran; he won’t make it to heaven.” As a lay service member of my local congregation (post-mission), I continued to live up to social expectations despite not really feeling all the things I was supposed to be feeling about the Church.

LDS (Mormon) chapel in Tallin, Estonia where I served as a missionary for two years.

What was I supposed to be feeling? No one really seems to know. It’s not science. You’ll just know when you feel it. Boyd K. Packer claimed it’s just like trying to explain what salt tastes like:

Such an idea came into my mind and I said to the atheist, “Let me ask if you know what salt tastes like.”

“Of course I do,” was his reply.

“When did you taste salt last?”

“I just had dinner on the plane.”

“You just think you know what salt tastes like,” I said.

He insisted, “I know what salt tastes like as well as I know anything.”

“If I gave you a cup of salt and a cup of sugar and let you taste them both, could you tell the salt from the sugar?”

“Now you are getting juvenile,” was his reply. “Of course I could tell the difference. I know what salt tastes like. It is an everyday experience—I know it as well as I know anything.”

“Then,” I said, “assuming that I have never tasted salt, explain to me just what it tastes like.”

After some thought, he ventured, “Well-I-uh, it is not sweet and it is not sour.”

“You’ve told me what it isn’t, not what it is.”

My friend, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. I am no more able to convey to you in words how this knowledge has come than you are to tell me what salt tastes like.

The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord (Proverbs 20:27). I'm not really sure what that means.

And that’s the whole crux of Mormonism: it’s true because you just know it is even though you can’t really explain how or why. But as a Mormon you can’t stop there. You then have the responsibility to share what you know with others (even if you don’t really know). Packer continued:

Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it! Somewhere in your quest for spiritual knowledge, there is that “leap of faith,” as the philosophers call it. It is the moment when you have gone to the edge of the light and stepped into the darkness to discover that the way is lighted ahead for just a footstep or two.

My service in the Church was exactly that: me telling others what I knew to be true before I ever felt or believed it was true. That is the part of the mission experience I didn’t like. As Viktor Frankl contended, it seemed my whole mission experience was “depict[ing]…God as a being who is primarily concerned with being believed in by the greatest possible number of believers, and along the lines of a specified creed at that” (Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, p. 17). Those experiences didn’t stop there, however. I continued my service in the Church for several years after returning home from missionary service. I continued to tell people I knew things I didn’t really believe hoping to have the promised experiences.

So what do I believe now?

Saying that one religion is true is like saying that one point in the evolutionary history of a species is “true.” religions are cultural institutions and as such are subject to eventual and gradual change as they adapt. Those members of the religion that hold counter-productive views will not spread those beliefs and those that have effective, pro-social views will pass on the traits of their religion. This is how a religion, like a species, evolves (B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, p 128).

Small Business Saturday with American Express and a splash of romance

American Express offers specials through Four Square pretty regularly called Small Business Saturday.  All you have to do is have an American Express card and a smartphone with the Four Square app.  Then you spend $10 and American Express credits your account $10.  It’s pretty simple.  Dan and I have found this is a great way to try out new local restaurants and explore our town.  And sometimes it’s just a great way to spend a Saturday.  Here’s what we did today for small business Saturday.

We started off with subs at the Italian Place.  Each sub is $6.50 totaling $13.00 for two.  We paid $3.00 with the American Express + Four Square deal.  To all the Logan locals: you really need to stop by the Italian Place some time.  Their subs are the best in town!  Seriously though.

The Italian Place, Logan UT

Our next stop was Cafe Ibis just across the street.  We both got 20 oz mochas; I got a stroopwafel and Dan got baklava.  Total cost after the American Express deal, $0.22.  Total cost for our date, $3.22.

While at Cafe Ibis we Instagrammed any and everything possible.  Here are the pictures we took.

Stroopwafel from Dan's perspective

Stroopwafel from Ryan's perspective

Me Instagramming

Dan Instagramming

Baklava at Cafe Ibis

20 oz mochas at Cafe Ibis

And the best part of all was the warm welcome Carmen and Misha gave us when we returned home.  Here they are playing with the reflection of Dan’s phone.

The second best part of the day was that Dan let me win a few games of Super Smash Brothers after we played with the cats.  Super Smash Brothers = awesome.  All-in-all, today was awesome thanks to American Express and Four Square for giving us an awesome day date for just $3.22 (plus the gas to get there).

Vote like a Mormon or burn in hell

Inversion in Logan, UT responsible for red air days.

Logan Utah — the city that has been my home for 25+ years — has problems with air quality in the winter.  City Council Chairman Herm Olsen suggested a possible solution: close down drive-thrus on “red air days“.

I’m not writing this post to discuss the air problem; I’d like to discuss another problem: it seems churches, despite publicly denouncing any influence over their members on political matters, have an increasingly active role in politics.  Let me illustrate with one example from the air problem in Logan.  One commenter on the Herald Journal article (linked above) said:

“Its strange this issue isn’t seen more from a moral perspective. Where is the church on this? Maybe they have weighted in on the subject but I haven’t seen it yet.”

So where is the Church on this issue?  Probably silent (as they should be).

This comment, among other related comments I’ve heard and read, suggest that although the LDS Church (and other churches) is politically neutral there is an underlying culture in which you cannot think or act politically unless you have the support of your church.  Why?  I’m not really sure, but I have ideas, and I think Proposition 8 is a good illustration of the situation.  The documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition relates the members of the LDS Church were invited to vote yes on Prop 8 and often invited by local leaders to make monetary contributions as based on their income and past tithes and offerings.  It is also rumored that some members were disciplined if they did not contribute monetarily and if it was learned that they voted no on Prop 8.

Sometimes the Church comes out and makes statements, like it did with Prop 8, that members should support some political initiative.  Sometimes the Church makes statements about its own stance on political issues.  When members are invited to support an initiative, or when the Church makes public its stance on an issue, it seems members feel their salvation might be in jeopardy.  And understandably so in situations in which someone in authority — someone who is putatively a judge on whether or not you are worthy to be with God in the next life — revokes “blessings” (e.g., temple recommend, membership in the Church) for not agreeing with church leaders on political issues.

Whatever the case, members of the LDS Church (and probably other churches as well) lean too heavily on the Church for political advice, and the LDS Church holds too much over the heads of its members if they disagree on political issues.

The (gay) Mormon pursuit of happiness: find the box that’s gay and crush it

In this post I would like to describe, in a little more detail, my experiences as a same-sex or same-gender attracted (gay) Mormon through the story of Steven Wilson (as interviewed by Steven Densley Junion of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research).  In short, I would like to tell the story of nearly every gay Mormon and their pursuit of happiness.  In the interview (Why would a gay man with AIDS join the [LDS] Church), Wilson describes his experiences of meeting a returned missionary at a gay bar, eventually moving in with him, joining the Church, and how his association with members of the LDS faith helped him abandon “the homosexual lifestyle”.

Wilson’s story isn’t completely unfamiliar to me.  I attended support groups (e.g., LDS Family Services, Evergreen) and firesides intended to fortify my relationship with the Church, its leaders, and members.  At Evergreen support groups, I learned that if I want to stay in the Church I need to stay single and celibate and wait for the resurrection or marry or woman.

As I became more entangled in Evergreen and other support groups, I learned that it’s possible to pray away the gay.  The solution to the gay problem is simple: keep every commandment and get plenty of (nonsexual) healthy touch from other men.  Voila!  You’re cured.  Let me explain the concept of healthy touch (for those who aren’t familiar).  The theory behind male homosexuality is gay men didn’t bond enough with their fathers and/or male peers and sexualized their need for male affection to make up for it.  So, you need to bond with other men, even get in some “healthy touch” (e.g., hugs, cuddles, holding), to mitigate the sexual attractions.  (Be warned: the next video clip has some vulgarity).

I was actually invited to a “holding party” once.  Well, two holding parties (but the second wasn’t advertised as a holding party).  I didn’t go to the first one because when others described their experiences, it freaked me out.  I was informed that I would be held by an older member of the group (as a father might hold a young son in his arms) and I would talk to him about my experience: how does it feel, what am I thinking, what am I feelings, etc.  The experiences of others included talking about how it aroused them and learning to “talk through it” rather than fantasize about it.  The other holding party didn’t involve older men, so I went.  It was an emotional roller coaster as I watched guys (some of whom were engaged to girls at the time) snuggle up with any and everyone present.  The sexual tension was high.  And what should I have expected?  A bunch of gay Mormon guys who aren’t getting any visiting a place far away from home (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas kind of a thing).

I learned there are a number of additional organizations to help facilitate change in orientation:

• North Star (Ty Mansfield)
• People Can Change (Rich Wyler)
• Exodus International
• NARTH (A. Dean Byrd, George A. Rekers)
• New Warriors

Although not all of these organizations are designed to cure same-sex attraction, many gay Mormons recommended these programs to me as helpful in resolving the underlying causes of “the gay”.  The most interesting to me is Journey into Manhood (JiM).  For those wanting to know exactly what happens at Journey into Manhood weekends, Ted Cox describes his experience with alarming detail.  Here’s a thoughtful perspective on JiM by the Original Mohomie.  And for the lazy reader, here’s a little clip about JiM:

It’s weird to watch that video clip because I know most of the guys interviewed.

At firesides, I learned that if I want to stay in the Church I need to hate everything that is or might possibly be gay and fight against it.  A man at one particular fireside shared a story similar to Wilson’s experience: he lived “the homosexual lifestyle”, turned away from his life as a porn star and addict, and converted to the LDS faith.  Like Wilson, he referred to “the gay lifestyle” as a lifestyle of drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll.  He encouraged everyone present to avoid the very appearance of evil: don’t date members of the same sex, don’t do drugs, don’t drink alcohol; in short, don’t be gay.  At the time, I had already begun dating and learned enough to know that “the gay lifestyle” he spoke of was nothing more than “his lifestyle“.  I didn’t think it was fair to pass judgement on an entire group’s lifestyle based on personal experiences.

But I was used to judgement being passed.  In Logan, I organized social events which later took on the name “Logansides” — firesides for gay Mormons in Logan, Utah.  The firesides were intended to be nothing more than a social gathering for members of the LDS faith who are gay/lesbian or know someone who is gay/lesbian.  Advertising was complicated: People not of the LDS faith thought I was starting an ex-gay ministry and people of the LDS faith thought I was spreading the infamous “gay agenda”.  And then there were the ultra conservative gay Mormons who were vocal about the fact that I organized firesides and dated men (and eventually married).  I learned for myself that it’s next to impossible to unite liberal and conservative Mormons when it comes to this social issue.

In short, what turned me off to the Mormon solution to the gay problem is the unkindness and intolerance experienced at the hand of gay Mormons.  Oh, and none of these Mormons solutions I discussed made sense to me.  Ultimately, these “solutions” led to an increase of unhappiness and frustration.  Thus, I began my own pursuit of happiness that steered me away from the traditional gay Mormon path and away from experiences like those of Steven Wilson.

Have Mormons faced the same degree of persecution as gays?

A friend of mine made a good observation about similarities between gays and Mormons at his blog Listening to Who I am.  He says “…the story of the rise of [San Francisco] as a gay capital of the US should resonate like crazy with Mormons.  It’s the story of a people who were rejected by their families and friends, who left home and gathered in one place where they felt like they could more safely be themselves.  One of the reasons the Mormon pioneers were persecuted was because people were very uncomfortable with the way early Mormons tried to redefine marriage.”

Do Mormons agree that persecution of early saints is similar to persecution of gays?

I suspect, based on a previous conversation on Facebook (above) and dialogue at the Daily Universe several years back (below), that many Mormons are not too keen on the idea that the persecution early Latter-day saints faced is similar to the persecution gays faced.  Austin posted this article to which a BYU professor responded:

Maybe we need a different “call for compassion.”  …Let’s have compassion on those who have been denigrated, pilloried and belittled for defending traditional marriage. Let’s have compassion on those who have been persecuted for daring to express family values in public. Let’s have compassion on those whose vehicles were vandalized and whose safety was threatened because they voted for Proposition 8 in California. …Let’s have compassion on the Boy Scouts of America whose United Way funds were cut because they would not bow to the sons of Sodom and the gods of Gomorrah. Let’s have compassion for those who are mocked for promoting the Family Proclamation.

Despite earlier evidences that turn me off to what Mormons might say on the subject, I’m still curious to know what Mormons think.

**UPDATE** 12/17/2011

I just recalled a letter to the editor in my local newspaper that hits on this topic.  The letter was published in the Herald Journal written by Laloni Stott.  The title of the letter is Gays not like early Mormons.  Stott argued that early Mormons faced more persecution than gays.  To support her claim she posited that opponents of Prop 8 in California retaliated against Mormons:

They were attacked in their cars. Their kids were targeted at their schools.

I contacted her via Facebook for clarification on her points.  In regard to persecution Mormons suffered at the hand of opponents of Prop 8, she said:

LDS Ward lists were distributed among antiprop 8 groups. The ward lists contained addresses and phone numbers along with the children in the families and their ages. I am assuming that is how they got the info about the kids at the schools. Many kids were confronted and taunted for their “hateful” religious beliefs by their peers at school.

Phone calls were made to LDS households with hateful diatribe, crude language, etc.

The posters that were put on the lawns of some of the LDS people had graphic sexual pics with profane language.

I had a brother-in-law peacefully gather with some supporters of prop 8 and they held signs up on a corner. They had stuff thrown at them and they were pushed around and spit on by some who got out of their cars. They were also yelled at with some of the grossest language.

As some LDS members left church they had protesters of the LDS church standing at the exits of the parking lot hitting the cars, throwing things, and there was a lot of yucky language describing what they thought of the LDS church and their members…

I have ancestors who gave every last thing up, left their homes, lost family members, lost feet, etc. as they crossed the plains. They were trying to get away from those who were murdering and raping their families. Their homes and buildings were being torched… I do not see ANY similarity.

So what do you think?  Can Mormons and gays resonate with one another over the persecution they faced?