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https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/10/25/mormon_and_gayhttps://bycommonconsent.com/2016/10/25/mormon_and_gay” class=”bbcode_url”> Hope smiling brightly before us. Add this to the latest videos of inclusion and maybe there is a hole in the dike. (No pun intended)
I agree with the comment on the post of,
Quote:I also agree with the statement of “until the lion’s share of members [and world wide society becomes more comfortable with gays]” (my words re-framing it) is probably true. But when I think of that, my management training just jumps up and says, “that isn’t leading, that is administrating.” To me that SOOOO weakens the notion that the church is what we need to follow. It almost seems to me the individual church members are more the leaders and over time the “leaders” of the church finally give up holding on to things like racism, homophobia, patriarchy, etc. Then the church can finally officially moves on. I don’t find that attractive nor something that makes me feel like it is of God.
I didn’t know they updated the Mormons and Gays site. All the videos from last week are on there. [Admin Note]: I corrected the title of this post. The old site was “Mormons and Gays”; the new site is “Mormon and Gay”. That is a HUGE, important change, even with the existing issues. Quote:In fact, Mormon & Gay does what no other official resource for queer Mormons has ever done: it puts away childish things, and speaks as an adult—an adult that doesn’t see itself changing its mind any time soon, mind you… but one who values the people in its life and who’s making a solid effort at having the hard conversations.
I don’t know what triggers what – I usually don’t get emails re. new material on lds.org – but I did today.
I appreciate Christian’s post about this change. While it doesn’t go as far as many would like, especially here, it is an important step in the right direction. I also LOVE that a message went to the local leadership telling them to become familiar with the new site and, essentially, telling them to stop seeing the issue the way it has been framed for so long.
Finally, as I said in the Admin Note, the importance of the name change is massive. It no longer sounds like an “us vs. them” issue, and I am ecstatic about that shift.
We still have progress to make, but this is important and critical as one more step in the right direction.
Thank you Ray and Nibbler for fixing my post. I should never do things on the fly. I appreciate our team catching all the important details. Ann – that is crazy about getting the news through email. I am curious what my family will think when they get a read on this.
I also got the email that included a link to the site – after I read about it online. Wow, that site is still nearly impossible for me to read. Christian’s got a lot more hope than I have. I am keeping this reply on the BCC comment thread very close to my heart. Quote:As the mom of a lesbian daughter, I served as a panel member for the church’s retooling of this website. That in itself spoke volumes to me: the leaders care.
They know they aren’t doing it right. They aren’t saying anything right. People are leaving the church or dying as a direct result of the FP/Q12’s imperfect, fumbling, years-behind-accepted-scientific-knowledge efforts (or lack thereof). They know.
It was incredibly cathartic to spill my mama guts to the staff who conducted the research exercises, particularly so quickly (about 6 months) after the POX was released. To cry and rage at them, to engage them in my pain. That they wanted to know.
This was a good first step.
I also have a hard time seeing this as an open, adult conversation about what it means to be LGB in the church. The “conversation” is very one-sided. In the stories I’ve skimmed, I’ve mostly seen the experiences of TBMs who know the Church is true and have come to the conclusion that they need to be celibate or enter into mixed orientation marriages. Even in the case of the bisexual guy, being LGB is still painted as a negative, shameful thing. And this brings me to my main frustration with both the Church and it’s leaders with regards to what they insist on calling SSA. The Church sees that we’re hurting. That’s great, but they seem to completely misunderstand *why* we are hurting, implicitly passing it off as a result of being LGB. We’re not suffering because we aren’t straight. We’re suffering because we’ve been taught that not being straight is sinful/shameful and that it’s a trial akin to mental illness, and even after we get over that we have to deal with membership and leaders continually insisting that we’re diseased. And this website continues to feed into the same problem. It really makes no difference for them to say “SSA isn’t a disease” when they use the word like a disease and only give examples that show that LGB members are mentally ill in one form or another.
Also, there’s a reason I’ve been using “LGB” instead of “LGBTQ”. The website isn’t about being queer; it’s about “having” SSA while being a TBM.
I know, baby steps and all. But it really doesn’t feel like the leadership cares.
(sorry for the rant)
Also, it’s nice that they shared a bisexual’s experience, but insisting on lumping everyone into the same “SSA” label unhelpfully gives the impression that bisexuals are really just gays. Thanks Ydeve. I need your voice in my own learning. There are positive steps here, but I know exactly what I would do if I were a gay Mormon. I’d scan the site quickly looking for the part where they say I should remain celibate my whole life, without physicality in my romantic relationships. I don’t know what to call the emotion when I hit that part. I can only imagine. To be fair, the site says that there are important differences between being gay/lesbian and being the other elements of LGBTQ – and that the site focuses on being gay and lesbian in order not to conflate that with the other orientations. They recognize that the LG isn’t the only issue that needs to be addressed, and that recognition is important. Frankly, I like that this was published and that it wasn’t delayed while an attempt was made to include everyone else. Including everyone else is important, but this needed to be rewritten and published now.
Also, I appreciate deeply the input from someone who actually was involved in the process – that Hawk quoted. It is similar to Christian’s view, for the same reason (his involvement in the discussion prior to publication). Knowing the leadership knows this is only a first step – and knowing the global issues involved that Christian highlights in the BCC post – helps me quite a bit.
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