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Recently, LDS Daily featured a newlywed mixed orientation marriage. Nick and Jordan Applegate have been married for just over a year. I really, really, really want to avoid criticism Nick and Jordan. (Please try to avoid this in your responses. No personal attacks allowed)
I do not know them and do not have much insight into their lives.
They are not public figures
They both seem really young to me. I feel that young people might receive an extra helping of grace due to their relative level of inexperience.
Especially in Nick’s case, I have a great deal of empathy for what must have felt like being between a rock and a hard place.
However, I do have concerns. I feel that Bother & Sister Applegate are being spotlighted and held out as evidence that mixed orientation marriages are a viable option to solve the predicament of being gay and LDS. (Some of the facebook comments even seem to suggest that mixed orientation marriages can solve the problem of being gay/LDS and at the same time solve the problem of the excess of single female adults in the church. Two birds with a single stone.)
The article said that they felt like “coming out” as a mixed orientation couple in defense Elder Holland’s controversial speech and the criticism that he, BYU, and the church has faced in response.
For those that missed that discussion, you can catch up here…
https://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10056&hilit=holland I feel that the church gives gay people an ultimatum – either live single and alone as a member of the church or leave. This is why I worry about this being held out as a third option for gay LDS people (and their families) that are desperate to chart a path within the church.
Important Note: To my understanding the church as an institution does not currently encourage mixed orientation marriages. Does anyone have what the handbooks says on the subject at their fingertips?
I am doing just a little extra digging in relation to this subject and I ran across another article about a different couple. https://nypost.com/2020/08/11/what-its-like-to-be-in-a-mixed-orientation-marriage/ Quote:Recently, he and his colleagues conducted a study of Mormon adults, either practicing or defected, “who experience sexual attractions to same-sex adults,” according to the survey, published on 4OptionsSurvey.com. Among other insights, they discovered that MORs are, in fact, viable. About 80% of such respondents reported being generally satisfied with their status — almost double the rate of those who were single and celibate (42%) or single and not celibate (40%).
Still, the survey found that the happiest couples were those attracted to members of the same sex who were in same-sex relationships. They reported a 95% satisfaction rate.
I am not sure how scientific this survey is but it seems to suggest that being in a relationship that matches your sexual orientation yields the highest percentage of satisfaction, followed by being in a mixed orientation relationship, and then being single (with or without celibacy) is last.
:think: Maybe something worth considering.From listening to a lot of podcasts (mainly Questions from the Closet, some Listen, Learn & Love), it seems most people in mixed orientation marriages don’t want to be held up as an example of the “right” way to be gay in the church, and it looks like this couple doesn’t, either. Unfortunately, intentions alone aren’t enough, and I wouldn’t be surprised if well-meaning members used this article to push this option on their friends or family. What I find odd about discussions on mixed orientation marriage is that in nearly every instance, it’s assumed to be a straight woman with a gay man. Maybe the gender disparity among active members leads to this type of pairing being more common? Or maybe the church is still largely stuck on the assumption that LGBTQ person = gay cisgender man? I really don’t know.
I’d like to share a personal experience, not related to this article but related to mixed orientation relationships. Currently my best friend and I have something of a label-less committed platonic relationship. He is a straight man and I’m an asexual woman. Despite the differences in our attraction (or lack thereof) to each other, we love and care about each other a lot and plan to be a big part of each other’s lives for years to come.
Almost 2 years ago he told me he wanted to marry me, and it was one of the most difficult and confusing times in my life. It felt amazing to be loved so much by someone so important to me – but at the same time it felt so awful and unnatural and wrong. I couldn’t imagine such a future that didn’t involve me feeling like I’d betrayed myself forever. And it took a long time after that and a lot of reassurance from him to stop believing that I was ruining his life by not marrying him.
In the meager 3 podcasts I’ve listened to involving asexual church members, they all either wanted or were currently in a mixed orientation marriage. I have no issue with that for them individually – their life and their desires are their own – but it does leave me with the same concern that highlighting gay-straight marriages does: when asexuality eventually becomes more commonly discussed among church members, will the assumption be that the “right” way to be asexual is to seek a mixed orientation marriage?
HazyShadeofFall wrote:
From listening to a lot of podcasts (mainly Questions from the Closet, some Listen, Learn & Love), it seems most people in mixed orientation marriages don’t want to be held up as an example of the “right” way to be gay in the church, and it looks like this couple doesn’t, either. Unfortunately, intentions alone aren’t enough, and I wouldn’t be surprised if well-meaning members used this article to push this option on their friends or family.[snip]
In the meager 3 podcasts I’ve listened to involving asexual church members, they all either wanted or were currently in a mixed orientation marriage. I have no issue with that for them individually – their life and their desires are their own
I agree that I have pretty low concerns about people entering consenting relationships.
What I take issue with is when they message to others that their way is the better way. Unfortunately, Nick and Jordan are doing a good deal of that.
They are not saying, this is the path we take with fear and trembling, knowing that there are risks and knowing that other people are equally valid for making other choices.
“I always understood that if I chose to either live a celibate or a heterosexual life, my standing within the Church would never be in question. I decided essentially as soon as I realized I was gay that I would follow the law of chastity and not engage in a relationship with a man.” From the moment he recognized his sexuality, he made a decision to subvert it in order to remain in the church.
“I came to understand and truly believe in the truth I had always known- that the only source of true joy in life is Jesus Christ, and that the only way I could fully experience that joy was to live the gospel as I had been taught it in the restored Church of Jesus Christ (including the law of chastity) and to have a celestial marriage with a worthy daughter of God.” Only source and only way to have joy was through marriage to a woman.
“Many gay individuals claim that the Church asking us to live a celibate or heterosexual life is not letting us be true to ourselves. However, at the core of myself, I am not a gay man; I am a child of God, a priesthood holder, a husband, and a father. I am not denying my true self by living the tenets of the Church. I would be denying my true self by not living the gospel and leaving the Church to live a gay lifestyle.” I dislike when people oppose “labels” but then revel in labels. I find labels helpful, especially labels that people choose to give themselves. I find value in listening to what those labels mean to them and I try not to be dismissive of them.
“I don’t endorse mixed-orientation marriages for everyone who deals with same-sex attraction, but for me it has given me more joy and peace than I thought possible.” I suppose that I am reacting in part to the lack of humility in this sentence and throughout. As if to say, “It might not work for everybody but it works for me and many others.”
I think I would feel much easier about the whole thing if Nick or Jordan had ever given any validation to those that might choose differently than they had and to enter into a Same Sex Marriage.
To put it another way, i see serious red flags when ever people testify of how happy they are obeying the commandments of God. This is not that I do not believe that they are happy. It is rather that I feel that they have significant pressure/incentive to say that they are happy and to paper over any unhappiness because that is what is expected of them.
I am totally fine with it – for them. Period.
I do agree with OT, people can do whatever they choose. I’m a “live and let live” kind of guy. It’s the same reason I support gay marriage – it’s their choice and as a church we supposedly believe in and preach (free) agency. That said, I am also aware that many of these marriages fail. A couple more high profile ones more recently are Ed Smart and Josh & Lolly Weed. Then there’s Dan Reynolds who is married, was going to divorce, got back together, but doesn’t really describe himself as Mormon and says they’re not raising their kids Mormon. Complicated.
Then there’s this:
https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2050536&itype=CMSID ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2050536&itype=CMSID
Quote:Between 51 percent and 69 percent of mixed-orientation Mormon marriages end in divorce, well above the roughly 25 percent of LDS couples who split up.
Quote:More than 70 percent of LGBT/same-sex attracted Mormons leave the LDS Church.
Quote:Those whose mixed-orientation marriages ended experience “a kind of triple blame by their family and faith communities — first for being gay, then for having ruined the lives of their spouses and children by … marry[ing] in the service of trying to ‘overcome’ their homosexuality, and then finally for having failed in the marriage and ‘given up,’ ” he says. “They want their story to be known and not repeated; they want vindication for their mistreatment.”
Study respondents who are “heavily invested in their [mixed-orientation marriages’] success” want their perspective publicized, Wilcox says. “Not only do they want their marriages to succeed for personal and religious reasons but they are also professionally invested in their propagation.”
The couples who are “doing just fine and have nothing to prove often remain silent,” he says. “Therefore, we don’t know their numbers and don’t know how their numbers compare to the ‘failed’ mixed-orientation marriages.”
Anecdotally, we do have a mixed orientation marriage in our ward but it’s actually not widely known. The guy is gay and did not disclose it to his wife and several kids (and years) later she figured it out. They have remained together because, like Dan Reynolds I think they really do love each other – but they also lead independent lives (he does not come to church, she does). Candidly he has confided in me that if he had to do it all over he would have left the church in his 20s and lived as a gay man. Of course times are different now than when he was in his 20s.DarkJedi wrote:
Quote:Between 51 percent and 69 percent of mixed-orientation Mormon marriages end in divorce, well above the roughly 25 percent of LDS couples who split up.
Thanks for the article DJ. It really helps to have these sorts of statistics (even knowing the difficulty of getting a representative sample for this group).I suppose that this provides a fairly concise example of what is bothering me about the tone of the messaging from Nick & Jordan.
When they say, “It might not work for everyone, but it works for me.” I wish that they had said instead, “It doesn’t work for the majority of LDS mixed-orientation couples, but it works for me.”
DarkJedi wrote:Then there’s this:
https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2050536&itype=CMSID ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2050536&itype=CMSID
Quote:For Bradshaw, some of the most moving responses to the survey were in response to the question: Have you ever had an experience that you attribute to deity in which you have felt acceptance of your sexuality?
Many respondents shared personal stories of spiritual experiences in which they felt the “overwhelming love of God, which did not require some sort of change in their sexual orientation.”
I have felt a similar experience with a deep feeling of love and acceptance from God as I am today – rather than as I may become one day if I try really hard and follow the covenant path. I testify that God loves me and loves you. Period. Full-stop. That experience flew in the face of how I expected God to work.
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