Thoughts After Church

So I just got home from church.

Walking up to the church building with my roommates, wearing my Sunday best, and humming hymns, I couldn't help but feel the comfort of familiarity. I love going to church. I feel like during the meetings, and especially sacrament meeting, my doubts and frustrations are largely put at bay, and I can genuinely feel the love of God and be at peace. But then, as happened today, someone will often say something over the pulpit that just frustrates me and brings so many questions. One of the speakers today mentioned Satan's "attack on the family," and talked about how dangerous it was. A few euphemisms and metaphors later, it was clear what he was a talking about. And once again, I felt like I didn't belong. It's such a paradoxical feeling, to feel rejected by the familiar... and even a sense of familiarity with the rejection.

I think that people who are attracted to those of the same gender within the church face a dilemma the complexity of which few people are fully able to grasp. Last night I had a conversation with one of my very best friends where I opened up and talked more honestly with him than I ever had before. It was frightening, but good. As I tried to express why exactly I feel so much distress and pain over the issue, he struggled to understand, and I struggled to communicate, because there is just so much there.

It's so much more complicated than just being attracted to men. It's the implications of that fact on my personal and family life, and especially my faith, that causes the distress. Because I do have faith. And I have had many spiritual experiences. Specifically, I feel that I have received revelation from God that Jesus Christ is my Redeemer, and that God loves me. I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. But if I believe that, what conclusions do I draw from it? If I'm to believe Church doctrine as revealed through modern prophets, which I am wont to do, then I must accept a few commandments that make my life difficult and awkward. Most specifically, I am referring to the commandment to get married, because "the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord." As the scriptures conclude, "it is not good for man to be alone." Unless he's gay. In that case, he must live a life of complete celibacy. A life, I would argue, that is of slightly more difficulty than the unfortunate heterosexual who happens to never get married (and I don't mean to undermine their pain in any degree, because it is real and it is hard. And I recognize my own biases in saying that). For the celibate homosexual trying to live church doctrine, there's no hope of  a relationship, except for the slight hope that someday he (or she) will meet someone of the opposite gender to whom they are most miraculously attracted. I don't discount that this happens, like in the instances of Josh Weed and Josh Johansen. But it seems to me that it is very, very rare. And having lived a life of constantly hoping against hope and praying and fasting for a girl I'm attracted to, I can be the first to testify that it is not a happy way to live. Or maybe I'm just not doing it right, which is an option I'm open to (in fact, I would prefer for this to be the case.) In addition, for a homosexual within the church, there is virtually no way to relieve sexual feelings. You cannot masturbate or look at pornography (which are two commandments that I agree with anyway). You cannot hold hands, cuddle, kiss, or show physical affection for someone of the same gender (and as a college student, let me be the first to attest that it is normal and accepted for heterosexuals to do all of the above even outside of a committed relationship). All you can do is wish your feelings away. It's rather bleak to look forward to a life of that particular brand of celibacy. And so it leads me to doubt that it is what God intends for me. And that leads me to doubt the doctrines of the Church, and in turn the seeming infallibility of the prophets on the issue. Even just on this level questioning, it's extremely complicated.

And then there's the level of questioning your sexuality. I can't tell you how many times I've delved into a positive emotion felt for a girl in the hope that it was sexual attraction. When you're experiencing sexual attractions you don't want to have, it causes you to question the nature of attraction in the first place, which leaves you much more confused on the matter than the general populace. I'm sure that if heterosexual men questioned their every positive feelings for other men, they could be equally confused. But luckily, they live in a society that reinforces their dominant attractions to those of the opposite gender, and they can feel free to ignore or interpret as platonic any feelings for those of the same gender. For gay men within the church, and especially those who are just realizing what's happening to them, they are left not only questioning their feelings for men, but also their every feeling for women, trying to find the one that is "supposed" to be there, and trying so hard to accentuate any small feeling of attraction for the opposite sex. I would bet that there are more homosexuals in the church that question whether or not they are bisexual than there are heterosexuals who do the same.

And then there's the elements of fear. Fear of how people would react if they knew. Fear of losing everything you've ever loved. Fear of what decisions you'll make in the future. And for me it's not just fear of what people would think if they knew that I am attracted to men, but fear of how they would react if they knew the level to which I am questioning the teachings of the Church. I can just imagine the pain in my mother's eyes if I told her that I was questioning the Church. And I don't want her to feel that. I don't want anyone to feel that. I don't want them to be different or awkward around me. And so, for now, I sit in silence, contemplating the maze of complexities in which I live.

The best analogy I can come up with for my current feelings for the church is that of a fugue. In a fugue, there's usually a melody and a counter melody that are opposite from each other playing at the same time. And that is so completely how I feel. I walk to church, and I feel familiar and safe. I feel God. I feel accepted and loved. And then I feel confused. And I feel rejected. And I feel doubt and fear.

Ultimately, the difficulty of being a homosexual Mormon is that two innate parts of your identity are in constant collision, with your emotional and mental health the seemingly only casualty. It's demolishing.