A Fate Worse Than Death

I was planning on writing today about the reasons that I love the Church and the good that I see in it, because I've been kind of negative towards the Church in my last two posts. A conversation I had last night, however, changed my mind. I'm going to save that post for another time. In the mean time, I'm going to discuss what I believe to be one of the most dangerous concepts of Mormonism.

So I was having a conversation last night with two good friends from high school. We were discussing political belief, which led naturally into the territory of homosexuality and the Church. After I brought up the pain that homosexuals experience in the Church and talked about the frequency of suicide, instead of responding with empathy for their plight, one of my friends decided to respond by saying that he believed there were some fates that were worse than death; that it is better to die clean than to live unclean. This concept isn't just something he came up with: it's been taught by prophets and apostles for quite awhile.

"Your virtue is worth more than your life. Please, young folks, preserve your virtue even if you loose your lives."
-David O. McKay

"There is no true Latter-day Saint who would not rather bury a son or daughter than to have him or her lose his or her chastity -- realizing that chastity is of more value than anything else in all the world."
-Heber J. Grant

"Better dead clean, than alive unclean. Many is the faithful Latter-day Saint parent who has sent a on or daughter on a mission or otherwise out into the world with the direction, 'I would rather have you come back home in a pine pox with your virtue than return alive without it.'"
-Bruce R. McConkie

(I wonder which has torn more families apart: sentiments like that in the above quote, or proponents of gay marriage...)

"May I remind you of what our youth repeated some years ago as a slogan in the MIA... How glorious and near to the angels is youth that is clean. This youth has joy unspeakable here and eternal happiness hereafter. Sexual purity is youth's most precious possession. It is the foundation of all righteousness. Better dead clean, than alive unclean."
-Harold B. Lee

I feel that the wrongful nature of these teachings is self-evident. But just in case it's not, let's discuss the consequences.

I feel like I talk about the suicides of gay Mormons almost too frequently. I don't mean to use such traumatic, difficult, and painful events merely as evidence in an argument. And so when I talk about them and other suicides that occur, I want it to be known that I am not using them as a means to an end. My end is not to prove that Church leaders are wrong. My end is to uphold the sanctity and dignity of human life--of their lives. I've mentioned suicides frequently, and I don't just want it to become another talking point--but their lives are the reasons that this teaching is wrong.

As I mentioned in a previous post, in 1982, Kip Eliason committed suicide because he couldn't stop masturbating and his bishop taught that if he was unworthy. It was better to die than to live unworthily, and so Kip took his own life.

In 2003, Deseret News published a study that showed 90% of rapes in Provo, Utah go unreported. Spencer W. Kimball taught that "it is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle." It's because of such teachings that BYU Police Officer Arnie Lemmon explained the startling statistic this way: "most Provo residence are religious and have a tendency to stigmatize discussion of sexual assault and sometimes to demonize the survivor." He said that one rape victim told him "I should have died before I let him do that to me." Another rape victim wrote "I am a perversion to the saints of the church" and said that she wished she were dead (For more information, click here).

Because of examples such as these, I find the "fate worse than death" mentality not simply wrong, but dangerous and destructive. It is disrespectful not only to the people whose lives are at stake because of the teaching, but to their families, friends, and others who love them and value their life. I do not believe that God would rather someone die than masturbate. I do not believe that God would rather someone die than participate in a homosexual relationship. God created us to live, and not only to live, but to live gloriously: to create happiness. Men are that they might have joy, and I find only shame and misery in the belief that it is better to die clean than to live unclean.

And that really begs the ultimate question of what cleanliness even is. I posit that the individual who masturbates at night and loves and serves his neighbor during the day is more clean than the person who has never masturbated, but goes around gossiping, spreading rumors, and refusing to associate with other people because they are less righteous than themselves. True cleanliness is found in integrity to one's own conscience and in displaying true love for others, not conforming to the rules of an institution.

People can squabble and argue all day about which doctrines come from God and which from man. But most everyone will agree that life itself is a gift from God. Let's do what we can to protect it and abandon this dangerous mentality.

"I would rather be whole than be good."
-Carl Jung