Which is worse?

Today I've been thinking about which would be more difficult for my friends and family, the fact that I am gay, or if I left the church. They're so impossibly intertwined that I don't think it makes a fair question, but it's interesting to analyze the ins and outs of it.

Ultimately, the reasons it would be difficult for anyone to accept homosexuality are twofold: theological and cultural. I think that the cultural aspect is the root, and the more research I do, the more the theology seems to be a mere codification of the culture. But the theological aspect attaches with it the hopes of salvation. Hanging over all of our heads are the questions of how to be happy in this life, and what will happen to us in the next. Theology gives us something to grasp on to- an explanation for happiness and salvation both here and there. Culture, on the other hand, is the developed customs, norms, expectations, and obligations that people have for interaction with one another and utilize to make sense of social interaction. It makes sense to codify culture within the context of theology in order to add impetus and moral authority to social norms.

And so homosexuality, it seems to me, is in violation of first a culture, and secondly its theological codification. Now in LDS culture, the religion and culture are so unified that to leave one is to leave the other. (Note that I'm analyzing this exterior to the question of revelation and prophets)

So which aspect would be harder for friends and family? That I'm gay, or to leave the church? While being gay would be difficult, I think that leaving the church would be the hardest, because the church represents our culture- the way we interact with each other and understand our lives. To leave it would feel to them like a rejection of my relationships with them. A rejection of everything that binds us together. It symbolizes, to them, an abandonment of the possibility of happiness in this life and togetherness in the life to come. So it would be very difficult. Being gay just adds a little extra edge to it.

I'm definitely not saying I will leave the church- just analyzing what would happen if I did.

One reason that being a gay Mormon is difficult for me is that it causes me to question my identity on every level. I have to think and rethink my entire concept of the world and of God. It's a good thing I have a life time to figure this all out :)

So today I gave a talk in church. It was on missionary work, and as I was preparing it, all I could think of were my frustrations with the church. I imagined talking about love and using that as a vehicle to express my annoyances. When I got there and was sitting on the stand, I felt really humbled. Looking out at everyone smiling, I realized just how great they all were. I thought to myself, these are not hateful people. I gave my talk, a little differently than I had planned, and I felt the spirit more than I have in a long time.

Back and forth, back and forth. That seems to be all I feel these days, and will probably continue that way until I make a decision.

As I was driving home from giving my talk, which was in my family's stake, I imagined coming out to my roommates and friends, and I felt at peace about it. I'm way too scared to do it yet, and I'm not even sure if it's anything close to the right decision, but it seems to be a thought experiment with positive results.

I've always considered the thought of celibacy for life to be rather depressing. But today I was considering the implications, and realized just how freeing it is to release yourself from the obligation to marry. The possibilities are endless. I could do anything, go anywhere. Oh, then there's the part of doing it all alone...maybe not as freeing as it seems at first thought.

No matter how attractive men might be to me, the thought of being in a relationship with a man never seems completely satisfying. Even repulsive. The thought of a relationship with a woman sounds great. Until I look at one again...and then feel absolutely nothing.

Wanting what I don't desire. It's so confusing and complicated. I want what I don't want but I don't want what I want.

So frustrating.

I feel like there are things that I actually believe, but that they get mixed up in the foray of things I try to believe. In my heart, what feels true is this: that it doesn't matter what gender two people have; if they are in love, it is an inherently good thing. But I've been taught my entire life that homosexuality is an awful, pernicious, and evil thing. It has always been something to be ashamed of. It has always been something that must be kept hidden. And for that reason, it has been both defining and demolishing.

I guess that's why, when I tell people, I expect it to shatter their worlds', too. I expect it to utterly change the way they perceive and interact with me. And that's why I'm so scared of telling people.

But I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago. I was talking to a friend I came out to in high school. We hadn't actually talked about me being gay in a long time, and I mentioned it. She looked surprised, and then said that she had forgotten. I was shocked. How could she forget? Didn't it completely change me in her eyes?

No, it didn't. I was still the exact same person. No matter what we do, we cannot escape ourselves. Though I try to compartmentalize myself, and lock one piece deep within a closet, it's still a part of me, and so it coming out doesn't change who I am in the least. I don't think I give people enough of a chance--I really just assume that they'll reject me. Most people I've talked to have been kind and supportive, and really haven't changed at all their attitudes or mannerisms towards me.

The more research I do into homosexuality and Church history, the more I think the Church is deeply mistaken in its policies and procedures. Today I was reading an etiology of homosexuality according to Church Leaders compiled by Connell O'Donovan, and there was one line that really stood out. In the early 1960s there was a general authority serving as president of BYU who gave a talk in which he asked all homosexuals at BYU to promptly leave because they didn't want the other students "contaminated by your presence." When I read that, my heart started beating. Contaminated? Was that all homosexuals were to him? Contaminants? No wonder there were a host of suicides in that era by homosexuals who couldn't reconcile their faith and their sexuality.

If "by their fruits ye shall know them," then which do I count as their fruits? The Church has been an incredibly positive influence on my family. Do I count those fruits? Or do I count the suicides? The Book of Mormon teaches that all good things come from God and all evil things from the devil. Why is it that my feelings for men feel so right and good, and the actions of the Church seem so unholy?

I don't know the answer. But the longer I live, the more I believe that these questions are perhaps not meant to be answered. I don't want to live an apology--I want to live a life. I believe that the purpose of life is to become something. I need to follow my own heart, my own conscience, and my own logic. I don't want to be the product of an organization or a culture--but the product of my own views on morality.

And my morality is thus: that all good things lead us to love each other unconditionally. The deepest morality I can conceive of is that of compassionate, understanding, and empathy. Even as I say that, my brain immediately thinks of counterarguments. But that really is my deepest conviction. And I know this: my experience thus far in life with homosexuality has enabled me to recognize pain in others, and to empathize with it. It has instilled in me the deep desire to help everyone who struggles. And for that, it is good. I still don't know what I'm going to choose in life--whether I'll come fully out of the closet and pursue a relationship with a man, or find a woman that I actually fall in love with; stay in the church or leave the church-- but I know this: I will try my hardest to be filled with compassion. I will try to be a moral being.

Coming out to myself

One day in the MTC, I was sitting on a chair outside of my dorm room. When the door of the room next to me opened, I glanced over and was greeted by the sight of a rather attractive Elder in my district completely naked, fixing his hair in the mirror (why someone cares about their hair when they're not even clothed, I have yet to understand). I hesitated before looking away, but then promptly returned to my room to sulk in the misery of my predicament. I felt completely ashamed and utterly alone.

In my first area, I made a decision. I figured that the reason it was so hard for me was because I had made it a secret. I decided that if I gave my secret away to God, everything would be okay, and so I wrote this poem to signify this new decision:

In years gone by I've held you here,
Secret of my heart,
But now at last in freedom's breath
From thee I will depart
And flying free through open skies
Where mercy's arms extend
I'll sing of my Redeemer's love
From now until the end

And I felt that. For most of my mission, my feelings of attraction for men were diminished, but they never left completely, and at moments, I was overwhelmed by them. At that point in time, I had accepted that I "struggled" with same sex attraction, but I could never admit, even to myself, of actually having feelings for any specific person. In retrospect, however, I definitely had a few crushes on some of the Elders in my districts. Neve my companions, though.

About nine months into my mission, one of my best friends from high school, who was writing me weekly, admitted to liking me...a lot (to be fair, it was because I insisted on her telling me the object of a love poem she had once written and shared with me). That letter made me so happy. I read it over and over throughout my mission. It became the symbol of my life-long hope that I could someday fall in love with a girl and live the Mormon dream. I guess I should say, too, that I have never had a girlfriend or kissed, cuddled, or held hands (in any way that I count, at least). Being alarmingly unattracted to girls, I blamed my lack of feelings on my own apparent unatractiveness and convinced myself that no girl could ever like me. My friend's letter was a ray of heterosexual hope in my homosexual nightmare.

I wrote her back and told her that I was interested in her, too, and that we would see what happened when I got home.

In the weeks and months after getting back, I realized that the "secret of my heart" was anything but "flying free." It was right there inside of me where it had been all along.

I went on one date with my friend. One. It didn't even last the whole night. As the semester progressed and I began, against my will, to develop feelings for a guy in one of my classes, I realized that I would have to be honest with her, and tell her about my lack of feelings.

It was hard for me, and mostly for her. I felt like a liar and a jerk.

But for the first time, I felt myself acknowledging my feelings for another man- not just feelings of sexual attraction, but intellectual and emotional attraction as well. The feelings were powerful, an dwarfed any feigns of interest I had in my friend. Being honest with her was difficult, but an important step for me.

As time went on, I found my feelings for this guy in my class deepening, and with them, my feelings of dissonance. I wrote this poem to express the paradox I found myself in:

The simple, sickly sweet surprise
I find when looking in your eyes
Supplies a satisfaction
That only e'er dissatisfies

I never want to see the day
When thoughts of you are gone away
But every morning when I wake
I pray that they'll put at bay

Sordidly seducing me
These images I ever see
Dancing through my crowded mind
Of me with you, and you with me

I know not which I want to seek,
To be free, or to be meek
Wanting what I don't desire,
I yearn for both, yet both are bleak


And that's where I found myself when I left for my trip to China. I was finally acknowledging my feelings for a man, and giving up on ballooning my feelings for girls into something more than they were. But with this acknowledgment came a new depth of pain, which resulted in the conversation with another friend in Qingdao, which I mentioned in my first post.

And that's the gist of the journey I took in coming out to myself. I left on my mission in denial, and here I am now with a truth I can't make sense of. Not yet, anyway. Writing this all out is helpful, though.

Why I Keep Going

So far in my very short blogging career I've written a lot about pain and frustration. I've explored the depths of my cognitive dissonance. I've expressed deep doubts about my faith. But I haven't talked much about why it's all worth it to me. Tonight I want to talk about why I keep going.

There was one morning in high school when, as I was driving to school, I was pondering about God and His love. I thought about all of my friends and about my family, and as I got out of my car and began walking to class, I remember looking up at the deep blue of the sky and feeling a deep, real sense of peace. It was an incredible sense of joy. For a moment, I felt lost in God. And it was blissful.

I questioned a lot in middle school and high school. My biggest question was, if God loved me, why did I have so much pain? Why was I so bad? Why couldn't I just be an attractive guy who was attracted to girls? And I did get an answer. It came slowly, piece by piece, but over time it dawned on me that God was drawing me closer to Him through this pain. God is love, and my pain inspired within me an empathy for others, and thus helped me to become more like Him. And it allowed me to find and feel His love for me. I realized that I could have moments of pure joy like the one I described only because of my pain. I felt the depth of the atonement of Christ. I really felt that He became one with me in that act.

In late September I took the picture that's at the top of my blog. I was standing on top of the Swiss alps looking down at lake Geneva. It was another expansive, joyful moment for me. And it reminded me just how big God is and how little I am. It was a moment of peace.

All religions have one thing in common: they're a about abandoning self to a higher power. In those moments where I have escaped myself, I have found so much happiness. And that's why I keep going- because I've felt the joy and love of God, and am subsequently persuaded, deeply, that all pain has meaning and that God is in all things.

Yesterday I came across an interesting article that was discussing the causes of homosexuality. Its conclusion was that, while scientists still can't be sure, it is most likely a combination of biological and environmental factors. That got me thinking... why is it that no one ever discusses the causes of heterosexuality? It can't just be uncaused. There has to be a reason that most people are sexually attracted to the opposite gender. Well, there are a few options. Heterosexuality could be biological. I think this is the option most conservative people would opt for. But if heterosexuality resides within our genes, wouldn't it make the most sense that homosexuality is also biological? Okay, so let's say that heterosexuality is caused by being raised in a "normal" environment. If homosexuality is caused by a abnormal environment, then they are determined in the same way, and are equally as powerful and difficult to change.

It just bothers me that people never seem to understand what it means to be gay. They don't get what it feels like to feel attracted to the same gender, and not attracted to the opposite gender. And frankly, I can't blame them. I have a tendency of assuming that nearly everyone I meet is secretly in the closet... because I cannot imagine a man not being attracted to other men. It's almost incomprehensible to me, because attraction to men is all I've ever experienced. Talking to some straight people, and especially straight men, they seem to assume that you are just a confused heterosexual who is lusting after the same gender. But it's so much deeper and more than that. Physical attraction is just one component of attraction, and I don't think that same gender attraction is all about sex.

And so, the important question for me in my life, is why is homosexuality wrong. I don't buy the argument that it's unnatural. The word "natural" is such a farce, because everything that has ever happened has occurred in the natural world... Also, the natural man is an enemy to God, right? Being unnatural doesn't make it wrong (and having naturally experienced the attractions myself, I obviously don't think it's unnatural.) The next argument that's generally used is that two men or two women can't have children. The purpose of sexual intercourse and long-term, intimate relationships, the posit, is to have a family, which homosexuals cannot do naturally. Thus, it is wrong. The problem with this teleological argument is that it mistakes the purpose of intimacy. Is it wrong for a married, heterosexual couple to be intimate if they can't have children? No. Is it wrong for heterosexual couples to use contraceptives and birth control? Not according to our doctrine. If the only purpose of intimacy was to have children, then heterosexual couples would only be allowed to have sex when they were trying to have children. This is not the case, and so the purpose of intimacy must be something different.

The purpose of intimacy is just that-- to be intimate with someone. To express and give love in a physical way. I've pondered a lot before on just how absolutely empty feelings of lust are. There's nothing behind them. Lust is just a really, really strong desire that is never really fulfilled. It just goes away. Sex as an end unto itself is pointless. Allowing your life to be driven by lust and lust alone leads to an empty, purposeless life, I think. Those powerful physical emotions are given depth and meaning when they are not an end unto themselves, but the means to an end. The end being a person that you love. When the person is the object of your love, and not the pleasure, it changes the entire meaning of sexual feelings.

So why would it be wrong for two people of the same gender to share physical intimacy to express deep love for each other? It all comes down to the question of whether or not homosexuality is deviant, or a part of your inborn character. That is why conservative groups spend so much time trying to prove that it is not biological (but as I said before, if it's not biological, then I struggle to see how heterosexuality could be biological, which would put the two, once again, on an equal playing field of innateness).

Within Mormon theology, I think, the wrongness of it is viewed from an eternal perspective. Gender roles and identity are a part of our eternal nature, as it says in the Family Proclamation. The purpose of marriage isn't just to be intimate or to have children here on earth-- it's far more than that. It's to enable us to become like God. God Himself has a Wife, right? And we're meant to go into the eternities as couples, procreating forever. If God is heterosexual, then homosexuality is obviously deviant, because it inhibits you from fulfilling the purpose of life--- which is to become like God. Why would God create a spirit child that cannot fulfill its divine potential? We can safely assume that He wouldn't, because His purpose is to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." We were made to become like Him. And so He wouldn't make anyone who couldn't. Homosexuality, therefore, cannot be innate in Mormonism. It has to be either a purely physical affliction that did not exist before and will not exist in the hereafter, or something that went wrong and can be changed.

And so, accepting the premise that it is deviant from the way things ought to be and that something has gone wrong to make you this way, it is acceptable to preach change. Because even if you can't personally change yourself, God can change you. We believe in a God of miracles. He can heal you.

But what if sexual orientation isn't what God needs to heal us of? What if the problems that God wants to heal us of are hatred, pride, selfishness, envy, and prejudice? "The end of the law is this, that you love your neighbor as yourself." "All of the law is fulfilled in one word: that you love your neighbor as yourself." "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." "If ye have not charity, ye are nothing..." "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God, and he that love not knoweth not God. For God is love."

I don't think that my sexual orientation is sufficient reason to doubt what has been revealed to me by the Spirit (no matter how much the Zen Buddhist in me might). And what I know by the Holy Ghost is that God lives, and that He loves me. I know that Christ is my Savior. What I do not know by the Spirit is whether or not homosexuality is wrong. For it to not be wrong in God's eyes, I would have to accept that there are a few fundamental flaws within Mormon theology. For now, I believe Mormon theology. But even more deeply, I believe that God is greater than Mormonism. He is greater than any of us know. And He knows things that I don't.

Well this has been another fun ramble. More to think through my own thoughts than anything else.

Tonight was another fugue.

I went to a friend's house tonight for a little get together. There were a few good friends there that I haven't seen in a long time. We watched one of my favorite movies and had lots of great conversation. There was one point where I was talking to this girl... and I couldn't help thinking... wow, we'd be great together. We've got all of the same interests and passions, and we get along really well. And I started to feel hopeful again that I could be attracted to girls. That I'm attracted to men is unquestionable, but perhaps I could be bisexual.

Later, as we were watching the movie, I was on the couch sandwiched between her and another good friend. I had "liked" the second friend for lots of years in high school (in retrospect it feels like a disingenuous emotional crutch). At one point during the movie, something occurred to me. Until that moment, I hadn't even realized that my arms were touching their arms and that their legs were right up against mine. It didn't feel like anything. It was hardly noticeable. Now contrast this to Halloween night when I was sitting on at the same place on the same couch watching a movie with the same friends, only this time I was sitting next to one of my very attractive guy friends. Every time his leg bumped up against mine, I felt a wave of relief. There was no way I couldn't notice if he, for even a moment, scooted closer to me, or leaned towards me. But with those two girls, it was hardly even noticeable.

Conclusion? None at all. Just observations. During the first half of the evening, when I started thinking that maybe I could like this girl, I had a surge of hope. And as I felt that surge, my thoughts turned to the prophets and to the church, and I could hope it again. I could feel it. Later on as I remembered experiences I'd had sitting next to guys that had been so different, I sunk back into doubt.

But overall, today was a very happy day. And I'm more okay with being gay than I ever have been before. I just don't know what to do with it. One day at a time, I guess.